诈术法师
Magus (Part 2)
By DASS
Translated by Ben Thompson
1
he’s reading in the lonely library
in a black T-shirt
brown curly hair piled on the skull
I can say “he”, because on close inspection
a gender can finally be confirmed
he sits with his back towards me
holding a huge book
so what does that matter?
Homer could tell right away
if it was a vagrant approaching from behind
because of his own country hobo days
in just the same way, every stranger
calling “don’t” from a hundred yards away
arouses my immense gratitude
even though we never met
strolling with me by the sunset river
there are so many instants
I long to slip into that lucid flow
2
how long has he been reading there
and reading about what,
and reading in what typeface
but anyway what does it matter,
in the days of the Black Death
even a rabbi couldn't calm the crowd
a stream of earthworms pours from his book,
wind-dried letters elapse with broken
wings of black moths, like the claws of a bear
suddenly appearing on the lips of a vampire
while the city fills with the stink of disinfectant spray
but it's already too late, the King said,
by now he is already taking off his robe
he sits on his stone garden bench, utterly worn out
gesturing to his minions
to throw a rebel corpse behind the shade of a tree
the best way of fishing in the world
is just to sit by a lake
watching maggots crawl out of the dead
then with a flick of your slender arm
you pick up bait to throw on the water
oh, ripples on the deep
"people, it's a bright sunny day
the palace halls are cool, let's drink
let's drag that old singing sailor
down to my stables
to stop him disturbing the feast"
3
not a soul, not one passer-by
can make this reader in the lonely library
lift his head, shift his gaze, or make a sound
he floats in his own boundless universe
like a black fly
even if an H bomb falls
or his spaceship disintegrates,
or alchemy meets secret binary codes
probably nothing really happened
the rabbit hole is beautiful, right now
he sits by the burrow’s edge, amazed
at how much time he has already wasted
right up until I die, you see
he still sits there, perfectly still,
the black T shirt just a fraudulent prop
the brown hair holding up his magus skull
Translated (first attempt) Dec/Jan 2023 BT
revised 7 Jan 2023
