Translations by George Szirtes
A Dream of Colored Inks
By Dezső Kosztolányi
Yellow is my favorite. How many letters
Might I write to a sweetheart with such ink,
To the girl that I love of romance and other matters.
I’d scribble madly, I’d use Japanese script
To draw a darling bird in wide flittering curves.
But I’d want many other colors, too:
Bronze, silver, green, the gold that she deserves,
And many more besides, a million more,
A quaint lilac, wine-red, an all but silent grey,
Some modest, some romantic, and some startling,
And one sad violet, like a mournful ray,
Another brick-red, one blue but faintly so
Like the shadows of a colored window-frame
One august noon under the main archway.
I’d want a scarlet red burning, like a flame
The color of blood, poisonous as dusk
And then I’d write and never cease from writing,
Blue for my sister, for mother in pure gold
In golden flames and gold words, dawn-delighting.
I’d never grow bored of forming words like this
In my ancient tower with barely an interval.
I’d be happy dear God, so happy, full of joy.
I’d color in my whole life with them all.
Song of the Taste of Bitterness
By Ottó Orbán
Up and down the bomb-shelter all day
Robbed me of childhood, nor did it make me fitter.
They brought me food in hospital on a tray
But suffering made the taste of it seem bitter.
Bitter the water I drank then and bitter the law
That supports the usurper and the interloper,
Bitter the fact that everything sticks in the craw
Drowned in the bloody vortex of Mitteleuropa.
Lyric for a Song
By Virág Erdős
This, too, I will take with me, if I can
I’ll take my old pants with their long-lost waistline
I’ll take my teddy with its GDR baseline
The daily grind will be my mission
Csokonai’s Poems, the big edition,
I’ll make my bed wherever I pay taxes
I’ll take for bedmates some old exes,
I’ll take the blonde, the brunette and the mousy
Friends made in all that housey-housey
This, too, I will take with me, if I can
I’ll take my stuff, I’ll take my fanny
I’ll take my poor old homeless granny
I’ll take those years of suffered silence
The national grid with all its pylons
A bit of rail, a bit of weather
I’ll take cradle and grave together
My chocolate brown deep-tan lover
And Moszkva Square to stay Moscow forever.
This, too, I will take with me, if I can
I’ll take Pa’s secrets and Ma’s bounties
I’ll carry off my favorite counties
I’ll take my Johnny and my Jenny
I’ll take Lake Balaton for a penny
I’ll take the grief-soaked soil of sorrow
Our red-white-green will surely follow
I’ll take with me whatever fits
The saints as well as the foul shits.
This, too, I will take with me, if I can
I’ll take the cash and take the bays
The dreams of Magyar nights and days
I’ll take the flesh worn down to bone
I’m Pest not Buda, that’s well known
I’ll take a heart, I’ll take a gut,
The soul and homeland’s barren plot
And see, I think you guessed it well.
I’ll take one slow-developing cell
I’ll take a lie that’s set and fast
I’ll take the chance, the very last
No time perhaps to part and thank,
One shoe left on the Danube bank
No worries for my place of birth
I’ll backpack it for what it’s worth
Today’s crime is tomorrow’s law
I’ll take the poet’s heigh and ho…
This, too, I will take with me if I can.
This Is Reality
By Virág Erdős
this is reality / reality’s skin
its pelt is brown / its body is thin
you might have seen it / in some kind of dress
it plonks down beside you / in nothing or less
it spreads regret / wriggles and jostles
tells its secrets / seeks apostles
will do anything / to heave its load
cares nothing for dress codes / that leave it cold
it’s meant for others / underdressed
the scene is different / overstressed
it has the time / but has no backing
its body protests / its face keeps talking
*
this is reality / reality stripped
it’s not aesthetic / not in the script
accidents / scars / beatings and bruises
reality’s not always / what amuses
snow-white locks / on ink-dark stains
demons conquered / broken chains
you got so far? / now stay strong
a mole on your skin / been there long?
touch it, go on / however repellent
you really think / you’re made to be different?
you smell it, you say / it’s in front of your eyes?
that’s your disgrace baby / not the other guy’s.
*
reality’s this. / it is one naked butt.
it looks like a loser / but, careful! it’s not.
the grosser the kit / the crasser the gear
the louder the cries / that heaven won’t hear
he wouldn’t swap rags / with no dude, no shit
struggling with disaster / with a mic in his mitt
his soul is in flames / his groin explodes
he cusses you, don’t be / the shadow on his road
don’t stand so close / note things with a no,
live the creative life / going as you go,
no matter if you don’t / get to beat the crowd
never mind, your film / is uploaded on Cloud
your body may well vanish / but there’s still the rest
it’s 2019 / welcome to Budapest.
Behind the Heart
By Anna Terék
I, too, find it difficult, sir.
Every morning the sun sticks
its knife right through my closed
eyelids and into my head
and it is as if days had forgotten
how to pass, are overextended
and unfocused.
My hopes, too, drip from me,
my body stiff as if soaked in oil
is gradually dragged down
by the weight of them.
There is no arm, no mouth
not even a back
I can hide behind.
I see life walking away again:
It will eventually leave me
just sitting here with you
raising glass after glass
gazing and waiting,
not knowing what I
should do, sir.
I know it will leave me,
and later, whatever
it chooses to give me,
however it might try
to compensate me, I will
not be the same,
not what I was
the first time
it let go of me.
I, too, am walking away
from myself. And as I grow
ever more distant I look back
and see the face I have
left behind me.
Look over my shoulder, sir,
am I still standing there?
I follow myself around
the way a child does,
asking no questions,
never saying if something
hurt or not,
but my legs are short
and I can’t walk fast enough
to catch up with myself,
to get hold of my hand
and cling on to it again.
And I don’t understand
why every couple of blocks
I let go again,
and what will remain
of me
by the time life
shows me all it has to offer.
The way life passes,
it is as if it were
scrutinising me in order to discover
some crack in the ice,
it keeps cutting holes in me
and thrusts its hand through
but can never quite
reach the bottom.
Stand up straight, sir.
The afternoon is hurrying past
your broad shoulders,
women are sweating,
men look down at the pavement,
the sky is melting,
the sun is a fried egg,
the cars leave
deep tracks behind them
in the road,
and life is pressing me
so forcefully into
this chair it is as if it
were using both hands
in the effort.
What is the thing squeezed behind the heart, sir?
Each time I sigh,
someone behind me gives my heart a great shove,
and often I feel the throbbing in my chest,
of something beating within me
directly behind my heart.
(Márta Kucsora’s Untitled 06, 2021)