HAN Bo

chinese

David Perry

english

黑烟挂晒

道为天下裂,黑烟
挂晒:卧轨唤醒沉睡
的浩然无足采信。

大地从未沉睡,梦游
只为蜂出的黑烟挂晒。

内燃机的怜悯梦见
丘原:旱草枯对
牛羊,粪便与泥尿
冷而油腻,大地
挂晒的污迹跃动
而感染捷径。

像骑马人的牙齿一样松朽,
像夜空挂晒眼神一样失眠。

怜悯挂晒,巡视夏的表层。
车厢里的进口意志梦见
草的主人下马,定居
水泥潮闷的汉语;牛羊
的夏啃光骨瘦的鼠灾。

黑烟为天下裂,只身
打马:打马的铁轨的
使者假托高速而不动。


(2011/6/19  满洲里;2011/7/18  上海)

© HAN Bo
Audio production: Literaturwerkstatt Berlin, 2015

Hung Out to Dry in Black Smoke

The way the road splits all beneath Heaven: in black smoke
hung out to dry: strewn across the tracks to awaken
some slumbering sublimity, lying beyond all belief.

The earth never sleeps, yet sleepwalks
like bees rising into black smoke.

The internal combustion engine’s compassion dreams
of ancient fells: hay sticking
to cattle and sheep, feces, mud and urine
cold and grease-caked, the earth’s
smoke-stained filth teeming
with disease vectors.

The horseman’s teeth like rotting pine,
The look of insomnia like eyes hung out to dry in night skies.

Pity the hanging sun, patrolling summer’s surface.
From his chariot’s driven dream of power and will
the master of the plains dismounts, settles
into cement-choked Chineseness; cattle and sheep
wasting away summer-long bone-thin amidst a plague of rats.

Black smoke splits all beneath Heaven, alone
on horseback the emissary rides the rails
pretending at high speeds to remain still.

(2011/6/19 Manzhouli; 2011/7/18 Shanghai)

Translated by David Perry