2013. október 31., csütörtök

About the state of economy :-)

So, I launched this blog a year ago. As of today, more than 750 poems have been posted, and you have no idea how many are waiting in line at this very moment :-)

Soon the number of visitors will reach 16,000. You may wonder which were the most popular posts so far. The top five poems are as follows: In defense of joy by Mario BenedettiTwo bodies by Octavio PazA little girl tugs at the tablecloth by Wislawa SzymborskaI loved my friend by Langston Hughes, and a Hungarian poem, Vallomás, by Jenő Heltai. I find it great that in the top five, there are two Spanish-speaking poets and a Polish one :-)

It is so good to see visitors from all over the world. Naturally, because most of the poems are in English, most visitors come from English speaking countries (US, UK, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand...). Some regular readers visit from European countries (Hungary, of course, but also Greece, Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland...). Others arrive from Costa Rica, Mexiko, South-Korea, the Philippines, China, Russia, and there are occassional readers from African countries and other distant places such as Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Trinidad and Tobago and Puerto Rico, among others. I certainly hope not all of those visitors are statistic websites :-)

It is a pity almost noone ever leaves a comment. However, I sometimes receive an encouraging mail from readers - let me thank you now publicly, too.
Many of these poems I share here had helped me in the past in various situations. I wish that reading these poems you find solace, help, encouragement, inspiration and whatever else you need at this very moment in your life.

I hope you found this anniversary blog entry interesting because I intend to debrief you every year at Halloween, if you will still stick around by then :-)

Neil Hiborn: OCD (spanish version)

La primera vez que la vi…
Todo en mi cabeza se silenció
Todos los ticks, las imágenes constantes desaparecieron.
Cuando tienes trastorno obsesivo compulsivo en realidad no tienes momentos callados.
Inclusive en la cama estoy pensando:
¿Cerré las puertas? Sí
¿Me lavé las manos? Sí
¿Cerré las puertas? Sí
¿Me lavé las manos? Sí
Pero cuando la vi, la única cosa en la que pude pensar fue en la curva de la horquilla de sus labios.
O la pestaña en su mejilla–
La pestaña en su mejilla–
La pestaña en su mejilla.
Sabía que debía hablar con ella
La invité a salir seis veces en treinta segundos.
Ella dijo que sí después de la tercera,
pero ninguna de las veces que pregunté se sintió bien así que tenía que seguir haciéndolo.
En nuestra primera cita,
pasé más tiempo organizando mi comida por colores de lo que pasé comiéndola o hablando con ella.
Pero le encantó.
Le encantaba que tuviera que besarla para despedirme 16 veces, o 24 si era miércoles.
Le encantaba que me tomaba todo el tiempo caminar hacia casa porque había muchas grietas en la banqueta.
Cuando nos mudamos juntos ella dijo que se sentía segura,
como si nadie nos fuera a robar porque definitivamente había cerrado la puerta 18 veces,
Yo siempre veía su boca cuando hablaba–
Cuando hablaba–
Cuando hablaba–
Cuando hablaba–
Cuando hablaba;
Cuando me dijo que me amaba, su boca se curveaba hacia arriba en los bordes.
En la noche ella se acostaba en la cama y me veía apagar todas las luces, y prenderlas, y apagarlas, y prenderlas, y apagarlas, y prenderlas, y apagarlas, y prenderlas, y apagarlas, y prenderlas, y apagarlas, y prenderlas, y apagarlas, y prenderlas, y apagarlas, y prenderlas, y apagarlas, y prenderlas, y apagarlas, y prenderlas, y apagarlas.
Ella cerraba los ojos y se imaginaba que los días y las noches pasaban frente a ella.
Algunas mañanas empezaba a besarla para despedirme y ella sólo se iba porque estaba haciéndola llegar tarde al trabajo.
Cuando me detenía en las grietas de la banqueta ella seguía caminando.
Cuando me decía que me amaba su boca era una línea recta.
Me dijo que estaba tomando mucho de su tiempo.
La semana pasada empezó a dormir en casa de su madre.
Me dijo que nunca debió dejarme apegarme tanto a ella; que todo esto fue un error,
pero… ¡¿Cómo podría ser un error que no tenga que lavarme las manos después de tocarla?!
El amor no es un error y me está matando que ella pueda salirse de esto y yo no.
No puedo–
No puedo salir y encontrar a alguien nuevo porque siempre pienso en ella.
Usualmente, cuando me obsesiono con algo, veo gérmenes escabulléndose en mi piel.
Me veo a mí mismo siendo atropellado por una infinita línea de coches.
Y ella fue la primera cosa hermosa en la que alguna vez me he estancado.
Quiero despertar todas las mañanas pensando en la manera en la que agarra el volante.
Cómo mueve las manijas de la regadera como si estuviera abriendo una caja fuerte.
En cómo sopla las velas–
cómo sopla las velas–
cómo sopla las velas–
cómo sopla las velas–
cómo sopla…
Ahora sólo pienso en quién más está besándola.
No puedo respirar porque él sólo la besa una vez– ¡No le importa si es perfecto!
La quiero de regreso tanto que…
Dejo la puerta sin cerrar.
Dejo las luces prendidas.

