The Wedding of the Cricket and the Fly - Hungarian folk-poem (A tücsök meg a légy lakodalma - népköltemény-www.szozat.org)

The cricket got tired of 

chirring always alone,

hugging the fly 

wanted it as a spouse.

"I would marry you, little fly,

were you not of pocket size."

"I would marry you, cricket,

were you not curved and bent."

After the great agreement

the wedding took place,

it's fame of gaudiness

far and beyond spread.

Wolf was the butcher, 

chopped three oxen,

ten pigs got slaughtered

making the feast richer.

Dog on the doorstep

offered to grind pepper,

a cat wanted to be

cook in the kitchen.

There jumped the hamster

wanted to be best man,

beside it sprang the mouse

wished to be his partner.

Stork the first violinist, 

mosquito the accompanist,

stinkbug the contrabassist,

green frog was the flutist.

The bat played the pipe,

wolf blew its tail,

there jumped the monkey

danced with the turkey.

The tomtit became angry

seized the small nit,

pulling at its head,

slapped the poor thing.

Bumble-bee on the ground

fought with the buzzing wasp,

I've never seen a sting

so venomous as this.

There jumped the crow

wanted to be judge,

a sharp cut from the old hen

prevented him to get up.

I drink wine on Sunday,

don't work on Monday,
go to bed on Tuesday,
get up on Wednesday.

I get well on Thursday,
calculate on Friday,
hey, I ask on Saturday
what work is left for me? 

Translated: by Maria Bencsath

Károly Tamkó Sirató: Immense (Mérhetetlen)

Our world is immensely large.
The boundaries - one cannot find.
Its fate - a mystery for us.
And all this is
to an ant brain, to a frog brain
– mystifying, mystifying!
However mankind soon enough
(in a short time, in a short time)
uncovers all its secret life!

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

István Csukás: Who Ate the Summer? (Ki ette meg a nyarat? )

 

Who ate the summer? Yesterday
it was still here, we checked its temperature:
37°C in the shade, that is, in the armpit
of trees. Now, there is no fever, no summer,
the shivering trees grasp
their leaves, ugly skeletons, spit out
fish-bones. But who ate the summer?
I look suspiciously at my dog:
he shakes his head, wrinkles his snout, walks off,
growls offended: “Again they blame me
for everything …” I look at the swallows,
they scrawl some string script on the hydro line,
I try to make it out, but can’t read it,
what is it about, whom is it for? I dismiss it,
Ah, this is too big a bite for them! A cat
sails across the fence, the taste of mice, sparrows, stolen cream
in its mouth, doesn’t care about summer-eating, mockingly
meows back from the third neighbour. The cymbal of sunflower
gently vibrates. I am listening,
it may know something. Maybe the flowers!
There are roses in the garden, canna lilies, marigolds,
morning glories do gymnastics on the stretched rope;
sniffing them I mutter: “Scent smell, summer is there!”
The rose shakes its head, the canna lily
tolls hollow,  the marigold blushes, the morning glory
laughs with open mouth: what a dumb question!
I shake my head, it echoes hollow, I blush,  
but I don’t laugh, because it’s not dumb,
not at all, for where does what was disappear?
And shivering I grasp my leaves,
Because, for a happy moment, I am the summer

and the tree, and why was I if

I disappear, and why do I disappear if I was?

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Árpád Tóth: About Vili (Vilirõl)

I am sitting in Great-Forest,

Lost in thought and listen to the

Rustling birch leaves all around me.

O, when we still walked together

Between shady Forest birch trees,

And I thought that all their leaves were

Clapping magic songs with soft palms

Revealing joy and happiness.

You are still here. And I feel it.

I don’t see you but you are here,

Here you chuckle with your new date

In the shadow of a birch tree.

And until the lilac sunset

Distant birch trees hiss at me,

Their twisted trunks swiftly shiver,

As if each one was a snake that    

Thrust its long tongue towards heaven …

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Jenő Komjáthy: I Am a Pagan (Pogány vagyok)

I am a pagan. I’m not humble,  

No smell of incense around me;

Hymns, psalms and religious services

Do not dominate my spirit.  

I don’t beat my chest in repentance,

Do not regret, or say sorry,

I don't chant cheap hymns of praise to the

One who -  created monkeys.

Earthly or otherworldly power,  

Neither of them can entice me:

I want by siege to conquer heaven,

Never by pitiful begging.

