比利.科林斯1941年生於美國紐約市，現紐約城市大學教授。他於出版了七本詩集，多次獲獎。2001年6月被命名為美國桂冠詩人。
夜總會
你是如此美麗而我是個傻瓜
去與你相愛
這是歌和詩中
保持發生的題材。
似乎沒有變動的餘地。
我從未聽過任何人唱
我是如此美麗
而你是個傻瓜與我相愛，
雖然這個想法確曾
同樣地穿越過女人和男人的腦際。
你是如此美麗，太糟了你是個傻瓜
是另一首你沒聽到。
或，你是個傻瓜去考慮我美麗。
那一首你總也不會聽到，肯定無疑。
這個下午 沒有特別的原因
我正傾聽約翰尼哈特曼
他憂鬱的嗓音繚繞在
愛，美，和傻的概念周圍
象是沒有他人可及。
它感覺似一縷煙從支香煙繚繞而起
有人約在凌晨三點把這香煙
丟在一架寶貝平台大鋼琴上燃着；
煙霧翻騰上升進入明亮的燈光
而在那以外的黑暗裡
一些美麗的傻瓜已經聚集
在小桌周圍去傾聽，
有人閉上了眼睛，
其他人則傾斜向音樂
好象它扶持着他們而立，
或快速旋轉着玻璃杯中鬆散的冰塊，
逐漸滑入一個有節奏的夢裡。
是，有許多傻美麗，
熬過了午夜，
不想回家，
尤其現在當屋裡的每個人
正觀賞那大男人戴着次中音薩克斯管
象條金魚懸掛在他的脖子上。
他移到舞台的邊緣
向下遞給我這樂器
並點頭示意該我演奏。
所以我將吹口放到我唇上
吹進我平生的氣力。
我們都特別傻，
我長長的比波普獨奏曲由俗語開始，
多麼該死的傻
我們全然不覺已經變得美麗。
Nightclub
You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.
For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.
Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so xxxx foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.
我問你
我將會沉浸於什麼景象
比這個好，
一個平常的夜晚在廚房餐桌旁，
花牆紙壓入近逼，
白櫃櫥放滿了玻璃杯，
電話沈默，
一支筆偏斜回我的手裡？
這給我時間去考慮
發生在外面的一切—
落葉向角落聚集，
地衣綠了高高的灰色岩石。
而世界航行在沙丘之上，
龐大，朝向海，歷史冒泡尾隨。
但超出桌子之外
沒有我的需要，
甚至沒一份職業讓我劃向工作，
或一輛咖啡色的奧斯頓馬丁DB4
配置着破裂的綠色皮車座。
不，全在這裡，
一杯水的清晰橢圓，
一小條板箱桔子，一本有關斯大林的書，
不去提及那奇特的惡吠魚
在牆上的一個框架里，
和那三支蠟燭的情形—
高矮各異—
正在完善和諧的歌唱。
那麼原諒我
如果我此時低頭傾聽
那個短低音蠟燭的獨唱。
而我的心
在我的襯衣下亂彈—
青蛙在池塘的邊緣—
我的思緒卻飛離向一個
用一個極其巨大的天空
和百萬個空洞的分支構築的地方。
I Ask You
What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?
It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside—
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.
But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work,
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.
No, it's all here,
the clear ovals of a glass of water,
a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall,
and the way these three candles—
each a different height—
are singing in perfect harmony.
So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt—
frog at the edge of a pond—
and my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches.
創作
今晚的月亮是塊
被咬掉一口的薄脆餅乾
飄飄蕩蕩浮在夜天，
按照日曆
約莫一周時間
它看似大概會
象個銀色的橄欖球，
而九天, 或許十天之前
它使我想起一個薄明的蟹鉗.
可漸漸地--
到這個月底
我推斷--
它將消瘦至
身影全無
天上只留繁星點點，
而對我自己來說
會有幾個夜晚
讓我極度緊張的筆得以休閒。
INVENTION
Tonight the moon is a cracker,
with a bite out of it
floating in the night,
and in a week or so
according to the calendar
it will probably look
like a silver football,
and nine, maybe ten days ago
it reminded me of a thin bright claw.
But eventually --
by the end of the month,
I reckon --
it will waste away
to nothing,
nothing but stars in the sky,
and I will have a few nights
to myself,
a little time to rest my jittery pen.
