冲吧，它说

【美】杰弗里·扬　　陈子弘 译

　　我曾沉醉于一首歌，不断脱口唱出，歌词却模糊不清，也许是关于凝望星空的意境，我常常这么做，星座如同老友般陪伴着我，但或许我正身处炎热的沙漠，却穿着雪鞋，这首歌不肯放过我，我像陷入爱恋的人，其实那首歌的名字就是《爱》。我用小号为肯尼·多拉姆的幽灵演奏，甚至刻意错失最高音，以示对肯尼“摔个屁墩”风格的敬意。这首歌正引领我走向某处，不是吗？我的生命中没有爱，或者说有爱，孩子是爱，兄弟姐妹和老友是爱，就连狗温情也是爱，但当壁炉里的火熄灭时，就没有爱了，餐桌前没有爱，该起身了，该离开了；我的坦诚真实，即使我的艺术沉重。当然，没有新爱的感觉，没有洗礼般的生命热血浪漫刺激情绪，月份缓慢流逝，独身的永恒奇妙地可忍受，像一场感官剥夺实验，这份体验会成为灵魂履历上的独特标记，尽管我没有感到英勇、强大或像中世纪骑士那样坚韧。相反，我沉沦在悲伤和疲惫之中，消化一场家庭破碎的过程实属艰难，难以抓住那些已逝的温存。我可以举起手来询问在场者，是的，我可以在这里要求举手。

　　胸口仿佛被掏空了，肺随之空旷，衬衫下我的心也在痛。那是一种持续的疼痛，不剧烈，却沉重，我感觉与街上每个人更亲近，那些陌生面孔，那些面容扭曲行动不便的人，那个脖子隆起巨大肿块的男子牵着只瘦小的狗在店面门口徘徊的人。我对社区里那些父亲入狱或酗酒的邋遢孩子心生怜悯，那些经历过或即将经历的人，看见他们令我心痛，一个由所有人主演的庞大不快乐家庭。我仿佛站在某种无法量化的界线上，身体蜷缩自闭，伤痕累累，原本微小的味觉和听觉慰藉都变得难以忍受，难以串联起两三种思绪，理性地写篇论文，难以从沙发移到椅子，来回移动，最终站起来狼吞虎咽地吃三明治，单身者总是在水槽边站着吃饭，正如爱驱使我进入这种辩证，说“去散步，开车逛逛街区，看看房子”，他们僵硬的面孔，他们的颜色，他们的门廊，如果有的话，玻璃窗格划分成一个个小方形，烟囱冒出的炊烟，以及正式的雪铲工具……有太多悬而未决，许多时刻我会转向最后一片飘落的叶子，或一只飞奔的猫，想说话，说“最近怎么样？”或“男孩们去哪儿了？”这些都是松鼠在大脑环形沟回中写下的故事情节，我渴望承担责任，渴望工作的要求，坐在真实餐桌旁与真实的人交流。我是个直率的人，活在当下，狠狠思考并不意味着要说很多，直到落笔写下来，给我一个动荡的生活，这样我才能感受到多大笔触能传达它的肖像，下巴的线条，眼睛，就像画家看到的那样，正在滑落。自制的磁带伴随我漫长的通勤，驾驶就是音乐，音乐从未听起来如此生动活泼，就像一本开合自如的字典，它融入身体，它是有目的的方向，一切都是触摸和离开。我不了解少女会变得疯狂，不需要包含那种声音，有时沉默和嗡嗡作响的汽车会呈现出家庭愤怒无法承受的沉重与生活不公，没有人可以责怪，甚至不是我自己，也不是文化，一支凶狠的标枪刺入异类的壳中，它击中了我，我围绕它闭合，像一只海葵。为什么我们要执着于痛苦，采取英雄般的措施来维持一个酒精中毒的身份？为什么不融化其中，觉察到海鸥的喙？

　　抑或我开始试探着对原本恐惧的变化产生了一种欲求。渴望摆脱挫折，重新独立，成为自己的主人，造出自己的口头禅，挂上自己的画作，接通自己的信息，少些安全感，多些冒险，少些摩擦，多些渴望，关掉灯光，调低温度，悄悄上楼，通宵读书，一盏不打扰任何人的灯，几个枕头靠在背后， 床头柜上放着一本笔记本，你可以看到我，我从头到脚都裹得严严实实，全身披裹着十八世纪的经典气息，这是《枕上泪》的复刻版，是当今的新浪潮，我清醒着，有太多东西要读，有太多句子要大声说出来，有太多词要寻觅。

