Ronny Someck: A Poem of Bliss

We are placed on a wedding cake
like two dolls, bride and groom.
When the knife strikes
we'll try to stay on the same slide.

(translated by Yair Mazor )

Gerald Locklin: I've Always Enjoyed Her Sense of Humor

She's an old friend
And I don't see her very often,
But she has a way of turning up
When I'm talking to a girl I've just met,

And she will invariably storm up to us
And confront me with, "where is the child support check?!"

Then turn on her heel and storm from the room,
Leaving me to make inadequate explanations.

Grecsó Krisztián: Pont oda

ez másik ruhatár magának nem lehet
ebből a lencséből a te fiad nem ehet
ennek a húsnak ha szaglik is nincs szaga
sötét van ne mozdulj pilled az éjszaka
az idő részeges idegen szíve van
rend kéne rend kéne rend kéne béke van
befordul hátul a nem láttam nézz oda
ha visznek hoznak is túl sok a bátor a
hídon is buszon is pártban is téren is
a félősök meg félnek úgy éljek éljen is
aki nyúl aki nyál aki nyől aki nyel
kifolyik alóluk belőlük el a tej
nekem ezt ne mondjad hazátlan bitangja
én vagyok a világ annak a pitypangja
én vagyok vagyok én te nem vagy nem vagy te
krisztusé a vére krisztusé a teste
mi kéne mondjad meg
mi kéne még innen
elvitték elvitted elvittük elvittem
nem jön jó sose volt sose lesz miért ne
lehetne lelőni aki tehet érte
van itt elég büdös bűnös és méltatlan
hagytad és hagytuk és hagytam és én hagytam
odalett odavolt széthúzok széthúzol
amelyik szolgáltat azonnal szétkapcsol
nincsen sehol tisztesség erdélyben térerő
lesz még a kárpátok lesz még e nép nyerő
az anyád az apám és még a régiek
félig vagy egészen lentről vagy égiek
jön tán a kegyelem ennyi szív nem lehet
hiába onta vért pocsékba nem mehet
kárba inkább mert a látlelet megéri
kifonja beviszi rájátszik megérti
nyugodj meg nyugodj el nyugodj már csillagom
e honért e hol van de hol már akarom
hogy engem akarjon ápoljon szeressen
ha én nem szerettem akkor is szeressen
ami el nem takar az alól kilátszom
amit meg nem ittam abból én hibádzom
se szeri se száma se alja se föle
ha veri majd állja van fasza van öle
ami jó miért ne ami rossz azt minek
tipegnek lerúgom öregek pingvinek
jön a busz jövök én a merdzsó letétbe
elmegyünk innen pont oda a fenébe

Rónay György: Leltár

A virágokat és a madarakat is,
s ahogy zizeg a nád, ahogy csobban a víz;
de legjobban talán mégiscsak ezt szerettem:
a csöndet körülöttem s a kék eget felettem

Ágai Ágnes: Lelkiismeret

Gyönge pillanataidban légy erős,
erős óráidban gyöngülj el,
valld be, ha reszketsz,
és szívedben lüktet a vér,
ha szemhéjadat könnyek feszítik,
sírj, kiálts, panaszkodj,
ne zárd palackba a fájdalmadat.

Szenvedj hangosan, dörömbölj,
a néma kín méregként megöl,
ne játszd a bátrat,
ess el, ha löknek,
és ha feltápászkodsz,
ne mondd, hogy semmiség!
A fegyelem rabruháját vesd le,
légy anyaszült,
vállald csapzott, megroggyant magad,
és üvölts, ahogy a torkodon kifér!

Billy Collins: Weighing the Dog

It is awkward for me and bewildering for him
as I hold him in my arms in the small bathroom,
balancing our weight on the shaky blue scale,

but this is the way to weigh a dog and easier
than training him to sit obediently on one spot
with his tongue out, waiting for the cookie.

With pencil and paper I subtract my weight
from our total to find out the remainder that is his,
and I start to wonder if there is an analogy here.

It could not have to do with my leaving you
though I never figured out what you amounted to
until I subtracted myself from our combination.