Neil Hilborn: OCD

The first time I saw her,
Everything in my head went quiet.

All the ticks, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared.

When you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you don’t really get quiet moments.
Even in bed, I’m thinking:
Did I lock the doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
Did I lock the doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.

But when I saw her, the only thing I could think about was the hairpin curve of her lips.
Or the eyelash on her cheek—
the eyelash on her cheek—
the eyelash on her cheek.

I knew I had to talk to her.
I asked her out six times in thirty seconds.
She said yes after the third one, but none of them felt right, so I had to keep going.

On our first date, I spent more time organizing my meal by color than I did eating it, or talking to her.
But she loved it.
She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times at different times of the day.
She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk.
When we moved in together, she said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely lock the door eighteen times.

I’d always watch her mouth when she talked—
when she talked—
when she talked—
when she talked;
when she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges.

At night, she’d lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off.
And on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off.
She’d close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her.

But then.
She said I was taking up too much of her time.
That I couldn’t kiss her goodbye so much because I was making her late for work.
When she said she loved me, her mouth was a straight line. When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking.
And last week she started sleeping at her mother’s place.
She told me that she shouldn’t have let me get so attached to her; that this whole thing was a mistake, but.
How can it be a mistake that I don’t have to wash my hands after I touch her?

Love is not a mistake, and it’s killing me that she can run away from this and I just can’t.
I can’t go out and find someone new because I always think of her.

Usually, when I obsess over things, I see germs sneaking into my skin.
I see myself crushed by an endless succession of cars.
And she was the first beautiful thing I ever got stuck on.
I want to wake up every morning thinking about the way she holds her steering wheel.
How she turns shower knobs like she opening a safe.
How she blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out—

Now, I just think about who else is kissing her.

I can’t breathe because he only kisses her once -
He doesn’t care if it’s perfect!

I want her back so bad,
I leave the door unlocked.
I leave the lights on.


2013. október 30., szerda

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer: Rhyme XLI

You were the hurricane and I was the high
tower which defies its power:
you had to crash or to throw me down!
That could not be!

You were the ocean and I was the erect
rock which firmly awaits for its swing:
you had to break or to root me out!
That could not be!

Beautiful you, haughty me: used
the one to trample down, the other to not giving up:
narrow the path, unavoidable the impact...
That could not be!

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer: Rima XLI

Tú eras el huracán y yo la alta
torre que desafía su poder:
¡tenías que estrellarte o que abatirme!
¡No podía ser!

Tú eras el océano y yo la enhiesta
roca que firme aguarda su vaivén:
¡tenías que romperte o que arrancarme!
¡No podía ser!

Hermosa tú, yo altivo: acostumbrados
uno a arrollar, el otro a no ceder:
la senda estrecha, inevitable el choque...
¡No podía ser!

