Spinning Polyhedral Mirror Part 2 (Yan Li) Poem by Denis Mair

by Yan Li
(translated by Denis Mair)

1.
一个人和另外一个人
像磨石和磨盘
如果不放进去一些谷类
就没有理由去转动共同的生活

One person is the millstone
To another's milling wheel
Unless some grain is thrown in
There's no point grinding their life together

2.
还没有穿好中国鞋就跨近了西方的新年
我们在脚的感觉上耽误了两个月

With Chinese shoes not yet broken in, we stepped into Western New Year
Just the feeling in our feet occupied us for two months

3.
夜晚
我像排球运动员一样跃起
把灯光像球扣在地狱界内
为天堂赢得了人类生存的那场美梦

Night-time
I leap up like a volleyball player
To spike the lamp's light within bounds of hell
And win for heaven the dream of man's survival

4.
你们经历过我们这样的爱情妈？
互相的目光甚至把心的影子投射到体外

Do you know how love like this feels?
In each other's gaze our very heart's shadows
Are cast outside our bodies


5.
骂人的词句排列在街的两旁
像树一样绿化着我们的城市

Rows of curses on both sides of the street
Are the plantings that characterize our city's environment

6.
人类有打动自己的能力
人类不可能做得比人类更坏
人类是制造科学的工具而已
人类必须发出一些声音地
从人类的身旁走过去

Humanity is capable of touching itself deeply
Humanity cannot do any worse than humanity
Humanity is just a tool for manufacturing science
Humanity can't help making sounds
As it walks on past humanity

7.
与他心跳压韵的高跟鞋声
沿着他的窗外渐渐远去
他慢慢松开双手握紧的两个馒头

The high heels that clicked in synch with his heartbeat
Have dwindled outside his window
He loosens his grip on two dinner rolls

8.
你从裤子里跳出来
直接跳进了坟墓
你强奸死亡的欲望还不到四十岁
我觉得你应该多等几年

You jumped out of your pants
And into the grave
Your compulsion to rape death was not yet forty
I think you should have waited a few years

9.
道德是由许多面镜子组成的集体
它的力量在於强迫人类必须化妆

Morality is an assemblage composed of many mirrors
With its power, humans force themselves to put on makeup

10.
她时常拉开抽屉
看看她的思想还有几条内裤可穿

She often opens the drawer
And checks if her thinking has a change of underwear

11.
天鹅像唱针搭在漪涟的湖面上
我听见了这首曲子平稳的韵律

A swan rests like a record needle on the lake's rippling surface
I hear the steady measures of this music

12.
用他们的孤独和睾丸素投资
总有几个诗人以此
让二十一世纪的中文股票升值
我甚至听到他们在喊
单相思万岁！
姓单的是九十年代的哪一任主席？

There are always a few poets who bid up the price
Of stock in the Twenty-First Century Chinese language
By investing all their loneliness and testosterone
I even hear them cheering for "Un-re...Qui-ted Love"
Did this "Henri-" fellow serve a term as Chairman in the 90's?

13.
我已在自己的内心里混了半辈子
但至今还没有混到一个女朋友

For half a lifetime I've been hustling for action in my inner mind
I still have not hustled up a girl

14.
环保的天使阿
为了让大自然得到真正的休息
人类需要让出几张床？

O angels of ecology!
How many places need to be shared in human beds
Before Nature can really get some rest?

15.
每天早上我都能在鞋里发现
美梦前来收租的脚印

Every morning I discover in my shoes
The footprint made by beautiful dreams that came to collect rent

16.
秋风真美
如果你和太阳一起在树林中荡秋千

The autumn wind is wonderful
If you and the sun play on a swing among the trees

17.
既然已过了河
为甚麽还要转过身来拆桥
人类的这种劳动
使我感到体格上的无聊

Since you have already crossed the river
Why tire yourself out
By turning around to dismantle the bridge?
This kind of human exertion
Gives my physique an attack of ennui

