“Let It Enfold You” by Charles Bukowski
讓自己隨著平靜或快樂展開
年少輕狂時
我感覺人事物俗不可耐
我流著邪惡的血、心靈扭曲、教養靠不住
我如同花崗岩堅硬
我睨視太陽
我不信任男人，更不信任女人
我活在狹小房間的煉獄中，物品破裂
東西粉碎，走路撞上玻璃，受到詛咒
我曾挑釁一切，並不斷被攆離
入獄，經常打架、經常發狂
女人是亂搞與抱怨用的
我沒有男性朋友
我不斷變換工作與城市
我痛恨假期、嬰兒、歷史、報紙、博物館
阿嬤們、婚姻、電影、蜘蛛、垃圾清潔員
英格蘭口音、西班牙、法國、義大利
核桃與橘色
代數讓我火大
歌劇讓我作嘔
卓别林虛偽至極、只有娘炮才會愛花
平靜與快樂對我來說，是劣等的象徵
軟弱與心理糊塗的房客
但隨著在暗巷幹架與萌生自殺念頭的年歲過去
並經歷無數的女人後
我漸漸發覺
我跟他人並無不同
我如出一轍
世人全都充滿怨恨
再以微不足道的委屈偽裝
我在巷弄對戰的男人是鐵石心腸
人人都在推擠、欺近、作弊
只為了不起眼的利益
謊言是武器，計謀空洞
任憑黑暗主宰
我小心翼翼容許自己偶爾覺得好過
我在廉價房間找到平靜的片刻
光是瞪視著梳妝台的把手
或在黑暗中聆聽雨聲便已足夠
我的需求愈少，便愈覺得滿足
或許另一個人生已讓我心力交瘁
我不再洋洋得意於在談話時佔上風
或撿屍某個可悲、酒醉的女人
她的人生悄悄被悲傷佔據
我永遠無法認命
我永遠無法大口吞下人生的所有毒藥
但開口要求，不明朗而神奇的地方就會對你開啟
我重新組織
我不知道是何時，日期、時間等一概不知
但改變發生了
我的內在鬆懈坦然了
我不再需要證明自己是人
我不需要證明任何事
我開始看清事物
咖啡廳裡櫃檯後方排好的咖啡杯
一隻狗沿著人行道走著
或我梳妝台上的老鼠定格的模樣
牠的身體、耳朵與鼻子真的定住了
牠定住不動，就像內心被困住
牠用眼睛看著我，那是美麗的眼睛
接著牠走了
我開始覺得舒坦
我在最糟的境遇中開始覺得舒坦
而像這樣的情況很多
比方坐在辦公桌後的老闆
他即將開除我
我曠班太多天了
他身著西裝、打著領帶、戴著眼鏡
他說：「我得請你走路」
「沒關係」，我告訴他
他得做他該做的事
他有老婆、房子、小孩、有開銷
還很可能有女友
我為他覺得悲哀
他困住了
我向外走進炙熱的陽光中
整天都是我的，反正暫時
全世界都被世界掐住
人人覺得憤怒、被欺瞞、被欺騙
人人都很消沈、幻滅
我歡迎幾輪平靜、破碎的快樂
我把它當成最火辣的女人來擁抱
就像高跟鞋、胸脯、唱歌、打扮
別誤會
世上有所謂歪斜的樂觀
它忽略了所有的基本問題
就只為了顧及樂觀
這是一面盾牌與一種病
刀再度接近我的喉嚨
我差點又將瓦斯打開
但美好的時刻再度降臨時
我並沒有像巷戰的對手將之擊退
我讓這些時刻佔據我
我縱情於這些時刻
我歡迎這些時刻回家
我有一次甚至看著鏡子
認為自己醜陋無比
我現在喜歡我看到的模樣
幾乎稱得上英俊
對，衣衫略顯襤褸、有疤痕、有腫塊、有凹凸
但整體而言，不算太糟
幾乎稱得上英俊
起碼比某些電影明星的臉龐俊俏
雙頰就像嬰兒的屁股澎潤
最後，我居然發現我對他人有真實的情感
比方最近，比方今天早上
我準備去賭馬場時，看到我太太在床上
床上就只有她頭的形狀
她將棉被拉得老高
床上就只有她頭的形狀
別忘幾百年的活人與死人
垂死之人、金字塔
莫札特已死，但他的音樂還在房間中流蕩
雜草蔓生、大地翻轉
賭盤等著我
我看到我太太頭的形狀，她一動也不動
我為她的人生心痛，她就這麼蓋著棉被
我親吻她的額頭，下了樓梯
走出門外，鑽進我的好車
調整安全帶、倒車到車道
全身溫暖，上到指尖
下到踩在油門上的腳
我再一次進入世界，我開車到山下
經過塞滿與空蕩的房屋
我看到郵差，按了喇叭
他因此對我招招手
Either peace or happiness, let it unfold you.
