蔗尾蜂房

 

三十年代上海，奧地利藉畫家希夫(Friedrich Schiff, 1908-1968)的插畫及打油詩


上海崛起
--Laksmi Pamuntjak (1971- ), 羅浩原 譯

「看」她尖叫著，光著身子站在窗邊，
「上海這可就大了一倍
咱們錯過了可惜！」像顆珍奇異果、
又像混血水妖，她們似乎都生著副水蛇腰。

半是土來半是水、半是娃子半是女人，
她總算也是四季分明：冬風暴雪、
春葉鮮脆、細雨沙沙泛秋光
盛夏渾如蒸汽浴。

眼下她的濕熱烘得我一陣焦黃，
我的剛毅如鐵錨陷進了軟泥，
而她呢，兀自夢著翠玉、黃金、
象牙，還有那水晶蝦餃。

一夜過去，沒有結果：多少回
空剩一張外文便條。可她突然
焦慮起來，她的牙齒哆嗦著
而金飾，在陽光下閃爍著。

「我想去外灘後面走走」，過一會兒她說，
結果我們迂迴著走了好幾里路：
看著盲人吃豆酥餅、
流浪狗舔腳後跟。

路邊攤旁，孩子弓著身子在做功課
就著閃爍昏暗的燈光。「這不是孩子們的地方」
她難過地說，大概在想著她認識的某個孩子，
也這樣蜷曲著身子，像個胎兒，直到夜深。

那一夜，她被寂寞擊敗
她從未有過這種感覺，
「這個城市我受夠了」她在我胸前呢喃著。
第二天早上，她沒拉上窗簾。

外面，令人暈眩脫序
幢幢高樓崛起，
揚起一陣陣小調：

我不愁來
我不顧
只管嫁個超級富
他要死了
我不哭
我再嫁個有錢夫


Shanghai Rising
--Laksmi Pamuntjak (1971- )

“Look,” she cries, naked by the window,
“Shanghai has doubled its size
and we’ve missed it!” A strange fruit,
a mongrel nymph, they seem eerily the same.

Half land half water, half child half woman,
she too has distinct seasons: snowstorm in winter,
crisp in spring, drizzle rustling autumn’s light.
A steambath in summer.

Now she browns me in the heat of her damp,
and I sink into the mud to anchor my grit,
while she dreams of jade, gold and
ivory, and prawns in crystal wrappers.

Indehiscent, overnight: how many times
a foreign postscript. But of a sudden she
is anxious, her teeth curt and
metal, blinking against the sun.

“I want to go behind the Bund,” she later says,
and so we weave our way through the lis:
watch blind men eat bean cakes,
stray dogs nipping at their heels.

Over near the stalls, children are bent over homework
in the flicker of a low flame. “This is no fit place for a child.”
she says sadly, thinking, perhaps, of a child she once knew,
curled up, in fetal position, until deep into the night.

That night, she is assailed by a loneliness
such that she has never felt before.
“I’ve had enough of this city.” she whispers into my chest.
The next morning, she doesn’t draw the curtain.

Outside, over the giddy anarchy
of towers rising,
the soft strains of a lyric:

Me no worry
Me no care
Me going to marry a millionaire
And if he die
Me no cry
Me going to get another guy.




Laksmi Pamuntjak, Ellipsis: Poems and Prose Poems, Jakarta & Singapore: Equinox Publishing, 2006, pp.34-35.