诗歌的香槟

 

每天晚上,我用手指在皮肤上

轻抚着处处的新伤。

薄薄的新痂划出条条虚线

沿着我的膝盖、手腕和臂膀。

我并没有允许你们住在我身上,

这些黑紫葡萄似的瘀伤，

你们却野火般灼烧在我背上,

抽打着，高高举起的皮鞭一样,

我不知道你们是怎么来的,

可你们就这样烙在我身上。

 

随着皮肤绷裂作响,

我刺痛扭曲着冲凉

我觉得有个人在我身体里,

伺机爬出来,观察,呼吸。

 

六年级的老师曾经画下个葡萄树

要我们写首诗描述。

于是我凑了个漂亮的小韵

漂亮得似乎自己就会出声。

但老师却硬说平淡无趣,

甚至讥笑葡萄怎么会迟到，象你?

所以我收拾好我的文具,

悄悄的从课堂里遛了出去。

 

那天晚上,我把那首诗撕得粉碎,

我觉得有个人躲在我身后,

就像操纵木偶的人,

听得到但见不到他的行动。

 

我爸爸看着我揉出一个个纸团。

从电脑里抹去一首首的诗歌。

主角们, 去吧, 你们的高潮到此为止,

情节切断, 压力释放, 故事死去。

一团墨迹, 涂成一个黑果似的天体

无声地在我的心海中沉坠。

 

我爸爸默默无言什么也没说,

但后来我看到他

逐一寻视我电脑里

每一个空空角落。

 

自我毁灭仿佛丛生的杂草

它的种子隐藏着难以察找,

又象爬藤一路沿着血脉侵入大脑

打断我们思维的向导—

缠绕住神经，轴突和树突,

制造坚强的假象，混淆正确与错误, 

等我们感到窒息，试图抽出这些枝藤,

随之撕裂的却也有我们的精神－

 

当每天努力以后不知不觉地睡去,

总会有人潜伏在我们的身心,

四处偷偷的播种。

 

爸爸和我兜风在太平洋海岸高速

闪过酒店, 海滩、别墅、公园、也有公墓。

“决断”, 他告诉我，“是故事最重要的部分。

你必须有个决断。”

 停下来, 我一跃换到了司机位置。

爸爸开下车窗。 空气新鲜, 我开始驱车前进。

回家的路上，

我们轮流着讲了一路互相的故事。

 

我父亲给我看一罗墨笔绘画

他孩提时候的涂鸦。

乌鸦飞过竹子, 野鹅在湖上,

也有一串垂着果实的葡萄树。

“本来可以更多”,他说,

“可我没能再画, 但也没有丢弃。

不要抛弃你的诗歌, 珍藏之。

不要忽视你的生活, 写下来。”

 

当我再次提笔,

好像是我第一次,

有人体会着节拍 

有人哼唱出韵律

还有人在推敲着遣词造句 

 

一起酿造出诗歌的香槟酒;

那个人

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.