You held me in your arms more than I held you
through all those awkward and bewildering months
and now we are both lost in strange and distant neighborhoods.

Sharon Olds: Diagnosis

By the time I was six months old, she knew something
was wrong with me. I got looks on my face
she had not seen on any child
in the family, or the extended family,
or the neighborhood. My mother took me in
to the pediatrician with the kind hands,
a doctor with a name like a suit size for a wheel:
Hub Long. My mom did not tell him
what she thought in truth, that I was Possessed.
It was just these strange looks on my face—
he held me, and conversed with me,
chatting as one does with a baby, and my mother
said, She's doing it now! Look!
She's doing it now! and the doctor said,
What your daughter has
is called a sense
of humor. Ohhh, she said, and took me
back to the house where that sense would be tested
and found to be incurable.

Fodor Ákos: Speech advice

If you have too much
to say about something: better
remain silent.

Fodor Ákos: A profi

elhiszi, hogy tudja

Michael Heffernan: Puttanesca

Before I gave up wondering why everything
was a lot of nothing worth losing or getting back,
I took out a jar of olives, a bottle of capers,
a container of leftover tomato sauce with onions,
put a generous portion of each in olive oil
just hot enough but not too hot,
along with some minced garlic and a whole can of anchovies,
until the mixture smelled like a streetwalker's sweat,
then emptied it onto a half pound of penne, beautifully al dente,
under a heap of grated pecorino romano
in a wide bowl sprinkled with fresh chopped parsley.
If you had been there, I would have given you half,
and asked you whether its heavenly bitterness
made you remember anything you had once loved.

Matthew Rohrer: The Emperor

She sends me a text
she's coming home
the train emerges
from underground

I light the fire under
the pot, I pour her
a glass of wine
I fold a napkin under
a little fork

the wind blows the rain
into the windows
the emperor himself
is not this happy

Mezei Katalin: Akkor is

Akkor is adj

ha semmit se kérek,

akkor is higgy

ha nincsen ígéret,

akkor is hallgass

ha semmit se szólok,

akkor is ölelj

ha fáj amit mondok,

akkor is hívj

ha nem jövök érted,

akkor is bízz

ha máshol élek,

akkor is láss

ha nem látod arcom,

akkor is várj

ha más ágyban alszom.

Brian McCabe: The Romans

Listen up. This is how
We're about to count from now on.

We got a one: I. We got a five: V.
We got a ten: X. We got a fifty: L.
We got a hundred: C. We got a five hundred: D.
Also plus we got a thousand: M.

That's it. That's all we need.
The fuck with dealing out letters
to two three four six seven eight nine,
eleven twelve thirteen etcetera.

Those motherfuckers can go eat shit.
The rule is: you add the little fish
if it comes after the big fish
because the big fish eats it, right?

When the little fish comes before
the big fish, you take it away -
on account of the big fish ain't
ate it yet, okay? Any questions?

Whaddya mean howdya write
one hundred and sixty-four?
Am I talking to myself here?
CLXIV. Dumbfuck.

This means Tony the Scribe
only needs to know seven letters
to run any number we tell him.
Okay, let's go eat Chinese.

Robert Friend: My Cup

They tell me I am going to die.
Why don’t I seem to care?
My cup is full. Let it spill.

Fodor Ákos: Another democratic model

Op-ini-ooon - - di-i-i-is-missed!

Varró Dániel: Szösz néne

Fönt a Maszat-hegy legtetején,
ahol érik a Bajuszos Pöszméte,
és ahol sose voltunk még, te meg én,
ott ül a teraszán Szösz néne.
Ott ül a teraszán,
vénkora tavaszán,
néha kiújul a köszvénye.

Ott ül dudorászva egy ósdi hokedlin,
szimatol körülötte az öszvére,
hogyhogy sohasem tetszik berekedni
a nagy dudolásban, Szösz néne?
Hogyhogy a köszvény,
hogyhogy az öszvér
nem szegi kedvét, Szösz néne?

