Tuesday 5 November 2013

3 Poems by J. Michael Yates

Way into Winter

One final mouth of water
Speaks
From its dark center
In the freezing lake.

No birds circle now
But in the orange-rose skies
Behind my eyes:
Large black birds.

I've been to the fire
At the center of the earth:
My steps shall not snow-over
Before spring.

走过冬季

就要全部冻结的湖面上
那张水做的最后的嘴巴
从它黑暗的中心
开始了讲话。

没有鸟雀在此徘徊。
但在那橘黄兼绯红色的天空中,
在我的眼睛背后,
有黑色的大鸟

在地球的中心
我走过炼狱之火。
春天来临前,
我的脚步不会再让白雪盖住了。


FERNWEH

The wind began
And hackles
Of the land
Arose on end.

Spannung between
Being seer, and,
At once, all
A seer has seen.

Late realization that
The history of one man
Is recorded always in
Unhurried loops of a woman's hand.

A white wind
Is moving in
The green thighs
Of the grain.

There is music
I shall never
Play
Again.


远方之痛

起风了
大地之毛发
在终结处
竖直

左右为难存在于
做个先知
和先知一次看到的全部
之间


迟来的领悟是
一个男人的历史
总是刻录在一个女人之手的
不快不慢的翻云覆雨中

白色的风
正朝着
谷类绿色的大腿之间
移动

有些音乐
我永远
都不会
再去弹奏


HUNTER

The animals approach too near now.
A final hunter sheds his human scent.
I wish sometimes I might have wished
To walk upwind all of my days.

猎人

野兽们正步步逼近
最后的猎手暴露了其人之本性
我有时却情愿我希望过
一直以来我都曾顶风而行


Bionote

J . M . Yates was born in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and graduated from the Universities of Missouri and Michigan with a doctorate in Comparative Literature. A famous writer, poet, playwright and translator, he is widely published in poetry, fiction, drama, translations, and philosophical essays. His works have been translated into most of the western languages and several of the eastern ones. He has won many literary prizes, including the Major Hopwood Awards (both poetry and drama the same year) and the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts and Sciences from University of Missouri. He taught creative writing and comparative literature in several universities in both America and Canada; his last rank as a university professor was Distinguished Professor. He has also been a logger, a motorcycle racer, a broadcast executive, a commercial photographer, a Maximum Security Prison Guard, and SWAT team member. The Chinese translation is done by his wife, Jibei.

No comments:

Post a Comment