Tony Barnstone 
Translator

on Lyrikline: 5 poems translated

from: kitajščina to: angleščina

Original

Translation

诗与真

kitajščina | JIANG Tao

6年前,我就来过这儿
带着新鲜的肺和脸
左顾右盼,看个不停
结果,车子撞在半山腰
民族司机被警察带走
我听见身下江水的咆哮
在山中,还有人高声断喝
——有何贵干?

那时,我无家累,无房产
认真读书,也没超过十年
怎么可能有答案?
结果,他们逼我不停喝酒
说一两个内地笑话
我缺氧,口拙,讲不清
像块石头从雪岭滚下
滚到了车里
又滚回了北京

北京原本圈子多,我怕生
缺钱,女友不小心得了忧郁症
所以主动住到了五环外
其他的一切皆被动
那里小区空气好
人心也绿化,邻居多是
地头蛇,基本没精英
我只能看电视观天下
知道6年来,国家大势向好又向坏
但西部的开发没落空

铁路运来更多背包客
公路运来更多四川妹
他们也狂喜,也呕吐
做梦时,老家也升高三千米
但他们人忠厚,不提问
只把命运和钞票纠缠
结果6年只是一瞬间
他们中的佼佼者
如今,可能已睡在了一起。

© JIANG Tao
Audio production: Haus für Poesie / 2015

POETRY AND REALITY

angleščina

Six years ago, I came here
with a clean face and fresh lungs
looking around, non-stop,
and caused a car to crash into the hillside.
The driver, a local Tibetan, was arrested by the police.
I heard the roar of the river below
and people cried out in the mountains:
What are you here for?
But I didn't have a family then, nor a house,
nor more than ten years of serious study.
How could I answer?
So they made me drink non-stop
and tell a couple of jokes from the interior
but the air was too thin, I stammered
like a stone rolling down the snowy mountain
rolling into the car
and rolling back to Beijing.
There were many circles in Beijing, I was shy,
poor, and my girlfriend was deeply depressed
so I chose to live outside the five rings.
Since then, everything has just happened.
The air is fresh in the neighborhood,
everything's greenified, even people, neighbors
are mostly salt-of-the-earih, no elites,
I watch TV to know what's going on.
These past six years, the country's had its ups and downs.
Has all that development out west come to nothing?
Railroads have brought in more backpackers,
more Sichuan girls on the way.
They're also enraptured, they vomit as well,
dreaming too of their homes rising three thousand meters high,
but they're honest, don't ask questions,
fate and dollar bills are bound together.
Six years gone in a flash.
The very best of them
most likely by now have slept together.

Translated by Ming Di, Neil Aitken, and Tony Barnstone

一个作了讲师的下午

kitajščina | JIANG Tao

黑压压的一片,目光怎能这么轻易
就分出了类型:男与女、正与邪、昆虫和外星人
时光也从左脸放纵到右脸
停下的时候,就下课了,讲台像悬崖自动地落下

原来,这世界大得很,每一片树叶下
都藏了一对偷吻的学生,在那一泡像被尿出的但并不因此
而著名的湖上,也浮了更广大的坟

不需要准备,就可以放声,就可以变形
——时刻准备着,但据来电显示
我的变形要从鳞翅目开始,也不轻松。


© JIANG Tao
Audio production: Haus für Poesie / 2015

THE AFTERNOON I STARTED TEACHING

angleščina

A huge crowd of darkness —
so how is it that I can so easily identify
male and female, decent and evil, insects and aliens?
Time indulges itself,
tongueing slowly from my left cheek to my right.
When it stops, the class ends, the platform descends
like A cliff.

So. this is the world, larger than I thought.
Under every leaf
hides a pair of students shoplifting kisses. On the famous lake
the color of pee (although not famous for that)
float large graves.

You don't need to be prepared,
just open your mouth and you'll be transformed
— you're actually always ready. But
according to an incoming text message
my evolution, not so easy, needs to start from a winged insect.

Translated by Ming Di, Neil Aitken, and Tony Barnstone

古猿部落

kitajščina | JIANG Tao

树林里落满果实,猩红的地毯
源于地质的变迁
水退了,老虎的剑齿烂了
我们围着空地商量未来
老的刚从进化里爬出,挥老拳
少的已按耐不住舌头,要第一个
去吃梅花鹿,移山的志向没有
倒可以涉水,南方北方的
田野只是一张餐桌
所谓共和闹哄哄
还是独裁之秋赶走蚊蝇
好在我们都直立着
可以观天象,徒手挣脱了食物链
但十月的劳动力
还是倾向剩余:不需要画皮,烹饪
肉身当木柴,只有公的继续
将母的掀翻,朗诵牠的美
但要说出“我爱你”
至少春花秋月的,还要两百万年