„Hát, tudjátok, ez úgy van, gyerekek,
nálam csupa szösz az asztal, a kerevet,
csupa szösz a tévé, csupa szösz a telefon,
szösz van a padlón, csempén, plafonon,
szösz van a hokedlin, szösz van a nokedlin,
szösz van a hajamon, a fülemen, a szöszömön,
öszvér, köszvény, semmi sem búsít,
nem szegi semmi se kedvem, köszönöm.”

Futottak a Takarítók a teraszhoz,
sipitoztak máris: „Szösz néne,
Csupa szösz a függöny, csupa szösz az abrosz,
nem lesz ennek rossz vége?
Csupa szösz a nyugdíj, csupa szösz a TAJ-szám,
szösz van a porcica kunkori bajszán,
szösztelenítsünk, portalanítsunk,
föltakarítsunk, Szösz néne?”

Fönt a Maszat-hegy legtetején,
ahol érik a Bajuszos Pöszméte,
és ahol sose voltunk még, te meg én,
dudorászik a teraszon Szösz néne:
„Szösztelenítés, portalanítás,
föltakarítás? Kösz, még ne.”

John O'Donohue: For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plentitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhytm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

Czeslaw Milosz: Faith

Faith is in you whenever you look
At a dewdrop or a floating leaf
And know that they are because they have to be.
Even if you close your eyes and dream up things
The world will remain as it has always been
And the leaf will be carried by the waters of the river.

You have faith also when you hurt your foot
Against a sharp rock and you know
That rocks are there to hurt our feet.
See the long shadow that is cast by the tree?
We and trees throw shadows on the earth.
What has no shadow has no strength to live.

Sárhelyi Erika: Életképtelen képlet

A lét vékonyka, koszlott peremén,
hol hideg a pad, s reszket a remény,
a hit elapad az utca kövén.
Ha ingyenkonyhán a sorára vár,
s túlélni tanul egy lecsúszott tanár,
észrevétlenül röppen el a nyár.
Mert ott, a peremen csak a „most” van,
és az üveg, ahogy torz mámorban,
földhöz vágva szilánkokra robban,
és mindig egyformán kemény a tél,
a szégyen vajúdik, majd elvetél,
úgy jár, akár a kicsorbult acél.
Hisz’ a méltóság csak szánalmas kincs,
ha egyre kérni kell, mert enni nincs...
Mivé lesz akkor tartás és gerinc?
Átértékelődik, mint az élet,
nem más, csak homokba írt képlet,
mit elfúj a szél - megoldatlanul.

Tony Hoagland: Self-Improvement

 Just before she flew off like a swan
 to her wealthy parents' summer home,
 Bruce's college girlfriend asked him
 to improve his expertise at oral sex,
 and offered him some technical advice:

 Use nothing but his tonguetip
 to flick the light switch in his room
 on and off a hundred times a day
 until he grew fluent at the nuances
 of force and latitude.

 Imagine him at practice every evening,
 more inspired than he ever was at algebra,
 beads of sweat sprouting on his brow,
 thinking, thirty-seven, thirty-eight,
 seeing, in the tunnel vision of his mind's eye,
 the quadratic equation of her climax
 yield to the logic
 of his simple math.

 Maybe he unscrewed
 the bulb from his apartment ceiling
 so that passersby would not believe
 a giant firefly was pulsing
 its electric abdomen in 13 B.

 Maybe, as he stood
 two inches from the wall,
 in darkness, fogging the old plaster
 with his breath, he visualized the future
 as a mansion standing on the shore
 that he was rowing to
 with his tongue's exhausted oar.

 Of course, the girlfriend dumped him:
 met someone, apres-ski, who,
 using nothing but his nose
 could identify the vintage of a Cabernet.

 Sometimes we are asked
 to get good at something we have
 no talent for,
 or we excel at something we will never
 have the opportunity to prove.

 Often we ask ourselves
 to make absolute sense
 out of what just happens,
 and in this way, what we are practicing

 is suffering,
 which everybody practices,
 but strangely few of us
 grow graceful in.

 The climaxes of suffering are complex,
 costly, beautiful, but secret.
 Bruce never played the light switch again.

