Angry butterfly flaps her wings
—shakes powder in the eyes of the giant,
her body bends and tightens like a girl with menstrual cramps
—her wings fading; becoming transparent.
Shining bald giant is blind
—with a wide golden belt, he spins in the clearing; appears,
disappears, on a floating island.
Those two have been fighting,
as if from creation
—they’ve fought for so long
now they’ve forgotten the reason,
humans have also forgotten them too
so they go unseen.
I don’t know why I came to this clearing,
wedged between two towers of a large shopping mall.
Built so far from the city, in the fields,
the customers scarce
—shop staff stare blankly-back, in each branded store.
—It’s winter, the butterfly’s scream
pauses in the air
like snowflakes, or plaster powder,
—hesitates for an instant, then spins faster;
plunges towards an invisible slope.
translation by Ma Yongbo and Helen Pletts 2024
愤怒的蝴蝶 ⻢永波
愤怒的蝴蝶扇动翅膀
向巨人眼睛里撒粉末
她的身体像痛经的少女弯曲着绷紧
她的翅膀上的花纹迅速透明
而那光头闪亮的巨人是盲目的
⻩金腰带很宽，他在空地打转
他来自一个忽隐忽现的浮岛
他们一直在战斗，好像从开天辟地时起
他们战斗得太久了，什么原因
他们自己已经忘记了
人类也已经把他们忘记了
于是他们变得透明了
我不知什么原因来到这片空地
它夹在一个大型购物商场的两座塔楼之间
商场建筑在离城市很远的田野里
顾客稀少，各种品牌店里店员神情茫然
这是冬天，蝴蝶的呐喊
在空中像雪片或是石膏粉末暂时停住
犹豫一下，然后加速旋转
向着一个无形的斜坡扑落 2018.1.1
Ma Yongbo 马永波
Ma Yongbo is a publishing strategist, critic, author, postdoctoral fellow in literature, and part-time professor at Xiamen University. He is also a well-known translator and commentator on post-modern poetry from the United Kingdom and United States. Since 1986 he has published more than sixty works of poetry, criticism and translation, including A Summer Broadcast at Two Speeds, Post-1940 US Poetry, Post-1950 US Poetry, Post-1970 US Poetry, An Anthology of Contemporary US Poetry, Selected Poems of John Ashbery, To Die For Beauty – An Emily Dickinson Anthology, Gulliver’s Travels, The “Nine Leaves” Group and Western Modernism, The Barren Page, and Snow on the Hedge.
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