Mario Benedetti: My Way

Hope so gentle
so polished so sad
a vow so lightly taken
is not my way

hope so docile
is not my way

rage so meek
so humble so weak
anger so discreet
is not my way

so much sensible rage
is not my way

a scream so precise
when the weather is nice
a howl so genteel
is not my way

so much well-behaved thunder
is not my way

bravery so mild
courage so half-hearted
rashness so sluggish
is not my way

daring so tepid
is not my way

my way is life
lived fully 'til death
a heart on alert
that is my way

trust gaining ground
is my way

my way is your gaze
so giving yet firm
your silence so guileless
is my way

your exemplary life
is my way

my way is your future
your present freely changing
your struggle unabating
is my way

your undecorated battle
is my way

my way is the modest reach
of your possible pride
your unwavering hand
is my way

your way compañero
is my way.

(translated by Louise B. Popkin)

Mario Benedetti: Me sirve y no me sirve

La esperanza tan dulce
tan pulida tan triste
la promesa tan leve
no me sirve

no me sirve tan mansa
la esperanza

la rabia tan sumisa
tan débil tan humilde
el furor tan prudente
no me sirve

no me sirve tan sabia
tanta rabia

el grito tan exacto
si el tiempo lo permite
alarido tan pulcro
no me sirve

no me sirve tan bueno
tanto trueno

el coraje tan docil
la bravura tan chirle
la intrepidez tan lenta
no me sirve

no me sirve tan fría
la osadía

si me sirve la vida
que es vida hasta morirse
el corazon alerta
si me sirve

me sirve cuando avanza
la confianza

me sirve tu mirada
que es generosa y firme
y tu silencio franco
si me sirve

me sirve la medida
de tu vida

me sirve tu futuro
que es un presente libre
y tu lucha de siempre
si me sirve

me sirve tu batalla
sin medalla

me sirve la modestia
de tu orgullo posible
y tu mano segura
si me sirve

me sirve tu sendero
compañero.

Bill Knott: Sonnet

The way the world is not
astonished at you
it doesn’t blink a leaf
when we step from the house
leads me to think
that beauty is natural, unremarkable
and not to be spoken of
except in the course of things
the course of singing and worksharing
the course of squeezes and neighbors
the course of you, tying back your raving hair to go out
and the course, of course, of me
astonished at you
the way the world is not.

Mary Oliver: The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Vadász Bence: Szerelem

Sajátgép,
Hálózatok,
A1,
Ági,
Copy,
"klikk",
Paint,
ügyetlen kis hülye virág rajzolása...
mentés másként,
felasználók,
Bence
mentés,
nyomtatás.

Thom Gunn: The Hug

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
    Half of the night with our old friend
        Who'd showed us in the end
    To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
        Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.

I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
        Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
        Your instep to my heel,
    My shoulder-blades against your chest.
    It was not sex, but I could feel
    The whole strength of your body set,
           Or braced, to mine,
        And locking me to you
    As if we were still twenty-two
    When our grand passion had not yet
        Become familial.
    My quick sleep had deleted all
    Of intervening time and place.
        I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.

Linda Hogan: The Way In

Sometimes the way to milk and honey is through the body.
Sometimes the way in is a song.
But there are three ways in the world: dangerous, wounding,
and beauty.
To enter stone, be water.
To rise through hard earth, be plant
desiring sunlight, believing in water.
To enter fire, be dry.
To enter life, be food.

Charles Bukowski: Elogio al infierno de una dama

Algunos perros que duermen a la noche
deben soñar con huesos
y yo recuerdo tus huesos
en la carne
o mejor
en ese vestido verde oscuro
y esos zapatos de taco alto
negros y brillantes,
siempre puteabas cuando
estabas borracha,
tu pelo se resbalaba de tu oreja
querías explotar
de lo que te atrapaba:
recuerdos podridos de un
pasado
podrido, y
al final
escapaste
muriendo,
dejándome con el
presente
podrido.
hace 28 años
que estás muerta
y sin embargo te recuerdo
mejor que a cualquiera
de las otras
fuiste la única
que comprendió
la futilidad del
arreglo con la vida.
las demás sólo estaban
incómodas con
segmentos triviales,
criticaban
absurdamente
lo pequeñito:
Jane, te
asesinaron por saber
demasiado.
vaya un trago
por tus huesos
con los que
este viejo perro
sueña
todavía.