I do not go to your churches

That were built by adulation,

My soul has never genuflected

In the dust before your idol.

You are servants of a lord on earth,

And you worship one in heaven;

The heart drove you into slavery,

That only believes in tyrants.

I truly love, and you just flatter,

All you do is crawl while I fly!

Deep in dust do tremble your prayers, 

Mine at the same time glides up high.

The grace of mercy rests on your face;

Your main wish is tranquility:

I was not born for veneration;

My heart is endless revolution.

I am a pagan. Spite’s in my eyes,

Scorn and anger quiver on my tongue;

Withering fire tightens my chest,

I wish the delight of combats.

The waves of the ocean of hatred

Occasionally sweep across my heart;

The violent storms’ organ plays then

A terrible music inside.

Because I detest your empty world,

That has only one name: boredom;

For me its yawning pleasure is curse,

That rotten peace away I throw.

And I detest the torpid monster,

I hate you, ugly Apathy!

Your corpse flattens the earth forever,

In the dust dies felicity.

And I hate you freak Humility,

Wicked virtue, the mask of dwarfs!

Because you gave Cowardliness feet,

I see, to be able to crawl.

And I hate all forms of Servitude,

The sin of all sins above all:

I tremble from anger when I see

An oppressor or a servant. -  

I am a pagan. In my bold eyes  

Burns the thirst of beautiful Truth.

A goddess; and when her veil flutters

Earth, heaven burst into pleasure.

At times like this the ocean of love

Causes a flood in my spirit;

The organ of creation resounds

Now with majestic energy.

The music of spheres reverberates;

Celestial manifesto,

Weeping and bellowing tumbles deep

Below the everlasting sorrow.

The world now opens up around me,

The heavenly curtain is torn,

I notice magical, large objects

Floating around in strict circles.

Not objects, honorable persons;

They are perhaps the ancient gods:

Soul is their body, body is their soul,

To my touch they’re still an illusion.

The earth also opens below me,

The dust is happy, the stone speaks,

Silence gives a sign of its presence,

And the mysterious sky brightens.

The abyss uncovers his deep soul,

His cover the Heaven takes off...

I feel like being king of a world,

I feel as if I was a god.

Nature! In your animated church

I can ignite the soul of objects:

Within your sacred walls will burst

The oppressed power all over.

The presence of god I can feel

In your sacred immense church;

My bedazzled eyes look into his,

My heart beats with his in concert.

I became part of the universe,

Anything I see is all mine;

The flames rise and dance above me:

I am on fire yet don’t burn up!

This soul here became the soul of souls,

This heart became the heart of hearts,

The human in me turned into god,

The legate of Olympus calls! 

Translated by: Maria Bencsath 

Árpád Tóth: The Lesson of the Moon (A Hold leckéje)

Look! there is a full moon now,

High up above the trees

Her blown up cheeks become round,

Teases you, causes grief.

And the worthless trickery

Dazzles and shines until

Your mind becomes again bright    

And without apathy.

A car collects you  - a blue

Carriage forged in magic -

And from the Earth it takes you,

That garage of pity.

You forget who you have been,

And  with vague dreamy smile   

You also leave years behind,

A distressing lifetime!

You glide thus in eternity,

Nearby there is nothing

But in happy airy silence

The unreality …

But then you wake up again

And with eyes wide open

You stare at the copper disk

Of the enormous Moon:

What an ugly, old clown!

Plays the happy dimwit

Before the tent of heaven

For myriad plus years.

His face is covered with paint,

But you can see beneath

Traces of deformed craters

Like pockmarks on gypsies.

Why is the resistance? Why?

Or no more important? 

No more questions from the  heart,

The one that has burned out?

From a robot - that’s his fate -

Creates magic and light,

Does not matter that inside

He’s  ice, ancient twilight.

To shine forever - dictates

Thus a secret power.

It will be revealed later:

Reward or not, is there?

… How dwarfed it seems by all this

Your dismal, little life!

And slowly you feel sorry

For the tears you had spilled.

1927

Translated by: Maria Bencsath 

Tamás Jónás: The Price of Flight (A repülés ára)

Fear, the beautiful vixen sits down beside me and embraces me.   

She would gladly stay on my shoulder, she says, like a pair of black wings.

Her lips are heavy like pasta dough, her smoldering face is her Mars.

Like a stepladder, her legs are long, her hair is a thick weed in Fall.