　　床头闹钟滴答作响，唱响不同的歌，“照顾好自己，好好休息。”随后睡眠像海绵一样吸干意识，身体不自主地抽搐，仿佛在放松筋骨。远处传来低语，“今晚休息吧，孤独者。你不能白白拥有这些情感，你得为它们买单。”我就像坠入爱河却独自入眠的人，除了记忆，除了恐惧，再也没有其他人。寒冷清晨，太阳从东面窗户照进来，落在我皮肤上，近乎停滞。光线从雪地上反射回来，像是一剂刺眼的维生素。好奇的人们会参观这间小房子，真是有趣，我并不拥有它，物件开始填满它，桌子借来的，沙发是借来的，我会感到尴尬，为书架上的诗歌躬身道歉，书架我自己做的，房间太小了，我的目光可以扫过书脊，我可以跳下床，伸手取一本自己喜欢的诗集，，然后在床垫感到我离开之前回到被窝里。有时我觉得我知道的一切都来自诗歌，然后我醒来，看向它们曾经那样的整个房间，放满绘画，我觉得我仍然在其中，在阿姆斯特丹斯泰德利克美术馆的马列维奇房间，这是一座抽象绘画轨迹上的空间站，我坐下来，观看它的轨道运行，它至高无上。

　　我这些天早晨的梦并不壮观，有些是复仇，有些是欲望，但萦绕着我挥之不去的事实在黎明时分迎候我，像一张破旧的唱片，一盘循环的磁带，在视频版本中，那个事实将它的绿色旗帜插在我脸上，我成了它影像的受害者，即使字幕滚动而过，我们遥远的誓言又被收进铁盒子，准备明天晚上再次播放，从开头到结尾，完事，历史，加入俱乐部吧。我买了台电视机，按遥控器按钮像弹拨拇指琴般操作，它打破了寂静，照亮了墙壁，黄昏时分，我会对自己说，当我伸手去拿台灯时，“点亮傍晚的第一盏灯，”用雄浑的语气，或“他那令人惊叹的自怜。”这样黑暗就结束了，但黑暗在灯下更加明显，我看不清前方的路，身体，我自己的身体，房间像个笼子，从椅子到沙发，双腿蜷缩在毯子下取暖，一本杂志，我85岁了，我还只有15岁，手稿就是我的毯子，一堆信件，然后电话铃声带来的肾上腺素的激增，让我们再抬手吧，你肯定也经历过这种感觉，铃声只为你而响，微小的购物袋，沉默的米饭，时间流逝，炉子上的白色，水槽，所有书都摆好了，地毯上无人行走，唱片按照字母顺序排列，一卷新丝带，一堆信封，涂改液的残渣如白色斑点般飘落进垃圾桶，我在忙活，但我没麻木，我等待着，我记得曾与一位黎巴嫩男子搭便车穿越保加利亚，在大路旁一个村庄停下来一起抽烟。人们突然出现，我们被围住了，他们看着我们的衣服，我们交换着眼神，和孩子们开玩笑，然后一个女人突然走近，把刚出炉的面包递给我们，又大又圆又结实又温暖，我们立即被感动，我们感谢他们，我和那个女人握了握手，她的手粗糙而结实，她的眼睛是浅棕色，充满了琥珀色纹路，好像在旋转，而我的手很柔软，我很象书呆子，我今晚将会在索菲亚火车站的楼板上睡，用书包当枕头，次日穿着整齐然后离开，还会剩一点面包皮吗？后来在南斯拉夫一位波斯人搭上我，他开了一辆装满地毯的卡车去慕尼黑，你想听听这个家伙的故事吗？我相信我的直觉，我最终不得不从维也纳逃离他，他彻底让我崩溃了，他又狂热又痴迷，我们只说过五个英语单词，就是这样。 一晚，在贝尔格莱德郊外的汽车停靠站，大约是既没月亮也没星星的午夜，我们停下来吃饭，他搭讪金发女服务员。我们吃完饭，她跟我们来到卡车上，坐在我们中间，我们开了一英里，四处漆黑一片。 他停在路边，拿出一条毯子，他们下车，消失在一片毫不起眼的景观里。 这难道是《热带癌》中描述的那种自由冒险的生活吗？我接下来会遭遇怎样的命运？我能用塞尔维亚-克罗地亚语说“不”吗？有上帝吗？我看不见他们在哪里。 然后，就像卡车突然停下，他们下车一样，她却独自一人回来了，她怒不可遏，从驾驶室抓起外套，气得发狂，她那件轻便的夏装完美贴合身形，她猛地关上驾驶室门，沿着高速公路大步走回她的卡车停靠站。我这位波斯老兄到底做了什么惹她生气？这是一场灾难。他回到车里，把毯子扔进驾驶室，耸了耸肩，我们便驱车驶入夜色，还有边境要跨越，还有阿尔卑斯山春季洪水奔腾而下的壮丽景象可欣赏。但我们抵达维也纳时，经历了在密集车流中令人惊心动魄的驾驶，以及只有真主仁慈庇护的子民才能完成的变道冒险后，他终于驶入一条小街，大约八点钟，我们停下，他说：“姑娘们” （这是我们分享的五个词之一）然后微笑着，伸手到前座下面，拿出剃须刀、装有肥皂的杯子、刷子、瓶装的冷水和一条脏兮兮的毛巾，开始为晚上的剃须打肥皂，用冷水涂抹在他浓密的黑色胡须上，然后瞥了我一眼，仿佛在说，今晚我们会过得愉快！但听着他用那把钝剃须刀在冰冷的脸颊上刮来刮去，我差点吐出来，他真的在刮，刮破了下巴和脸颊，他放在座位上的毛巾我连碰都不想碰。我必须离开，没时间生病，我感谢他搭我一程，他看起来很惊讶，我正在抛弃他！我的判断力去哪了？我抓起包，打开车门，跳下去，挥了挥手，沿着城市街道走了，这是命中注定的，重新站稳脚跟，登上开往慕尼黑的夜班火车，我上了车，现在是第二天，下午两点，我刚吃了根香肠，喝了杯啤酒， 我转了个弯，差点撞上我在德国认识的唯一的人，她名叫布里吉特·加普，她苍白的脸颊上有一颗玛丽莲·梦露一样的胎记，黑发，灿烂的笑容，我疯了，这是命运的安排，荣格的神秘联结，我们抱在一起，我们凝视着对方，我唯一认识的人，这该如何解释？心灵深处蕴含着超越肉体的智慧。