 So the avenues we walk down,
 full of bodies wearing faces,
 are full of hidden talent:
 enough to make pianos moan,
 sidewalks split,
 streetlights deliriously flicker.

Anna Swir: The Sea And The Man

You will not tame this sea
either by humility or rapture.
But you can laugh
in its face.

Laughter
was invented by those
who live briefly
as a burst of laughter.

The eternal sea
will never learn to laugh.

(Translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan)

Fodor Ákos: Two children-portraits

GIRL

(a letter:)


You know, I like him too. I actually
like him so much, if I had two apples,
I would always give hime the second one.
                                                               But you,
I like you so much, I would give you
the first!


BOY

(school assignment:)

We learned in school that YOU CAN'T HAVE IT ALL!!!!

- It's a pity.

Baló Levente: A légcsavar még

A légcsavar még nyikorogva pörgött,
egy vonat állt meg a kapum előtt,
váratlanul betoppant vele a régi asszony.
Se szó, se beszéd az egész májust
bepakolta szarvasbőr retiküljébe.
Lesz, ami lesz.
(Csupán a kakukkórában elrejtett
cigaretta maradt rám.)
Köszönés helyett a hajamba túrt szemölcsös kezével,
az árbocokat felhúzni, hallottam kintről a pattogó parancsot,
az ég hirtelen kék lett.
Éjfél után elmesélem majd a régi asszony történetét.

Tao Lin: when I leave this place

the distances i have described in my poems
will expand to find me
but they will never find me

when my head touches your head
your face hits my face at the speed of light

holding it a little

i want to cross an enormous distance with you
to learn the wisdom of lonely animals with low IQs
i want to remember you as a river
with a flower on it

i’ll be right back

Billy Collins: Wolf

A wolf is reading a book of fairy tales.
The moon hangs over the forest, a lamp.

He is not assuming a human position,
say, cross-legged against a tree,
as he would in a cartoon.

This is a real wolf, standing on all fours,
his rich fur bristling in the night air,
his head bent over the book on the ground.

He does not sit down for the words
would be too far away to be legible,
and it is with difficulty that he turns
each page with his nose and forepaws.

When he finishes the last tale
he lies down in pine needles.
He thinks about what he has read,
the stories passing over his mind
like the clouds crossing the moon.

A zigzag of wind shakes down hazelnuts.
The eyes of owls yellow in the branches.

The wolf now paces restlessly in circles
around the book until he is absorbed
by the power of its narration,
making him one of its illustrations,
a small paper wolf, flat as print.

Later that night, lost in a town of pigs,
he knocks over houses with his breath.

Sonya Renee Taylor: What Women Deserve

Culturally-diversified biracial girl with
a small diamond nose ring and a pretty smile
poses besides the words
“Women Deserve Better”.

and I almost let her non-threatening grin
begin to infiltrate my psyche
until I read the unlikely small print
at the bottom of the ad:
Sponsored by the US Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities
and the Knights of Columbus

On a bus
in a city
with a population of 553,000,
4 teenage mothers on the bus with me,
1 Latina woman with 3 children under 3
and no signs of a daddy.

One sixteen year old black girl
standing in 22-degree weather
with only a sweater
a book bag
and a bassinette,
with an infant that ain’t even four weeks yet
tell me that Yes ….

Women do deserve better.

Women deserve better
than public transportation rhetoric
from the same people who
won’t give that teenage mother
a ride to the next transit.
Won’t let you talk to their kids about safer sex
Have never had to listen as the door SLAMS
behind the man who adamantly says,
“That shit” ain’t his
leaving her to wonder how she’ll raise this kid.

Women deserve better
than the 300 dollars TANF and AFC
will provide that family of three
or the 6 dollar an hour job at KFC
with no benefits for her new baby
or the college degree she may never see
because you can’t have infants at the university

Women deserve better
than lip service paid for by politicians
who have no alternatives to abortion
though I am sure
right this moment one of their seventeen year old daughters
is sitting in a clinic lobby
sobbing quietly and anonymously
praying parents don’t find out
or will be waiting for mom to pick her up because research shows
that out-of-wedlock childbirth doesn’t look good on political polls and
Daddy ain’t having that.