Charles Bukowski: Eulogy to a Hell of a Dame

some dogs who sleep At night
must dream of bones
and I remember your bones
in flesh
and best
in that dark green dress
and those high-heeled bright
black shoes,
you always cursed when you drank,
your hair coming down you
wanted to explode out of
what was holding you:
rotten memories of a
rotten
past, and
you finally got
out
by dying,
leaving me with the
rotten
present;
you've been dead
28 years
yet I remember you
better than any of
the rest;
you were the only one
who understood
the futility of the
arrangement of
life;
all the others were only
displeased with
trivial segments,
carped
nonsensically about
nonsense;
Jane, you were
killed by
knowing too much.
here's a drink
to your bones
that
this dog
still
dreams about.

Wislawa Szymborska: Four a.m.

The hour between night and day.
The hour between toss and turn.
The hour of thirty-year-olds.

The hour swept clean for rooster's crowing.
The hour when the earth takes back its warm embrace.
The hour of cool drafts from extinguished stars.
The hour of do-we-vanish-too-without-a-trace.

Empty hour.
Hollow. Vain.
Rock bottom of all the other hours.

No one feels fine at four a.m.
If ants feel fine at four a.m.,
we're happy for the ants. And let five a.m. come
if we've got to go on living.

(Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

Edith Sodergran: Hope

I want to let go -
so I don't give a damn about fine writing,
I'm rolling my sleeves up.
The dough's rising ...
Oh what a shame
I can't bake cathedrals ...
that sublimity of style
I've always yearned for ...
Child of our time -
haven't you found the right shell for your soul?
Before I die I shall
bake a cathedral.

(translated by Herbert Lomas)

Vadász Bence: Töredék a “GYERMEKTÁPSZER” c. versciklusból

...megint sárgarépás bébiétel...?

ti-ti-ti, táá-táá-táá, ti-ti-ti.

VÉTEL!

R. S. Thomas: Poetry for Supper

'Listen, now, verse should be as natural
As the small tuber that feeds on muck
And grows slowly from obtuse soil
To the white flower of immortal beauty.'

'Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer
Said once about the long toil
That goes like blood to the poem's making?
Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls,
Limp as bindweed, if it break at all
Life's iron crust. Man, you must sweat
And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build
Your verse a ladder.'

        'You speak as though
No sunlight ever surprised the mind
Groping on its cloudy path.'

'Sunlight's a thing that needs a window
Before it enters a dark room.
Windows don't happen.'

        So two old poets,
Hunched at their beer in the low haze
Of an inn parlour, while the talk ran
Noisily by them, glib with prose.

Donald Caswell: Why I Am a Poet

I am a poet. I am not a carpenter. Sometimes I think I would rather be a carpenter, but I am not. For instance, Gene, my carpenter friend, is building a house. I drop in. He gives me a hammer and says, "Start pounding." I pound; we pound. I look up. "Where's the roof?" "I'm not that far, yet," he says. I go and the days go by and I drop in again. The roof is up and I go and the days go by and I start a poem. I am thinking of stars and I write a poem about stars. I grab a typewriter and start pounding. Soon there are pages, acres of words about stars and the coffee is gone, so I go to a restaurant. And I buy a beer and the woman next to me tells me how she was raped by her stepfather when she was twelve, so she ran away with an ex-con who got popped again for cocaine and left her pregnant, so she married a GI and moved to Germany, where the baby died of kidney failure, so she came home to live with her mother. And I drink a lot of beers. Then I go outside and lie in a vacant lot looking up at the stars, thinking how many they are and what a wonderful poem they would make. And I fall asleep with a beer in my hand. In the morning, the beer, the stars, and my wallet are gone, so I go to see Gene, and the house is finished. A family is living there, and they show me their dog. There are flowers blooming; cabbage is cooking in the kitchen. So I go home and write another poem. And one day Gene drops in. He looks at the poem and now it is twelve poems, all neatly stacked and ready to be read and he asks, "Where are the stars?" And I say, "I'm not that far yet."