When I was a young man,
I felt that these things were dumb, unsophisticated.
I had bad blood, a twisted mind, a precarious upbringing.
I was hard as granite.
I leered the Sun.
I trusted no man and especially no woman.
I was living a hell in small rooms and broke things,
smashed things, walked through glass, cursed.
I challenged everything, was continually being evicted,
jailed, in and out of fights, in and out of my mind.
Women were something to screw and rail at.
I had no male friends.
I changed jobs and cities.
I hated holidays, babies, history, newspapers, museums,
grandmothers, marriage, movies, spiders, garbagemen,
English accents, Spain, France, Italy,
walnuts and the color orange.
Algebra angered me.
Opera sickened me.
Charlie Chaplin was a fake, and flowers were for pansies.
Peace and happiness were, to me, signs of inferiority,
tenants of the weak and addled mind.
But as I went on with my alley fights, my suicidal years,
my passage through any number of women,
it gradually began to occur to me
that I wasn’t different from the others.
I was the same.
They were all fulsome with hatred,
glossed over with petty grievances.
The men I fought in alleys had hearts of stone.
Everybody was nudging, inching, cheating
for some insignificant advantage.
The lie was the weapon, and the plot was empty.
Darkness was the dictator.
Cautiously, I allowed myself to feel good at times.
I found moments of peace in cheap rooms,
just staring at the knobs of some dresser
or listening to the rain in the dark.
The less I needed, the better I felt.
Maybe the other life had worn me down.
I no longer found glamour in topping somebody in conversation
or in mounting the body of some poor, drunken female
whose life had slipped away into sorrow.
I can never accept life as it was.
I can never gobble down all its poisons.
But there were parts, tenuous, magic parts open for the asking.
I reformulated.
I don’t know when — date, time, all that —
but the change occurred.
Something in me relaxed, smoothed out.
I no longer had to prove that I was a man.
I didn’t have to prove anything.
I began to see things:
coffee cups lined up behind a counter in a café
or a dog walking along a sidewalk
or the way the mouse on my dresser top stopped there,
really stopped there with its body, its ears, its nose.
It was fixed, a bit of life caught within itself.
And its eyes looked at me, and they were beautiful.
Then it was gone.
I began to feel good.
I began to feel good in the worst situations,
and there were plenty of those.
Like, say, the boss behind his desk.
He’s going to have to fire me.
I’ve missed too many days.
He’s dressed in a suit, necktie, glasses.
He says, “I’m going to have to let you go.”
“It’s all right,” I tell him.
He must do what he must do.
He has a wife, a house, children, expenses,
most probably a girlfriend.
I’m sorry for him.
He’s caught.
I walk out into the blazing sunshine.
The whole day is mine — temporarily, anyhow.
The whole world is at the throat of the world.
Everybody feels angry, shortchanged, cheated.
Everybody is despondent, disillusioned.
I welcome shots of peace, tattered shards of happiness.
I embrace that stuff like the hottest number,
like high heels, breasts, singing, the works.
Don’t get me wrong.
There is such a thing as cockeyed optimism
that overlooks all basic problems
just for the sake of itself.
This is a shield and a sickness.
The knife got near my throat again.
I almost turned on the gas again.
But when the good moments arrived again,
I didn’t fight them off like an alley adversary.
I let them take me.
I luxuriated in them.
I bade them welcome home.
I even looked into the mirror once,
having thought myself to be ugly.
I now liked what I saw.
Almost handsome.
Yes, a bit ripped and ragged, scars, lumps, odd turns,
but all in all, not too bad.
Almost handsome.
Better, at least, than some of those movie star faces
like the cheeks of a baby’s butt.
And finally, I discovered real feelings for others, unheralded.
Like lately, like this morning,
as I was leaving for the track, I saw my wife in bed.
Just the shape of her head there.
Covers pulled high.
Just the shape of her head there.
Not forgetting centuries of the living and the dead
and the dying, the pyramids,
Mozart dead but his music still there in the room,
weeds growing, the Earth turning,
the tote board waiting for me.
I saw the shape of my wife’s head, she so still.
I ached for her life, just being there under the covers.
I kissed her on the forehead, got down the stairway,
got outside, got into my marvelous car,
fixed the seat belt, backed out the drive,
feeling warm to the fingertips,
down to my foot on the gas pedal.
I entered the world once more, drove down the hill,
past the houses full and empty of people.
I saw the mailman, honked.
He waved back at me.