2013. október 29., kedd

Esperanza Friel: The Truth

These are the facts:
Cigarettes will kill you.
Yes does not always mean yes.
How kind you are to people
sometimes does not matter.
Coffee is bad for you.
8 hours of sleep should not be a goal;
it should always be a reality.
Green vegetables will keep you
young for as long as you eat them.
Nothing will ever be as beautiful
as your solitude.
Breathing deeply can calm you down
in any situation.
Mediation will center you
but only for a short time.
Love will hold you together
when you are falling apart.

2013. október 28., hétfő

Andrea Gibson: I’m never gonna wait that extra twenty minutes...

I’m never gonna wait
that extra twenty minutes
to text you back,
and I’m never gonna play
hard to get
when I know your life
has been hard enough already.
When we all know everyone’s life
has been hard enough already
it’s hard to watch
the game we make of love,
like everyone’s playing checkers
with their scars,
saying checkmate
whenever they get out
without a broken heart.
Just to be clear
I don’t want to get out
without a broken heart.
I intend to leave this life
so shattered
there’s gonna have to be
a thousand separate heavens
for all of my flying parts.

2013. október 26., szombat

Tóth János: Az irodalom szeméttelepén

(nem minden szemét, ami nem világít)

Az irodalom virágos rét
úgy általában,
de jártam már ott is,
ahol szeméttelep.
Turkáltam eldobott
sorokban, tört mondatok
vágtak lelkemen sebet,
s volt hogy atombomba
dörrenéssel jött a döbbenet:
miket eldobnak az emberek,
hisz ez a gondolat remek!
Magamhoz veszem,
letörlöm a hozzátapadt
indulatragot,
felkapaszkodó ragacsos jelzői elé
odavetek egy tőmondatot.
Megyek lassan,
bámulok egy málló költői képet,
de már túl koszos ,
hát hagyom az egészet.
Egy–két rozsdásodó
szó, mit még felkapok,
félkész rímért hajlok és már
itt sem vagyok.
Haza érve az egész holmit
egy zuhanygondolat alatt átmosom,
s pilláimmal intve a délibáb világnak,
a szelektív szemetet
talán verssé álmodom.

2013. október 25., péntek

Keaton Henson: Polite Plea

Come and be human with me
eat nothing that means us both leaving the house
sit on the floor in strange places
and sleep in familiar beds

I will make art, not for, but about you
speak truths while your sleeping and wake you with hands
we will dive deeply into one anothers
and stay out of our own weary heads

We will argue in glorious fireworks
I will throw words, you will break my guitar
remind ourselves that it's something worth burning
and be all the better for making up

Come and eat cereal late at night
in silence, undressed on the kitchen counter
be far too tired for tomorrows long stroll
in love, just enough for the waking up

Come, in your own time, and human be,
Yours politely,
Lonely me.

2013. október 24., csütörtök

2013. október 23., szerda

Pablo Neruda: Your Feet

When I cannot look at your face
I look at your feet.
Your feet of arched bone,
your hard little feet.
I know that they support you,
and that your sweet weight
rises upon them.
Your waist and your breasts,
the doubled purple
of your nipples,
the sockets of your eyes
that have just flown away,
your wide fruit mouth,
your red tresses,
my little tower.
But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.

Pablo Neruda: Tus pies

Cuando no puedo mirar tu cara
miro tus pies.
Tus pies de hueso arqueado,
tus pequeños pies duros.
Yo sé que te sostienen,
y que tu dulce peso
sobre ellos se levanta.
Tu cintura y tus pechos,
la duplicada púrpura
de tus pezones,
la caja de tus ojos
que recién han volado,
tu ancha boca de fruta,
tu cabellera roja,
pequeña torre mía.
Pero no amo tus pies
sino porque anduvieron
sobre la tierra y sobre
el viento y sobre el agua,
hasta que me encontraron.

2013. október 22., kedd

Wendy Cope: Postcards

At first I sent you a postcard
From every city I went to.
Grüsse aus Bath, aus Birmingham,
Aus Rotterdam, aus Tel Aviv.
Mit Liebe. Cards from you arrived
In English, with many commas.
Hope, you're fine and still alive,
Says one from Hong Kong. By that time
We weren't writing quite as often.