Philip Larkin: Talking in Bed

Talking in bed ought to be easiest
Lying together there goes back so far
An emblem of two people being honest.
Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside the wind’s incomplete unrest
builds and disperses clouds about the sky.
And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation
It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind
Or not untrue and not unkind.

Fodor Ákos: Egy gyakorlat

Magadtól kérdezd:
ajtód azért fontos-e,
hogy zárd? vagy, hogy nyisd?

Faludy György: Újszülött fiamhoz 5.

  Itt állok még az ablaknál. Besüt
      a januári nap.
      Hadd nézzelek, pöttöm, piros legény:
      a fénybe tartalak.
      Itt állok veled, nézlek,
      de alattunk a hegy,
      onnét jöttünk – az élet
      s a halál titka egy.
   
   
      Mi fenn állunk, a hősök,
      alattunk a legyőzött
      a porba tiprott ősök,
      a felsőket szerettük,

     
      ápoltuk és temettük,
      az alsókat feledtük –
      egy egész hullahegy.
   
   
      A mélyben foszló hamvak
      és vízözön iszap,
      és múmiák, melyekről
      a pólya leszakadt,
      feljebb, mint sarjúrend a réteken,
      fehér csontvázak, réteg rétegen,
      holttest holttest alatt.
   
   
      A gúla mélyén néma ősnép,
      de lábamnál az ismerős kép:
      egy-egy bajusz, egy szem, a haj,
      s amott a csúcson állnak még –
      azt gondolnád mezítlen mellel
      megyünk géppuska-fészkek ellen,
      és így esik el rajra raj
      és nemzedékre nemzedék.
   
   
      Ilyen hegyen állok veled, fiam,
      és úgy állok veled,
      mint Auschwitzban álltak, ha jött a gáz,
      jött és emelkedett,
      mikor terjedt a gáz s az emberek
      fele már elesett,
      az élők a holtakra álltak,
      hogy állukkal a gáz felett
      a Golgotán, a sok holt váz felett,
      egy perccel tovább éljenek.
   
   
      Így állunk a holtak hegyén,
      nagyszüleid, anyád, meg én,
      ez a családi piramis,
      olyan, akár a másoké, –
      ráfekszem egyszer magam is,
      és jobbkezem majd nem borul
      szememre úgy, mint Jákobé, –
   
      de addig, míg még itt vagyok,
      hadd nézlek meg magamnak,
      emeljenek a csillagok
      felé s tartsalak, míg a sors
      engedi, hogy maradjak –
      s ne félj! ha egyszer nem leszek,
      akkor is mindig itt leszek,
      közvetlenül alattad.

C. Dale Young: Night Air

"If God is Art, then what do we make
of Jasper Johns?"  One never knows
what sort of question a patient will pose,

or how exactly one should answer.
Outside the window, snow on snow
began to answer the ground below

with nothing more than foolish questions.
We were no different.  I asked again:
"Professor, have we eased the pain?"

Eventually, he’d answer me with:
"Tell me, young man, whom do you love?"
"E," I’d say, "None of the Above,"

and laugh for lack of something more
to add.  For days he had played that game,
and day after day I avoided your name

by instinct.  I never told him how
we often wear each other’s clothes—
we aren’t what many presuppose.

Call it an act of omission, my love.
Tonight, while walking to the car,
I said your name to the evening star,

clearly pronouncing the syllables
to see your name dissipate
in the air, evaporate.

Only the night air carries your words
up to the dead (the ancients wrote):
I watched them rise, become remote.

Fodor Ákos: Summa

Minden megérint.

- úgy látszik: sosem nő be

a szívem lágya.

Wendy Cope: Loss

The day he moved out was terrible —
That evening she went through hell.
His absence wasn’t a problem
But the corkscrew had gone as well.