Women deserve better
than backwards governmental policies
that don’t want to pay
for welfare for kids
or health care for kids
or child care for kids
Don’t want to pay living wages to working mothers,
Don’t want to make men who only want to be last night’s lovers
responsible for the semen they lay.

Flat out don’t want to pay for SHIT
but want to control the woman who’s having it.
Acting outraged at abortion.
Well I’m outraged
that they want us to believe
that they believe
that women deserve better.

The Vatican won’t prosecute pedophile priests
But I decide I’m not ready for motherhood
and it’s condemnation for me
These are the same people who won’t support
national condom distribution to prevent teenage pregnancy.
But women deserve better.

Women deserve better
than back-alley surgeries
that leave our wombs barren and empty.
Deserve better
than organizations bearing the name
of land-stealing racist rapists
funding million dollar campaigns on subway trains
with no money to give these women
while balding middle-aged white men
tell us what to do with our bodies
while they wage wars and kill other people’s babies

So maybe women deserve better
than propaganda and lies
to get into office
Propaganda and lies
to get into panties
to get out of court
to get out of paying child support

Get the hell out of our decisions
and give us back our voice
Women do deserve better
Women deserve choice

Lucille Clifton: what the mirror said

listen,
you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.
listen,
somebody need a map
to understand you.
somebody need directions
to move around you.
listen,
woman,
you not a noplace
anonymous
girl;
mister with his hands on you
he got his hands on
some
damn
body!

Charles Algernon Swinburne: Egy nap meg egy éj

Egy nap meg egy éj, mit a mámor adott, vele
játszani, a szerelem és a szeszély;
ajakunk s a szívünk zeneként dadogott bele,
ő muzsikált vele, röpte hozott ide,
mert meg akarta mutatni, mit ér
egy nap megy egy éj.

Nagy szárnya kinyílt, betakart, megölelt vele;
semmi gonosz gyanu ide nem ér,
követne lába, gyalázna nyelve, de
a szerelem sűrű mirtusza rejt; s vele
lelket  a testtel egy üdvbe zenél
egy nap meg egy éj.

De rebben a szárnya, mi nem mehetünk vele,
(hallod? a reggel örök dala kél!)
egy nap meg egy éj ragyogott gyönyörűn vele;
menjen! a mirtusz ím tovatűn vele!
Ennyi a földön az isteni kéj:
egy nap meg egy éj.

(Szabó Lőrinc fordítása)

Anna Swir: Virginity

One must be brave to live through
a day. What remains
is nothing but the pleasure of longing – very precious.

Longing
purifies as does flying, strengthens as does an effort,
it fashions the soul
as work
fashions the belly.

It is like an athlete, like a runner
who will never
stop running. And this
gives him endurance.

Longing
is nourishing for the strong.
It is like a window
on a high tower, through which
blows the wind of strength.

Longing,
Virginity of happiness.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: The World is a Beautiful Place

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don’t sing all the time

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn’t half bad
if it isn’t you

Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand Society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen
and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs and having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues

and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
“living it up”
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician

Fodor Ákos: An exercise

Ask yourself:
what's your door for?
to close? or to open up?

Dsida Jenő: Az emberek

Az emberek ártatlan pici borjakat
visznek a vágóhídra.
Fújtató lokomotívokat csinálnak
s meghajszolják a gyanútalan őzeket.
Az emberek kikacagják,
akik testvérnek nevezik őket,
drótsövényeket húznak, farkasvermeket,
lövészárkokat ásnak.
Az emberek utcát köveznek pokoli zajjal,
lerombolják a költők márvány-palotáit.
Az emberek rosszat beszélnek arról,
akit én szeretek.
Az emberek kitépték harangozó szívemet
s felakasztották a falra:
Róla nézik: hány az óra -
és kurjantanak, ha megáll.

Elton Glaser: Brief Song

When love carries us
to this altitude
of lean air, our heads
clear, our hearts
open like parachutes.

Billy Collins: Nightclub

You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don’t hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts of love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else’s can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o’clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath,
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.