　　人们说这得花上一两年，桌上摆着钱，东西得分割，那些变质的关系需要清算。几轮正式的法律会议，印在奶油色信笺上的字面交锋，虚晃一招的试探，坦白，咄咄逼人的沉默，歇斯底里的爆发，三件套西装的专家出场，合同里一个逗号，允许、不容拒绝地要求再加一条条款。世界末日之后，总得有些什么跟着来吧？至少在这个世界里，炉火“啪”地燃起，这些话都是要钱的。别人也经历着同样的事，太常见了，你可以加入一个小组聊聊，与曾经疏远的朋友们通话安慰彼此，纽约一位女士寄来的明信片邀约见面，我们有共同的朋友，“来斯托克布里奇喝一杯”，一个影迷朋友在城中心待着，我肯定会喜欢她。大家七嘴八舌，她刚跟人分手——这是网络在说话，一个充满陌生人随机邂逅的情色宇宙。媒人们忙着牵线，火柴还没擦亮就盖上盒子。生活可以继续，别犹豫，换上新床单，装成热恋中的样子，脚步轻快起来，小子，再说点俏皮话，年轻又美好。这场景多经典，不就是这样吗？危机里总有更多花样，社交寒暄的痛苦里带着戏剧感，像站在浪尖上——会被拍到沙滩上碾碎，还是乘风破浪，驶向新生活，像从众神那儿偷来的火，一根手指烧着又一根？“向前冲！”它说，数字化、被访问、被疗愈，主街每家咖啡馆都在聊这个。这就是我们的人间宇宙，碎杯上的胶，这终点预示着新开始，就像镇上最便宜的汽油，我亲自喝下一口。

