(Mis)translating Fragments from Friends

被接受的建议

麦克

用柔的力，只对风微笑。

盯着露珠直到它们的眼睁开。

从枝上扭下花，向后折

花瓣象一片弯曲的唇直到它断。

在人群中移动象他们脸旁的空气

止住你的笑声，当他们把你吸入。

教给裸树和冰河你的信条，

向死鸟和血雪讲道

当夏天来时梦想它们的智力。


读书一天

尼古拉


我习惯把我的脑子叫头脑

因为哪个词的意思我都不知道；

我手里满满一手石子

它们棱角的罪被冲走在

河里。我错认他们是小

头脑把脑子象雨下到湿路上，

而别的脑子长在腿和手上，路过

错认我和我的头脑们是献礼

给混凝土埋着的神们，当

世界以钢的目光被重新创造。

我光滑的思想做的就是弄脏

地面直到一位善良的陌生人

清走它们，留给我的责任

是再次掩埋地面直到我死。

Advice Well Taken

Michael Kicey

Apply a tender force, and smile only to the wind.
Stare down the dewdrops until their eyes are open.
Twist the flower from the branch, and bend back
The blossom like a curled lip until it breaks.
Move among the crowd like the air around their faces
And brace your laughter as they draw you in to breathe.
Teach the naked trees and the freezing river your ethics,
Preach to the dead birds and the bloody snow
And dream of their intelligence when summer comes.

One Day's Reading

Nicholas Theisen

I have the habit of calling my brain a mind
as I don’t know the meaning of either word;
I have in my hand a hand full of pebbles
whose jagged sins were washed away in
the river. I mistake them for little
minds raining brains on the wet pavement,
while other brains on legs and hands pass
mistaking me and my minds for offerings
to deities the concrete buried when
the world was made anew in visions of steel.
all my smooth thoughts do is dirty
the ground until some kind stranger
clears them away, leaving me the duty
to bury the ground again until I die.

Hey Earthworm,

Do you lose patience with your blindness

and the uncertainty of being

in the middle of nowhere?

Do you panic after a thunderstorm

your wet curves on the pavement

vanishing in the sun?

Complit Plate

tomato, cucumber, fresh tuna, potato salad,
spinach, bean sprouts, Italian noodle, cheese cake...

never mind the order
all on board

a bite of each
keep it neat

Falling off the curb

I fell off the curb this morning while thinking about my first year in AA. Five passers-by offered their hands and asked, "Are you Ok?" I did not take any because I could get back up by myself, but I was touched: The anonymous crowd is not aloof as it seems; its humaneness is only revealed by mishaps. Zhuang Zi writes, "相濡以沫，不若相忘于江湖, " roughly translated as "Better to swim freely in the rivers and lakes and forget each other than moistening each other with spittle (when the pond is dry)." It's true.

P.S. No picture to go with this entry.

a spider loves my doorstep

so it offers me a deal

from sunset to sunrise it runs
round and round
spinning its web
from sunrise to sunset
it pulls up its web
so i could sit

My grass turned into a flower

it's tiny
it lasts for a day
it folds
as if to sleep
for the night
next day it moves
a step up
closer to the sun
its old place clean
as if it has never lived
there

In other words

I got attached to some pink tree
at the South Gate
and designed a route to maximize
my time with it
for ten days at noon I walked by,
my nose, my ears, my skin cells
all opened wide as my eyes did

Now the tree is green, the gate is marked
by trash cans recyle bins and a blue mattress
I still follow the same route,
with the same gladness

Yes dear, I am an idiot