once upon a pumpkin

南瓜無言
洛夫

藤蔓，從無人處
洶湧而來
南瓜藤越長越長
我的詩
越寫越短

南瓜無言
正因為無話可說
肚皮越長越大
剖開
一半很甜
另一半帶點遙遠的草原味
不知所云

一九九六、十、九，溫哥華初稿

稟神

冇僥倖，山是不會走過來的了
咁，要唔要學下執生
試下向它走過去?


(It is the hour/the moment/when it becomes possible/to distinguish a white/thread from a black, so prayer begins ...)

say a little prayer

確係好需要discipline 事；
咁自己都冇；
幾弊。

——望天打卦。


（詞語新編：望住個天就黎打喇掛 ……）

a touch of Cohen

A Life of Errands
Leonard Cohen

If You Are Lucky
You Will Grow Old
And Live
A Life Of Errands.
You Will Discern
What People Need
And Provide It
Before They Ask.
You Will Drive Your Car
Here And There
Delivering And Fetching
And Neither The Traffic
Nor The Weather
Will Bother You
In The Least.
You Will Whip Down The 405
To San Diego
To Pick Up An Acorn
For Someone's Proverb
And So On And So Forth.
In Spite Of The Ache
In Your Heart
About The Girl You
Never Found
And The Fact That
After Years Of
Spiritual Rigor You Did Not Manage
To Enlighten Yourself
A Certain Cheerfulness
Will Begin To
Arise Out Of Your Crushed
Hopes And Intentions.
How Thirstily
You Embrace Your Next Commission:
To Sift Through The Sunglasses
At A Lost And Found
In Las Vegas
Just A Few Hours
Across The Desert.
Your Hair Is White
You Have Breasts
And A Gut
Over Your Belt
You Are No Longer A Boy,
Or Even A Man
But A Sense Of Gratitude
Enlivens Every Move You Make.
Yes, Sir, These Are The
Very Gold-Rimmed Pair
She Left In The Plastic Tray
Beside The Dollar Slot Machines.
No, Sir, I Am Not Lying.

(December 31, 1999)

偷之哉

L. Cohen's drawings, oh my, oh my...

（偷起野黎呢要眼明手快手起刀落...）

咫

它每隔三五天便長高一層。若進度繼續，再過一兩個星期眼前僅餘一角的天空便將成往昔已矣。
綠色圍網旁邊這棵樹，和新長的高樓靠得那麼近，來日要如何彼此相處？
是魚木吧？去年這時候住進來，隔窗見它，視為意外得之。不敢想像白花開滿一樹時這近在咫尺的景致。然後三四月出門，就此錯過花期。今年多雨又多風，那日見它的枝和葉好似忽然疏落了，用盡眼力看過去，看見樹皮剝掉的傷口，日子如此，被刀削下一度傷痕。
好幾次外出時想過拐過去看看它，這麼簡單的意圖，一如其他擱在心上的種種打算，也許，就差那麼多走幾步。
咫尺有多遠？具體的量度應該很近。
咫尺之間，卻也可以是一生的距離。
這是拿了相機按動快門時想到的。

Just a stone’s throw, yet never reached.

Jean-Marie Le Clézio

J.-M. G. Le Clézio:
... If I had to assess my books I would say that they are what are most like me. In other words, for me it’s less a matter of expressing ideas than expressing what I am and what I believe in. When I write I am primarily trying to translate my relationship to the everyday, to events. We live in a troubled era in which we are bombarded by a chaos of ideas and images. The role of literature today is perhaps to echo this chaos.
…

We no longer have the presumptuousness to believe, as they did in Sartre’s day, that a novel can change the world. Today, writers can only record their political impotence. When you read Sartre, Camus, Dos Passos or Steinbeck you can clearly see that these great committed writers had limitless confidence in the future of mankind and in the power of the written word. I remember that when I was eighteen, I read editorials by Sartre, Camus and Mauriac in L’Express. They were committed essays which showed the way. Can anyone conceivably imagine today that an editorial in a newspaper could help solve the problems that are ruining our lives? Contemporary literature is a literature of despair.
…

My favourite novelists are Stevenson and Joyce. They drew their inspiration from their first years of life. Through writing they relived their past and tried to understand the "whys" and "hows" of it…
Literature is only strong when it manages to express the first sensations, the first experiences, the first ideas, the first disappointments.
…

I don’t know for the Nobel prize but I know what I would like to talk about publicly. I would like to talk about the war that kills children. This, for me, is the most terrible thing of our age. Literature is also a means of reminding people of this tragedy and bringing it back to centre stage. In Paris recently, statues of women were veiled in order to condemn the fact that women in Afghanistan are denied freedom. That’s very good. In the same way, we should mark all the statues of children with a big red spot over the heart as a reminder that at every moment, somewhere in Palestine, South America or Africa, a child is killed by bullets. People never talk about that!