译注：
1. 枕上泪（Tears on My Pillow）由西尔维斯特·布拉德福德和阿尔·刘易斯于1958年创作的都普音乐歌曲。该作品首次由小安东尼与帝国乐队（Little Anthony and the Imperials）在End Records唱片公司录制，这也是该乐队以该名称发行的首张录音作品。当时很流行，后被多次翻唱，其中凯莉·米洛（Kylie Minogue）1990年1月在英国单曲榜上以该曲获得冠军。
2.《热带癌》（Tropic of Cancer）是亨利·米勒（Henry Miller）1934年出版的自传体小说，以其大胆的性描写和意识流风格闻名，最初在法国巴黎出版，因“淫秽”而在英美被禁，直到1964年美国最高法院裁定其为文学作品而非淫秽内容。小说描绘了米勒在1920-1930年代巴黎波西米亚生活的经历，充满哲学思考、性冒险和社会批判，被视为20世纪文学的经典之作。米勒的小说以非线性叙事和意识流著称，与Young不分行诗的跳跃性和碎片化风格有相似之处。

诗人简介：杰弗里·扬（Geoffrey Young，1944-2020）美国诗人、艺术家和出版人，以其在后现代诗歌和实验文学领域的贡献而闻名。他出生于加州，活跃于旧金山湾区的文学与艺术圈，与语言诗派（Language Poetry）有密切关联。Young的诗歌风格自由、跳跃，常融合口语、隐喻和文化典故，探索现代生活的荒诞与情感复杂性，如其代表作《Drive, It Said》。他曾出版多部诗集，并以视觉艺术家身份创作绘画和拼贴作品，展现跨学科的创造力。作为出版人，他创立了The Figures出版社，推广实验性文学，支持如Lyn Hejinian等语言诗人的作品。Young的作品常以幽默和讽刺解构社会规范，同时关注个人情感与文化记忆的交织。

GEOFFREY YOUNG

Drive, It Said

I was in love with a song, kept blurting it out, didn’t know the words, maybe something about gazing at stars, I do that too, the constellations like old friends, but I might have been in a hot desert wearing snowshoes, the song would not let me go, I was like someone in love, that was the name of the tune in fact, I played it on the trumpet for the ghost of Kenny Dorham, even missing the highest note out of respect for Kenny’s “flat on his ass”’ style, this song was leading me to something, wasn’t it? There was no love in my life, or there was love, children are loves, brothers and sisters and old friends are love, even the dog is love, but when the fire in the hearth goes out there’s no love, no love served at the table,time to get up, time to leave; my candor is true even if my art is grave. Certainly there was no feeling of new love, no baptismal lifeblood romance excitation stirring up the emotions, the months plodding by, celibate eternities curiously bearable, like an experiment in sensory deprivation these months would go on the soul’s résumé, though I didn’t feel noble, strong or medieval. Rather sad and exhausted, it’s hard to swallow a family, tough to cling to what is no longer there. I could ask for a show of hands here, yes, I could ask for a show of hands.

Hollow at the center of the chest, my lungs, and underneath a shirt,my heart hurt. It was a constant pain, it wasn’t painful, it was ponderous, I felt closer to everybody on the street, to the people I didn’t know, the disfigured and halt, the guy with the huge goiter on his neck standing with his little dog on the storefront sidewalk,I felt tender toward the scruffy kids in the neighborhood whose fathers were in jail or drunk, people who’d gone through it, or were about to, it hurt to see them, one big unhappy family starring everyone. I was poised on that point where measurement fails, the body clamped in on itself, bruised, the little light pleasures of taste and sound were difficult to endure, hard to put two or three thoughts together, reason through an essay, move from sofa to chair, and back, finally standing up to wolf down a sandwich, single people always eat standing up at the sink, just as love compels me to this dialect, says “take a walk, drive around neighborhood, look at houses,” their stiff faces, their colors, their porches, if any, glass in windows divided into panes, smoke from chimneys, formal snowshovels. So much was up in the air, so many moments I’d turn to a last falling leaf, or a dashing cat, and want to speak, say “What’s up?” or “Where are the boys?” Elements of an unraveling tale written by squirrels in the circular sockets of a brain, I was eager for duties, for the demands of a job, contact with real people around a real table, I am literal, lived in, to think out loud is not to say much until it’s written, give me a life in turmoil so I can feel what size brushstrokes will convey its portrait, the set of jaw, eyes the way the painter saw them, slipping. Homemade tapes accompanied my long commutes, driving was music, music never sounded more fundamental, like a dictionary come alive, it entered bodily, it was purposeful direction, all touch and go. I didn’t know any teenage girls flipping out, didn’t have to include that sound,sometimes silence and the humming car would take on the shape of domestic anger’s impossible heavy life injustice, no one to blame, not even myself, or the culture, a vicious spear thrust into the shell of the alien other, it hit me, I closed up around it, a sea anemone.Why do we hold on to the pain, perform heroic measures to sustain an embalmed identity? Why not melt into it and notice a seagull’s beak?

