2015. december 31., csütörtök

Jane Hirshfield: The Promise

Stay, I said
to the cut flowers.
They bowed
their heads lower.

Stay, I said to the spider,
who fled.

Stay, leaf.
It reddened,
embarrassed for me and itself.

Stay, I said to my body.
It sat as a dog does,
obedient for a moment,
soon starting to tremble.

Stay, to the earth
of riverine valley meadows,
of fossiled escarpments,
of limestone and sandstone.
It looked back
with a changing expression, in silence.

Stay, I said to my loves.
Each answered,
Always.

2015. december 30., szerda

Kemény Lili: Ő

Mikor belépett és letette a kardját,
és körbehordozta a tekintetét és figyelt,
és odament a pulthoz és koccintott
(az nem látszott, hogy kivel),
és levette a kalapját és megrázta,
és két vízcsepp esett a padlóra,
és kéményseprőt látott és gombot csavart,
és fagyöngy volt fölötte és kilépett alóla,
és lovagolt és átugratott egy szénaboglyán,
és arra gondolt, rohadt alak lett-e,
és nevetett, mert persze tényleg az lett,
és nyílpuskával lőtt a feszületre,
és szinkronizálta Zeuszt, mert pösze volt,
és megkérdezte, mi értelme csalni,
és negyvenévesen fogszabályzót tetetett föl,
még nem tudta, hogy meg fog halni.

2015. december 29., kedd

Stephen Dunn: Sweetness

Just when it has seemed I couldn’t bear
one more friend
waking with a tumor, one more maniac

with a perfect reason, often a sweetness
has come
and changed nothing in the world

except the way I stumbled through it,
for a while lost
in the ignorance of loving

someone or something, the world shrunk
to mouth-size,
hand-size, and never seeming small.

I acknowledge there is no sweetness
that doesn’t leave a stain,
no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet ....

Tonight a friend called to say his lover
was killed in a car
he was driving. His voice was low

and guttural, he repeated what he needed
to repeat, and I repeated
the one or two words we have for such grief

until we were speaking only in tones.
Often a sweetness comes
as if on loan, stays just long enough

to make sense of what it means to be alive,
then returns to its dark
source. As for me, I don’t care

where it’s been, or what bitter road
it’s traveled
to come so far, to taste so good.

2015. december 28., hétfő

Alex Dimitrov: Radiance

I keep a note
a friend left in a book of photos:

lavender light over the snow flats –

and I wonder if he used it in a poem,
or if seeing, if the pleasure, was enough?

Now that you and I aren’t lovers,

I notice how the light at times
will race up your obedient body,

and reveal the flame I looked for –

the life I said I saw,
and hoped would be enough.

2015. december 26., szombat

Kányádi Sándor: Felemás őszi ének

építsd föl minden éjszaka
építsd föl újra s újra
amit lerombol benned a
nappalok háborúja

ne hagyd kihunyni a tüzet
a százszor szétrúgottat
szítsd a parazsat nélküled
föl újra nem loboghat

nevetségesen ismerős
minden mit mondtam s mondok
nehéz nyarunk volt itt az ősz
s jönnek a téli gondok

már csak magamat benned és
magamban téged óvlak
ameddig célja volna még
velünk a fönnvalónak

2015. december 25., péntek

Mary Mackey: The Kama Sutra of Kindness: Position Number 3

It's easy to love
through a cold spring
when the poles
of the willows
turn green
pollen falls like
a yellow curtain
and the scent of
Paper Whites
clots
the air

but to love for a lifetime
takes talent

you have to mix yourself
with the strange
beauty of someone
else
wake each morning
for 72,000
mornings in
a row so
breathed and
bound and
tangled
that you can hardly
sort out
your arms
and
legs

you have to
find forgiveness
in everything
even ink stains
and broken
cups

you have to be willing to move through
life
together
the way the long
grasses move
in a field
when you careen
blindly toward
the other
side

there's never going to be anything
straight or predictable
about your path
except the
flattening
and the springing
back

you just go on walking for years
hand in hand
waist deep in the weeds
bent slightly forward
like two question
marks
and all the while it

burns
my dear
it burns beautifully above
you
and goes on
burning
like a relentless
sun

2015. december 24., csütörtök

Váci Mihály: Nehéz a szívünk

Az arcodat ne mutasd szomorúnak.
Ne lássa senki, mi az, amit eltűrt.
Jobban kellene szeretni magunkat,
hiszen mi már nagyon kiérdemeltük.

