Radnóti Miklós: Majális

A hangraforgó* zeng a fű között,
s hördül, liheg, akár egy üldözött,
de üldözők helyett a lányok
kerítik, mint tüzes virágok.

Egy lányka térdre hull, lemezt cserél,
a háta barna, lába még fehér,
a rossz zenén kis lelke fellebeg
s oly szürke, mint ott fönt a fellegek.

Fiúk guggolnak és parázslanak,
az ajkukon ügyetlen szép szavak,
duzzasztja testük sok kicsiny siker
s nyugodtan ölnek, majd ha ölni kell.

Lehetnének talán még emberek,
hisz megvan bennük is, csak szendereg
az emberséghez méltó értelem.
Mondjátok hát, hogy nem reménytelen.


*gramofon

Donald Hall: Without

He hovered beside Jane's bed,
solicitous: "What can I do?"
It must have been unbearable
while she suffered her private hurts
to see his worried face
looming above her, always anxious to do
something when there was
exactly nothing to do. Inside him,
some four-year-old
understood that if he was good -- thoughtful,
considerate, beyond
reproach, perfect -- she would not leave him.

Mary Oliver: A Bitterness

I believe you did not have a happy life.
I believe you were cheated.
I believe your best friends were loneliness
and misery.
I believe your busiest enemies were anger
and depression.
I believe joy was a game you could never
play without stumbling.
I believe comfort, though you craved it, was forever a stranger.
I believe music had to be melancholy or not at all.
I believe no trinket, no precious metal, shone so bright as your
bitterness.
I believe you lay down at last none the wiser and unassuaged.
Oh, cold and dreamless under wild, amoral, reckless, peaceful flowers of
the hillsides. 

Octavio Paz: Két test

Két összesímuló test
van hogy két lomha hullám
s az éj az óceán.

Két összesímuló test
van hogy két puszta szirt és
az éj sivatag.

Két összesímuló test
van hogy két vén gyökér mely
belemélyed az éjbe.

Két összesímuló test
van hogy két mennydörgés és
a villámlás az éj.

Két összesímuló test
két csillag mely lefut
az üres ég alá.

(Somlyó György fordítása)

Gioconda Belli: Algunos poetas

Como libros abiertos,
llenos de citas,
llegan a las reuniones
dejando caer nombres, obras y fechas
como trofeos,
esgrimiendo la lógica
hasta el final de las consecuencias.
Así quieren hacernos a su modo
algunos poetas,
siguiendo la vieja tradición paternalista
tratan de adoptarnos
a falta de poder apresar
el viento, la fruta prohibida,
la misteriosa fertilidad
de nuestros poemas.

Charles Bukowski: The Aliens

you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction or
distress.
they dress well, eat
well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they have moments of
grief
but all in all
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy
death, usually in their
sleep.

you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.

but i am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them.
but they
are there

and I am
here 

Adrienne Rich: Rift

I have in my head some images of you:
your face turned awkwardly from the kiss of greeting
the sparkle of your eyes in the dark car, driving
your beautiful fingers reaching for
a glass of water.
                          Also your lip curling
at what displeases you, the sign of closure,
the fending-off, the clouding-over.
                             
                   Politics.
you'd say, is an unworthy name
for what we're after.
                              What we're after
is not that clear to me, if politics
is an unworthy name.

When language fails us, when we fail each other
there is no exorcism. The hurt continues. Yes, your scorn
turns up the jet of my anger. Yes, I find you
overweening, obsessed, and even in your genius
narrow-minded - I could list much more -
and absolute loyalty was never in my line
once having left it in my father's house -
but as I go on sorting images of you
my hand trembles, and I try
to train it not to tremble.

10000 :-)

Celebrating the 10000th blog viewer, from Greece :-)

Üdvözlet a blog 10000. látogatójának, aki Görögországból klikkelt :-)

Pinczési Judit: Talán

"Fiatalon fogsz meghalni!" - mondta egy cigányasszony
a debreceni állomáson mellém kerülve,
és tenyeremen futtatta
vallató szemét.
Tenyerem vonalai
le- és felszáguldtak,
zihálva,
harcképtelenül.
Talán azért mondta, hogy én is meneküljek.
Talán a rémület kínpadjára szánt.
Talán csak azt akarta,
hogy az értesülés birtokában
csináljak azt, amit akarok.