Or I would begin to flirt with desire for the very change I feared,to be free of the rasps, to be on my own again, be my own boss,make my own clichés, hang my own pictures, dial my own information, less security, but more adventure, less friction, more desire, click the lights off, knock back the heat and slip upstairs to read late into the night, a light that disturbs no one, a few pillows behind the back, a notebook on the nightstand, you can see me here, I’m covered from head to toe, it’s an 18th-Century classic, it’s a copy of Tears on My Pillow, it’s the neo-wave of the present,I’m wide awake, there’s so much to read, so many sentences to speak out loud, words to prowl.

The bedside clock ticks, it’s a different tune, it sings, “Take care of yourself and get plenty of rest,” then sleep like a sponge drops,sops up awareness, involuntary muscular jerks unkink the self, a distant voice whispers, ‘“Take the night off, Lonesome. You can’t just have these emotions, you gotta pay for ’em.” I was like someone in love falling asleep alone, but only like, there was no one there but memory, but fear, cold mornings the sun would tip through the east facing windows and arrive on my skin all but extinguished, the light bouncing off the snow was a screaming vitamin, and curious people would tour the little house, it was amusing, I didn’t own it, things began to fill it, tables on loan, sofa too, I'd be self-conscious, apologize for the bow in the shelves containing the poetry books, made ‘em myself, the rooms so small my cyes could travel the spines, | could jump out of bed and reach a volume of my choice and be back under the covers before the mattress knew I'd left. Sometimes I think everything I know I’ve learned from poems, then I wake up, I see whole rooms exactly as they were, filled with paintings, I think I’m still in them, the Malevitch room at the Stedelyk in Amsterdam, it’s a space-station on the trajectory of abstract painting, I sit back down and watch it orbit, it’s supreme.