Now we're nearly nine years away
From the lake and the blue mountains,
And the room with the balcony,
But the heat and light of those days
Can reach this far from time to time.
Your latest was from Senegal,
Mine from Helsinki. I don't know
If we'll meet again. Be happy.
If you hear this, send a postcard.

2013. október 21., hétfő

Nikki Giovanni: The Butterfly

those things
which you so laughingly call
hands are in fact two
brown butterflies fluttering
across the pleasure
they give
my body

Sherman Pearl: Delayed Reactions

After the hammer slams down on your thumb
or the hurtful word penetrates,
a stunned moment follows.

You're like a soldier who feels no pain until he sees the wound.

Happiness, too, is sometimes slow to register.

It was years after the rain had sent
me and the girl huddled close to me dashing for cover
that I suddenly felt the drops.

2013. október 19., szombat

Szilágyi Domokos: Ius Primae Noctis

FIGYELEM!
A vers felkavaró.



Nád-erdő közepén tavirózsák
- nád-szablyák, csillagtalan víz-ágy -

Jönnek, parancsra tárva testük öblét,
lehajtott lelkű, mosolytalan menyecskék,

illattalan virág-árnyak - -
járják a villogó szemű nádast,

álmaimban, összeszorított ajakkal,
mellükön tejfehér teleholddal.

Tapogatják szőrös-kezű rémek,
pókhasúak ölelik őket,

vérbő tokák nyakukra folynak,
kan-agyarak vállukba marnak,

göcsörtös térdek térdüket nyomják,
zsíros fülek nyelik fájdalmuk hangját,

szemük szirmait tövises szemek tépik,
fejük rózsaként hajol földig,

kedvük temetődik rögök alá
- hol van, ki kínjukat kiáltaná?

Fénytelén ágyékukat sugárral simítani
hol a Nap? hol vagytok, szerelem csillagai?

Nád-erdő közepén tavirózsák
- nád-szablyák, csillagtalan víz-ágy -

Jönnek, parancsra tárva testük öblét,
lehajtott lelkű, mosolytalan menyecskék,

álmaimban jönnek lengő sorban,
arcukon keserű ráncok csokorban,

méhük sunyító bánattal terhes -
nyújtják kezüket századok szürkés

ködén át, ajkuk szótalan jajjal,
villog vértelen gyötrődés-habbal,

nyugtukat nem lelik a földben,
szívüket forgatják szívemben,

nyelvem pattogzik, agyam elforr,
s vér fakad tejes liliomokból -

2013. október 18., péntek

Sherman Alexie: How to Create an Agnostic

Singing with my son, I clapped my hands
Just as lightning struck.

It was dumb luck,
But my son, in awe, thought

That I’d created the electricity.
He asked, “Dad, how’d you do that?”

Before I could answer, thunder shook the house
And set off neighborhood car alarms.

I thought that my son, always in love with me,
Might fall to his knees with adoration.

“Dad,” he said. “Can you burn
down that tree outside my window?

The one that looks like a giant owl?”
O, my little disciple, my one-boy choir,

I can’t do that because your father,
Your half-assed messiah, is afraid of fire.

2013. október 17., csütörtök

Fodor Ákos: Korunk

hommage á K. D.


Nem szívom mellre,
nem veszem szivemre, csak
gyomrom nem bírja.

A.E. Stallings: The Wife of the Man of Many Wiles

Believe what you want to. Believe that I wove,
If you wish, twenty years, and waited, while you
Were knee-deep in blood, hip-deep in goddesses.

I’ve not much to show for twenty years’ weaving—
I have but one half-finished cloth at the loom.
Perhaps it’s the lengthy, meticulous grieving.

Explain how you want to. Believe I unraveled
At night what I stitched in the slow siesta,
How I kept them all waiting for me to finish,

The suitors, you call them. Believe what you want to.
Believe that they waited for me to finish,
Believe I beguiled them with nightly un-doings.