Fodor Ákos: Egy természeti törvény

Miről nem hiszed,
hogy fenn tudod tartani,
azt el is ejted.

Szabó Ila: Epilóg

Már csöndesen szeretlek,
szelíd szavam se szól.
Könnyebb neked, ha vágyam
csak hangtalan dalol.
Nem várlak, nem kereslek,
nem álmodom veled,
feloldom gondod, vétked,
mit én hoztam neked.
S a csöndes könnyek éjén
én áldva áldalak,
köszönnöm kell, hogy voltál
egy boldog pillanat.
Lenyugszik lassan bennem
a lánggal égő láz,
de éltedre titkon
tekintetem vigyáz.

Szabó Lőrinc: A bolond igazsága

Sétáltunk, én s Dsié Jü, a bolond.
– Micsoda erő! élet! – mondtam én,
fölnézve egy zúgó tölgyóriásra;
neki meg sírásra görbült a szája:
– Erő? Ugyan! Hisz öngyilkos szegény! –

Tűzrózsa nyilt az útszélen. – Be boldog
lehet, hogy ily szép! – mondtam irigyen. –
– Szép? – Gyönyörű! – Társam szemébe könny gyűlt:
– Vak vagy, barátom, ez a rózsa őrült,
ha nem igaz, fusson ki a szemem! –

Tudtam, hogy bolond és most se lepett meg,
hogy tótágast áll benne a világ:
áldást osztott a gyomok mezején,
hirdette, hogy kártékony a tehén
s hogy minden más, a jó rossz s így tovább.

Mulattam rajta és a vita közben
kunyhómhoz értünk… (Lassan este lett.)
– Nem maradnál itt vacsorára? – Jó, –
mondta, s míg tovább folyt köztünk a szó,
ettünk sült húst és ittunk friss tejet.

Éjfélre járt, amikor lefeküdtünk;
s halljátok csak a furcsa folytatást!:
…A tetőből kilépett egy gerenda,
a székből egy láb, a falból a deszka,
elém bicegett és azt mondta: – Lásd,

én tölgy voltam, erő, maga az élet,
még bírtam volna néhány századot;
a korcs tovább él, hisz semmire sem kell,
én hős voltam, hát kivágott az ember
s most tüzelő és rabszolga vagyok! –

Még beszélt s már egy rózsa libegett be:
– Jaj, én őrült: letéptek! Jaj, miért
voltam olyan szép!… – S rögtön rá a tálban
elbődült a hús, mint tehén korában:
– Tagló fizetett a jóságomért! –

S új hangok jöttek: a liszt visszavágyott
a búzaföldre, a szelíd olaj
sírt, hogy el kell égnie, – kiabáltak,
hogy ami hasznos, mind magának árt csak,
és sistergett és áradt a zsivaj:

mint zenekar, jajdúltak fel a tárgyak
s az egész szoba gyalázta magát,
ordítva, hogy pfuj erő! pfuj tehetség!
és boldog a silányság és betegség
és hogy őrültek háza a világ…

És szívdobogva ébredtem a hangos
álomból… Csönd volt, sötét nyugalom,
csak a bolond hortyogott a sarokban…
De én már nem hittem a nyugalomban
s kezdtem átlátni önző agyamon,

s izgatottan cibáltam föl Dsié Jüt,
hogy… tán mégis… neki van igaza…
– Hagyj békén, marha! – felelt ő – köpök rád! –
és tovább horkolt… Aludt az igazság
s én virrasztottam egész éjszaka.

József Attila: Az én ajándékom

A szívem hoztam el. Csinálj vele,
amit akarsz. Én nem tudok mást tenni
és nem fáj nekem semmi, semmi, semmi,
csak a karom, mert nem öleltelek.

Oly fényes az még, mint új lakkcipő
és lábod biggyedt vonalára szabták,
de ruganyos, mint fürge gummi-labdák
és mint a spongya, mely tengerbe' nő.

