Native of Jiangsu, PRC, upon graduation from Beijing Normal University in 1987, taught in Southeast University Nanjing for a dozen of years.  He writes, translates and currently is studying poetry in National University of Singapore.

生于中国江苏，1987年毕业于北京师范大学，后任教于南京东南大学十余年，写诗、译诗、研究诗歌，目前在新加坡国立大学，为博士候选人。

Black-Eyed Susan

黑瞳金光菊

Your black-eyed Susan smells of milk and omelette,
Like a grin that wells up as the morning star flares.
A bliss that filters through me you happily make light of,
For a whole season, the day breaks with a warm onset.
All that’s borne into your life is plainly small, so
You never believe in making a whisper grand or grave.
Behind the folding screens over the dark, our eye-contact
Traverses the rugged terrain of impulse loves.
In a trance I am lost in your constricted pupil
And see Death sparkles at the other end of a tunnel
Like a sun emitting heat between two petals of cloud.
You sprinkle as life is bustling in the corridor, not to water
But to wash away the overnight dust on the hairy receptacle, 
And I weave the aftertaste of my juice into this sonnet.

* The Black-Eyed Susan is a stiff, upright annual or short-lived 
perennial herb, probably the most common of all American wildflowers. 
It has a hairy stem and leaves and showy flower heads with bright 
orange-yellow ray florets and a dark purple or brown domed center.
			

你的黑瞳金光菊散发出牛奶和煎蛋的芬香，
犹如浅笑绽开成露齿，而启明星也骤然放光。
整个季节，这寻常的喜乐伴随着每一个破晓
浸润我的身心，而你欣悦地视为理所当然。
在你生活中生长的一切都平凡而微小，
你从未学会如何将低语渲染成庄严或盛大。
我循着这花朵艳丽的睫毛，穿越爱情
崎岖嶙峋的高原，最终与那水汪汪的黑色对视；
而恍惚间，我似乎迷失于你收缩的瞳仁，
看见死亡在隧道的另一端闪着智慧的光，
犹如太阳从两瓣乌云间射出喷薄的热气。
这时走廊开始奔忙，你拿起喷壶，不为浇花，
而是要洗去吸附在花托茸毛上的隔夜之尘，
而我将早点果汁的余味写成这首十四行。

* 黑心菊又称为多毛金光菊，英文字面直译为“黑眼睛
的苏珊”，原生于北美东部，可谓是北美最为常见的一
种野生菊花。如今中国也有移植。这是一种多年生草本
植物，茎叶带毛，有亮丽的桔黄色伞形头状花序，以及
犹如瞳仁一般的深紫色或棕色花心。每年花期在6月到
8月间。
			

The Supreme Abstraction

至高的抽象

Tell me what it is as you have always wanted,
Tell me even though I have no more faith in telling than what is told
Tell me so that I can only have faith in you like you are what is being told.
Give it a name, whatever is given is good,
Say, say it is a kind of snow only Eskimos have the word,
But still, give it a name as if you give it a birth and you are its womb.
Tell me its name so that I can live in it like I am in you,
As my mind has lost its sense of touch since it was bereaved of your bosom.

Draw a shape in the air between your eyes and mine,
Be it triangular, quadrilateral or elliptical, 
So that your finger can index my sight and my sight
Will be mapped on your face, 
So that your presence is music silent for itself
And you will be saved from finding any word or voicing any sound,
So that you can disregard my head and look over my shoulders into the sky 
Where the sun is setting the alarm clock of darkness for the vagabond. 

Tell me it is a new species we are foreign to 
And it metamorphoses like an extraterrestrial butterfly, beyond taxonomy.
Unfathomable and static, it holds under the translucent membrane
A power capable of a lesser Big Bang.
Jelly-like, pleasant to look and responsive to steps of the slightest draft,
It lubricates no heart and enamels no face, and it is death to taste, maybe.
Tell me not to peel it or dissect it, not to play with it, 
For in this word beyond belief, only you I have decided to believe.

But you’ve touched it, and now it swells and glows, 
And the reflection of your face looms and grows, 
Your eyes bigger and brighter, lips fleshier and mouth opening wider.
As your contours inflate and expand, I stand aside, agape, 
As the heart contracts.
			

告诉我那是什么，就像你一直想告诉我的那样。
在我对诉说和能说都已失去信念的时候，告诉我，
于是我便只有你可以相信，犹如你便是你诉说的意义。
给它一个名字，无论给出的是什么，那都是美，
就说那是一种雪，只有爱斯基摩人才有那样的词汇；
但是，仍然给它一个名字，犹如你是它的生母、孕育它的子宫。
告诉我它的名字，于是我便能居住其中，犹如居住你的身体，
因为我的灵魂早已失去了触觉因为触觉形成于你的胸膛。

在你我眼睛之间的半空中划出它的形状，
不管那是三角还是四边还是简化了的圆圈。
当你的食指划过半空，我的眼神才有轨迹，
于是我的眼神图才会映上你的脸；
而你将像音乐一样在沉默中拯救自己，
不必震动声带或搜索枯肠，意义为自己澄明。
你可以越过我的双肩透过我的脑袋看着远天，
看西下的夕阳正为流浪者设定黑暗的闹钟。

告诉我，这种新式物质你我都不识得，
它无法分类，像外太空的蝴蝶一样蜕变，
那半透明的粘膜下内聚着深不可测的动能，
一旦爆裂，便足以催生一个小小的宇宙。
它像果子冻一样悦目，随着穿堂风最轻的脚步声颤动，
但它不能滋润一颗心或者一张脸，甚至浅尝也是死亡，或许。
警告我不要剥皮、不要剖开、更不可玩弄，
警告我吧，因为我已决定将信心只留给你，尽管这世界已不可相信。

而你终于触摸了它，而它一经你的触摸，立刻膨胀而发光，
你的脸在它的表面急速生长，眼睛越来越大越来越明亮，
鼻梁高挺，嘴唇越发丰满，逐渐开启。
我呆呆地眼看你的轮廓难以遏止地鼓胀，心在紧缩。