Believe what you want to. That they never touched me.
Believe your own stories, as you would have me do,
How you only survived by the wise infidelities.

Believe that each day you wrote me a letter
That never arrived. Kill all the damn suitors
If you think it will make you feel better.

2013. október 16., szerda

Fodor Ákos: Rezignáció

Inkább mindent és
mindenkit megértek - csak
ne vitassuk meg...

Nicolás Guillén: Glosa



No sé si me olvidarás, 
ni si es amor este miedo; 
yo sólo sé que te vas, 
yo sólo sé que me quedo.

ANDRÉS ELOY BLANCO

              1

Como la espuma sutil
con que el mar muere deshecho,
cuando roto el verde pecho
se desangra en el cantil,
no servido, sí servil,
sirvo a tu orgullo no más,
y aunque la muerte me das,
ya me ganes o me pierdas,
sin saber que me recuerdas
no sé si me olvidarás.

              2

Flor que sólo una mañana
duraste en mi huerto amado,
del sol herido y quemado
tu cuello de porcelana:
Quiso en vano mi ansia vana
taparte el sol con un dedo;
hoy así a la angustia cedo
y al miedo, la frente mustia...
No sé si es odio esta angustia,
ni si es amor este miedo.

              3

¡Qué largo camino anduve
para llegar hasta ti,
y qué remota te vi
cuando junto a mí te tuve!
Estrella, celaje, nube,
ave de pluma fugaz,
ahora que estoy donde estás,
te deshaces, sombra helada:
Ya no quiero saber nada;
yo sólo sé que te vas.

              4

¡Adiós! En la noche inmensa
y en alas del viento blando,
veré tu barca bogando,
la vela impoluta y tensa.
Herida el alma y suspensa
te seguiré, si es que puedo;
y aunque iluso me concedo
la esperanza de alcanzarte,
ante esa vela que parte,
yo sólo sé que me quedo.

2013. október 15., kedd

George Wallace: Before Everything Is Over

before everything is over i would like to make love to you
the same number of times as a gentleman knocking on a
door that will never open for him.

the same number of times a mirror fails to reflect the spirit
of a ruined man. the same number of times a young woman
discovers in the middle of a noisy party

that she is alone. i would like to make love to you like a man
leaning his face from the window of a passenger train to catch
one more look at the one woman he ever

truly adored, but now he must leave behind. like a circus
performer looking up at a ceiling of trapeze rings, crazy
lights and precarious high wires,

knowing he will never climb that high. like a washed up prize
fighter reaching for the canvas because it is his only friend.
like a bum reaching for a twenty dollar bill

that is blowing across a busy boulevard. o i would like to
make love to you before the passersby pass by before
the falling sun falls out of this world

and into the next, before the brown bear of winter falls
into his magnificent winter slumber. i would like to make
love to you with my forehead

pressed to your naked waist. with my platelets pulsing in
your veins. with my brain on fire and snow falling on your
hissing flames o i would like to make

love to you a hundred times with the shuddering knowledge
of you, with your frozen smile and untraceable fingertips.
you with your indecipherable dreams.

because i am doomed to live with you even when i am
without you -- you with your incomplete shoulders. you
with your rainbow colored lips.

you with your empty hands. your perfumed silence, your
perfect elegance. you, with the sunlight that leaks out of
your darkness and into my world.

2013. október 14., hétfő

Neil Gaiman: Sonnet

I don't think that I've been in love as such,
Although I liked a few folk pretty well.
Love must be vaster than my smiles or touch,
For brave men died and empires rose and fell
For love: girls followed boys to foreign lands
And men have followed women into Hell.

In plays and poems someone understands
There's something makes us more than blood and bone
And more than biological demands...
For me, love's like the wind, unseen, unknown.
I see the trees are bending where it's been,
I know that it leaves wreckage where it's blown.
I really don't know what "I love you" means.
I think it means "Don't leave me here alone."

