Ya Yin's "To Matisse" II. III 瘂弦之『獻給馬蒂斯 』II. III

Cont'd

II

虹的日子

你詮釋脫下的女衫的芬芳的靜寂

你詮釋乳房內之黑暗

(一朵花盛住整個的夜晚！)

你詮釋被吻啃蝕的頸項。十二時以後的

他們的眼

總容易是風信子

 

自你炙熱的掌中她們用大塊的紅色呼救

你微笑，匆急如第一次

描一席波斯地毯在別人妻子的房裏

而徐了脂肪跟抱怨

在翹搖們被中的租來的遊戲

除了每晚為一個人躺下；馬蒂斯

早晨並不永恆

她們已無需意義

 

這一切都是過客

他們全部的歴史止於燈下修指中的姿態

甚至河也有一個身體，由速度作成

而在她們髮茨間甚麽也沒有誕生

黃昏。鐘鳴七句

沒有人行將死於甚麽。沒有消息

而你塗繪她們成為那樣彼等並無所知；

面對你玄色的素描老愛問：

素馨嗎？是素馨嗎？是素馨花啊

(回答她們的頂多是一群辧晚報的男人！

只有你，馬蒂斯

簽你的名字在她們癡肥的腳上

給她們一張臉

一聲噓息

II

Days of rainbow

You were interpreting the fragrant silence of those lady's dresses taken off

You were interpreting the darkness within the breasts

(a flower holding up the entire night)

You were interpreting the kisses on that bite marked neck. After 12 o'clock

their eyes

could so easily be hyacinths

 

From your hot palms they were crying for help with huge slices of red 

You smiled, hurriedly as if for the first time

depicting a piece of Persian carpet in the room of someone else's wife

Aside fats and complaints

the borrowed games within the raised and rocking bedsheets  

Aside lying down for a person each night; Matisse

The morning was no longer eternal

They were no longer meaningful.

 

They're all fugitive guests

Their entire history ends with their posture whilst trimming their nails under the light 

even the river has a body, built with speed

In between their vine like hair. nothing was born 

Evening. The bell struck seven times.

No one was going to die of anything. No news

They had no idea how you painted them;

In front of the mysterious colors of your paintings, they'd love to ask:

Jasmine? Is it jasmine? Oh, it's jasmine

(those who answered them were no more than a horde of evening post newsmen!)

Only you, Matisse

signed your name upon their chubby feet

giving them a face

a sigh

III

以一根搖曳的堇色線係去訪織歲月

使虹發出香味，使布匹唱歌

一聲輕喟吹起五朵跳舞是你美麗的嚇阻

薄荷餅的那種美好是她們被俘的眼色

當每日例行的淒苦蝙蝠船來到

一朵煙花俯身灑下而自一支小小的鉛管裏

你擠出整首的朔拿大

和大半個巴黎

 

消耗所有的光高聲呼喚死者

彎身走進墓穴去開採藍色

獨對這沒有欄柵的春

你長天的絲梯竟不知搭向哪裏

床單迤邐向南，在甜蜜的騷動間

她們在呻吟中佔領了你而你總給對方以一頭海豹的氣息

而人們說血在任何時刻滴總夠壯麗；

一房，一廳，一水瓶的懷鄉病

一不聽話的馬蒂斯

 

就因為那重建的紫羅蘭

很多靈魂參與你裸之荒嬉

就因為那微笑，水星沉落

就因為你哄他們安睡，儘管

在他們的頭下

一開給便枕著

一個巨大的崩潰......

 

而馬蒂斯，你總是通達的

當里維拉街的行人如一支敗壞的曲調

你乘坐骯髒的調色板

向日漸傾斜的天堂

轉身逆風而上

               一九六一年秋

 

Weaving the days with a wobbly earth yellow thread

to give the rainbow a fragrance, to make the cloth sing

a slight sigh puffing up five dances forming your pretty threat

that goodness of the mint biscuit was their captured looks

upon the routine arrival of the bat like misery

a sprig of fireworks showered down and from a tiny tiny lead pipe

you squeezed out an entire sonata

and the better part of Paris

 

Using all the light to loudly summon the dead

bending down to the graves to quarry the blue

With this unfenced spring alone

Your silk ladder didn't even know upon where to lean

The bedsheets were trailing towards the South, amidst sweet commotion

They got you amidst moans and you always gave them a seal's breath 

And people said that blood was magnificent whenever it was dripping;

a room, a parlour, a bottle of nostalgia

An unruly Matisse.

 

It's for that reconstituted violet

that many souls took part in your naked fun

It's for that smile, mercury sank

It's because you put them to sleep, although

Under their heads

on the pillows had lain from the start 

a giant collapse...

 

And Matisse, you're always understanding

When the pedestrians of Rue Ravel were like a rotten song

you sat upon a dirty palette

towards a gradually declining heaven

turning around to rise against the wind. 

                      Autumn 1961

What strikes me whilst reading the poem is the poet's use of unusual almost surrealistic juxaposition of images to produce shocking effects. I think he is trying to portray Matisse's adventures amongst the Parisian brothels: fugitive travellers and the lack of depth and darkness within the breasts of the professional lovers.

To the poet, Matisse's painting about such scenes were like a rotten or broken song to a declining heaven but as an artist, Matissse is able to soar against the superficiality and sordidness of the enviornment, as he says, to "rise against the wind".  It was a gigantic collapse: perhaps of exhaustion, perhaps of conventional morals, perhaps the collapse of the Enlightenment dream of a perfectly ratonal and happy society. Happiness was a mint biscuit in the form of the girls before being visited by misery of the bat (feeding on carrion)! The transient hope of flowers and songs. Yet Matisse was always longing for the Mediterranean sun even amidsts the groans and moans within the rose-embroidered bedsheets in the brothels of Paris, having nothing better to do than signing his name on their chubby feet, perhaps not real feet, but the feet in the prositutes's feet in his painting? The bottle of nostalgia probably refers to his nostalgia for happier times.