What do you want in exchange, I ask. No cost for the first few seasons.  

But later on it will have a price: I must endure the smell of blood

that will freely ooze out of my wings and I will have several nights,

during that time a few blind, frail, sick girls of my dream will step out.

They will use my sculptured body with immense hunger until daylight    

but I will remember nothing, she promises me, when I wake up.

Now gliding on the strong wings I am in wild terror during the day.

I become a friend of heaven and the angels show respect to me.

But my body is fading weekly, the duvet of my face is rumpled.

The bed groans when I get into it. Every night I become crippled. 

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Árpád Tóth: You Dropped the Sun (Elejtetted a napot)

I was thinking about you

In the golden afternoon

As the pink hue of the sun

Reflected through my closed eyes.

The bright light gently heated

My pallid and tired face

And I waited with eyes closed

For the customary journey,

The one when  - as a quiet boat

On a  mysterious sea -

My recliner’s off to sail,

On my fever’s flow it sways

Towards carefree, beautifully

Imaginative regions

Where some of the sorry dreams

Of my sad life made their home:

Everything that will not be,

Everything that never was -

I started the day like that,

With eyes closed, as if dead,

I was dreaming: about life.

And the sun turned towards me

As if it dropped pink embers

Onto my eyelashes

From that certain sacred light

That the eye there still perceived

On the holy Father’s breast,

And with constant thirst for it.

And it happened all at once,

Fervently, fully, suddenly

I thought about you, how far

You are, and how lost I am.

And my frightened eyes quickly

Opened: on the tip of the

Mountains where the reddening

Clouds were already grieving.

And a curious vision

With great force took hold of me.

I felt as if: your hands held

The sun up today for me.

That’s why it was so special,

More precious than any light,

And I only know it now

As the evening has arrived,

When your tired hands at last

Are ready to drop the sun,

So will also fall the songs

Softly silent in my heart.

1927

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Gábor Nagy (1972-): The Poem of Poet (Poéta verse)

Fool is one who keeps on writing
without joining an order,
keeps on being modest, doesn't beg
or plays a role: observes.

Will not become and artist,

not a real poet:

a scribbler, a starveling

only, it is clear

that he is useless,

parasitic bad lot.

Thence the prejudiced

coeval hidalgo.

If not ostentatious, then why?

On the tip of his pen

like some flying dust,  

another posterity hangs. 

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Árpád Zemplényi (1865-1919): The Genius (A Zseni)

There is something divine in fasting,

Geniuses can then be - creative.

Such fasting often conveys the excuse:

Genius since he fasts; fasts being a genius.

Genius since he fasts? Fasting feeds no mind.

Fasts being a genius? Punishment but why?

The wise man is quick and near to the plate.  

A  fool since he fasts; fasts being a fool.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Gyula Juhász: Mája

I looked once again at the grey nothingness, 

The grey nothingness, father of everything,

Since then there are no proud sparkles in my eyes,

And in my heart no divine grace of hope lives!

O, you grey sea of this grey nothingness,

Where our world’s grim galley becomes dented,

O, you vitreous sky of our eyes,

Where planets that are burning are at their death!

Rigid universe and barren paradise

Go on and rock the boat of the sinking heart,

Rock the boat, the sail, the cannon and the horn:

Nowhere to stop here, too rugged is the shore,

Only the sea, salty, bitter and boring,

Only man for whom eddy is clemency!

1908

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Árpád Tóth: God's Broken Cello, I Keep My Silence (Isten törött csellója, hallgatok)

I am silence. Don't look for music here.

I resemble an instrument in this world

Like the one I saw, that violoncello

In the corner of a pleasing noble room.

The strings were broken. The neck was covered

By a veil of mourning, a silent crape.

Yet, it was not a sentimental object.

Dust covered it. Dust of reconciled years.

Such pain was written on it, that its silence

Itself is the saint, like that of the hermit,

Who, in the solitude of years, - and on the

Threshold of his cell, forgot how to speak.

While in a reverie about his lost life,

No longer does he remember old sorrows:

Only as if some fine far away vapour

Sprinkled blood all over the thick nightfall,

And made it a prettier, heavenlier secret,

Nothing else matching it merely muteness.

Let the loudmouthed crowd then roar away,

God's broken cello, I keep my silence.   

