Leung Ping-kwan 也斯 - 50 Gladstone Avenue 吉石大道五十號

Leung Ping-kwan 也斯 "Fly Heads and Bird Claws" (蠅頭與鳥爪), Page114-117. Published by MCCM Creations 2012


50 Gladstone Avenue
by Leung Ping-kwan 也斯 


Dear Holly and Ka-sing:
Thanks for inviting me to the opening
of your new gallery. My flight was on time
but two months too soon: 48-50 Gladstone
is still under renovation. Never mind
Our hearts are witness to each other’s milestones

Scientific time is not always in sync with our own
Glitches happen, as sometime ago I tried to contact
your state-of-the-art computers. So avant-garde
they preferred self-perfection to conversation

Just as well, isn’t it? The past
dismantled, laid out on the floor
Power-cutters cut old connections to make new links
A house in a state of openness:
Wood floor, dare to expose its holey heart
Divisions and doors of protection, yet to be set up

We find our footprints in vintage dust
We look out from the vantage of incompletion:
From the 2nd floor, we perceive
tomorrow’s 3rd floor, and yesterday’s basement

Started out looking for some storage space along the street
Ended up with a three-story gallery. Fun
can become a responsibility, a heaviness
So many rooms: one to chase out melancholy
one to endure pain from illness, one made esoteric
by feng shui and ghosts, another for the family
where children grew

Old rooms torn down for new configurations
We rock-climb on the floor, sail across the ceiling
Tightrope above the sink, headstand on the windowsills
In each room we perform acrobatics for housewarming

Rid of the past (but keep one
elegant front door) to better enter the future?
Each day’s progress chips the blueprint in the heart
A different city renovates with different speed and prices
The weighing and measuring and balancing—
A hardship in the making. Will the critic friend from the island
understand, in the end, good art isn’t necessarily ironic?

To change wind’s direction is hard, in any place
Nomads, disappointed, keep chasing water and grass
As words become monsters, pitching their tents on the web
We communicate in digital language, but don’t we also hear
the slow murmuring of our past?

Take the windows and odds and ends for a rich box of art
Then we’ll have new shows forever
In front of lenses, murky or sharp
You are the site where great events once happened

When you move the mouse
You are the flowing water of distant imagination
You are the red-white-blue bag carrying the most junk
You are the accents of men and women, the young and the old

What’s impossible in this room
Take it to another room
Play your magic. Keep playing
Always carry your roomful of boxes:
One disappeared, a new one invented

2006
Original poem was written in Chinese, English translation by Lo Hui



吉石大道五十號 
       

親愛的家昇與楚喬
多謝你們邀請我來參加
新畫廊的開幕禮,航機依時抵達
卻早了兩個月,吉石路四十八、五十號
還在進行裝修工程,沒關係,我們在心中
互相見証彼此生命中的重要時刻

儘管科學的時間並不一定與我們同步
總有參差,就像之前我整天嘗試跟你先進的
電腦系統溝通,但它們太先進了
獨自完善自己,並不情願與我對話。

就這樣不也很好嗎?過去都拆散
分佈在地板的不同區域
電掣切斷舊的糾纏,重新建立新的連繫
房子正處於一種開放的狀態
地板不怕坦露了心中的窟洞
屏障和防禦的門戶有待完成

我們從昔日的灰塵裡發現自己的鞋印
我們從不完整的狀態中張望
卻提供了更好的角度,從二樓
透視未來的三樓,回顧地下的昨天

原先沿街尋找看中儲物的小室
沒想到要連起三層的畫廊,從嬉笑開始
也可以變成責任,夠沉重的
這麼多個不同的房間:在其中一間放逐傷感
在另一間忍受疾病的痛切,一間裡有
幽靈和風水的玄秘,另一間是
子女成長的家常

原來的房間拆去又組成新的圖案
我們在地板上攀石,風帆航過天花板
在水碗上走單桿,在窗緣倒豎蔥
不同的房間裡我們表演的雜技沒有冷場

要把一切過去拆掉(還是要保留
一扇優雅的大門)以便更好地移進未來?
每天看工程的進展總跟心中的藍圖互有齟齬
在不同城市裝修工程有不同的進度與價錢
在逐漸成形的艱困中,衡量如何
把握分寸,不知小島上藝評的朋友到頭來
可會明白︰好的藝術不見得就是反諷?

要轉移一個地方的風向談何容易
失望的游牧逐水草而居
當文字變成怪獸,在網上搭起帳蓬
大家用數碼化的語言溝通,卻好似
又聽見了昔日遲緩的耳語?

把窗子連同雜物看成一個豐富的盒子藝術
那就永遠有新的展覽
不管面對朦朧或尖銳的鏡頭
你是大事曾經在此發生的現場

當你移動撥鼠
你是遠方想像的水流
你是攜帶最多雜物的紅白藍膠袋
你是男女老幼的鄉音

不能在這個房間產生的
就在另一個房間完成吧
你們在玩魔術,一直玩下去
隨身帶著許多盒子的房間
一個消失了又變出一個新的

(20/4/06—15/5/06)
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