1

you raw global wind
invisible you are
you exercise the tree branches
whispering secrets to talkative leaves
you breathe life into landscapes
you comb forests for a blade of grass
and lovingly touch with haystacks
you scribble notes between the
lines of constitutions
get through buttonholes
roll away distances
while breathing fresh scents
onto cities and flutter ceaselessly
the texture of matter

movement is your substance
your body is air volatile
life-giving and shaking
so much drifting and drafting
molecules thus write their fate
nothing stops you no level crossing
no bars you steal across
the gaps of walls and bars
will anyone know who you are
in a hundred shapes and forms
even your depth is invisible

you give a new example
new dimensions you step over
the non-existing frontier

*

the sky alters each second
although it seems stationary

it rolls a duvet of feather
creates bales of hills

the giraffe’s neck vapour trail
is a long-long tape measure

loaded ships shift
within the global horizon

in baskets woven by palms
a warming light egg is the sun
its magic wings around us

*

nearby the raincloud
magnifies the sounds
a distant train rumbles by
the cacophony of the third garden
runs up to our house

a lung is panting beyond the corner
its owner is growing impatient
the neighbour is reaching for her
drying clothes she stumbles in
reaching the living room

the moon spins clouds
out of our dreams, perhaps,
our cells are fed by
some covered sentiment

sowing takes in what falls from above
sparks jump over the mouths of women
they sharpen and liven up the spherical seed
the hand-woven visible material
which you flutter ceaselessly

*

Hungary’s only mansion in the Tudor style, in the undulating hills of Transdanubia, Nádasdladány. © Tamás Bata / National Heritage Protection and Development Non-profit Ltd. (NÖF)

then the raked up drops
form a certain shape
the hills are crossed by rivers
as the Creator wants it
he rewrites the landscape
here’s a frustum of cone
there’s a valley a slot hollow
and the happy matter is
transformed into new shapes
it is all in the whispers
of the fairy and the mermaid
those who understand their tongue
will not wonder about the inspiration
of the creation of waters
nor about the programme of hurricanes
as not a stone’s left unturned
and they laugh at deaf powers
falsely believed to be safe

The wood panelling of the galleried library of the Nádasdy Castle is a gem of the national–historicist style. © Tamás Bata/ National Heritage Protection and Development Non-profit Ltd. (NÖF)

2

the flood is a rocking glass castle
all raindrops and vapour issues
full of teeming yet unmovable
smart life in stupid fish
the sky’s trough is adorned with pearls
and grinders of stars are swimming overcoming space

*

a bird is more than a body
it edits romances with its flight, it is
not only pouch, feathers and beaks
but individual life: forebears and inheritors

*

how uplifting can a mouse be
spraying grey flashes
trembling nostrils balking
stamp collecting passion

the bear does not sit on eggs
her cubs slowly multiplying
the little cotton-furred sturdy cubs
train their paws to weapons

all animals have human traits
micro-communities, flocks and herds
giving birth and deadly wounds to one another

genes carry the ancient post on the net
the modern world domesticates:
steak-stew fried pork turkey meat

*

The Ancestors’ Hall, with the original wrought-iron chandeliers in the Nádasdy Castle. © Tamás Bata / National Heritage Protection and Development Non-profit Ltd. (NÖF)

let him travel and see and write a diary
pay with restlessness for his desires
let the Living Star shine for him
the one looking for universal secrets

*

let the soul have strength and time
he could not accomplish anything alone
he whose remaining certainty
is the faith he lost

3

silver fur decoration
and redfire egg
the one constant is
the constantly changing

here the stuff is put down
there the goods picked up
the suit is English today
tomorrow it is Chinese

you press through your buttonhole
tomorrow send distances rolling
the desire is swept along with the flood
it takes new shapes

*

the hobo’s hair is put to shape
the lawyer pages a lawsuit and
the tales of Andersen you scribble
between the line of written
constitutions the engineer sets
a new plan and makes love
the car mechanic investigates and cheats
the novelist drinks and prays
who knows in a hundred forms who you are
the teacher teaches and forgets
the doctor restores you to life and kills a pig
the scientist creates order and loses his way
the curate cures a soul and organises data
the banker saves and frequents a nightclub

how many streaming streams and draughts
international market of prostitutes
global ditches

*

Garden view of the Nádasdy Castle. © Tamás Bata / National Heritage Protection and Development Non-profit Ltd. (NÖF)

on the paths of Persian patterns
signs roll around
time switched off is
an ever-present present
you’ll find online friends
at any spot of the world

while you walk
freely in the jungle
you are its favourite prisoner
there are no codes which last
forever only the small cushions
which sleep with you
since nursery school
and the biblical world
that ticks in your heart

(all this has no value
worn away words they are)

*

the sun twirls around on your
pair of skies a ball dances
on the green and on the cockscomb
of the water placed on the table

you swing on the parallel bar
you turn on the rings
you jump you run
you throw the javelin
fight battles against the earth’s gravitation

raw wind of the global dance
the way God calls to dance
Himself

4

you exercise with the branches of trees
you whisper secrets to talkative leaves
you breathe life into dead landscapes
you comb woods because of one blade of grass
touching haystacks lovingly you scribble
between the lines of written constitutions
you press through your buttonhole
you send distances rolling
signs roll around the paths of Persian patters
the happy content
takes up new and newer shapes
not only the wings: singing forms
no bar no barrier bars your way
your essence is mobile your body is air
that flits and shakes and keeps you alive
who knows who in a hundred shapes you are
you raw global wind, invisible

5
(By-song)

has the TV assisted human progress?
how long will the empty ditch dribble on his face?

one biro pen and one single inspiration
that brings smiles on the face of this earth

Translated from the Hungarian by Thomas Kabdebo

Most recent

Newsletter signup

Like it ? Share it !

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on pocket
Share on email

More
articles