A szíveink egymásra zúzva hulltak,
eggyé forrasztó sors zuhog felettünk.
Sebeinkért szeretjük már a múltat;
és a jövőt: - lesz mit felemlegetnünk.

Most itt ülünk. Kedves, Te szomorú vagy.
Az arcom nem mutatja, amit eltűrt.
Nehéz a szívünk, mert nem könnyű búnak
ütése alatt ragyog a szerelmünk.

Egymást szeressük már - ne csak magunkat
Hiszen mi már nagyon megérdemeljük.

2015. december 23., szerda

Ady Endre: Ki várni tud

(Küldöm, ki érti.)

Tartsd magad,
Sors, Élet és Idő szabad
S ki várni érez, várni tud.

Várni tud,
Kinek ön-énje nem hazug
S nem hord össze hetet s havat.

Tartsd magad,
Mert most az a leggazdagabb,
Ki várni érez, várni tud.

2015. december 22., kedd

Kellam Ayres: Practice

You must make this mistake once—
pour boiling liquid into a blender, then pulse it.
Watch the steam blow the lid straight off.
When you see your burned hands, you’ll scream.
Other mistakes you repeat, finding yourself
in a familiar place, but worn out, like pigeons
circling a roof, the flock growing bigger,
then smaller. It will be this way with love.
Your neighbor plays something on the accordion,
starting and stopping before seeing it through,
but it’s not what you expected. It’s not even
about getting it right. You think it’s about
protecting yourself, and eventually you will—
not by learning how to love, but how to do so less often.

2015. december 21., hétfő

Yehuda Amichai: Near the Wall of a House

Near the wall of a house painted
to look like stone,
I saw visions of God.

A sleepless night that gives others a headache
gave me flowers
opening beautifully inside my brain.

And he who was lost like a dog
will be found like a human being
and brought back home again.

Love is not the last room: there are others
after it, the whole length of the corridor
that has no end.

2015. december 19., szombat

Weöres Sándor: A társ

Keverd a szíved
napsugár közé,
készíts belőle
lángvirágot,
s aki a földön
mellén viseli
és hevét kibírja,
ő a párod.

2015. december 18., péntek

Wislawa Szymborska: Life-while-you-wait

Life While-You-Wait.
Performance without rehearsal.
Body without alterations.
Head without premeditation.

I know nothing of the role I play.
I only know it's mine. I can't exchange it.

I have to guess on the spot
just what this play's all about.

Ill-prepared for the privilege of living,
I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands.
I improvise, although I loathe improvisation.
I trip at every step over my own ignorance.
I can't conceal my hayseed manners.
My instincts are for happy histrionics.
Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more.
Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel.

Words and impulses you can't take back,
stars you'll never get counted,
your character like a raincoat you button on the run ?
the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness.

If only I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance,
or repeat a single Thursday that has passed!
But here comes Friday with a script I haven't seen.
Is it fair, I ask
(my voice a little hoarse,
since I couldn't even clear my throat offstage).

You'd be wrong to think that it's just a slapdash quiz
taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no.
I'm standing on the set and I see how strong it is.
The props are surprisingly precise.
The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer.
The farthest galaxies have been turned on.
Oh no, there's no question, this must be the premiere.
And whatever I do
will become forever what I've done.

2015. december 17., csütörtök

Conchitina Cruz: Memory

I can't remember his name
but I recall the way he didn't
forget things easily -- what dress I wore
to class three days ago, phone numbers of rooms
for rent on bulletin boards, the crops
of local regions we're made to memorize
in grade four. I never asked him
if he meant to keep these memories he had
no use for, and by choice or not, if he thought it a burden,
his power to remember
and remember well. After all, it meant too
that he always knew the right formulas to use
in exams, and if he forgot (which he never did),
he had all these other alternatives
in mind. I never did bother to wonder
if it was this same sharp memory that made
him know his losses well, from his missing pen
down to the girlfriend who left him, whom he spoke of
in few words but mentioned often.

As for me, I just long for the day when I need
not bluff my way out of a conversation
with -- what's his name? -- an acquaintance
from college, perhaps, or a regular
in my favorite restaurant. If there's one thing
I'm bound never to forget, it's how it feels
to wonder, once I'm out of the house,
if I was able to turn all the lights off, or worry
that I didn't unplug the iron. I've said hello
to actors down the street without being sure
who they are, certain only that their faces
seem familiar. It doesn't even dawn on me
until much later that I'm acquainted
with their nonexistent selves, their characters
in movies I've seen, the titles of which,
well, I can't seem to remember.

