Joseph Brodsky (1940-96) was born in Leningrad and emigrated to the United States in 1972 as an involuntary exile from the Soviet Union. His main collections of poetry include A Part of Speech (1977), To Urania (1988), and So Forth (1996); books of prose: Less Than One (1986), Watermark (1992), On Grief and Reason (1996).He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987 and served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1991 to 1992.

约瑟夫-布罗茨基（1940-96）出生于列宁格勒，1972年被苏联当局驱逐出境，移居美国。他的诗集主要有：《部分言辞》（1977），《致乌拉尼亚》（1988），《如此等等》（1996）；散文集：《小于一》（1986），《水印》（1992），《悲痛与理智》（1996）。布罗茨基于1987年获诺贝尔文学奖，1991-92年间任美国桂冠诗人。

冯冬，现居青岛，2011年从南京大学英语系获博士学位，致力于诗、哲学、精神分析的共通，译过多位美国诗人，包括司各特-琼斯诗集《别处》、《未来是一只灰色海鸥：西尔维娅-普拉斯诗全集》（上海译文出版社）。其对诗之本质陌异性的关注凝结成三本诗集：《平行舌头》、《沙漠泳者》、《残酷的乌鸦》（与孙冬合著，南京大学出版社）。原创作品刊于《诗天空》《美国诗歌评论》等海内外诗刊。

Peter Feng is a poet and translator from Qingdao, China. He received a PhD in English Literature from Nanjing University in 2011, and since then he has been exploring the interconnections between poetry, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. He has translated a number of American poets, including elsewhere by Scott Alexander Jones and The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath (Shanghai Translation Publishing House). He is the author of Parallel Tongues, The Desert Swimmer, and Cruel Raven (co-authored with Sun Dong, Nanjing University Press). His poems appear in Poetry Sky, American Poetry Review, Big Scream, Grey Sparrow, Napalm Health Spa, and others.

The Berlin Wall Tune

柏林墙之歌

——for Peter Viereck

This is the house destroyed by Jack.
This is the spot where the rumpled buck
stops, and where Hans gets killed.
This is the wall that Ivan built.

This is the wall that Ivan built.
Yet trying to quell his sense of guilt,
he built it with modest gray concrete,
and the booby-traps look discreet.

Under this wall that (a) bores, (b) scares,
barbed-wire meshes lie flat like skeins
of your granny's darnings (her chair still rocks!)
But the voltage's too high for socks.

Beyond this wall throbs a local flag
against whose yellow, red, and black
Compass and Hammer proclaim the true
Masonic dream's breakthrough.

The border guards patiently in their nest
through binoculars scan the West
and the East; and they like both views
devoid, as it well, of Jews.

Those who are seen here, thought of, felt,
were kept on a leash by the sense of Geld
or by a stronger Marxist urge.
The wall won't let them merge.

Come to this wall if you hate your place
and face a sample of cosmic space
where no life forms can exist at all
and objects only fall.

Come to this scornful of peace and war
petrified version of either/or
meandering through these bleak parts which act
like your mirror,cracked.

Dull is the day here. In the night
searchlights illuminate the blight
making sure that if someone screams,
it's not due to bad dreams.

For dreams here aren't bad: just wet with blood
of one of your likes who left his pad
to ramble at will; and in his head
dreams are replaced by lead.

Given that, it's only time
who has guts enough to commit the crime
of passing this place back and forth on foot:
at pendulums they don't shoot.

That's why this site will see many moons
while couples lie in their beds like spoons,
while the rich are wondering what they wish
and single girls eat quiche.

Come to this wall that beats other walls:
Roman, Chinese, whose worn-down, false
molars envy steel fangs that flash,
scrubbed of thy neighbor's flesh.

A bird may twitter a better song.
But should you consider abortion wrong
or that the quacks ask too high a fee,
Come to this wall, and see.

——给彼得-维埃瑞克

这就是杰克炸毁的房子。
  这儿皱巴巴的美元流通停止
这儿就是汉斯被杀害的地方。
  在这里伊凡筑起了高墙。

在这里伊凡筑起了高墙。
  为抵消自己的负罪，他用
普通灰色混凝土修筑，
  诱杀的机关毫不显著。

这墙下a）有人挖洞，b）有人恐吓
  铁丝网眼密布，正如
你老祖母修补的织物（她的摇椅还在摇）
  但这袜子的电压出奇地高！

这堵墙外扑朔着一面
  红、黄、黑的本地旗
罗盘与锤子在对面宣布
  石匠的梦想被突破。

从巢穴中，边境警察
  以双筒望远镜扫视西方
和东方；显然他们从两方
  都不希望看到犹太人在场。

凡被这地方记住的人
  要么套着金钱的狗绳
要么挨着马克思主义的鞭子
  这堵墙绝不会让他们合一。

你如果四处游荡，不妨来这墙
  看看宇宙空间的模样
这里，生命无法以任何形式存在
  这里物体只能坠落。

这地方同时鄙视了战争与和平
  非此即彼的化石
蜿蜒遍布这荒凉地区
  如你已经破碎的镜子。

这里白天沉闷乏味。夜晚
  探照灯扫过不毛之地
以保证如果有人尖叫
  那不是因为噩梦袭击。

这儿的梦还不坏：却被你辈的鲜血
  浸染，某人离开床垫
来这里散步；他脑袋里
  梦想已被铅弹取代。

鉴于此，只有时间
  有足够胆量犯下
来回徒步穿越此地带的罪愆：
  他们不会射击钟摆。

于是你在这儿看到很多月亮
  当夫妻们勺子般躺在床上
当富人们飘飘欲仙地幻想 
  而单身女孩们吞下了乳酪蛋卷。

看吧，这击败了所有墙的墙！
  罗马，中国，它们千疮百孔的假齿
羡慕你闪耀的钢牙，
  被你邻居的肉体磨得锃亮。

鸟儿也许叽喳出更动听的歌
  如果你认为堕胎大错特错
或者庸医收费太高
  来这堵墙看看吧。