罗伯特·普里斯特诗６首

罗伯特·普里斯特(Robert Priest, 1951- )：罗伯特·普里斯特，二十世纪加拿大诗人，生于英国，于1955年随家移居加拿大，曾先后在多伦多大学、赖尔森专科大学执教，他不仅写诗，而且也写歌词、剧本和儿童文学，著有诗集《无形的人》(1979)、《太空人的悲哀》(1980)、《挣脱字母Ｘ的人》(1984)、《疯狂的手》(1988)、《红宝石帽》(1987)等多卷。1989年获得密尔顿·阿康纪念人士诗歌奖。此外，他还出版过一些唱片和录音带，后来一直在多伦多以写作歌词和为摇滚乐队伴唱为生。 罗伯特·普里斯特的诗作想象力丰富，幽默诙谐，语言流畅，然而又具有一定的内涵深度，乐感很强，读来朗朗上口，体现出诗人十分个人化的文学智力，同时也在很大程度上反映了当代人的精神意识。

REVOLUTIONS

Robert Priest
From:   The Visible Man. Toronto: Unfinished Monument Press, 1980.

(for Galileo) 

i am a tall white thing that birds fly out of
that is why you see me in the morning so open-mouthed and foolish
the doctor said
"you are upside down
you have a large wounded thing in your mouth
i would advise you to cry"
but i said "no doctor
you are wrong
i am tremulous and exultant—a green strand
drawn from the throat of a flower
i am the magnet the wind arrives at finally
those are songs you see lodged in me
if i cry there will be no passion in it
i have tried again and again to throw off these robes of water
but wherever i have whirled them—
there the drunken—the inexhaustible flowers
have followed and come groping up to me
with praises
why should i cry?"
"you're upside down" he said
"no" i replied, and i began to revolve in the air
in front of him
"you think it must be somewhere near here
that the ground is
the suicides have told you
the rain and snow have told you
it's down below
somewhere under the houses
but they are wrong
and you are wrong
i am that dancing man
who kicks over the jug of the stars
those are my tracks across the moon

wherever i put my feet
that is where
the ground is

LESSER SHADOWS

Robert Priest
From:   The Visible Man. Toronto: Unfinished Monument Press, 1980.

the buildings wait for the assassins

the shadows are prepared for them—
they flow like dark sheets
of blood from underneath the doors

there are many vacant rooms
many rifles waiting

soon the assassins begin to arrive
they are all a little crazy
moved by politics or dark desires
they are tense and frightened
but eager, jostling one another
for places at the windows

there are assassins behind bushes
assassins on roofs
and distant hilltops
there are so many assassins
there are assassins crouched
in shadows of assassins

it is good that the victim is young
and wealthy. it is good that
he seems to symbolize something

now they prepare their weaponry
his car goes by
the triggers click
a thousand bullets meet
inside a single head
the skull explodes
the president is dead

silently, some with spittle running
from the corners of their mouths,
some dazed, as though awaking from a trance
the assassins file out of the buildings
past the shocked, staring faces to the highways
past the farthest edges of the sun's descending red
and, as night absorbs the lesser shadows
America absorbs her murderers
completely

COME TO ME

Robert Priest
From:   Sadness of Spacemen. Toronto: Dreadnaught Press, 1980.

Come to me
I know we are out of sync
I know they will call it dying
but come to me anyway
I have tried to hate you with the strength
of many animals and I cannot hate you
so come to me burning
and I also will burn
come to me with ancient music and I will be a snake
writhing with my many wrists
each one more undulant than your long hair
o I still have nights and nights of you
all queued up in the thirst of a single slave
to work out
come to me with snow and I will promise
to be red in it
come to me unique and I will match you
stare for stare
come to me in greek in spanish in french in hebrew
and I will sing that I found you
because I overthrew reason
because I live in the wreck of my senses
by wish and magic
like a roc in the ruins of its egg
come to me dancing
that dark bacchanal of your kiss
so wet on my lips for days I will not want
drugs or water
just your own sea broken like a sheet of lightning
on your thigh so sensual
come to me because we will arrive
anyway at each other
because it has been many lives
and each time we touch
great forces
are again able to move
come to me cruel and lovely
because I am abandon
because I am silver
because a million years
you have suffered in slavery to men
and know at last how to be free 

CHRIST IS THE KIND OF GUY

Robert Priest
From:   The Man Who Broke Out of the Letter X. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1984.

Christ is the kind of guy
you just can't help hurting
No matter how much you love him
when you walk you stumble into him
you push him accidentally from a window
If you back the car out
you will find him squashed behind the wheels
broken on the door--all over the grate
Christ has the kind of skin
that bruises when you hold him
the kind of face that
kisses cut
He is always breaking open
when we go to embrace him
Christ the haemophiliac
even the gentlest people can't help
wounding Jesus Christ
They are always running for a band-aid
and then pulling open his old wounds
on a nail
If there is a cross in your house
you will find yourself bumping up against him
accidentally
moving him closer and closer to it
his arms continually more and more
widespread as he talks
Christ is the kind of guy
who can't help falling asleep like that
his arms spread wide as though over the whole world
You have a dream with a hammer
You are making a house
In the morning you awake
and find him up there on the crossbeams
one hand nailed to the door frame
"Look Jesus" you say
"I don't want to be saved like this!"
But then you hurt him
extra
taking him down
you pry at the nails savagely
but it's no use
Christ is the kind of saviour
you can only get off a cross
with a blow torch
"Father forgive them" he says
as you begin to burn his hands 

HOW TO SWALLOW A PIG

Robert Priest
From:   Resurrection in the Cartoon. Toronto: ECW Press, 1997.