My dreams these mornings weren’t spectacular, some revenge,some lust, but the big gnawing fact relentless and obsessive was there to greet me at dawn, a broken record, a tapeloop, in the video version the fact planted its green flag in my face, I was its imagery’s victim, even as the credits went rolling by, our distant vows went back into the can for the next night’s showing, beginning middle and end, finito, history, join the club. I bought a TV set and played the remote buttons like a thumb piano, it broke the silence, it lit the walls, and at dusk I’d say to myself, as [ reached for the lamp,“Light the first light of evening,” in stentorian tones, or “His gorgeous self-pity." So much for darkness then, but the darkness was only more apparent in the lamplight, I couldn’t see where I was going, the body, my own, the room like a cage, moving from chair to sofa, legs tucked up under for warmth, a blanket, a magazine, I was 85 years old, I was fifteen, a manuscript was my afghan,a pile of mail, then the hop-up adrenaline of a phone call, let’s have another show of hands here, you've been there too, it’s ringing just for you, the miniscule bag of groceries, silent rice, passing moments passing, sponged whiteness of stove, sink, all the books filed way, the rug unwalked on, records in alphabetical order, a new ribbon,a stack of envelopes, the liquid paper crust that fell as white dots swept into the trash, I was puttering, not paralyzed, I was waiting, I remembered hitchhiking through Bulgaria with a Lebanese guy in a two-door sedan, and stopping to share cigarettes in a village off the main road. People suddenly materialized, we were surrounded, they looked at our clothes, we exchanged furtive smiles, kidded with the children, then out of nowhere a woman advances,hands us a just-baked loaf of bread, it’s big and round and solid and warm and we are immediately touched, we thank them, I shake the woman’s hand, it is callused and rough, her eyes are light brown, they are filled with amber lines that seem to spin, while my hands are soft, I’m bookish, I'll sleep tonight on the floor of the train station in Sofia, use my bookbag for a pillow, be up early fully dressed still and away, is there still a crust of that bread? Later picked up in Yugoslavia by a Persian driving a truckload of rugs to Munich, you want to hear about this guy? I believe my senses,I finally had to escape from him in Vienna, completely unstrung me, he was single-minded devotion, we shared five words in English and that’s all. One night at a truck stop outside Belgrade, about midnight of a moonless starry night, we stopped to eat, he propositioned our blond waitress, we finished the meal, and she followed us out to the truck, got in between us, we drove a mile down the road, pitchblack. He pulled to the side and stopped. He grabbed a blanket from the cab, they got out, they disappeared into the featureless landscape. Is this the freebooting life of adventure so ably described in the Tropic of Cancer? Was I next? Could one say No, in Serbo-Croatian? Is there a God? I can’t see them out there. Then just as suddenly as the truck had stopped, and they’d gotten out, she was back, alone, she was furious, she grabbed her jacket from the cab, she was livid, her light summer dress fit her erfectly, she slammed the cab door and took off walking down the highway, back to her truck stop. What had my Persian rug trucker done to earn her disapproval? It was a precipitate disaster.He got back to the truck, threw the blanket in the cab, shrugged his shoulders, and off we drove into the night, there were borders to cross, spring floodwaters rushing off the Alps to admire. But by the time we got to Vienna, after some harrowing driving routines in dense traffic, some lane-changing leaps of faith that only a true son of Allah’s compassionate protection could have gotten away with, he finally pulled off onto a side street, it was about 8 o’clock, we stopped, he said, “Girls” (that was one of the five words we shared) and smiled, reached under the front seat, brought out a razor, a mug with soap, a brush, some cold water from a bottle, and a filthy hand towel, and proceeded to lather up the soap for his evening shave, daubing cold water on his bristly dark beard, and glancing over at me as if to indicate, What an Evening We'll Have! But listening to him pull that dull razor across his cold scraped cheeks I nearly gagged, he was really scraping, nicking chin and cheek, his towel on the seat I wouldn’t even touch. I had to cut, jam, no time to get sick, I thanked him for the lift, he looked surprised, I was abandoning him! Where was my sense of tun? I grabbed my bag, opened the cab door, swung down, waved once, and took off walking down the city street, it was meant to be, back on my own two feet, and all aboard for the night train to Munich,I was on it, now it’s the next day, it’s two in the afternoon and Ive just eaten a bratwurst and drunk a beer, I turn a corner and nearly bump into the only person I know in all of Germany, a girlfriend named Brigitte Gapp with a Marilyn Monroe-like birthmark on a pale cheek, dark hair, big bright smile, I go crazy, this is serendipity writ large, Jung’s magic synchronicity, we fall into each other’s arms, we stare, the only person I know, how account for it? The mind entertains a wisdom that the body can’t understand.

People would say it takes a year, maybe two, there was money on the table, there were things, what was spoiled needed division, a few rounds of letterhead legality meetings on creamy stationery,the feints and dodges, the disclosures, the aggressive silence, the screaming meemies, the three-piece options expert, the comma that allows, insists, demands another term, something must follow the end of the world, this one here, the oi! burner clicks on, these words cost money, it was happening to other people too, it was commonplace, you could join a group and discuss it, commiserating phone calls from old friends long since lost track of, the word spreads, a postcard from a woman in New York wanting to meet, we've mutual friends, let’s have a drink, there’s one in Stockbridge,you could drive down together, a movie nut uptown, I'd really like her, the chorus chorused, she’s just breaking up with, this is the network speaking, it’s an erotic universe of random strangers coupling, the matchmakers were lighting up, they closed the cover before striking, life could resume, don’t hesitate, change your sheets, act like someone in love would act, get that bounce back into your step, kid, talk funny again, and all so nice and young. Quel sequence. It’s typical though isn’t it? There’s more variety in a crisis, more sense of drama in the pain of a social hello, to be on the crest of a breaking wave, but would you get smashed to the sand and ground up, or ride it for all it’s worth into a new life, stolen like fire from the gods one burning finger at a time? Drive, it said,digitalized, accessed, therapied, the talk in every cafe on Main Street.This is our human universe, the glue on a chipped cup, this end that signals a new beginning is the cheapest gas in town. I drink it myself.

              from New American Writing