John Ash

意大利的回忆

【美】约翰·阿什      陈子弘  译

——献给帕特·斯蒂尔

我当然爱那里的光
以及年轻男人彼此间
调情的方式。
我喜欢那轻快，——

它落下如同画作自天际降临，
或者也许像挥洒（希望这
样的说法不会太过
悖谬）于大地，

或如年轻人站在车站中
穿着天青色的牛仔裤
抑或如画中海洋之色，
展示他们腿形的裤子，让我想起

站前广场上的雕塑群，
那里阳光照射得如此猛烈
雕像阴影却比画家的绝望又还要黑
画家无法继续作画：画布
在他前面，画上的碧海和空白处犹如车站上方的天空

年轻人在站前游荡着看起就像特洛伊大战某个间歇
闲逛的英雄
平静海畔旁慵懒地吃顿野餐，在微笑的
天空下，
而这场战争半似会永远结束，显然
他们都必定就会很快彼此爱上……
而画家知道这幅画必须要显得英勇，而蓝色
并不是天空
是神已举起一片怒海要浸死车站中
大理石战场上年轻人的俊美，

他知道这幅画画完了，
它代表了神明感到对人类的羡慕
如同大理石羡慕海水一样，

而那幅画悬挂在车站大厅中
年轻人在画前漫不经心地走来走去：
他们的脚似乎不怎么踩到大理石沧海。

译注：帕特·斯蒂尔（Pat Steir1938-  ）美国画家和版画家。她的早期作品与观念艺术和极简主义有着松散的联系，然而，她最著名的作品是她在 20 世纪 80 年代开始创作的抽象滴、泼、浇 “瀑布 ”画，以及后来创作的特定地点墙面绘画。

诗人简介：约翰·阿什（John Ash，1948 年 6 月 29 日-2019 年 12 月 3 日）是一位旅居美国的英国诗人和作家。他毕生对拜占庭（尤其是拜占庭建筑）的兴趣是贯穿其诗歌、小说和游记写作的重要主题。

Memories of Italy

                               for Pat Steir

I loved the light of course
and the way the young men
flirted with each other.
I loved the light, —

the way it fell out of a sky like a painting,
or perhaps like the ground (if this
is not too paradoxical a way of
putting it) for a painting,

and the way the young men stood in the station
wearing jeans that were the colour of the sky
or the sea in a painting, jeans that revealed
the shapes of their legs which reminded me

of the statues in the square outside the station
where the light fell with such violence
their shadows were blacker than the despair of the painter
who cannot proceed with the painting: the canvas
is before him, its ground blue and blank as the sky above the station

where the young men loiter like the heroes in one of the lulls of
the Trojan War
when lazy picnics were possible beside the calm sea, under the
smiling sky,
and it half seems that the war will end forever, for surely they
must all soon fall in love with each other . . .
And the painter knows his painting must be heroic, that the blue
is not the sky
but a terrible sea a God has raised to drown the beauty of the
young men in the marble battlefield of the station,

and he knows the painting is finished,
that it represents the envy the divine must feel
towards the human as marble must envy the sea,

and the painting is hung in the concourse of the station
and the young men drift indifferently to and fro before it:
their feet hardly seem to touch the blue marble ground.

John Ash

from Disbelief

#1988年最佳美国诗选#