詩歌的香檳

 

每天晚上,我用手指在皮膚上

輕撫着處處的新傷。

薄薄的新痂劃出條條虛線

沿着我的膝蓋、手腕和臂膀。

我並沒有允許你們住在我身上,

這些黑紫葡萄似的瘀傷，

你們卻野火般灼燒在我背上,

抽打着，高高舉起的皮鞭一樣,

我不知道你們是怎麼來的,

可你們就這樣烙在我身上。

 

隨着皮膚繃裂作響,

我刺痛扭曲着沖涼

我覺得有個人在我身體裡,

伺機爬出來,觀察,呼吸。

 

六年級的老師曾經畫下個葡萄樹

要我們寫首詩描述。

於是我湊了個漂亮的小韻

漂亮得似乎自己就會出聲。

但老師卻硬說平淡無趣,

甚至譏笑葡萄怎麼會遲到，象你?

所以我收拾好我的文具,

悄悄的從課堂里遛了出去。

 

那天晚上,我把那首詩撕得粉碎,

我覺得有個人躲在我身後,

就像操縱木偶的人,

聽得到但見不到他的行動。

 

我爸爸看着我揉出一個個紙團。

從電腦里抹去一首首的詩歌。

主角們, 去吧, 你們的高潮到此為止,

情節切斷, 壓力釋放, 故事死去。

一團墨跡, 塗成一個黑果似的天體

無聲地在我的心海中沉墜。

 

我爸爸默默無言什麼也沒說,

但後來我看到他

逐一尋視我電腦里

每一個空空角落。

 

自我毀滅仿佛叢生的雜草

它的種子隱藏着難以察找,

又象爬藤一路沿着血脈侵入大腦

打斷我們思維的嚮導—

纏繞住神經，軸突和樹突,

製造堅強的假象，混淆正確與錯誤, 

等我們感到窒息，試圖抽出這些枝藤,

隨之撕裂的卻也有我們的精神－

 

當每天努力以後不知不覺地睡去,

總會有人潛伏在我們的身心,

四處偷偷的播種。

 

爸爸和我兜風在太平洋海岸高速

閃過酒店, 海灘、別墅、公園、也有公墓。

“決斷”, 他告訴我，“是故事最重要的部分。

你必須有個決斷。”

 停下來, 我一躍換到了司機位置。

爸爸開下車窗。 空氣新鮮, 我開始驅車前進。

回家的路上，

我們輪流着講了一路互相的故事。

 

我父親給我看一羅墨筆繪畫

他孩提時候的塗鴉。

烏鴉飛過竹子, 野鵝在湖上,

也有一串垂着果實的葡萄樹。

“本來可以更多”,他說,

“可我沒能再畫, 但也沒有丟棄。

不要拋棄你的詩歌, 珍藏之。

不要忽視你的生活, 寫下來。”

 

當我再次提筆,

好像是我第一次,

有人體會着節拍 

有人哼唱出韻律

還有人在推敲着遣詞造句 

 

一起釀造出詩歌的香檳酒;

那個人

就是

我自己。

 

Champagne

 

Each night, I run fingers over skin

and search for new wounds. Thin

cuts scabbed into dashed and dotted lines that

trace elbows, wrists, and knees. I gave no lease for you

to be here, small bruises dark and purple like grapes,

rashes that burn across my back like wildfire, lashes

from higher whips, and I don’t know why

you’re here, but here you are to stay.

 

And as my skin snaps and splits and I twist in the shower,

I feel that there’s someone else inside me,

waiting to claw his way out, to see, to breathe.

 

In sixth grade our English teacher drew a vine

of grapes and told us to write a poem about it.

And so I wrote a handsome little thing of rhyme

and meter that seemed to talk all on its own.

But my teacher told me it was bland, and too

strange, and why would grapes be afraid of being

late to meetings? So I arranged my papers, my binder,

and I slid out of that class.

 

And when I tore that poem to shreds later that night,

I felt that there was someone else behind me,

a puppeteer, actions heard but not seen.

 

My father looks on as I crumple papers.

I wipe folders of poetry off my computer.

Protagonists, farewell, here’s your climax,

plotlines cut, tension released, stories dead.

The ink pools, forms an orb of black fruit

that drops silently from my heart to my stomach.

My father says nothing, but later I see him

browsing through empty folders.

 

Self-destruction is a weed that grows from seeds

planted where we can’t see them, an ivy that grows

along paths traced by our veins and goes to our brains

and interrupts trains of thought--

It wraps around nerves, axons and dendrites,

the trial of looking strong,messing up right and wrong,

and we reach inside to pull out the choking vines,

but when we tear it off it rips out pieces of our mind-

 

And when I drift into sleep after fighting another day,

there’s someone else inside me,

spreading out the soil and laying down the seed.

 

My father and I drive down PCH, past hotels,

beaches, villas, parks, vineyards, cemeteries.

“Resolution,” he instructs, “is the most vital part

of the story. You must have resolution.”

Later we stop, and I find myself propped behind the wheel.

My father rolls down the window. Air

flows in and I drive. We tell each other stories the whole way home.

 

My father shows me piles of inkbrush paintings

he painted as a child. Crow flying over bamboo,

wild goose over lakes blue, grapes at their ripest

dripping off the vine. “Many more,” he mentions,

“I did not paint, or threw away.

Don’t trash your poetry; treasure it.

Don’t forget your life; write it.”

 

When I write again, for what seems like the first time,

someone is feeling the meter

someone is humming the rhyme

someone is distilling words

into the champagne of poetry;

 

someone

is

me.