I think of the one who sat next
to me in Physics class, the one I envied so,
and I realize I might not even recognize
him if we see each other
now. I wonder who, between us,
is luckier: is it he, with all his recollections
and no way out
of his memory, or is it me, with my guilt
as I gaze at the past,
growing anonymous behind me?

2015. december 16., szerda

Szabó Lőrinc: Kár

Kár elrontani, kár,
buta kis életünket,
úgyis ritka az ünnep,
úgyis jön a halál.
Mind, ami konc, ami érdem,
ami lehet, be kicsi!
Maga az ember, ahogy van,
túlhitvány valami.

Sír bennünk az igaz szív
s éppúgy sír a komisz;
kár, hogy túlsokat ártunk
fölöslegesen is.
Pénz, hiuság, becsület: mind
szánalmas csatatér,
s csábit a szó, hogy a lélek
nyugalma többet ér.

Csábit a szó, de a béke
ahogy jön, megy is a perccel;
(könnyü annak,
aki helyett más a gazember!)
Tűnik a perc, s az örök föld
bestiái miatt
meggyűlöljük az égi
prédikátorokat.

Kár elrontani, mégis
rontjuk az életünket,
pedig ritka az ünnep
s úgy is jön a halál.
Küzdünk, sírva, vagy árván,
mint kit a cél megúnt,
s mindegy a cél, az eszközökért
együtt lakolunk.

2015. december 15., kedd

Richard Jones: White Towels

I have been studying the difference
between solitude and loneliness,
telling the story of my life
to the clean white towels taken warm from the dryer.
I carry them through the house
as though they were my children
asleep in my arms.

2015. december 14., hétfő

Robert Graves: Symptoms of Love

Love is a universal migraine,
A bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.
Symptoms of true love
Are leanness, jealousy,
Laggard dawns;
Are omens and nightmares—
Listening for a knock,
Waiting for a sign:
For a touch of her fingers
In a darkened room,
For a searching look.
Take courage, lover!
Could you endure such pain
At any hand but hers?

2015. december 12., szombat

Csorba Győző: A magam szinházában

A magam színházában
itt a legnehezebb

Itt kellenek a legsokoldalúbb
legszínesebb színészek
itt ül a legértőbb közönség
a legszigorúbb kritikusi gárda
itt játszódnak le a
legrejtélyesebb (legrejtjelesebb)
jelenetek
itt történnek olyasmik amiket
szívesen titkolnék magam előtt is
olyasmik is
amikben
akkora az öröm
hogy nem fér már belém
kiömlik (olykor látni is)

A magam színházában
egyetlen szó sem hangzik el
De napi huszonnégy
órán át életre-halálra
folyik
a vértelen
non-stop előadás

2015. december 11., péntek

Wayne Myers: three pieces of string

three pieces of string go into a bar
one approaches the counter
"three pints of lager and three packets of crisps please."
"are you a piece of string," says the barman.
"no," says the piece of string.
"ok," says the barman, pulling the drinks.
"that'll be eight pounds please."

2015. december 10., csütörtök

Anya Krugovoy Silver: French Toast

Pain perdu: lost bread. Thick slices sunk in milk,
fringed with crisp lace of browned egg and scattered sugar.
Like spongiest challah, dipped in foaming cream
and frothy egg, richness drenching every yeasted
crevice and bubble, that's how sodden with luck
I felt when we fell in love. Now, at forty,
I remember that "lost bread" means bread that's gone
stale, leftover heels and crusts, too dry for simple
jam and butter. Still, week-old bread makes the best
French toast, soaks up milk as greedily as I turn
toward you under goose down after ten years
of marriage, craving, still, that sweet white immersion.

2015. december 9., szerda

Pilinszky János: Majd elnézem

Majd elnézem ahogy a víz csorog,
a tétova és gyöngéd utakat,
a fájdalom és véletlen közös
betűvetését, hosszú-hosszú rajzait -
halott köveken, élő arcokon -

elnézem őket, mielőtt
a feledést kiérdemelném.

2015. december 8., kedd

Shinji Moon: Here’s What Our Parents Never Taught Us

You will stay up on your rooftop until sunlight peels away the husk of the moon,
chainsmoking cigarettes and reading Baudelaire, and
you will learn that you only ever want to fall in love with someone
who will stay up to watch the sun rise with you.

You will fall in love with train rides, and sooner or later you will
realize that nowhere seems like home anymore.

A woman will kiss you and you’ll think her lips are two petals
rubbing against your mouth.

You will not tell anyone that you liked it.
It’s okay.
It is beautiful to love humans in a world where love is a metaphor for lust.

You can leave if you want, with only your skin as a carry-on.