Tess Gallagher: Conversation with a Fireman from Brooklyn

He offers, between planes,
to buy me a drink. I’ve never talked
to a fireman before, not one from Brooklyn
anyway. Okay. Fine, I say. Somehow
the subject is bound to come up, women
firefighters, and since I’m
a woman and he’s a fireman, between
the two of us, we know something
about this subject. Already
he’s telling me he doesn’t mind
women firefighters, but what
they look like
after fighting a fire, well
they lose all respect. He’s sorry, but
he looks at them
covered with the cinders of someone’s
lost hope, and he feels disgust, he just
wants to turn the hose on them, they
are that sweaty and stinking, just like
him, of course, but not the woman he
wants, you get me? And to come to that—
isn’t it too bad, to be despised
for what you do to prove yourself
among men
who want to love you, to love you,
love you. 

Walt Whitman: Lessons

There are who teach only the sweet lessons of peace and safety;
But I teach lessons of war and death to those I love,
That they readily meet invasions, when they come. 

Jacques Prévert: The Garden

Thousands upon thousands of years
are not enough
to tell you
the tiny second of eternity
wherein you kissed me
and wherein I kissed you
one morning in the light of winter
in Park Montsouris in Paris
in Paris
on earth
the earth who is a star.

Jacques Prévert: Le Jardin

Des milliers et des milliers d'années 
Ne sauraient suffire 
Pour dire 
La petite seconde d'éternité 
Où tu m'as embrassé 
Où je t'ai embrassèe 
Un matin dans la lumière de l'hiver 
Au parc Montsouris à Paris 
A Paris 
Sur la terre 
La terre qui est un astre

Peter Halton: Bulb

The bulb’s gone again
And I’m stuck
I should get up and change it
But I can’t bring myself to
I was doing so well and then

Darkness

It has a beauty that overwhelms me and sends me to sleep

And as I lay dreaming of laying with you
There is a light inside that shines like your eyes

I can see now

Sam Pierstorff: It Takes Balls To Have A Vasectomy

You might think it’s nuts, but for the next 72 hours,
my three children are not allowed to play with blue balls
in the house because it reminds me too much
of the great pain hidden below the equator of my belt.

The twin planets of my testicles are throbbing
from elective surgery last week when my junk
hung out on a cold operating table while the nurse,
on her lucky day, painted my parts with iodine.

And I know what you’re thinking:
It’s about time he had penis reduction surgery.
But no. Neither have I downsized my balls
from two rock solid employees to just one
despite how hard this economy can get.

The fact is, I had a vasectomy—the two wires
cut in which semen buzz and fire like bullets
through the barrel of a very long rifle.

I brew decaffeinated coffee now. Drip diet soda.
The life I had left in me is dying.

I don’t have many regrets yet, just the occasional
prick of stitches and the purpling on my scrotum
like overripe plums. But I do wish I had Band-Aids
without cartoons on them. Dora The Explorer
should never be allowed on a grown man’s testicles.

And I am sad that the frozen bag of peas resting
between my legs has melted, and for the next few days
I cannot lift my daughter. But when I do heave her
in the air so high she’ll think she can fly, I will
recognize in her round face the miracle of life
and beauty that cures any ailment—bloody or bruised.

I’m not sorry that she’ll be my only girl. I’m lucky.
Some people spend their whole lives making love
and nothing comes, but heartache and minus signs.

Let them keep trying. Let the young marry
and sow their wild oats while I shoot blanks and
plant seeds in a garden where nothing new will grow.

But look around at the fruitful trees I planted six summers ago,
the thorny blackberry bush, the fig leaves as large as human hands.
There is so much beauty left to care for and everything gets better with age—

like the ancient clusters of Thompson grapes dangling through
the trellis slats in my yard. Like me, they too are seedless
and bursting with flavor, just ask my wife who stands
at the kitchen window with a fresh glass of homemade wine,
so proud of herself for crushing my last season of grapes
and leaving my vine bare and fruitless. 

Nemes Nagy Ágnes: Lila fecske

Piros dróton ült a fecske,
piros dróton lila folt,
mert a fecske lila volt.
Ült a dróton egymagában,
ibolyaszín kiskabátban,
lila volt a háta, szárnya,
földre hullott lila árnya,
gyufa-vékony, lila lábon
álldogált a piros ágon,
lila volt a szeme csíkja
lila, mint a
lila tinta.

Április volt, jött az este,
meg sem mozdult az a fecske.
Április volt, április,
én hagytam ott végül is.
Lila csőr,
lila toll,
most is ott ül valahol

Catherine Doty: Yes

It’s about the blood
banging in the body,
and the brain
lolling in its bed
like a happy baby.
At your touch, the nerve,
that volatile spook tree,
vibrates. The lungs
take up their work
with a giddy vigor.
Tremors in the joints
and tympani,
dust storms
in the canister of sugar.
The coil of ribs
heats up, begins
to glow. Come
here.