-- quotes from "Interview with Jean-Marie Le Clézio" by Tirthankar Chanda
source and link: Label France

further readings: excepts
past New York Times reviews:
-- “The Interrogation”
-- “Fever”
-- “The Flood”
-- “Terra Amatar”

在光的暗處

有病的是媒體不是我
陳幸妤

比起其他更吐血的名嘴，陳立宏在其中我想還可稱之為「清流」，但是他一直以來主張要我休息，不要理會媒體的主張，我卻無法認同，有病的是台灣的媒體，不是我個人，為了躲避一群已經瘋狂，不論是非，每天編故事的新聞媒體，而要一個認真上班的老百姓「休息」就好了，這豈不是是非顛倒、黑白不分，若此論述合理，豈不是可要求所有善良百姓都該休息在家中，以防遇到強盜或是強姦犯？

以往有記者假扮病人的朋友，來我診所用針孔偷拍以得到獨家，也曾多次闖入屬於私人領域的診所、地下停車場只為圍堵我，而因為我的診所位於一樓，媒體的攝影機隔著診所透明的落地窗，在我上班時間八個小時，十幾台攝影機貼著玻璃，無視裡面上班的其他醫生、診所小姐、等候的病人的抗議，連我們進出洗手間的畫面都絲毫不放過，我相信沒有人可以忍受如此的對待吧！如果我該為媒體的失控行徑休息，那更該去好好上課，學習如何做個公正客觀、有涵養的媒體人的該是天天守候在我門外的記者吧？

更別提連我帶小孩去超市買菜都可成大獨家，那是否我連超市都不該去了呢？更別提那天蘋果的記者口口聲聲說會把小孩打馬賽克，結果呢？我的三個兒子去幼稚園也都被跟拍，那是否我也該讓他們休息一陣子，以防媒體看到扁家的人又「抓狂」起來，以往我也曾試過出國躲媒體，結果我發現只有馬唯中在美國，記者會找不到，不論我去東京，記者就在飯店大廳天天堵我，我去洛杉磯，記者在我親戚家門口，整日對著屋內拍，把我兒子嚇到晚上睡不著覺，紐約那次更是瘋狂，記者在高速公路上飛車追逐…。如果我真該休息一陣子，那我才真是會被關在家中直到發瘋，因為這不會是半年一年的問題，而是只要有一天我還活著，就算不上班，只要我出門就是會被跟拍，否則郭台銘的老婆為何多次被記者追到哭？她有做錯什麼？她有上班嗎？

作為一個政治人物的兒女是可悲，尤其是綠營的政治人物，我九歲時我媽媽政治車禍才出院半年，我爸爸就被抓去關了，當時我每天牽著六歲的弟弟去羅媽媽家吃飯，再端一個盤子把我媽媽的飯拿回家，當時雖然有老師、有同學罵我，不跟我玩，我還是可以名列前茅，我可以有今天的成績，不是任何政治黑牢、政治車禍可以阻撓我的，過去如此，未來也是如此，我不需要陳立宏你的同情，如果你看不慣我的言行，你大可在政論節目上批評，那是你的工作，但是當一個牙醫師也是我的工作。

和我爸同是蓬萊島案的黃天福的女兒在幾年前自殺死了，我至今想到她的遺言「我不能再快樂了」都感到心痛不已，我只在這誠摯的希望，即使日子再不快樂，都要勇敢、tough 的活下去。

（作者為牙醫師）


（10/09/2008 〈自由時報〉）

抄書

" 書不是教人善良，而是教人恬淡。恬淡可以避開罪惡的機會。這不是善良，而是避免作惡。

......

現在的人把一切精力花在「能幹」上。所謂「能幹」是指：譬如短時間內算出一個買月票划得來還是買回數票，另加一些計程車資，划得來。其實這些「疑難」都是都市生活「掛勾」上去的。如果你過的是鄉村生活，便說什麼也沒這勞啥子。人人都把應付別人給他的莫需有騷擾當作最有意義的生活，而忘了這些只是「跟人過不去的麻煩」，而非「生活」。真正的「生活」他一輩子因而沒有活到。就像有個人一整夜以驅趕蚊子為樂，告訴人他過了極好的一夜，殊不知還有那好好睡一覺的真正快樂。

......

年長後，你受到尊重，再也不會遇到嘲笑的傷害了。
（你身邊不再有同輩，前輩，都是晚輩的人。） "

── 王文興《星雨樓隨想》

沒有一種笑是鐵打的

十月
周夢蝶

就像死亡那樣肯定而真實
你躺在這裡。十字架上漆著
和相思一般的蒼白色

而蒙面人的馬蹄聲已遠了
這個專以盜夢為活的神竊
他的臉是永遠沒有褶紋的

風塵和憂鬱磨折我的眉髮
我猛叩著額角。想著
這是十月。所有美好的都已美好過了
甚至夜夜來弔唁的蝶夢也冷了

是的，至少你還有虛空留存
你說。至少你已懂得什麼是什麼了
是的，沒有一種笑是鐵打的
甚至眼淚也不是......

me and my country / my country and i

国庆，一起想想“我和我的国家

当你购物、旅游、探亲，享受着因国庆之名的悠长假期的时候，有没有试着回到国庆的本原，静静地想一想，作为国民一员，你和你的国家究竟是一种怎样的关系？

— 国家为我做了什么
— 我为国家做了什么？
— 国家还能为我做什么？
— 我还能为国家做什么？


source:
﹙還是要謝謝ESWN，網海無涯，冇人有佢咁得閒乜都俾佢睇見——仲翻譯埋添。﹚