Because of the shape of its face, a pig is actually one of the easiest animals to swallow whole.* Still, pig-swallowing is a very difficult and potentially dangerous activity. If you have advance notice, a certain amount of jaw-stretching and lip-widening prior to the event is always helpful. Your greatest enemy is self-doubt. You have to look at the pig's head and tell yourself that you can do this. Once you have greased the pig, begin by letting the fine tapered end of the snout proceed through your lips. The first obstacle, if it is not the back of your throat, will likely be your front teeth. Unfortunately these will have to be broken off. This clears the way for the full face-taper of the pig snout to zero in on your gullet. You have to be thinking "outrage" when this begins to happen for it is entirely violating and painful. But your throat can take it. Allow the gorge to widen as though it were a fluid, thinner with each stretch. You throat is a powerful python, infinitely elastic and accommodating. Once the entire pig head has squeezed by your gag reflex and entered your gorge you are fully committed. You will not be able to vomit out the pig safely. Nor can you wait long to continue, for at this time your trachea is entirely blocked by the pig's head. You are unable to breathe. Do not panic. Do not attempt to gasp or retch. Concentrate on swallowing. Having the wideness of the pig's bulky shoulders in your once narrow throat is perhaps the most violating thing you will ever experience. But you can do this. Just tell yourself: this is possible. Swallow and stretch. Keep your lower jaw loose to prevent the bone from snapping at the hinge. Suck with your guts. Use your lower diaphragm to draw the fat pig ever further down the gullet. Let your thick and lucent saliva lubricate the way. Saturating the pig with your juices will allow the celiated gorge to usher the pig deeper and deeper into your being. You may now need a friend with a stick to stuff in the pig's back end. This is the most crucial period. You will have been without oxygen for quite some time. You are probably blue in the face, but if you can widen to your most extreme limit, your throat cracking like wet bark, you will be able to slide your blue lips over the bare buttocks and with the last kick of the back trotters, the curl of the pig's tail will be gone. The entire pig is in your throat. Your intestines are stretching. Peristalsis has begun. The glottis is finally released and the first, terrible new breath can come with a gasp. You've lived! You've swallowed the whole pig. And now that it's entirely in your stomach you have to ask yourself: Is this not a most familiar feeling? Is this not the greatest feeling on earth? 


* It is also one of the easiest animals to shove up the anus. This is not recommended for reasons of hygiene.

THE NON-VIOLENT BOXER

Robert Priest
From:   Resurrection in the Cartoon. Toronto: ECW Press, 1997.

He came from nowhere. The quickest ducker in the world. The fastest chin in existence. The non-violent boxer, just deeking and dodging, while his opponent flails away. Thwip! Thwip! Look at that guy move! Look at the way he pops that lightbulb-like head straight down, almost as though into some turtle hole in the top of his torso. Shhzooopp! And a fist cuts through naked air, the little guy's legs shooting wide apart. Five rounds and he hasn't been touched. 

If you listen you can hear him over the ring mike trying to persuade his opponent. "Do you think it would be a victory if you beat me?" Thwip! "That would be just one more loss for both of us." Thwip! Thwip! "The greatest victory of all is in our grasp, but I need you my brother." Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! 

在90年代，当代诗歌的存在已经转移到民间。诗歌的权威性、标准、影响力是在民间，而公开出版的诗歌刊物由于长期对当代诗歌的先锋性、探索性的敌视和冷漠(在这一点上，他们甚至比那些公开的综合性文学刊物更保守，后者甚至比纯诗歌刊物"在诗歌上"更具有权威性)。诗歌出版物在诗人们中间早已威望扫地，(如果在80年代它们还有过些威望--先锋派诗歌在其上发表，会在一种严峻的氛围中受到广泛的注目的话，)在90年代，先锋派诗歌早已从昔日诗歌体制建立起来的马其顿防线胜利大逃亡。剩下来的只是一些"诗歌堡垒"，这些堡垒已经从昔日的"发表权威"降为仅仅有发表权而没有美学上的权威性的"百花园"，只是依靠体制才可能苟延残喘。在90年代，先锋派和民间刊物已经不是昔日令少数人声名狼藉、惨烈悲壮的另类姿态，它已经成为当代诗歌的"真正诗歌方向"、或所谓"纯诗"的方向。(这个方向与古代诗歌的基本方向是一致的，那就是从此出发，诗人们再次有了"千秋万岁名"的可能，而不再是所谓转瞬即逝的所谓"时代的最强音"或低音。)所谓诗歌，从一般来说，指的已经不是诗歌堡垒上出现的那些，而是在民间刊物上出现的那些。中国当代先锋诗歌中的"地下性"已经模糊，昔日在这个状态下的愤怒表情已经显得相当可疑，只剩下实用的部分。诗歌如果要继续先锋的话，那么，它不再是从"地下"开始，而是从民间，从诗歌内部开始。而诗歌的民间性日益清晰，在民间，即使一个三流的诗人也可以靠着民间刊物声名鹊起，这是在公开的诗歌出版物上根本做不到的。公平说，那些正式刊物偶而也会发表不错的作品，许多诗歌堡垒为了争取读者，也要办一些"民间社团诗歌选"之类的栏目。但往往结果却是作品被埋没，因为总体的平庸和不被信任已经决定了作品们必定不被注意的命运。

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