All you need is a twenty in your pocket and a bus ticket.
All you need is someone on the other end of the map, thinking about the supple
curves of your body, to guide you to a home that stretches out for miles
and miles on end.

You will lie to everyone you love.
They will love you anyways.

One day you’ll wake up and realize that you are too big for your own skin.

Molt.
Don’t be afraid.

Your body is a house where the shutters blow in and out
against the windowpane.

You are a hurricane-prone area.
The glass will break through often.

But it’s okay. I promise.

Remember,
a stranger once told you that the breeze
here is something worth writing poems about.

2015. december 7., hétfő

Kay Ryan: Bitter Pill

A bitter pill
doesn’t need
to be swallowed
to work. Just
reading your name
on the bottle
does the trick.
As though there
were some anti–
placebo effect.
As though the
self were eager
to be wrecked.

2015. december 5., szombat

László Noémi: Mondd el nekem

Mondd el nekem,
miért nem vagy idegen,
mozdulataid
honnan ismerem,
miért tudom rólad,
amit még te sem?
Mondd, meddig tűröd
azt, hogy olvasom,
mit ír a ránc
tűnődő arcodon,
hogy szótlanságod
értem, hallgatom?
Tanulod-e mi az,
amitől félek,
hol nyitott ajtót
testemen a lélek,
mit mondanék,
amikor nem beszélek?
Végül csak annyit:
vigyázol-e rám,
ha nem jut már
eszembe a szezám,
leszel-e testvérem,
anyám, apám?
Tudod-e, amit én
nem tudhatok,
amiről holdtöltekor
álmodok,
emlékszel-e, ha
el vagyok feledve,
s velem vagy-e,
amikor nem vagyok?
Álmomban, egyszer,
súgva-settenkedve
eljössz-e velem
sétálni a csendbe,
és engeded-e majd,
ha megfagyok,
hogy eltemessenek
a tenyeredbe?

2015. december 4., péntek

Galway Kinnell: Two Seasons

I
The stars were wild that summer evening
As on the low lake shore stood you and I
And every time I caught your flashing eye
Or heard your voice discourse on anything
It seemed a star went burning down the sky.
I looked into your heart that dying summer
And found your silent woman’s heart grown wild
Whereupon you turned to me and smiled
Saying you felt afraid but that you were
Weary of being mute and undefiled

II
I spoke to you that last winter morning
Watching the wind smoke snow across the ice
Told of how the beauty of your spirit, flesh,
And smile had made day break at night and spring
Burst beauty in the wasting winter’s place.
You did not answer when I spoke, but stood
As if that wistful part of you, your sorrow,
Were blown about in fitful winds below;
Your eyes replied your worn heart wished it could
Again be white and silent as the snow.

2015. december 3., csütörtök

Mark Halliday: Before

Before you were you,
before your bicycle appeared under the street-lamp,
before you met me at the airport in a corduroy jacket,

before you agreed to hold my five ballpoint pens
while i ran to play touch football,
before your wet hair nearly touched the piano keys

and in advance of how your raincoat was tightly cinched
when you asked about nonviolent anti-war activity
and before you said "Truffaut,"

before your voice supernaturally soft sang
"I aweary wait upon the shore,"
before you suddenly stroked my thigh in the old Volvo,

when you had not yet said "Marcus Aureliius at 11:15"
and before your white shirt on the train,
before Pachelbel and "My Creole Belle"

and before your lips were so cool under that street-lamp
and before Buddy Holly in Vermont on the sofa
and Yeats in the library lounge,

prior to your denim cutoffs on the porch,
prior to my notes and your notes
and before your name became a pulsing star,

before all this
ah safer and smoother and smaller was my heart.

2015. december 2., szerda

Jónás Tamás: Végtelen befejezés

Mint kávés csésze alján sűrű zacc,
hiába kergetlek el: megmaradsz.
Vagy túl hangos rockkoncertek után
a fülcsengés -- némán tátog a száj.
Levágott láb után a fantomfájdalom,
mindig ott sétálsz a másik oldalon.
Illatodtól, lomha hónapok, ha múlnak,
a lusta izmok, vágyak megvadulnak.
Egy hajszálad a kényes porcicák között.
Te ott leszel, bárhová költözök.

2015. december 1., kedd

Denise Levertov: Adam’s Complaint

Some people,
no matter what you give them,
still want the moon.

The bread,
the salt,
white meat and dark,
still hungry.

The marriage bed
and the cradle,
still empty arms.

You give them land,
their own earth under their feet,
still they take to the roads

And water: dig them the deepest well,
still it’s not deep enough
to drink the moon from.