约翰•伯尔尼塞:他瞌睡点头，从睡到醒，又为睡而睡

約翰·伯恩塞

John BURNSIDE

約翰・伯恩塞（英國），聖安德魯斯大學創意寫作教授，蘇格蘭重要的當代作家，著有多本詩集、小說集和回憶錄。他的第一本詩集The Hoop（1988）獲蘇格蘭藝術委員會書獎，Feast Days（1992）獲Geoffrey Faber紀念獎，The Asylum Dance（2000）獲Whitbread詩歌獎。2012年憑詩集Black Cat Bone獲T.S.Eliot詩歌獎和Forward年度詩集獎。2017年發表小說Ashland & Vine及詩集Still Life with Feeding Snake。

哀悼隨筆（節錄）

給盧卡斯

III. 1979年自畫像

「無論是甚麼痛苦，他不能在一度懷疑，

而且日漸荒唐的世界，重獲心滿意足。」

——辛克萊·劉易斯

彷彿他有一個巴比倫可以失去

彷彿他有多年的母愛被沖刷走

他假裝皮膚是別出心裁的

一種成熟延遲得剛剛好

讓他記住雨水；

雖然不能持續，這段

關於凝結的床單

還有冰毒的敘述

是他在《男孩人生》中所知的一切

不會發出肉凍或公平競賽的惡臭

沒有人在那裏告訴他：心臟

主要是油脂和肌肉，家

比起長居之所更像出租屋，

而夏天來得太早，乾葉

在塵土中變成粉末，污水坑

在後街結成硬塊，被頭髮堵塞。

在城市最遠的邊緣，

動物在血與夜的畜欄裏

被打暈，成為漢堡的肉扒

使遊人長胖，肥滿白淨，

花言巧語如情景戲劇中的頂嘴。

破曉時分，唇上有冧酒和香水，

他瞌睡點頭，從睡到醒，又為睡

而睡，直到火車漸漸減速

走在一段火絨色樹叢邊上，光

與霧飛快略過草地和所有

常見的垃圾，玻璃樽碎片，

舊啤酒罐，報紙紙捻，塑料網布。

有一會兒，他在自己的氣息中唱

「總有出路」——關於

骨頭軟腐的記憶。倏然

他想再要同樣事物，同樣的話，同樣的目光，

同一首老歌中同樣的結局完好的故事

「總有出路」，畢竟，

他知道，來世

有這樣的人

精於引導門診病人回到病房

打開檯燈，城市終於退卻了

門鎖中的鑰匙輕輕轉動

他必須相信

當他致欣喜若狂的時候

他會知道自己一向所愛的是甚麼。

V. 尾聲：假洋紅

我們玩死亡的遊戲

好像在克拉科夫的小公寓樓

逐漸消失的降雨，

——我想我們必須知道

是來自電影——

不是那種長出

紫藤的地方，雖然鴿子的聲息中

有點甚麼讓我們再次想起

去年的金子。

然後它變暗了。被踐踏的葉子和雪

像嗎哪般的結痂，靡廢在花竹柏的花冠上。

只消一隻狼就令森林

再次變大，少許檀香木

拆解雀鳥的語法，樓梯上的行李箱，

那麼，然後，剪報中，狗兒清醒

貨運車箱空虛，霜和石灰，一切都明亮起來。

（鄭政恆譯）

An Essay on Mourning（Extracts）

for Lucas

III Self Portrait in 1979

Whatever the misery, he couldnot regain

contentment with a worldwhich, once

doubted, became absurd.

— Sinclair Lewis

As if he had a Babylon to lose

or years of mother love to wash away,

he makes believe the skin is fanciful,

aripening delayed just long enough

to memorise the rain;

and though it cannot last, this narrative

of curdled sheets

and methamphetamine

is all the Boy’s Own Life he’s ever known

that doesn’t stink of aspic or fair play.

No one is there to tell him that theheart

is mostly grease and muscle, home

more rented room than permanent abode;

and summer comes too early, dry leaves

powdered in the dust, the cesspits

crusting in the backstreets, clogged with hair.

Away, on the thin edge of town,

stunned animals go down into a fold

of blood and night to make the burger meat

the tourists fatten on, obese and white,

but slick with sitcom sass.

At daybreak, rum and perfume on his lips,

he dips from sleep to waking, sleep

to sleep, until the train slows on a stretch

of brush and tinder, light

and fog streaked through the grass and all

the usual rubbish, chunks of bottle glass,

old beer cans, spills of newsprint, plastic scrim.

For a moment, under his breath, he sings,

there must be some way out — a memory

of soft scald at the bone, and all atonce

he wants the same again, same words, same gaze,

the same good story from the same old song

— there mustbe some way out and, after all,

he knows they have people for this

in the great beyond,

experts in luring the out — patient back to his cell,

and lighting a lamp, the city receding at last

while the key in the lock turns so softly,

he has to believe

he will know what he loved all along,

whenit comes to the Rapture.

V Coda: Fake Cochineal

We played the game of dying like the fade

of rainfall in a small apartment block

in Cracow

— which I think we must have known

from motion pictures —

not the kind of place

to grow wisteria, though something in the sound

the pigeons made would make us think again

of last year’s gold.

And so it darkened. Trampled leaves and snow

like scabs of manna, wasting in a crown

of butcher’s broom.

It only took one wolf to make the forest

large again, a splash of sandalwood

to parse a finch, a suitcase on the stairs,

then, later, in the cutting, wakeful dogs

and empty boxcars, bright with frost and lye.