2013. október 12., szombat

Szilágyi Domokos: Ragyogj

Elaludtak a fák
a levelek libegnek
az álmok tudnak várni
az álmok nem sietnek

Tudjál álmokra várni
ahogy ők tudnak várni rád
az éber
csak így nem csalja meg magát

A levelek fölött
álmodó fények úsznak
az álmok fölragyognak
a fények elalusznak

Aludj fényekkel együtt
ragyogj álmokkal együtt

2013. október 11., péntek

Ellen Kennedy: I Have No Ambitions

i don't want to hate the president
i don't want to go to harvard
i don't want to win the pulitzer prize
i just want to sit in my bathtub
and think about relationships i will never have
with people i will never meet
and then go lay in my bed
with a magnifying glass
and count all the stiches in my sheets
until i fall asleep
and wake up
to repeat again.

2013. október 10., csütörtök

Suzanne Buffam: Enough

I am wearing dark glasses inside the house
To match my dark mood.

I have left all the sugar out of the pie.
My rage is a kind of domestic rage.

I learned it from my mother
Who learned it from her mother before her

And so on.
Surely the Greeks had a word for this.

Now surely the Germans do.
The more words a person knows

To describe her private sufferings
The more distantly she can perceive them.

I repeat the names of all the cities I’ve known
And watch an ant drag its crooked shadow home.

What does it mean to love the life we’ve been given?
To act well the part that’s been cast for us?

Wind. Light. Fire. Time.  
A train whistles through the far hills.

One day I plan to be riding it.

2013. október 9., szerda

Luis Cernuda: If a man could say what he loves

If a man could say how much he loves,
if a man could raise his love in the sky
like a cloud in the light;
if like falling walls,
in order to salute the truth, straightened in the middle,
he could plunge his body headlong,
leaving just the truth about his love,
the truth about himself,
which is not called glory, nor fortune, nor ambition,
but love or desire,
I would be the one who imagined;
the one who, with his tongue, his eyes and his hands,
proclaims in front of the men the ignored truth,
the truth about his true love.

Freedom I do not know but the freedom of being imprisoned in anybody
whose name I cannot hear without chill;
someone for whom I forget this mean existence,
for whom the day and the night are for me whatever he wants,
and my body and spirit float in his body and spirit
like lost logs that the sea submerges or raises
freely, with the freedom of love,
the only freedom that exalts me,
the only truth for which I die.

You justify my existence:
if I do not meet you, I haven't lived;
if I die without meeting you, I don't die, because I haven't lived.

Luis Cernuda: Si el hombre pudiera decir lo que ama

Si el hombre pudiera decir lo que ama,
si el hombre pudiera levantar su amor por el cielo
como una nube en la luz;
si como muros que se derrumban,
para saludar la verdad erguida en medio,
pudiera derrumbar su cuerpo,
dejando solo la verdad de su amor,
la verdad de sí mismo,
que no se llama gloria, fortuna o ambición,
sino amor o deseo,
yo sería aquél que imaginaba;
aquél que con su lengua, sus ojos y sus manos
proclama ante los hombres la verdad ignorada,
la verdad de su amor verdadero.

Libertad no conozco sino la libertad de estar preso en alguien
cuyo nombre no puedo oír sin escalofrío;
alguien por quien me olvido de esta existencia mezquina,
por quien el día y la noche son para mí lo que quiera,
y mi cuerpo y espíritu flotan en su cuerpo y espíritu
como leños perdidos que el mar anega o levanta
libremente, con la libertad del amor,
la única libertad que me exalta,
la única libertad por que muero.

Tú justificas mi existencia:
si no te conozco, no he vivido;
si muero sin conocerte, no muero, porque no he vivido.

2013. október 8., kedd

Anna Denise: How to Change a Frog Into a Prince

Start with the underwear. Sit him down.
Hopping on one leg may stir unpleasant memories.
If he gets his tights on, even backwards, praise him.
Fingers, formerly webbed, struggle over buttons.
Arms and legs, lengthened out of proportion, wait,
as you do, for the rest of him to catch up.
This body, so recently reformed, reclaimed,
still carries the marks of its time as a frog. Be gentle.
Avoid the words awkward and gawky.
Do not use tadpole as a term of endearment.
His body, like his clothing, may seem one size too big.
Relax. There's time enough for crowns. He'll grow into it.

