讀The Slow Insult—遲緩之凌辱
緩緩從病榻站起，我們稱之為遺跡的，其實是少對苦痛的病例留下感想。僅閃光之間，重頭回憶一遍，而痛覺退化但仍攜帶在身。鄭愁予的測影的捕捉術曾如此寫著：「毫微入目，歲月久了只是／新怨的滋生。」在The Slow Insult，女人坐在床上擴張的意象，在Lee Upton筆下這更甚於浮冰上的攀爬、叢林中的防禦，被陌生化（Defimiliarization）為場景，立體僅在過去的尖端似乎隨時被折斷。新怨的滋生是一種慢性病症，始終盯住人的肉身。
有時靈魂的公寓裡，很早就住著這樣厭惡的情緒，同How it would have lodged in the heart／its poison／how good for once at last not to be young，老了發現年輕故意的置之不理用年紀的虧損換來。逐一考古之中，在雨中彎曲、鏽蝕等而不復擁有血氣之衝動，我們合作對象時間此時才讓人瞭解這隱隱的痛。
不同測影的捕捉術實紀的悠閒，詩中說話人講關於一個女人的體悟是如何存而不失重量，嘲解過往某段對話。但Lee Upton的意象營造更讓我們迷惑其中。如果永棲我們心中的屈辱，例如民族意識、階級問題、性別差距或是一個人的殺傷力那麼久也不能平息，那大患要寄於那個世界？是不是在南北東西座標裡只有叢林、極地的消失才暗示長久療養的溫病是貼附在肉體的隱喻，沒有所謂重新開始。
The Slow Insult
How long did it take crawling the ice floes?
How long on the flesh of the anaconda of the Amazon?
Or else
how fortified the mind must be,
its sentries waving their pikesuntil years later
a woman sits up in bed
and recalls a conversation
and how she treated words as
without cunning.By now the insult is rusted and bent
and dwindled a bit in rain,
and the insult's dart is as curious as
an archeological implement
an archaeological implement
in a museum.How good it was late.
How good it was slow.
How it would have lodged in the heart
its poison,
how good for once at last not to be young.(Lee Upton,The Georgia Review Volume LVII, Number 4 Winter 2003 )
待讀
其他的詩 | March 6, 2004 11:21 AM
http://adirondackreview.homestead.com/featuredupton.html
印卡 | March 6, 2004 11:26 AM
Perennial snow on the mountain,
dragon's blood sedum, fever dew.
They are doing what
their kind do: crying,
Enter me I don't care.
As if the world turns
its lips around them
just as some of us will do
for some others. He's rich,
the man who watches the woman
raking around a plaster chicken. And
the woman, they say, is not quite
right. Making a plaster chicken at home
is all it looks like to him.
In the morning the mist appears about to break
the garden's ornamental bridge
as if someone cannot walk back
that way again.
In the stories of childhood,
those that make us happy,
someone is always caught
for good. She can't go back either.
That's justice: Someone else says
No. The world won't love you enough.
We might believe all this
but there is so much tenderness
in even that woman
raking around a chicken.
When the man slides open the glass
doors, he walks to her. They stand quietly
as if waiting
for a story some flowers might tell
when they are very tired and about
to blow over the lawn.
Some of them believe there is
no snow and that it is a burden
only they can bear to be beautiful.
For others, they do what they can:
The woman's hand is muscular and moving,
and the man, he has, he has
some lovely spotted money he waves
into all that racket
inside the woman's head.
印卡 | May 31, 2005 05:35 PM