New Year’s Day 2012 from Jonas Mekas' Diary, January 8, 2012
ジョナス・メカスは今年で38回目を迎えた The Poetry Project 主催の元日恒例の詩のマラソン朗読会（New Year's Day at St Mark's Poetry Project Marathon Reading）に昨年に引き続き参加した。ジョナス・メカスは、前口上のなかで、ウォール街を占拠する人々がいる一方で、「天国」を占拠した詩人もいると一種の皮肉をこめて語り始めた。そんな詩人のひとりにピーター・オルロフスキー (Peter Anton Orlovsky, 1933–2010) がいると。そしてこれから読み上げる1960年6月の日記からの抜粋は、もうわれわれといっしょにいることのできない詩人たちに捧げるものであると。
下に引用したその抜粋は「Peter Orlovsky (1933-2010) From the Diaries 1960」と題されてブルックリン・レイルに掲載されているが、ジョナス・メカスは随所で即興的に単語を変えたり、省略したり、補ったり、反復したりしている。
Yes, Peter Orlovsky, as he walked down the lower Third Avenue, gesticulating with his arms freely, and with his blue-striped farmer’s shirt, in a large step, and singing, just to himself, somewhere deep in himself, a very high high note, a voice that seemed to be coming from some very strange inner voice, very personal, very fragile. Yes, Peter Orlovsky, not seeing anything, just a sound, a sort of monotonous trance sound, but also very relaxed, completely relaxed and happy and careless, a carelessness punctuated, underlined only by his gesticulating arms, his free, happy, exuberant stride, as if he has been walking like this many thousands of miles, perhaps all the way from Mexico City, or Frisco, and, or perhaps, all the way from Chicago and is now on his way to somewhere downtown, and all the way to the South Pole, and―and or; a sort of mystical walker with his mystical weird song and the blue-striped shirt, and a child’s smile on his face―yes, Peter Orlovsky, as he walked that day, early in June, along the Third Avenue, and down, not seeing me, although we almost bumped into each other―not seeing anything, just singing, at the very top of his voice, very thin, mysterious voice and weird―a traveler from inner regions, and, strangely, the entire street, and the rush of the people, the open bar doors seemed to suddenly for a moment acquire, for one short moment, an importance, a brief intensity of life―a certain meaning, a certain being, their emptiness and their drabness and their sadness suddenly, for a brief moment, seemed to acquire a certain mystical perspective, the perspective of this strange traveler who seemed to cast upon it all, upon this street something very sublimely real―as he strolled by, as he walked thus, in his long free stride, gesticulating with his arms, as he walked that summer day down the Third Avenue, Peter Orlovsky.
Peter Orlovsky (1933-2010) From the Diaries 1960 by Jonas Mekas (The Brooklyn Rail)
不在の詩人に捧げる詩を朗読することによって、ジョナス・メカスはわれわれが占拠すべき場所、「天国」の意味を再考するよう促しているようだ。
参照