百慕大
當我們走下泛白的木階
來到海灘並仰面躺在
藍白色的輕便馬車上
靠近水邊
在地圖中那小點之上，
這大海運動夾克上的一枚紐扣，
一男一女
我們幾乎
無事能做。
整個上午我們觀賞雲朵
在頭頂滾動
或閉目養神
聊來侃去，
聲音被沉悶單調的海浪挫平
言詞在風中奇特地翻筋頭。
今天是耶穌受難日，
這離任何彌撒場所都幾百英里
離耶穌受難地幾千英里。
野芙蓉沿着路邊纏繞，
黃腹鳥唱着它的名字，
所有的店鋪都關閉了
因為今天是做熱十字小麵包
和在海灘放飛風箏的日子—
去吃這香甜的十字架
用線繩將十字架固定在天空裡。
白色的沙灼熱起來
當我們中的一人指出豬嘴
正拱出地平線，而那更高處
張口的鱷魚安然的要吃一小片雲朵。
瞧那是個多麼巨大的腦袋，
象那魔鬼戴着眼鏡
你說着，我卻迎着太陽合上眼睛
只能聽見你的話語
被輕輕海風柔弱翹曲，
告訴我這腦袋如何變為一輛自行車，
那種大車輪的站在遊戲紙牌上，
當海水沖入，又落回—
彈珠無窮盡地傾瀉到大理石地面—
而我倆竟如此平靜
這似乎不是我們僅有的生活
只是系列中的一出，一手鐲上的飾物，
仿佛每天我們都不是在跑
象那海灘上孤獨的奔跑者
朝向沒有形狀或波浪的黑暗
朝向十字架或雲朵，
好象我們中的一個不可能
先到那兒而拉下另一個，
漂泊在荒島上
沒有粉色房子和藍色格窗，
沒有李子色配飾着奶油色，
沒有海面礁石將波浪爆裂成泡沫，
也沒有熟悉的聲音在風中彎折。
Bermuda
When we walk down the bleached-out wooden stairs
to the beach and lie on our backs
on the blue and white chaises
near the edge of the water
on this dot in the atlas,
this single button on the blazer of the sea,
we come about as close
as a man and a woman can
to doing nothing.
All morning long we watch the clouds
roll overhead
or close our eyes and do the lazy
back-and-forth of talk,
our voices flattened by the drone of surf,
our words tumbling oddly in the wind.
It's Good Friday here, hundreds of miles
from any mass of land,
thousands from Calvary.
Wild hibiscus twists along the roadsides,
the yellow-breasted bird sings its name,
and all the stores are closed
because today is the day to make hot cross buns
and fly kites from the beaches—
to eat the sweet cross,
to fix with a string a cross in the sky.
The white sand heats up
as one of us points out the snout of a pig
on the horizon, and higher up
a gaping alligator poised to eat a smaller cloud.
See how that one is a giant head,
like the devil wearing glasses
you say, but my eyes are shut against the sun
and I only hear your words,
softened and warped by the sea breeze,
telling me how the head is becoming a bicycle,
the high-wheel kind on playing cards,
while the sea rushes in, falls back—
marbles pouring endlessly onto a marble floor—
and the two of us so calm
it seems that this is not our only life,
just one in a series, charms on a bracelet,
as if every day we were not running
like the solitary runners on the beach
toward a darkness without shape
or waves, crosses or clouds,
as if one of us is not likely to get there first
leaving the other behind,
castaway on an island
with no pink houses or blue shutters,
no plum-colored ones trimmed in cream,
no offshore reef to burst the waves into foam,
and no familiar voice being bent in the wind.
介紹詩歌
我要他們拿一首詩
高高舉起至光亮
象個彩色幻燈片
或把一隻耳朵緊靠它的蜂房。
我說將一隻老鼠投入詩
並注視它探查它的出路，
或行走於詩歌房子內
感覺牆壁尋找燈開關。
我要它們滑水
躍過一首詩的表面
向岸上作者名字揮手。
但所有他們想做的是
用繩子將詩捆綁在椅子上
並嚴刑拷打使之招供。
他們開始用軟管打它
以找出其真實內涵。
Introduction to Poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
火焰
那隻叫煙霧的熊
走進秋天的森林地帶
攜着一紅色罐子汽油
和一盒木製火柴。
他的巡邏騎兵帽
翹起一個使人煩亂的角。
他的棕色皮毛
在高高的太陽下閃爍
當時他的爪子，棒球手
手套的尺寸，
劈啪作響遠去。
他討厭分發
警告給粗心大意的
弱智的露營者，
蠢笨的徒步旅行者。
他打算向他們演示
一個專業人員如何做。
Flames
Smokey the Bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches.
His ranger's hat is cocked
at a disturbing angle.
His brown fur gleams
under the high sun
as his paws, the size
of catcher's mitts,
crackle into the distance.
He is sick of dispensing
warnings to the careless,
the half-wit camper,
the dumbbell hiker.
He is going to show them
how a professional does it.
走過大西洋
我等待假日的人群都離開海灘
在第一波浪潮踏上之前。
很快我走過大西洋
考慮西班牙，
查對鯨魚，噴水口。
我感覺海水托起我變換的重量。
今夜我將睡在它搖晃的表面。
但現在我力圖去想象
這下面的魚定會看到的情形
我的腳掌時隱時現。
Walking across the Atlantic
I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach
before stepping onto the first wave.
Soon I am walking across the Atlantic
thinking about Spain,
checking for whales, waterspouts.
I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.
Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.
But for now I try to imagine what
this must look like to the fish below,
the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing.
--Billy Collins