2013. október 7., hétfő

Naomi Shihab Nye: The Art of Disappearing

When they say Don't I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It's not that you don't love them anymore.
You're trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

2013. október 5., szombat

Szilágyi Domokos: Ünnepek

Legszebben a szerelmesek ünnepelnek:
meztelenül -
tüzes súlytalanságba öltözötten,
mint az űr
meghódítói - -
legszebben a szerelmesek ünnepelnek:
meztelenül.

Szerelmesek szép, meztelen, súlytalan ünnepeit
- ezt az értelmes csodát -,
szerelmesek szép, meztelen, súlytalan ünnepeit
kívánom neked is, világ.

2013. október 4., péntek

Patrick Phillips: 6:12

My heart swelled inexplicably
when I turned the key

and caught the scent
of something lovely, coming from the kitchen.

I dropped my loaded bag
and clowned a heart-attack

when my son came running from his room
and gripped my thumbs, and balanced on my shoes.

And as I broke into our nightly dance—
his graceless, middle-aged old man,

I knew: that I will be content
if this is all the heaven that we're granted.

2013. október 3., csütörtök

Andrea Gibson: Friends


Li-Young Lee: The Gift

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.
I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.
Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.
Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.

2013. október 2., szerda

Pablo Neruda: Talán nem-lét a lét is, ha te nem vagy

Talán nem-lét a lét is, ha te nem vagy,
ha nem jönnél a délidőt jelezni,
akár egy kék virág, hogyha nem indulsz
sétálni később kövek közt a ködben,

ha nem emelnéd ezt a fényt kezedben,
amit talán más nem is lát aranynak,
miről tán senki sem tudja, hogy úgy nőtt,
akár a rózsa piros ragyogása,

ha nem vagy végül, hogyha el sosem jössz
váratlan, hogy az életem megismerd,
te rózsaözön, szél zúgó kalásza.

S azóta azért vagyok, mert te is vagy,
azóta vagy, vagyok vagyunk mi ketten,
s leszek, leszel, leszünk most már örökre.


(Somlyó György fordítása)

Pablo Neruda: Soneto LXIX

Tal vez no ser es ser sin que tú seas,
sin que vayas cortando el mediodía
como una flor azul, sin que camines
más tarde por la niebla y los ladrillos,

sin esa luz que llevas en la mano
que tal vez otros no verán dorada,
que tal vez nadie supo que crecía
como el origen rojo de la rosa,

sin que seas, en fin, sin que vinieras
brusca, incitante, a conocer mi vida,
ráfaga de rosal, trigo del viento,

y desde entonces soy porque tú eres,
y desde entonces eres, soy y somos,
y por amor seré, serás, seremos.

2013. október 1., kedd

Linda Gregg: Asking for Directions

We could have been mistaken for a married couple
riding on the train from Manhattan to Chicago
that last time we were together. I remember
looking out the window and praising the beauty
of the ordinary: the in-between places, the world
with its back turned to us, the small neglected
stations of our history. I slept across your
chest and stomach without asking permission
because they were the last hours. There was
a smell to the sheepskin lining of your new
Chinese vest that I didn't recognize. I felt
it deliberately. I woke early and asked you
to come with me for coffee. You said, sleep more,
and I said we only had one hour and you came.
We didn't say much after that. In the station,
you took your things and handed me the vest,
then left as we had planned. So you would have
ten minutes to meet your family and leave.
I stood by the seat dazed by exhaustion
and the absoluteness of the end, so still I was
aware of myself breathing. I put on the vest
and my coat, got my bag and, turning, saw you
through the dirty window standing outside looking
up at me. We looked at each other without any
expression at all. Invisible, unnoticed, still.
That moment is what I will tell of as proof
that you loved me permanently. After that I was
a woman alone carrying her bag, asking a worker
which direction to walk to find a taxi.