Két fájó karral nyújtom mostan néked
és fáradt barna szóval arra kérlek:
ha eltiporsz is füvet, harmatost,

ha elkopott a lakktopánka egyszer
s ki megfoltozza, nem terem oly mester,
az utcasárba akkor se taposd.

Frank O’Hara: Why I am not a painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,
for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
“Sit down and have a drink” he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. “You have SARDINES in it.”
“Yes, it needed something there.”
“Oh.” I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting
is finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”
All that’s left is just
letters, “It was too much,” Mike says.
But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven’t mentioned
orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES.

Mario Benedetti: Don't Play It Safe

Don't stand idle
at the side of the road
don't hold off on happiness
don't  love with half a heart
don't  play it safe now
or ever
           don't play it safe
don't  fill up with calm
don't  take cover from the world
in a quiet corner
don't  let your eyelids come down
like a weighty sentence
don't  forget you have lips
don't  sleep but to rest
don't  ignore the blood in your veins
don't  think you have no time

but if
        in any case
you can't help it
and hold off on happiness
and love with half a heart
and play it safe now
and fill up with calm
and take cover from the world
in a quiet corner
and let your eyelids come down
like a weighty sentence
and dry up without lips
and sleep not to rest
and ignore the blood in your veins
and think you have no time
and stand idle
at the side of the road
and play it safe
                       in that case
don't hold on to me.

Mario Benedetti: No te salves

No te quedes inmóvil
al borde del camino
no congeles el júbilo
no quieras con desgana
no te salves ahora
ni nunca
            no te salves
no te llenes de calma
no reserves del mundo
sólo un rincón tranquilo
no dejes caer los párpados
pesados como juicios
no te quedes sin labios
no te duermas sin sueño
no te pienses sin sangre
no te juzgues sin tiempo

pero si
          pese a todo
no puedes evitarlo
y congelas el júbilo
y quieres con desgana
y te salvas ahora
y te llenas de calma
y reservas del mundo
sólo un rincón tranquilo
y dejas caer los párpados
pesados como juicios
y te secas sin labios
y te duermes sin sueño
y te piensas sin sangre
y te juzgas sin tiempo
y te quedas inmóvil
al borde del camino
y te salvas
               entonces
no te quedes conmigo.

Galway Kinnell: Wait

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

Li-Young Lee: One Heart

Look at the birds. Even flying
is born
out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, Friend, open
at either end of day.
The work of wings
was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.

Villányi G. András: Ádám

Édes Nénének

Voltam.
Nem kértem
nem tiltakoztam.
Mellcsontomból
nem metszettél még párt.
Magam voltam ám
semmitől sem idegen.
              Megcsonkítsz és
tenni végest így kényszerítesz.
Kívül.
Túl magamon.
Idegen léten át.

Míg a végtelenbe néztem
róla kérdeztem semmi másról.
              Válaszul szolgává tettél és
húsunk sajgó körein kergetsz.
              Egymásban fáj hiányunk.

Mégis kérdezni merlek
bár mind csöndesebben.

Váci Mihály: Aztán

Emlékszel? Aztán milyen jó volt
Hozzád fordulni - és Te édes! -
Hogy doromboltál hogyha csókot
Súgtam égő füled tövéhez.

S alvás előtt egymás ölében
még fészkelődni, s megfordulva
fel-felkérdezni, félig ébren:
"Szeretsz? " "Szeretsz még?! " - újra, újra.

Emlékszel? Engem elfeledhetsz.
De a percekre emlékezzél,
mikor odabújtál szívemhez
és magadról megfeledkeztél.

Eavan Boland: Quarantine

In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking — they were both walking — north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.