© JIANG Tao
Audio production: Haus für Poesie / 2015

THE TRIBE OF APES

angleščina

Fruit falls all over the forest, a bloody carpet
laid down when the earth shifted
Now the water has receded, and the tigers' saber teeth have rotted,
we gather around a clearing to discuss our future
The elderly crawl out of evolution, waving wrinkled fists
and the younger ones can't hold their tongues, eager
to feast on the Sika deer, splashing through the low water
with no desire to "move mountains." From North to South,
the whole field is a dining table
The "Republic" mutters, while the dictators
chase after mosquitoes and flies
Fortunately we all stand upright, able to see easily
what's coming, to break the shackles of the food chain
But our efforts in October tend to produce
surplus: we don't need face-painting, cooking or
to use flesh as lumber, only males overthrowing females
continuously while chanting their animal-beauty
But to speak the words I love you will take at least
another two million years
of spring cherries and autumn moons

Translated by Ming Di, Neil Aitken, and Tony Barnstone

二崁船香

kitajščina | Hu Xudong

两年前,我在澎湖西屿的二崁村
买到这盒船香的时候,你们俩
一个已经在天上,把白云抟出了
雪山的韵脚,一个还在地上,

在一滴清亮的文字里,接纳了
深夜里的风沙和一大群失眠的骏马。
现在你们俩都在那个高高的地方,
或许,都长着一对汉语的翅膀。

你们划动的气流或许正在成为
被群星传诵的、一光年长的诗行。
你们或许会偶尔去看望对方,
从温暖的翅膀下拿出各自珍藏的

最好的时光,交给对方保管。
你们,如果真的偶尔会在一起,
或许还会交换一下我们在人世间
那些像记忆一样不知所谓的想念。

我不知道是不是因为你们俩
今天的天空才蓝得如此坦荡,
就像你们喝了点小酒,每每
笑一小下,蓝天就朝更远处绽放。

且让我来为你们俩点上一支
二崁船香。那高高的地方或许没有
河流和海洋,但我愿你们的青春之躯
如挂满风帆的智慧一般畅行在天堂。

此刻,我看见船香的包装盒上印着
“好胆麦走”,闽南语,意思是
有胆量就别走。这句话我很想说出口:
假如你们没走,假如我们的性情和血肉……

© Hu Xudong
Audio production: DJS Art Foundation

Paper-boat Incense

angleščina

Two years ago I found this paper-boat incense
in Double Village
west of Lake Peng in Taiwan Island,
but the two of you were already
gone—
one in the sky making white clouds into snow mountains,
the other catching gusts of dust
from the deep night.
 
You are both far, in that high place,
with Mandarin wings.
The way you travel forward
is becoming a long poem, one light-year long.
Stars are reading you.
Perhaps you visit each other and take out
the treasured time from your wings
and let the other keep. The two of you, if you can really
meet up there, perhaps you can share how we miss you
from down here— we miss you
like a memory that doesn’t know how to bear itself.

The sky is open blue for you
today,
you tipple a little wine, grin,
and the sky blooms— in its own distances.

Let me light an incense for you,
the Double Village paper-boat incense,
let it burn,
burn out two beams of light.
There are no rivers or oceans in that high place,
but still,
may your young bodies surge like full sails puffed with wisdom.
 
Now I notice the words printed on the paper boat,
“Brave guys don’t leave.”
And this is exactly what I wanted to say.
If you didn’t go, if you didn’t go…


* Ma Hua and Ma Yan are two of the most loved poets in contemporary China but died young in recent years. They were not related to each other as Ma is a common family name in China. (Translators’ note)

© Translated by Ming Di and Tony Barnstone

座頭鯨

kitajščina | Hu Xudong

罹患巨乳癥的天空
把兩大坨下垂的烏雲甩到
海面上。乳溝中一艘
細小的漁船,一轉舵
便長出了翅膀,追趕著
一群鷗鷺,飛出了
不斷修正著海岸的車窗。
海的重量隨盤旋上升的公路
而增加,快到山頂時
我單薄的視網膜已兜不住
那沉重且晦暗得如同父輩
的海。我閉上眼。
車裡,空調吹出的冷氣
像鋼琴師的手指
暗自在我手臂上彈奏著
洄瀾的海水,我感到
我皮膚下遊來一大群座頭鯨,
它們全都抬起了頭,噴出
像正體字一樣莊嚴的告別語。

© Hu Xudong
Audio production: DJS Art Foundation

Humpback Whale

angleščina

Two huge clouds droop from the sky
onto the ocean surface
and in that cleavage, a small fishing boat—
with a little steering it sprouts wings
and flies out
to chase seagulls,
drawing a new coastline.
The road is spiraling uphill,
lifting the ocean.
When we’re near the top, my thin retina
can’t embrace the ocean that looks heavy and dull
as my aged ancestors. I close my eyes.
Inside the car, the air-conditioning blows out
piano fingers of cold air that play my arms
in recurrent invisible waves.
Under my skin streams out a large pod of humpback whales
raising their heads, spewing out
farewell to me, as solemn as the standard scripts of the island.

© Translated by Ming Di and Tony Barnstone