Robert Hass: A Pact

“I am he who aches with amorous love.”

Well yes. But if you would settle

for two hours of talk across a table,

her hair just washed, and…if you would

barter all your books and your car

and one of your children, no,

none of your children, your job

and every poem in your drawer except

the one you wrote last night

to be with her for half an hour

in the coffee shop, let’s say,

under the Palace of Fine Arts

where the white wine is very cold

and her hair just washed

and you allowed to touch it once…

James Sinclair: Do not underestimate the power of Playstation

For years I’ve lived a double life.
In the day I do my job,
I ride the bus,
Roll up my sleeves with the hoi polloi.
But at night I live a life of exhilaration,
Of missed heartbeats and adrenaline,
And, if the truth be known,
A life of dubious virtue.

I won’t deny I’ve been engaged in violence,
Even indulged in it.
I have maimed and killed adversaries,
And not merely in self defence.
I have exhibited disregard for life,
Limb,
And property,
And savoured every moment.

You may not think it to look at me,
But I have commanded armies,
And conquered worlds.
And though in achieving these things
I have set morality aside,
I have no regrets.
For though I’ve led a double life
At least I can say,
I have lived.

Antonio Machado: Proverbs and songs, X

X

The Envy of Virtue
made a criminal of Cain.
Glory to Cain! Today vice
is what we envy most of all.

Antonio Machado: Proverbios y cantares X

X 

La envidia de la virtud 
hizo a Caín criminal. 
¡Gloria a Caín! Hoy el vicio 
es lo que se envidia más.

Jane Kenyon: The Suitor

We lie back to back. Curtains
lift and fall,
like the chest of someone sleeping.
Wind moves the leaves of the box elder;
they show their light undersides,
turning all at once
like a school of fish.
Suddenly I understand that I am happy.
For months this feeling
has been coming closer, stopping
for short visits, like the timid suitor. 

Nagy László: Ki viszi át a Szerelmet

Létem ha végleg lemerűlt
ki imád tücsök-hegedűt?
Lángot ki lehel deres ágra?
Ki feszül föl a szivárványra?
Lágy hantú mezővé a szikla-
csípőket ki öleli sírva?
Ki becéz falban megeredt
hajakat, verőereket?
S dúlt hiteknek kicsoda állít
káromkodásból katedrálist?
Létem ha végleg lemerűlt,
ki rettenti a keselyűt!
S ki viszi át fogában tartva
a Szerelmet a túlsó partra!

Colleen Hitchcock: Ascension

And if I go,
while you're still here...
Know that I live on,
vibrating to a different measure
--behind a thin veil you cannot see through.
You will not see me,
so you must have faith.
I wait for the time when we can soar together again,
--both aware of each other.
Until then, live your life to its fullest.
And when you need me,
Just whisper my name in your heart,
...I will be there.

Meg Kearney: Creed

I believe the chicken before the egg

though I believe in the egg. I believe

eating is a form of touch carried

to the bitter end; I believe chocolate

is good for you; I believe I'm a lefty

in a right-handed world, which does not

make me gauche, or abnormal, or sinister.

I believe "normal" is just a cycle on

the washing machine; I believe the touch

of hands has the power to heal, though

nothing will ever fill this immeasurable

hole in the center of my chest. I believe

in kissing; I believe in mail; I believe

in salt over the shoulder, a watched

pot never boils, and if I sit by my

mailbox waiting for the letter I want

it will never arrive—not because of

superstition, but because that's not

how life works. I believe in work:

phone calls, typing, multiplying,

black coffee, write write write, dig

dig dig, sweep sweep. I believe in

a slow, tortuous sweep of tongue

down the lover's belly; I believe I've

been swept off my feet more than once

and it's a good idea not to name names.

Digging for names is part of my work,

but that's a different poem. I believe

there's a difference between men and

women and I thank God for it. I believe

in God, and if you hold the door

and carry my books, I'll be sure to ask

for your name. What is your name? Do

you believe in ghosts? I believe

the morning my father died I heard him

whistling "Danny Boy" in the bathroom,

and a week later saw him standing in

the living room with a suitcase in his

hand. We never got to say good-bye, he

said, and I said I don't believe in

good-byes. I believe that's why I have

this hole in my chest; sometimes it's

rabid; sometimes it's incoherent. I

believe I'll survive. I believe that

"early to bed and early to rise" is

a boring way to live. I believe good

poets borrow, great poets steal, and

if only we'd stop trying to be happy

we could have a pretty good time. I

believe time doesn't heal all wounds;

I believe in getting flowers for no

reason; I believe "Give a Hoot, Don't

Pollute," "Reading is Fundamental,"

Yankee Stadium belongs in the Bronx,

and the best bagels in New York are

boiled and baked on the corner of First

and 21st. I believe in Santa

Claus, Jimmy Stewart, ZuZu's petals,

Arbor Day, and that ugly baby I keep

dreaming about—she lives inside me

opening and closing her wide mouth.