Ashley Wylde: Follow All Directions Carefully

Wake up in the morning and cover yourself up. Something crisp. Something professional. Not just the clothes, either, you can’t forget to cover up the way you’ve been feeling in case you inconveniently inconvenience someone else with your discontent; it’s a virus. You don’t get to ruin someone else’s day. Cover up your weaknesses, too, because they prey on the weak, and cover up your insecurities and your fears. You are rock. You had better be a rock. Cover up your tattoos and your piercings and cover the cross hanging from your neck because it’s no use being you if being you is different and we all know being different leads to unhappiness. If you have any confidence, cover it up, or you might make them start to feel small, and if you don’t have any confidence, cover that up because pathetic is worse than different and different is pretty bad. Walk out the door and keep your eyes down. Keep your eyes on the road, keep your eyes on the prize, keep your eyes on your own paper, keep them just about anywhere other than where they go on their own. It’s no use using your eyes if they single you out. Indent your paragraphs, wear black socks, turn out the lights to save money on your electric bill. Are you tired yet? Build your credit score, build your resume, build your pain tolerance, tolerate the serious injustices you are surrounded by, surround yourself with positivity, stay positive, stay healthy, stay home on the weekends and get plenty of sleep, sleep regularly, regulate your spending, spend more time working, work harder, work faster, work more work more work more. If you aren’t tired you aren’t working, if you are tired, keep working. Buy a house, procreate, start a college fund, pay your taxes, serve your church, vote for the president, keep your space clean, visit your brother, bury your grandmother. Don’t stop to cry. You wouldn’t want anyone to accuse you of losing sight of your priorities. Go to work. Save money. Provide for your family. Spend more time with your family. Spend more time at work. Spend less money. Save more money. Provide for your family. Are you tired? Save more money. Provide for your family. Save for your family. Are you tired? Spend more time working. Spend more time with your family. Are you tired? This is your life.
This is your life.
Don’t blink,
you might
miss
it.

Mario Benedetti: Rifts

The fact is
there's no shortage of
rifts

thus, as I recall
those that separate left-handed from right
peking from moscow
near from far-sighted
cops from prostitutes
optimists from teetotalers
clergy from customs officers
exorcists from queers
easy-to-bribe from incorruptible
prodigal sons from detectives
borges from sábato
upper from lower case
fireworks from firefighting
women from feminists
aquarians from tauruses
prophylactics from revolutionaries
virginal from impotent
agnostics from altarboys
immortal from suicidal
french from non-french

still
sooner or very much later
they can all be bridged

except for one rift
that's exceedingly deep
and separates the marvel that is man
from the demarvellizers

it's still possible to jump across that one
but watch out
we're right here
you and the rest of us
all set to make it deeper

so ladies and gentlemen
it's time to choose
choose which side
you'll stand on.

(translated by Louise B. Popkin)

Mario Benedetti: Grietas

La verdad es que 

grietas 

no faltan 

así al pasar recuerdo 

las que separan a zurdos y diestros 

a pequineses y moscovitas 

a présbites y miopes 

a gendarmes y prostitutas 

a optimistas y abstemios 

a sacerdotes y aduaneros 

a exorcistas y maricones 

a baratos e insobornables 

a hijos pródigos y detectives 

a borges y sábato 

a mayúsculas y minúsculas 

a pirotécnicos y bomberos 

a mujeres y feministas 

a acuarianos y taurinos 

a profilácticos y revolucionarios 

a vírgenes e impotentes 

a agnósticos y monaguillos 

a inmortales y suicidas 

a franceses y no franceses 

a corto o a larguísimo plazo 

todas son sin embargo 

remediables 

hay una sola grieta 

decididamente profunda 

y es la que media entre la maravilla del hombre 

y los desmaravilladores 

aún es posible saltar de uno a otro borde 

pero cuidado 

aquí estamos todos 

ustedes y nosotros 

para ahondarla 

señoras y señores 

a elegir 

a elegir de qué lado 

ponen el pie.

Rumi: Mikor együtt vagyunk...

Ha veled vagyok, ébren talál bennünket a hajnal.
Ha nélküled fekszem , elkerül az álom.
Hála az égnek mindkét virrasztásért,
Bár a különbséget óriásinak látom!

(Farkas Sándor fordítása)

Rumi: “When I have you…”

When I have you, the passions of love make me stay awake;
When you are not with me, I cannot sleep—I moan, I ache;
I’m awake the night you stay with me and the night you don’t—
But how those two nights are worlds apart, look, for heaven’s sake.