Poem: Salvation (拯救)

A bilingual poem by Tom Mangione

THIS POEM IS FROM THE NEWLY PUBLISHED UNITED VERSES ANTHOLOGY

Plastacine pilgrims at the shuttle launch

Combinations, switchbacks in time

Black holes of memories leading back

We go under by going over

Priestly penny pinchers

Gather on the periphery

Flags of our fathers rise up

Nightime on the ranches

Hopeful looks to the sky

Counting Cassaeopia points

Trigonometric relationships

Like explanations in braile

New languages founded in the darkness

Men on the beach

Raise semaphores

Rockets lift off

We are going to a new land

Utopia of the stars

Through oceans of consciousness

Interpreted around a hope

Fallen comets cruising trajectories

We speak foreign 外国 tongues

Telling each other secrets

Over candlelit dinners

At home, revealed as frauds

Faraway well-wishers with implants

Feelings shared simultaneously

Grains of sand on the beaches

Rockets are taking off

They are flying

High to the cosmos

Take me with you

Take me off this shithole dream

I want to bring light to the darkness

I am a pilgrim

These pilgrims on the shore

And I want light

I want light, lumen luminis

Light over death

Light in the depths

Dreams infinite

On a planet that does not speak its name

The future, the heavenly future

Raining down in stereoscope

Dream dramatic

My desperate hopes fulfilled

Self-aware

Torn by access to the truth

Wanting love, but saying it's a lie

Holding myself to standards

I did not create, do not keep

Chess pieces move on a table 

Towards checkmate

I am a chess piece

These pieces move and shift

They look like rockets

Rockets in the sky

***

拯救

飞船发射时的橡皮泥朝圣者

时间交错、闪回

带回记忆的黑洞

向上飞越成了向下穿行

奉神的吝啬鬼

在四周集合

举起父辈的旗帜

在牧场的夜晚

心怀夙愿仰望天空

数着仙后座的结点

三角连星

如同用盲文注释

暗中创造新的语言

海滩上的人

举起手旗

火箭升空

我们要去新大陆

恒星的乌托邦

越过意识的海

接近希望时得以诠释

陨落的慧星绕轨运行

我们说着外国foreign话

烛光晚餐中

互诉密事

在家里，成了欺骗

远方的好心人，身体中植入了什么

同时产生了同感

海滩上的沙粒

火箭在升空

它们飞起

向太空高翔

带我一起走

逃离这屎坑一样的梦

我想给黑暗带来光明

我是个朝圣者

在海岸上的这群朝圣者

而我要光

我要光, lumen luminis

死亡之上的光

深处的光

无止境的梦

在莫名的星球上

未来，仙境般的未来

全方位地降落下来

戏剧般的梦

我迫切的梦已成真

自觉

已被追求真理的路撕毁

渴望爱，却称爱是谎言

坚持自己的标准

我没有创造，没有保留

棋子在棋盘上挪动

向“将军”挺进

我是一颗棋子

那些棋子挪动随后换位

它们看着像火箭

空中的火箭

译：郑方圆

Translation by Zheng Fangyuan

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Tom Mangione is a writer and musician living in Shanghai. He's one of the founders of United Verses and is lead singer of a band called The Horde

This poem is taken, with Tom's permission, from the new United Verses anthology. To get a copy of the book in China, the UK or the US, email unitedverses@yahoo.com

Also read Tom's previous poem for the Anthill, Rice Fields