I believe she will never taste her

mother's milk; she will never be

beautiful; she will always wonder what

it's like to be born; and if you hold

your hand right here—touch me right

here, as if this is all that matters,

this is all you ever wanted, I believe

something might move inside me,

and it would be more than I could stand.

Gioconda Belli: Pequeñas Lecciones de Erotismo

I
Recorrer un cuerpo en su extensión de vela
Es dar la vuelta al mundo
Atravesar sin brújula la rosa de los vientos
Islas golfos penínsulas diques de aguas embravecidas
No es tarea fácil - si placentera -
No creas hacerlo en un día o noche de sábanas explayadas
Hay secretos en los poros para llenar muchas lunas


II
El cuerpo es carta astral en lenguaje cifrado
Encuentras un astro y quizá deberás empezar
Corregir el rumbo cuando nube huracán o aullido
profundo
Te pongan estremecimientos
Cuenco de la mano que no sospechaste

III
Repasa muchas veces una extensión
Encuentra el lago de los nenúfares
Acaricia con tu ancla el centro del lirio
Sumérgete ahógate distiéndete
No te niegues el olor la sal el azúcar
Los vientos profundos cúmulos nimbus de los pulmones
Niebla en el cerebro
Temblor de las piernas
Maremoto adormecido de los besos

Cyril Wong: Close All The Windows

After discovering the Internet,
my mother has trouble
finding a connection, and
calls me up for help
while I am at work.
We keep miscommunicating.

She has clicked open
so many windows
the computer threatens to hang.
And my logic runs out
of variations to explain
the same thing over
and over. Suddenly,

I imagine she is looking
for her future through
that glowing screen
and I am really helping her

to find back her life after
all her children have left
for new homes,
new families to love.
'What now?' she asks.

'Try again,' I reply, the phone
pressed to my ear. 'Close all
the windows. Tell me —
what do you see?' 

Charles Bukowski: Así que quieres ser escritor?

Si a pesar de todo

no sale de ti como una explosión

no lo hagas

al menos que salga, sin reclamarlo,

de tu corazón, tu mente, tu boca

y tus vísceras

no lo hagas

si tienes que sentarte horas

mirando fijamente el monitor

o encorvado sobre

tu máquina de escribir

buscando palabras

no lo hagas

si es por dinero

o por fama

no lo hagas

si es porque deseas

mujeres en tu cama

no lo hagas

si tienes que sentarte

y editarlo una y otra vez

no lo hagas

si pretendes escribir como alguien olvídalo

si tienes que esperar que salga como

un rugido

entonces espera pacientemente

si nunca sale de ti como un rugido 

dedícate a otra cosa

si primero se lo lees a tu esposa

a tu novia o novio

a tus padres o a quién sea

no estás listo

no seas como tantos escritores

no seas como miles de personas

que se dicen escritores

no seas aburrido, fastidioso y engreído

que no te consuma el amor propio

las librerías del mundo

duermen en sus bostezos

por tipos como tú

no te incluyas allí

a no ser que salga de ti

como un cohete

a no ser que tu letargo

te arrastre a la locura

al suicidio o al asesinato

no lo hagas

a no ser que el sol que llevas dentro

te queme las entrañas

no lo hagas

cuando llegue el momento de verdad

y seas elegido

eso aparecerá por sí mismo

y así continuará

hasta que mueras o fenezca dentro de ti

no hay otro camino

nunca lo habido.

(Traducción de Victor Bascur Anselmi)

Carl Dennis: The God Who Loves You

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you’d be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you’d have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you’re living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don’t want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day’s disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You’d have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you’re used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You’re spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven’t written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you’ve chosen.

Nagy László: Adjon az Isten

Adjon az Isten
szerencsét,
szerelmet,
forrókemencét,
üres vékámba
gabonát,
árva kezembe
parolát,
lámpámba lángot,
ne kelljen
korán az ágyra
hevernem,
kérdésre választ
ő küldjön,
hogy hitem széjjel
ne düljön,
adjon az Isten
fényeket,
temetők helyett
életet –
nekem a kérés
nagy szégyen,
adjon úgyis,
ha nem kérem.