18.
沉默者把语言消化在自己的腹部中
每次遇到惊叹号
就喝一口酒

The silent one digests his own words in his belly
When he runs into an exclamation point
He takes a swig of wine

19.
物质的血在超级市场循环
是思想的疗养院

The supermarket where the blood of material objects circulates
Is a convalescent home for thought

20.
你的语言像子弹里射出的子弹
我必须卧倒两次
来了解它有多麽性感

Your words are like bullets shooting from bullets
I have to lay down twice
To feel how sexy their meaning is

21.
语言有被任何思想病毒感染的空间

Language has space to be infected with viruses of any intellectual kind

22.
两条胳膊的骨头
骨头上的皮肉与衣袖
不是我们所能超越的
人类因此得到拥抱

The bones of two arms
The flesh and sleeves around the bones
Are things we cannot get beyond
So human beings are given the chance to be embraced

23.
划入空气的翅膀
一天天地剪出远景
佛和耶稣不得不承认
这是鸟的成就

Wings cut through the air
Day by day they snip out a distant view
The Buddha and Jesus reluctantly concede
This is the accomplishment of birds

24.
花的香气绑架了世界的鼻子
一架永不降落的飞机

Perfume from flowers kidnaps the world's nose
In an airplane that will never land

25.
无论你是甚麽样的炸药
语言都可以充当导火线

No matter what kind of explosive you are
Language can serve as the fuse

26.
战争的身上发生了从未有过的事情
整个军队的军车抛锚在它的体内
战争已经停火
恐怖份子却急急赶来
身上捆着像肺一样的炸药包

Something unprecedented happened to war
A convoy of trucks had broken down within its body
The breath of war had finally conked out
But along came a squad of terrorists with bundles of explosives
Strapped onto their bodies like extra pairs of lungs

27.
既然你喜欢我的诗
不要绕过它们跟我谈生意
诗应该拿到份内的傭金

Since you like my poems
Don't bypass them to talk business with me
Poems should get the commission they deserve

28.
请系牢世界的鞋带
放开脚步的喉咙向前歌唱

Please tie the shoelaces of the world securely
Loosen the throat of your footsteps and sing your way down the road

29.
人们喜欢用英雄的形象
来支撑他们的故乡
就像用鱼儿游过的水来注满泳池
这样他们会游得顺当些

People like to use a hero's image
To prop up their homeland
This is like filling a swimming pool
With water that fish have swum through
So it will be nice and smooth for people to swim in

30.
每一滴雨都以自己的姿态落下
我已数不清世上
有多少堕洛的风格

Each raindrop comes down with a posture all its own
I can't keep track of all the styles people fall in

31.
那道西方语言的墙
在我作品的四周
我的作品最多被翻译成砖

The wall of Western languages
Stands on all sides of my writings
At best, my writings can be translated into bricks

32.
能降落在阳光的枝头上该多麽美妙
但无处可栖的悲伤已落在飞行的我

How fine it would be to land on sunlit branches
But the sadness of being perch-less lands on me in flight

33.
垃圾不断地往城外郊移动
吞食着草地的地界
如今的抒情田园诗
不得不充满嚎叫

Garbage creeps toward the city's outskirts
With big gulps it pushes back the edge of grass
The lyric, pastoral poems of our era
Cannot help filling up with howls

34.
母语必须解放被其囚禁在身下的国家和民族
才能成为一种理解人类的母语

A native language must release the people imprisoned by its weight
Before it becomes a language that can understand humankind

35.
你的笑容扇动着翅膀
我的脸可以筑巢

Your smile turns up its wings
My face would make a good nesting place

36.
我们已经成为一匹织在途中的布
这家庭的尺寸啊
在缩短衣服和棉花地的距离

We are a bolt of cloth that was woven along the road
And in the pattern of our marriage
The distance grows less between cotton field and clothes

37.
金钱拥有无限权力的时代啊
请记住我的胃口
爱的舌头还从来没有尝到过贫穷

O this era when money seems omnipotent!
Remember my appetite
The tongue of love has never yet tasted poverty

