Poems by Chengchen Chien/ 簡政珍

In the long corridor of the clinic waiting room,
to my left and right are the sounds of various times.
The fireworks of the war of resistance have ended
(but the war of joints has been persisting long).
The charred earth burned by the crimson flame
has already brought forth trees
(but rheumatic days go on in wind, in wet).
That banner has hoisted many a white cloud,
and the blood-irrigated brown dirt
has turned into a pasture.
The ditty of the frontier
is, seemingly being and being not, a history.

I am trapped in such home accents that doubt their history,
and language is an uncertain stream.
The current is rising higher and higher;
now the scenery at both banks
doubts about the color of this season.
Above the water perches a meditative tiny bird,
but the fish has long gone
fleeing into the eternal smoke and mist.
The reflected image struggles to represent the reprinted past,
and days are copies, one after another,
fluttering on both sides of the concrete bridge.
Still are there some fishermen angling.
It is said what are hooked
are the smiling faces in water produced by the politicians.

The day pants pressing closer;
then in fright I am waked up among coughs.
Times' breathing is moving farther and farther;
When the door of clinic room
lights up the crimson number of mine,
I lift my sour and dull steps
and enter into the future of color unknown.

候診室

候診室的長廊上
左右是各種時代的聲音
抗戰的煙火已盡
(關節的戰爭已久)
赤焰燃燒的焦土
已長出樹木
(日子風風濕濕的過去)
那面旗幟升起一朵朵白雲
血跡澆灌的黃土
已長成牧草
邊疆的小調
是似有似無的歷史

我陷在質疑身世的各種鄉音中
語言是一條不確定的流水
水勢漸漸高漲
岸邊的景致
質疑季節的顏色
水上停棲一隻沈思的小鳥
魚早已遠去
遁入永恆的煙霧
倒影努力再現翻版的昔日
日子是複製品，一面面
在水泥橋的兩邊飄揚
仍然有魚夫垂釣
據說上鉤的
都是水中政客製造的笑容

日子喘息逼近
我在周遭咳嗽聲中驚醒
時代的呼吸漸遠
當診療室的門上
亮起我血紅的號碼
我提起酸麻的腳步
跨進不知色彩的未來 ．

Are you cold?
The wind coming from somewhere unknown
penetrates into the icy chill of every dynasty
and drills through the holes on your stretched skin.
Hairs can't be put in order but
sometimes entangled into topknots,
sometimes confused to be all styles of twentieth century.
Could the forty years
tolerate that you, on the ancient wall,
so sentimentally,
pluck alone and sing of the coolish self-sorrow?
Have you ever noticed the grey earth and rock now mottled
and the previous form of them was a pile of yellow dirt,
which had been, along with innumerous bodies long gone to null,
already handed to the pale void?

Are you hot,
now climbing up the cliffy stone-ladder,
walking into a dry and hot history?
Have you ever noticed that sweat became a trench
to drown those who had been sweating?
The land that feet had stepped on was made into a mud wall;
the feet, with swelling not yet reduced,
right at the foot of a wall,
had composed some final winding notes.
The clear moon was always hung on two ends of a carrying pole,
like a white somber face viewing now ahead, now back.
To pile up the earth and rock,
it's said, was meant for posterity to be able
to praise in the moon palace at this long-extended
wound of the world, right?

That year, innumerous women,
under moonlight,
by weak soft branches,
hanged their long slender bodies.
The lengthy thin projected shadows
were of a serene and aesthetic composition,
floating over the surface of water;
yet the water could no longer contain such overcrowded corpses
and the wavy, ripples-stirring
songs of farewell.

Sounds in the wind turn very cold.
We have walked past the ancient walls' blurred old events.
The swollen hurting ankles
return eventually from the history.
The world is upside-down under the feet.
Many souls having wandered over a thousand years
guard at the gateway, or under a bridge,
directing us to go back to modernity,
back to those banners
which are now rising, now falling in the wind.

長城上

你冷嗎？
不知來自何方的風
穿透各個朝代的冰寒
鑽入你皮膚擴張的孔隙
髮絲不能條理
偶爾糾結成髻
偶爾散亂成二十世紀的各種髮型
四十年的歲月
能容許你在古老的城牆上
如此濫情地
自彈自唱自我的悲涼？
你可曾看到灰色的土石已斑剝
而土石的前身是一堆黃土
早已和無數化成子虛的軀體
交給蒼茫？

你熱嗎？
爬上陡峭的石階
走進燥熱的歷史？
你可曾看到汗水成渠
淹沒了流汗水的人？
雙足走過的江山變成一座土牆
雙足還未消腫
就在牆腳下
譜下一些終曲的迴音
那輪明月總掛在扁擔的兩頭
如一張前盼後顧皎白沉重的臉
土石堆砌
據說是為了後世能在月宮上
對着人世這一條緜長的傷口
贊嘆？

那一年，無數的女子
在月光下
以疲軟的樹梢
吊起自己細長的身子
修長的投影
是一個謐靜的淒美的構圖
在水面上浮現
而水中已無法裝載擁擠的屍身
和引起水波蕩漾的
一些離歌

聲音在風中變的很冷
我們走過古牆模糊的往事
腫痛的足踝
從歷史終歸來
世界翻倒在腳下
許多輾轉千年的遊魂
守在關口，在橋下
指點我們走回現代
走回那些
在風中起落的
旌旗

Autumn is the season for politicians to be homesick.
The two white hairs spotted in surprise by a glimpse
are the first temptation of the wintry cold.
The number revealed on the weighing-scales
is a joke with no sense of humor.
Having believed the near-sighted eyes can face the far-sighted gaze,
how can you believe the mirror should have misread its own waist?

The crazy uproar at the streets and alleys
is a calling to the youthful years.
Ranked along the roadside, the faces
are the train of time that moves backwards to the shadowy station.
A bare-footed boy
was scooping up the fragments of sunlight in a violently uprising brook,
and a white-haired madame
protected with her smile your childhood.

秋天是政客思鄉的季節

秋天是政客思鄉的季節
驚鴻一瞥的兩根白髮
是冬寒的第一次試探
體重機顯現的數字
是一個缺乏幽默感的玩笑
相信近視眼能面對老花的凝視
怎能相信鏡子竟然曲解了自己的腰圍

街頭巷尾的嘶吼
是對著年輕歲月的呼喚
街道兩旁成排的臉孔
是時光列車倒進朦朧的車站
一個赤腳的男孩
在暴漲的溪水撈取陽光的碎片
一個白髮婦人
以微笑呵護你的童年

The alley, after being pecked by yesterday's sparrows,
is a piece of paper left behind.
The breeze caresses softly the oily face of the way,
and what can be rolled up
are a few headlines of the day before.
By a deep dark trace of braking tire
deserted is a broken
side-marker light, whose plastic fragments
freely spread to be symbols of all sorts.
The trashcan vomits and releases
all over the ground the native culture.

A skinny black cat
sniffs a while and then leaves.
A dog losing almost all its hairs
still over a politician's face on the newspaper
rummages about
for the sour and rotten
food.

街角

小巷是昨日雀鳥啄食
剩下的紙張
風輕輕拂拭油膩的路面
能捲動的
是一些昨日的頭條新聞
一條深黑的煞車痕
旁邊留下一只破碎的
方向燈，塑膠碎片
寫意地延伸成各種象徵
垃圾桶吐瀉出
滿地的本土文化

一隻瘦削的黑貓
嗅聞一陣子後離開
一隻毛髮幾將掉盡的狗
還在報紙的政客臉孔上
翻尋
酸腐的
食物