Timothy Liu is the author of five books of poems: Vox Angelica (Alice James Books, 1992), which won the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America; Burnt Offerings (Copper Canyon Press, 1995); Say Goodnight (Copper Canyon Press, 1998); Hard Evidence (Talisman House, 2001); and Of Thee I Sing (University of Georgia Press, 2004). A new book, For Dust Thou Art, is forthcoming from Southern Illinois University Press in Fall 2005. His poems have recently been translated into Chinese, Polish, Russian, Slovene and Turkish. Born in California and raised by immigrant parents from Mainland China, Liu is currently an Associate Professor of English at William Paterson University and on the Core Faculty of the MFA Writing Program at Bennington College. He lives in Hoboken, NJ.

刘悌摩出版过五本书。他的第一本诗集《沃克丝.安杰莉卡》(詹姆士书局, 1992)，获美国诗歌协会诺玛.珐芭首书奖；《被烧毁的奉献》(库博大峡谷出版社, 1995)；《说晚安》（库博大峡谷出版社，1998）；《有力的证据》(塔里斯曼书社, 2001)；《我为你而歌唱》(乔治亚大学出版社，2004)。他的新书，《你为凡尘》即将由南伊利诺大学出版社于2005 年秋季出版。他的诗被译为多种文字，包括中文，波兰文，俄文，斯洛文尼亚文和土耳其文。在加利福尼亚出生的刘悌摩生长于中国大陆移民来美的父母家庭，目前是威廉帕特森大学的英语副教授，同时也是柏林顿学院的MFA创作班的核心教员。他现定居在新泽西州的霍波肯。

Laoha, poet and translator, pen name of Xiaoqing Mario Li, born in China in 1960. He moved to USA in 1986 and made his residence in northern Nevada since 1987.

老哈，诗人、译者，原名李小庆，1960年出生于中国成都，1986年赴美，后定居内华达至今。

No Ithaka

伊萨基岛不存在

Could we return (after twelve years



holding out for all that must be

relinquished) to desires 



inchoate as the gathering



storms we thought to navigate in order

to arrive



only to never arrive at what we thought was



promised─the ecstatic

hurrahs



exhausting us (exacting labors without



respect to some imagined quietude

jumping ship, wading



across the tumult to sail on past



mendacities framed as

epic verse) for what we’d wanted to



secure was not an Ithaka nor



a post anyone might

return to but the uncharted



azure seas─no one waiting on anyone else



back home, whether whole or torn

apart, love itself the transient



dwelling place where manifold joys &



jealousies found themselves

inured, always



setting out for yet a farther shore─

			

我们还能回头吗？(在十二年来



我们所作出的努力和

放弃后) 再次去渴求，



如同我们以为



必须穿越的风暴那样

去聚集，以抵达



我们认为会出现的，却无论如何



也不会到来的，预计的狂喜

欢呼，



让我们全力耗竭(付出极大的心力，完全



不理会是以如何难以想象的平静，

由船上跳入



激流中，跋涉横越，



在编织得有如诗史一般的过往

谎言上扬帆航行)，因为我们所想要



确保的不是一个伊萨基岛，也不是



一个人人都可以

回来的岗位，而是想要一个航图上没有的



蔚蓝海洋 --- 没有谁在等待谁的



归来，不论是丝毫无损或是四分

五裂，爱情本身只不过是暂时的



居所，在这里各种各样的快乐和



妒忌时时发生，得始终

预备着



驶向又一彼岸。



注：伊萨基岛，希腊西部的一个岛屿，传说为希腊神话中的英雄奥德修斯的家。

			

Poem

诗

                           

Meet me not in friendship nor romance

Not in male nor female

For there you will not find me

Not because I am not all the things I say

But because I am (we are) so much more than said

Galaxies in the glance

Stardust in the carbon beyond all dating

Meet me not in word nor silence

Not in weakness nor in strength

I wake I sleep I wake

Slayed by phantoms that come and go

Taunted by all that freely roams

While I remain chained to the brink of some abyss

That refuses to be named

A chaos older than the world

An order older than the gods that come and go

Meet me there

Don't say you are attracted to me

Say you are repulsed

And I will fashion a crown of fire

That will not lose its luster

When words are betrayed

And if my cheeks have turned to salt

In those hours when all that which cannot be said

Must be wept

And the body that heaves alone

Is but an insignificant engine of grief

That drives its human song to the very edge

Where there is nothing left to be wept

For the tears we cry are numbered in their finitude

What then

What breaks the silence then

If not the unheard laughter of a baby girl

Drowned at the bottom of a well

The psychic choke-hold on the throat

Released at last

And the vatic decrees resume─

This is not a poem

Nor some feeble attempt at speech

Nor some labyrinthine cord I pull myself along

To where I know not where I go only that I go

Meet me there

Only so many breaths each of us have left to take

Only so many selves each of us can forge

Already I am dissolving

And what do I care about what you call me

Or even if I have a name

Only that you call

The night the day the night the day the night

Until your voice dissolves

Until there’s nothing left for us to sing

Until we are revealed

Beyond the thousandfold mirrors that imprison us

Meet me there

			

你若要想见我，不要到友谊或者浪漫里去找

也不要在男人或者女人里面去找

因为那样你找不到

并不是因为我不是我所说那样

而是因为我本身(我们本身)远远超过语言的描绘

去看一看无数的星系吧

那些星云已经无法用碳素测定年代



你若要想见我，不要到文字或者沉默中去找

也不要在软弱或者坚强里面去找

我清醒我昏睡我清醒

被来来去去的幻影杀戳

被无忧无虑的游民们嘲讽

当我被羁绊在某个

拒绝命名的深渊边缘

一个远比世界还古老的混沌

一个比你来我往的神祗还古老的秩序



到那儿见我



不要说你被我所吸引

而要说你被断然拒绝

我要用火精心制作一个桂冠

它将永不会失去光泽

当语言被背叛的时候

如果我的脸颊变成了盐

在那时刻一切都无法诉说

只有哭泣

还有可以独自高高举起的身体

这只不过是一台无关紧要的悲伤引擎

把人类的歌唱赶到最后的边缘

在那里没有任何值得哭泣的东西遗留下来

因为我们为哭泣而流的眼泪寥寥可数



然后怎样

然后沉默又是为什么被打破

如果不是一个女婴发出听不见的笑声

淹死在一口井底

精神梗塞 --- 被卡住了咽喉

最后才发布

预言性的法令又恢复



这不是一首诗

也不是对演讲所作的某个微弱尝试

更不是我走在迷宫里拉的细绳子

到我知道的地方而不是到我只要去的地方



到那儿来见我



我们各自的呼吸只剩下这么多

只剩下这么多的自我还可以锻造

我已经开始在消溶

我还会在乎你怎么称呼我

或者即使我有一个名字

你只这样称呼我

黑夜白昼黑夜白昼黑夜

直到你的声音消溶

直到没有任何事情留下可以让我们歌唱

直到我们被嚗光

在成千上万监禁著我们的镜子之外



到那儿来见我