János Pilinszky: Midnight Bath (Éjféli fürdés)

The lake is clear today, alive,
glaring like the light of a knife
breathing by waves, like a mirror
being broken by my arm strokes
in a slow fight. The profoundly
disturbed element is biting
back with anxious, savage teeth.
Defeated, lying idly
and eavesdropping. Only the stars
twinkle like fish in the water
of abandoned skies, locked in,
like swimming birds, meditating.

I am looking at them, their flight
in the merciless and deaf sky,
I, the orphaned monster, being
crushed by armor, by scarred apathy,
who asks for or expects nothing,
just stares endlessly and softly;
slippery, thick scales cover all
my heart, where deep inside nestle
good-sweet revulsion, resistant,
treacherous spears that the water,
the water and the slow deepness
have hammered in me unnoticed.

For the reedy meadow is waiving
down below, the clams are happy
underneath, thick, light-ripened
silence fills their heart with quiver.
And as if it heard a calling,
the night has begun falling,
seaweed carries me or the stars,
I don’t even know, where am I?
At an ancient celebration
where sky, water, and I are the
same and some timeless weeping is
being heard flooding everything!
Translated by: Maria Bencsath

János Pilinszky: How Ambiguous (Milyen felemás)

How ambiguous emotions, what
diverse attractions we are living amidst,
yet, we are falling like stones do,
straight and without ambiguity.

In the net of how many forms of shame
and imaginary honour we flounder about,
yet, we are supposed to bring everything
that is meant to be concealed, in the open.

How
late we understand that the
obscurity of eyes may be brighter
than a lamplight, and how late
we notice the world eternally
falling on her knees.
Translated by: Maria Bencsath

János Pilinszky: From Here to Eternity (Örökkön-örökké)

I wait if I have to, go when driven off,
my remaining modesty silenced me though,
the sound of my voice would not reach you anyway,
better to keep quiet about my complaints.

I suffer, tire out with obedience:
Isaac didn't ask his father, I don’t ask you either
why you keep tormenting me, while I silently do
what’s left for me, the obedient servant, to do.

By no means is there response to my resentment:
why did you feed me, not enough, nevertheless?
Why did you bedazzle me for many a daylight
if your radiance was not to become my sunshine?

After my death, while resting on your heart,
everything you've done to me, I will complain about,
I will have, at long last, a good cry in your arms,
aloud, with no consolation, I will only cry!

You have never loved me, not for one moment,
you may have given me food but never yourself,
I will cry forever for all the anxiety
I’ve had for you, myself, from here to eternity!

I am crying with you forever and ever,
as your hold is becoming more and more violent,
as my embrace is becoming tighter and tighter,
becoming happier as well as unhappier.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

János Pilinszky: When You Arrive (Mire megjössz)

I will be alone when you arrive,
the only one who’s left alive,
only down feathers fill the empty pen,
only stars are left instead of the sky.

Being in unburied orphanage,
like in a wintry garbage dump,
plucking amongst the heap of rubbish,
I am rummaging through my life.

That will be our absolute peace.
Even my heartbeat is silent,
ecstatic barricades of silence
surround us from everywhere.

The timeless and mere eternity.
It is yours, and no one’s but yours,
and it has been meant for you only
this marvelous simplicity.

Like a basket man without his limbs,
time has been resting wordlessly,
desire has lost its arms and legs,
a gasping trunk is all that's left.

When you arrive, all will be lost,
my house, soft bed both will be gone,
then we’re going to be able to
lounge around freely in complete joy.

Just don't steal from me! Don't desert me!
If you are weak, I will be finished.
Waking up in bed among pillows
to street-noise would be despicable.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

János Pilinszky: To Myself (Magamhoz)

Endure bravely your solitude,
I’m keeping records of you,
don’t let the stars direct your fate,
destiny shall grow within you.

When it strikes between corners of
wakeful shoulders with a hiss,
you are better than us, I know,
within you grief is blazing.

Be then like animals, crudely
beautiful and guiltless,
listen courageously, as they
do to their brutal secrets.

And one night, you won’t even know,
just like celestial strains,
bygone days will return to you,
the always immortal years:

nobody will find you at night,
belatedly and crying,
in vain they cross your yard at night:
only I see you. Or not even I.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

János Pilinszky: On a Forbidden Star (Tilos csillagon)

I was born on a forbidden star,
now jogging along on the shore,
the surf of heavenly void picks me up,
plays with me then throws me off.

Why doing penance, don’t even know.
Everything’s a hissing riddle,
don’t run away finding me on shore,
on this sunken muddy shore.

Don’t be afraid either, or run from
me, instead of calming my suffering,
hold me tight with closed eyes, hold me as
bravely as you would hold a knife.

Dare to claim me to be yours, as below
the dead have the night as their own,
your shoulder to hold my weak shoulder,
I can’t carry on any longer!

I didn’t wish to come to this world,
the void had me and was my nurse,
love me darkly and brutally, as
one left behind loves his departed.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

János Pilinszky: Fall Sketch (Őszi vázlat)

From the eavesdropping garden
trees are whiffing into space,
fragile and vast is the silence,
the meadow is looking for space.

Your heart is sinking with alarm,
the road furtively hurries by,
the rose bush is snooping likewise
at itself with a nervous smile:

far away in doubtful regions
grief is setting out to be born.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

János Pilinszky: Epilogue (Utószó)

For Pierre Emmanuel

Do you remember? On the cheeks.
Do you remember? The empty ditch.
Do you remember? Flowing below.
Do you remember? In the sun standing.

You are reading the Paris Journal.
Since then it’s winter, winter night.
You are setting the table nearby,
making the bed by the moonlight.

In the night of the bare house
you are undressing without a breath.
You drop your shirt, you drop your clothes.
Naked tombstone is your bare back.

It is an unhappy picture.
Is anyone here?
A wakeful dream:
without an answer I cross rooms
in the depth of mirrors as they’re lying.

Is this then my face, this face here?
The light, the silence, the judgment is rattling,
as my face, this stone is flying
from the snow-white mirror at me!

And the horsemen! And the horsemen!
Bothering darkness and hurting light.
Thin spray of water trickles down
on to the motionless porcelain.

I am knocking on closed off doors.
Your room is as dark as a deep shaft.
Coldness is blazing on the walls.
I’m smearing my weeping on the wall.

You snow-covered house roofs, help me please!
It is night now. Let all that is orphan gleam
before the day of nothingness
arrives. Let all of you gleam for nothing!

I put my head against the wall.
A dead city is offering me,
to the dead a handful of snow,
the snow of mercy from everywhere.

I loved you! An outcry, a sigh,
a fugitive cloud on the run.
And the horsemen at stormy, dense
trot arrive at the time of muddy dawn.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

János Pilinszky: Celebration of Nadir (A mélypont ünnepélye)

Who dares to read
in the blood heated sties?
And who dares
on the rough-hewn field
at the time of tidal sky,
and of the earth ebbing away
to wander anywhere?

Who dares
to stop, eyes closed
on the nadir,
there, where
you always find one last waving,
a roof,
a beautiful face, or even
a single hand, a nod, a gesture?

Who can
calmly snuggle up to dreams
overcoming childhood grief,
lifting the sea like a handful
of water to his cheeks?

Translated by: Maria Bencsath