Two Poems by YEHUDA AMICHAI (translated from the Hebrew by Robert Alter)

我的野孩子
我的野孩子：早晨
他们吃我的梦，傍晚
他们狼吞虎咽地吃下我的回忆。
我是他们的管理人。
我感觉当我我灵魂上
他们粗糙的舌头。
我日日夜夜
听见他们甜美，无意义的大声啜食。
我的野孩子，我的魣鱼
吸干我的疯狂，减弱我的尖叫声。
我开始吃它们。
 我想要我的眼睛里
闪着他们眼睛的亮光，
就如在黑暗的夜间活动的街道上
一个人为他最后的雪茄
索要一个打火机。
我是一位一贫如洗的先知
我是一位身无分文的先知，像一位
只有两种颜色的孩子。
我以战争，爱情，喧嚣和宁静
描绘我的人生。
伟大的先知们抛掉了他们半数的预言
就像一位焦虑的吸烟者抛掉抽了一半的香烟。
我捡起它们，把它们变成身无分文的先知。
水塔中的水是沉默的，
空空的水管中没有哀号，咆哮。
话语吸取“血，汗，和眼泪”
被扔进垃圾桶。用后即弃的人们，
那就是他们的永远。
话语应该早已空洞
狭隘，难懂，像分水岭，
绝望和希望，快乐和悲伤，宁静和暴怒
应该流向新循环的
两边
我是一位身无分文的先知。我住在别人的希望里，
就像住在不想照亮我的一束光线内部，
我投下我形象的影子，我肖像的影子，
我的肉体藏在著名的有趣的观点中。
我在先知和他的远景中出现。
我是一位身无分文的先知，中午回家
吃饭休息，傍晚，入眠。
我得到一年一次的假期和安息日般的岁月
灵魂保险和老年退休金。
我无精打采地开始了我的人生。
当我在沉醉的灵魂中步步登高时，
当我到达我视野的高度时
我发现自己和普通人在一起
他们有孩子，有工作，有家庭照顾
和家务事。这些就是我的远见卓识，我是一位身无分文的先知。
My Wild Children
My wild children: in the morning
they eat my dreams, at evening
they wolf down my memories.
I am their manger.
I feel their rough tongues
on my soul.
I hear their sweet and empty slurping
day and night.
My wild children, my barracudas
sopping up my madness, muting my scream.
I dig into them.
I want to light my eyes
from their eyes,
as on a dark nocturnal street
a man asks for a light
for his last cigarette.
 
I Am a Penniless Prophet
I am a penniless prophet, like a child who has
only two colors. I paint my life in war
and love, in noise and stillness.
The great prophets threw away half their prophecies
like the half-smoked cigarettes of a nervous smoker.
I pick them up and make them into penniless prophecies.
In the water towers the water is silent,
in empty pipes the un-water wails and growls.
Words soak up "blood, sweat, and tears"
and are thrown into the garbage. Disposable words
like paper tissues. Disposable people,
that is their forever.
Words should have been empty
and narrow and hard, like a watershed,
despair and hope, joy and sorrow, tranquillity and rage
should have flowed to both sides
for a new cycle.
I am a penniless prophet. I live within the hopes of others,
as within a beam of light not meant to light me up,
I cast the shadow of my image, of my likeness,
my body hides the famous lovely view.
I come between the seer and his vision.
I am a penniless prophet who comes home at noon
to eat and rest and, in the evening, sleep.
I get an annual vacation and sabbatical years
and soul insurance and a pension for old age.
I began my life so low.
When I go up high in the drunkenness of my soul,
when I reach the height of my visions,
I find myself with everyday people
who have children and jobs and family cares
and household chores. These are my visions. I am a penniless prophet.
Yehuda Amichai
 Yehuda AmichaiYehuda Amichai (1924-2000) is considered to be Israel's greatest contemporary poet. Translated into forty languages, he may be the most widely translated Hebrew poet since King David. Amichai's work published in English includes Songs of Jerusalem and Myself, Time, The Great Tranquillity, Amen, Open Closed Open, and Even a Fist Was Once an Open Palm with Fingers.
Robert Alter (translator)
Robert Alter's achievements in scholarship ranging from the eighteenth-century novel to contemporary Hebrew and American literature earned him the Robert Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Los Angeles Times. Alter is the Class of 1937 Emeritus Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.