Michael Ryan has written four books of poems, an autobiography, a memoir, and a collection of essays about poetry and writing. His New and Selected Poems was published by Houghton Mifflin and won the 2005 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His work has also won the Lenore Marshall Prize, a Whiting Writers Award, two National Endowment of the Arts Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, among other distinctions. He is Professor of English and Creative Writing at University of California, Irvine.

迈克尔-莱安著有四本诗集，一本自传，一本论文集和一些诗论及写作论方面的学术文章。他的《新诗及诗选》由霍汤-密夫林出版社出版并获2005年金斯莱-塔夫特诗歌奖。他的著作亦获勒诺.马歇尔奖和崴汀作家奖。他还获得过两次国家艺术奖学金，古根汉奖学金，以及耶鲁青年诗人奖。他现为加州大学尔湾校区英语及写作教授。

生于中国重庆，上小学时随父母移居上海。毕业于复旦大学，并分别在美国两所大学获得学位。诗天空诗人协会会员。著有诗集《四月的墙下》《时间的乡愁》《原始角落》《沉默的颜色》《抵达季节》和《太阳车轮》。现居南加州。

Yuan Liang was born in Chongqing, China. He moved to Shanghai with his parents while he attended elementary school. He graduated from Fudan University and holds graduate degrees from two American universities. He is a member of PoetrySky Poets Association and he has published a book of poetry Beneath the Wall of April (2009), Homesick of Time (2010), The Primitive Corner (2011), The Silent Color (2012), Arriving Season (2013), and Sun Wheel (2014). He lives in Southern California.

The Blind Swimmer

盲泳者

We know he's out there,

swimming slowly, searching for corners

in the sea where the dark has rubbed away.

Each breath he takes takes him deeper

inside his mind where voices without sources 

scream "Swim!" and even the ocean 

is missing.  Still, he swims.

The water fills his cupped hands 

like breasts, the one constant in a crowd

of waves pushing him nowhere, the blue

salt glued to his eyes like braille.

What do his dead eyes say?

The body that keeps him buoyant is a room,

the pain would stop if he just walked out?



On the shore, our feet planted like roots,

we watch for a sign.  Some of us yell

at anything: a wounded dolphin breaking 

into air, the torn edge of a fin 

mistaken for his hand.  The ocean doesn't 

stand for our common life, what makes us

need one another, but we still fear

drowning.  So, safely together,

we wait for the blind swimmer 

to walk out of the sea and say it's all right,

you can swim alone without seeing.

Some of us wait a long time.



I know he's out there.

He smells the ocean, doesn't he, that old

naked woman?  She takes his tongue

in her mouth, doesn't her mouth open?

I hear him going under,

quietly as memory enters dreams, his dream

nothing I can imagine, tasting water so deep,

light is terrible and fish see through their skin.

			

我们知道他在那儿，

在黑暗被抹掉的海上

慢吞吞地游泳，寻找静僻处

每一次呼吸都使他更深入

大脑，那儿不知来自何方的声音

尖叫着：游啊！纵然大海

不能被看见。他仍然游着

注满水而呈杯形的双手

像乳房，被水的波涌持续地

推动，却仍困在原处

蓝色的盐粘合在他的双眼像盲人字典

他的盲眼在说些什么？

他浮起的身体是一个房间，

如果他冲出房间，痛苦会停止吗？



在海岸，我们的双足向下伸展，像植物的根

我们注视着海上的迹象，有些人

对着迹象呼喊：一只受伤的海豚

跃入空中，翅膀撕裂的边缘

被误认为他的手。海洋并不

代表我们的普通生活，使我们

彼此需要，但我们仍然畏惧

淹死。所以，放心地在一起，

等待盲泳者

走出海域并且说一切都好，

你能独自游泳而无需看见。

我们中某些人守望已久。



我知道他在那儿。

他嗅着海洋，不是吗，那个

裸体的老妇？她把他的舌头

放进自己的嘴里，她的嘴张开着吗？

我听见他在屈服，

当记忆悄悄进入梦，他的梦

我无法想象，品尝海水如此深邃，

光是那么可怕，鱼识破自己的皮。

			

The Pure Loneliness

纯净的孤独

Late at night, when you're so lonely,

your shoulders curl toward the center of your body,

you call no one and you don’t call out.



This is dignity.  This is the pure loneliness

that made Christ think he was God.

This is why lunatics smile at their thoughts.



Even the best moment, as you slip

half-a-foot deep into someone you like,

sinks through the loneliness in it

to the loneliness that's not.



If you believe in Christ hanging on the cross,

his arms spread as if to embrace 

the Father he calls who is somewhere else,



you still might hear your own voice

at your next great embrace, thinking

loneliness in another can't be touched,



like Christ's voice at death answering Himself.

			

夜深了，你如此孤独，

你的双肩屈伸至胸前

你没叫过谁，也没喊出声。



这是尊严。是纯粹的孤独

这孤独使基督认为他是神。

也是何以狂人们莞尔自己的心思。



甚至在销魂时刻，当你滑入

你的爱人半英尺深，

沉入其中的孤独

伸向其外的孤独。



如果你相信基督悬于十字架，

他的膀臂伸展仿佛在拥抱

他所呼唤的父，而父在别的地方，



你也许仍能听见你自己的声音

在你下次的伟大拥抱，心想

我无法触摸另一个人的孤独，



就像基督的声音在垂死时回答他自己。

			

The Past

过去

It shows up one summer in a greatcoat,

storms through the house confiscating,

says it must be paid and quickly,

says it must take everything.



Your children stare into their cornflakes,

your wife whispers only once to stop it,

because she loves you and she sees it

darken the room suddenly like a stain.



What did you do to deserve it,

ruining breakfast on a balmy day?

Kiss your loved ones.  Night is coming.

There was no life without it anyway.

			

在夏天，它出现于一件大衣，

咆哮着穿过行将没收的房子，

说它必须尽快付清，

说它必须带走一切。



你的孩子们凝视碎玉米片，

你的妻子轻语一声阻止它，

因为她爱你，注意到它

使房间蓦然变黑，像一团污斑。



你做了什么使你招此报应，

在温馨的一天糟蹋了早餐？

亲亲你所爱的人。夜在降临，

有生命的地方就会有过去。

			

Chronic Severe Incurable

持久 剧烈 无法治愈

There's nothing more you can learn from pain,

but here it comes again—with its monotone,

its idiot drone, like a brick wall against which

thinking smacks its big skull until it's juiceless

fruit the devil reams clean with red teeth

and razor-blade tongue.  Pain:

payment, penalty, punish, revenge—

all these miseries inhering in the word:

you must think no word for what you feel.

The being pain is being is you.

			

你已经痛苦至极

但它又来了——伴随着单调声响，

和愚蠢的嗡营，像一堵砖墙

靠着它，思想击打自己硕大头骨直至

自己无汁的果实被魔鬼用红牙齿

和剃刀片的舌头榨光。痛苦：

付款，罚款，惩处，报复——

所有这些不幸都成为一个词的固有部分：

你找不到能表述你感觉的字。

你就是痛苦。