38.
与西药相比
中国草药太苦
但也证明了
中国人对苦有更健康的理解

Compared to Western medicine
Chinese herbs taste bitter
Which proves that Chinese people have
A healthier understanding of bitterness

39.
她和我
是必须用互相的身体阅读的诗

She and I are a poem that must be read
Using each others' bodies

40.
你如此拖延我交给你办的事
为此我的眼泪也流得越来越慢

I asked you to help me with a project
But you have been so slow
Even the tears I shed over this
Have been falling more and more slowly

41.
生命在火炉前排队
等着购买自己的骨灰

Life lines up at the furnace grate
Waiting to buy its own ashes

42.
虽然他如今依然单身
但仍是尽职的园丁
他灌溉的每一株「她」
都开成了别人的玫瑰

Although he is still single
He has done a good job as a gardener
Every "SHE" he has watered
Has bloomed into someone else's rose

43.
诗人要有把草叶上的露珠
像足球一样踢上笔尖的本领

A poet needs to have the knack
To kick a dewdrop like a soccer ball
From a blade of grass onto the tip of his pen

44.
尽管有些邪教一再地想用语言去强奸上帝
但值得庆幸的是
至少一个月一次
诗人获得了灵感的新卵

Time and again, certain cults try to ravish God with their language
But that's all right; at least once a month
the poet receives a new egg of inspiration

45.
看着汗水舔着自己的盐谋生
增加了我作为孤独创作者的劳动

Watching SWEAT lick the salt of its livelihood
Adds to my isolated labor as a creative person

46.
这个强盗的口气很大
他扬言要偷五星级旅馆的星座
直偷到夜空才休手

As a robber he is a big talker
He claims he will steal the stars from a five-star hotel
And leave only the night sky behind

47.
因为你脚下没有根
所以更把自己打扮得像花瓣儿
我那海外的同胞阿

Because there are no roots under your feet
Let your wardrobe pass for flower petals
My countrymen from overseas!

48.
爱喝茉莉花茶的人不少
但他们忽略了那些奔放於茶水中的花
在期待会潜水的蜜蜂

Many people drink jasmine tea, yet they fail to notice
How even jasmine flowers swirling in their brew
Wait expectantly for scuba-diving honeybees

49.
天生的大盗要偷取他人的心
做了总统也不轻言罢休

A great robber lives to steal other people's hearts
He won't easily give up, even if he becomes president

50.
回家真好
可以把疲劳踩成拖鞋

It's good to come home
And tread your weariness underfoot in a pair of slippers

51.
金钱在生活面前竖起它的高墙时
人必须摸走其中的几快砖
才能钻过去

When money raises its wall in the face of life
You have to pocket a few bricks in order to dig through

52.
不要以为钱可以解决一切
身体一起搭进去才叫生活

Don't think money does everything
To live life to the fullest, you must put your body into it

53.
想想每一晚都有那麽多的男女
越过衣服和肉体的国界线
这个世界还有甚麽领土的问题不能解决？

Think how many couples every night
Cross the boundaries of clothes and flesh
The world's territorial problems are nothing to this

54.
现代通讯的疾病越来越流行
自己和自己也常常占线

Diseases of modern communication are getting more frequent
You often find that the phone line to yourself is busy

55.
除夕之夜，天空被烟花炸了个缺口
掉下来许多醉者的故事
使我们的阅读能力降低！

A hole was blasted in the sky by fireworks
And down fell many stories of hard drinkers
Causing a drop in our reading ability

56.
如果你与你的理想一起上路
你将要路过的许多地方都名为「疲倦」

If you and your ideals go on the road together
Many places you pass will be called "Weariness"

57.
为甚麽在小事上叹那麽重的气？
连他拉的屎都抗议马桶管子太窄

Why does he lay such heavy sighs upon ordinary things?
Even his shit objects to the narrow toilet pipe

58.
我抓住甘蔗
啃它那勃起的甜

I grab a piece of sugarcane
And chew its sweet hard-on