Carlos Drummond de Andrade (Brazil)
Hu Xudong's Translation
Imprisoned by my class and clothes,
I walk in the gray street in white.
Depression and commodities are watching me.
Should I keep walking until I feel sick?
Can I resist with my bare hands?
Dirty eyes in the clock on the bell tower:
No, the moment of complete justice has not yet arrived.
Time is still shit, bad poetry, madness, procrastination.
Poor time, poor poet
In the same deadlock.
I tried in vain to explain to myself that this wall is deaf.
Under the skin of the text, there are codes and codes.
The sun soothed the patients, but it didn't make them well.
Things. How sad those humble things are.
Spit out this boredom along the city.
Forty years, no problem.
Solved, not even on the agenda.
I haven't written or received any letters.
Everyone went home.
They are not very free, but they can pick up the newspaper.
Spelling out the world, they know they have lost it.
How can crimes on earth be forgiven?
I participated in many of these activities, while others I hid to watch.
I think some of them are beautiful, so I can publish them.
Soft crime helps people live.
Errors, like daily rations, are distributed to families.
Bake an evil and cruel baker.
Carrying an evil and cruel milkman.
Burn everything, including me,
To a boy named anarchist 19 18.
However, my hatred is the best thing in me.
With it, I can save myself.
There is still a glimmer of hope.
There is a flower in the street!
They pass by in the distance, trams, buses and cars, and rivers of steel cars.
A flower, though a little dim,
Avoid the police and cross the asphalt road.
Please be quiet and stop your work.
I'm sure there is a flower in full bloom in the street.
Its color is inconspicuous.
Its petals are not open yet.
Its name is not recorded in the book.
It is ugly. But it is really a flower.
At five o'clock in the afternoon, I was sitting on the ground of a certain capital.
Slowly reach out to this unclear shape.
On the other side of the mountain, dense clouds are spreading.
Little white spots are shaking on the sea, and there are frightened chickens.
It is ugly. But it is a flower. It penetrates asphalt, boredom, nausea and hatred.