1926

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Krisztina Tóth: Neighbourhood (Környék)

You cross a bridge and over there everybody is younger than you are:

the pedestrians, the byciclists, the trees, the statues.

It may be the time but you have not noticed it so far.

Somehow you haven't had any business in this neighbourhood.

You turn around but have a dizzy spell on the bridge.

Instead of a smooth mirror, this whirlpol of incertitude,

what to take to get home and whom you are going to find there

since you have left yourself behind a few years ago.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Árpád Tóth: Silent At Last (Csendes már...)

Silent, at last, is the forest,

Silent are the yellow gardens,

Wind hides amongst listless tree leaves,

Wind hides like a sad pariah,

Whistles through the dried out branches,

Cuddles near me licking my hand,

Farewell kerchief onward waving

Vagrant clouds and sullen sky,

Grief and sorrow sweeten the air,

Which is now like an aged wine

And the whole world in a shadow

Is a gloomy, giant good-bye. 

1907

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Árpád Tóth: The Tree (A fa)

Oh, look at that strange, tilted tree,

The way it bends across the creek,

Can you maybe not to love it,

Not to seek your partner in it?

No golden sun shines trough the old branches,

Silent are the birds, they all used to sing,

Has no more fruits, no flowers either,

Yet it stands, the wise man of sunset,

Like one who wonders on such evening,

Sinks in the secret of infinity

And gently leans with all of his body,

Wherever his soul pulls him without it... 

 

1916

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Árpád Tóth: In the Park (A parkban)

The wind is softly crying and weeping

Like small boys frightened from having gotten lost,

The moon is a slice of faded golden seam,

And having crossed already the mountain top

The pale dawn is quietly approaching.

I am wading in thin and splashy mud,

Afraid to look towards the far autumn plot,

My faded lips quietly start to cry

And I taste the sweet flavour of crushed, thick blood;

Flattering black flags enfold the tree arms.

Suddenly, I see feverish and sweet

Pictures with fading eyes, delayed desire,

I hear gentle and soft minuets while

On quiet, scuttling, silk covered feet

Life is floating away amongst sad trees…

1908

Translated by Maria Bencsath

Árpád Tóth: Why? (Miért?)

In my window, evening graying,

I am sitting without moving,

Doing nothing, being idle,

Minutes flying, my time floating.

Watching dusty, stunted branches,

Saddened flowers, petals grieving,

Watching them in silence, coldly,

What’s their fate to me, the lonely!

My soul is bare, cold and empty

And the minutes are still racing,

Then, while watching the pale nightfall

I will have to leave my window…

With compassion Death speaks to me:

“Your heart trouble, leave it to me,

My frigid hands will caress it,

Put it to rest very gently.”

Then in terror I scream wildly:

I don’t want to become happy,

All I want is my life to live!

Why? what a foolish, sad secret!

1906

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Géza Képes: Landscape with Spirit (Lelkes táj)

The idle clouds are deep asleep,
the meadow-scent is dizzying;
Christ-face is the sun with bloody
tears, sudarium is the lake.

Poplar is trembling on the shore,
looking at blood on its torso,
staring, whining with tangled look:
is it its killer, is it, great god?

But evening has fallen: peace-kiss,
the lake enveloped in cool robe.
The silent landscape is listening,
the poplar stopped trembling. Dozed off.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Ágnes Nemes Nagy: Spruce (Fenyő)

Big, yellow sky. A ridge is lying
heavily on the smooth meadow.
Dark iron filings of immobile
grass cover the magnetic ground.

There is a larch, it is at loss.
Something is buzzing. It is cold.
Something is buzzing: along the vast
trunk of the pine post with tattered bark,
with scaly roots it is moving up
a paleolithic telegram.

Higher up a bird, an unknown bird
above in the sky - the bird is
without a face, it frowns -,
the light behind it is now dimming,
blind windows, closing eyelids, -
just the buzz, buzzing is the night,
and the black heart of rays of light
crumpled to coal by invisible,
black foliage, as it purrs up.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath

Gyula Juhász: Trees (Fák)

Quiet are the trees in the garden
standing still in the autumnal light.
Daydreaming maybe about summer,
one or two leaves are falling at times.

Stillness of life is filling this peace,
the tranquility, this large breed,
sacred web of eternal forces,
I, the fallen leaf, will be vanished.

I will then be part of dry leaves,
while above me the young trees stretched high 
are going to show with victory
their crown up to the eternal sky.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath