Zhai Yongming / poems

变成孩子

在civitella ,我变成孩子

闭上眼睛  我的灵魂分饰五角

一个去了墨西哥  一个去了纽约

一个去了英格兰  一个去了巴西

剩下的一个  在意大利倘佯

闭上耳朵  周围一片鸟叫

那是古代的语言  我能听懂

世界上有五千种语言  一个人能占有几种?

每两个星期  它们死一次

我象鸟一样追赶 

赶不上它死亡的速度

它有自已的遗传密码 周期和种类

当人类刚刚出生时 我们只说一种语言

世界变得越来越大  语言也越来越饥饿

它们象弱肉强食的黑白老虎  在城市中泛滥

变成计算机语言  它开始吞噬我们的大脑

当语言成为一种病毒

人类将被感染  世界将会封闭

只有孩子能免疫

五千语言将会死去  只剩下一种

变成孩子  就是把五千变为一

就是用孩子的心去询问世界

象手一样说话

象光一样阅读

象影子一样通灵通自然

我的视点低到草丛中去接近天空

变成孩子  就是变成一种语言

Becoming a Child

at civitella I became a child

closing my eyes​ my soul cast itself into five different roles

one went to mexico​ one to new york

one went to england ​one to brazil

and one was left​ to ramble around italy

closing my ears ​​​birdsong all around 

it’s the language of antiquity​ and i understand

there are five thousand languages in the world​​ how many can one person master?

every two weeks​one of them dies

i fly after them like a bird​

but they’re dying faster than I can catch them

each with its own inherited codes ​cycles and types

when human kind was newly born ​​we spoke butone language

as the world has grown larger​​​ languages have grown hungrier

like black and white tigers devouring the weak​​ they have flooded the cities

morphed into computer languages​ begun gnawing away our brains

when language becomes a kind of virus

humanity will be infected ​​the world will be sealed off

only children will be immune

five thousand languages will die​ leaving but one

to become a child​​ is to change five thousand into one

to question the world with a child’s mind

to speak like hands

to read like light

to connect like a shadow with nature soul to soul

i drop down to the grass to get closer to the sky

to become a child​​is to become a language

Translated from Chinese by Andrea Lingenfelter

/

关于雏妓的一次报道

雏妓又被称作漂亮宝贝

她穿着花边蕾丝小衣  

大腿已是撩人

她的妈妈比她更美丽

她们象姐妹  “其中一个象羚羊”……

男人都喜欢这样的宝贝

宝贝也喜欢对着镜头的感觉

我看见的雏妓却不是这样

她12岁    瘦小而且穿着肮脏

眼睛能装下一个世界

或者    根本已装不下哪怕一滴眼泪

她的爸爸是农民  年轻

但头发已花白

她的爸爸花了三个月

一步一步地去寻找他

失踪了的宝贝

雏妓的三个月

算起来快100多天

300多个男人

这可不是简单数

她一直不明白为什么

那么多老的，丑的，脏的男人

要趴在她的肚子上

她也不明白这类事情本来的模样

只知道她的身体

变轻变空    被取走某些东西

雏妓又被认为美丽无脑

关于这些她一概不知

她只在夜里计算

她的算术本上有300多个

无名无姓    无地无址的形体

他们合起来称作消费者

那些数字象墓地里的古老符号

太阳出来以前    消失了

看报纸时我一直在想：

不能为这个写诗

不能把诗变成这样

不能把诗嚼得嘎嘣直响

不能把词敲成牙齿  去反复啃咬

那些病  那些手术

那些与12岁加在一起的统计数字

诗、绷带、照片、回忆

刮伤我的眼球

（这是视网膜的明暗交接地带）

一切全表明：都是无用的

都是无人关心的伤害

都是每一天的数据  它们

正在创造出某些人一生的悲哀

部份地她只是一张新闻照片

12岁    与别的女孩站在一起

你看不出    她少一个卵巢

一般来说    那只是报道

每天  我们的眼睛收集成千上万的资讯

它们控制着消费者的欢愉

它们一掠而过    “它”也如此

信息量  热线  和国际视点

象巨大的麻布  抹去了一个人卑微的伤痛

我们这些人    看了也就看了

它被揉皱    塞进黑铁桶里

Report on a Child Prostitute

A child prostitute is also called a babe

She wears lace lingerie

Thighs already enticing

Her mother is even prettier

But she is the “gazelle” of all the sisters…

Men love such a babe

And she loves to gaze at herself in the mirror

Not the child I saw

She’s twelve, thin, dirty

An entire world has filled up her eyes

Leaving no room for a single tear

Her father is a young peasant

But his hair has turned gray

In the past three months

As he walked from city to city

Searching for his babe

Three months

Almost one hundred days

And more than three hundred men

Not an easy figure for a child

She couldn’t understand

Why these old, ugly and filthy men

Climbed on her stomach

She had no idea

Why her body

Became lighter and emptier

Why some parts were missing

She didn’t know

As a pretty babe she’s not supposed to have a brain

At night she adds in her math book

The number three hundred men

Who have no name or address

But together, they become one body that devours her

And the number, like the symbol on an old grave

Evaporates before the sunrise

Reading the newspaper, I tell myself:

I must not write a poem for this

Must not turn this into poetry

Must not tear these words

Or grind my teeth to chew out

The disease, the surgery

And the number that heaped upon a twelve-year-old child

Poetry, bandage, photo, memory

Are scratching my eyes

(border between dark and light in my retina)

Numbers are useless

No one cares about the damage

These are just daily facts

That ruin someone’s life quietly

Her twelve-year-old body is nothing but a news photo

When she stands next to other children

You can’t tell she’s missing an ovary

Our eyes pick her up as a piece of news

With tons of other information

That controls our pleasure as a consumer

They sweep us by, just as the news about the babe

Hotlines of information and global perspectives

Have erased a girl’s humble pain like a giant rag

We’ve read it

The paper crumbled then trashed

Into a dark steel can

Tr. by Wang Ping & Lewis Warsh

Zhai Yongming was born in Chengdu, Sichuan province, and a graduate of its University of Electronic Science and Technology. Her first poetry collection, Women, was published in 1986. Zhai Yongming has been vocal on the position of women in the literary world. She has published several poetry collections and six of essays and articles. Her work has been translated into English, French, Dutch, Italian, and German: these include the German Das Kaffeehauslied, the French La conscience de la mort and the English Changing Rooms.

Photo by Chi Ajuan

Thanks to Zhai Yongming for giving the permission to republish these poems.