我的2000年開始旅行

Secretarial School Graduation Dance, 1968

It's strange to think of ourselves
as sperm and egg, our DNA

zipping together, joined along a seam,
23 chromosomes gripping

the other 23 like the dance partners
on the night my parents met.

If there is music in chromosomes
it is built by starlight,

but all the school could afford was a DJ,
a few bowls of punch, and trays layered

with crackers, cheese and squares of ham.
They could not afford to have moonlight

drawn through the windows
by the lacquer on the slick gym floor.

Even my mother's dress
had been worn by her sister

to the same dance the year before.
Still, I would like to have been there.

I would like to have been
the extra tooth in my father's grin,

or the piece of candy my mother
offered him from her purse.

If we lived within our parents'
bodies, traveling from port

to tiny port in their veins,
light funneling in

through their mouths, I think
it must have been the sturdiest form

of heaven, sealed in the adjoining rooms
of our own history.

But who could live as a fraction?
My father couldn't.

I like to think I helped him
overcome his shyness that night,

that I drew the sweat back
into his palms, loosened his tie

so his words could break free.
Or maybe I was just outside

them both, a single beat in the music,
the one that played when she bent —

just long enough to get
a look at his shoes —

and saw him shift his grip
from her shoulder

to her waist, slowly, in a distracted way,
as if by accident.

Weak Forces

I enjoy an accumulating
faith in weak forces –
a weak faith, of course,
easily shaken, but also
easily regained – in what
starts to drift: all the
slow untrainings of the mind,
the sift left of resolve
sustained too long, the
strange internal shift
by which there's no knowing
if this is the road taken
or untaken. There are soft
affinities, possibly electrical;
lint-like congeries; moonlit
hints; asymmetrical pink
glowy spots that are not
the defeat of something,
I don't think.

001 Lolita Complex

銀河戰艦碇在雲邊
反重力裝置使天際線氤氳飄忽
我們在塔上散步
假裝天狼星系的激戰
在我們眼前
沒有任何端倪

明明已經有無窮無盡的能源
為何還要去爭奪
必將用罄的替代品呢？
我故做天真一遍遍問著你
因為銀河戰艦的能源必將用罄
而且沒有代替品呀！

Always For Madame Faure-Favier

Always
We'll go even further never advancing

*

From planet to planet
Nebula to nebula
Never leaving the ground
The Don Juan of 1003 comets
Seeks new forces
Takes spooks seriously

*

So many universes forgotten
Yet where are the truly great forgetters
And whoever will teach us to forget this or that corner of the world
And where is the Christopher Columbus to forget entire continents

*

To lose
Really to lose
To make room for the windfall
To lose
Life to Victory

(The poem in the original French...)

Next Generations
I

But, on "Star Trek," we aren’t the Borg,

the aggressive conglomerate,

each member part humanoid, part

machine, bent on assimilating

foreign cultures. In fact,

we destroy their ship,

night after night,

in preparation for sleep.

2

We sense something's wrong

when our ideal selves

look like contract players.

The captain plays what's left

of believable authority

as a Shakespearean actor.

The rest are there to show surprise

each time

the invading cube appears —

until any response seems stupid.

But we forgive them.

We've made camp

in the glitch

你不能判斷那是狂喜或是厭煩

從彼到此，從亮到暗
有些很華麗容易暈眩
或者太薄弱不能察覺
早晨出門轉身命中一個吻
黃昏海上的火球要滾向何處
呼拉圈在身上搖
棒球在場邊飛繞
電子無限渺小的自旋
星雲在宇宙深處龐然公轉
上帝轉動攝影機偷拍眾生
一顆露珠在荷葉中心靜坐不動
旋轉木馬上待久了，小孩會漸漸長大
樂透的號碼球暴動不休，夢卻漸漸耗弱
旋轉鞋架，旋轉方向盤，旋轉式電動刮鬍刀
電風扇葉繼續找尋著終點的漫漫長夜
感情太多軸心
生活是一種不斷滾落的茫然
不知道要繞著誰轉