14 March 2014

Messages from W. Sh. – For the 450th Anniversary of William Shakespeare

English Translations by Tony Brinkley and the Author

SUMMER’S LEASE (18) ÖRÖKLÉT-BÉRLET

Eternal, örök, season’s ticket,

summer’s lease, nyár ajándéka, a

scrap of paper with its clouds, their

green-blue-browns. Életet hoz, gives

life. Lines dance, fan out, wheat-

sheaves of fire-works, a crack, an

opening inside me. Bundles of

numbed sentences

are stirring. When I take a breath,

relieved, its flare brings summer to

the paper, életet hoz, gives life. Last

night I felt that I could glance a star,

word-space would open up again

today. The sky may open once

again today. The word may find

itself. A play of clouds? A ticket

for eternity? Nyár ajándéka.

Summer’s lease. A spell.

THOUGHT KILLS ME (44) MEGÖL A GONDOLAT

But ah! thought kills me that I am

not thought. Megöl a gondolat,

hogy gondolat nem vagyok. Or

does not. The thought that I am not

kills me or could. But I am more

than thought. A gift. With air, my

birth sign, but so much of earth and

water wrought, földből és vízből is

vétettem,

the smell of earth turned up in

spring gives me a foretaste of an

ultimate peace – new to the world

again, I am washed through the

way lake water washes – or with

you when I am rocked

in you – washed into you and

resurrected. That, a thought, if

thought, is all of me.

SESSIONS OF SWEET SILENT THOUGHT (30, 32) ÉDES, CSENDES TŰNŐDÉS IDEJE

For my Father and my two brothers

Sessions of sweet, silent thought, édes,

csendes tűnődés. Musing, sweet, but

choking – your scorching death – my

family. As often as I watched: your

deep, musing breath, édes, csendes, in

sweet, silent thought – poisoning

from without to meet a poisoning within,

relieving the cold world, tobacco’s scorching

scirocco.

You were beautiful and happy while I froze –

I watched our secret, distant cousin, that

churl death, bunkó halál, preying as you

coughed and choked, were severed

from your bodies. And then Death-Churl,

Bugris Halál, there you

lost them. They are here and I am with them.

WITH THIS RAGE

E DÜHHEL (65, 28, 29)

Poetry must have

something in it that is

barbaric, vast and wild.

Denis Diderot, as quoted by Jerome Rothenberg

With this rage szépség how hold a plea

e dühhel how beauty hold a plea

how with this rage shall beauty

hogyan hold plea with this rage this

beauty how dacolhat

and deaf eget with my cries t

rouble and deaf heaven

jajommal trouble

a süket heaven with my cries

and the deaf sky felverem

with my cries

so flatter I a sötét arcú night

so hízelgek to swart-complexion’d

night with beauty flatter sötét

arcú night

szépséggel hízelgek the swart-complexion’d éjnek

let the poem be barbaric, vast and wild

so hold a plea with swart-complexion’d

night let be the poem vast

vast

TO THESE WASTE BLANKS (77) E PUSZTA ÜRESSÉGRE

That world behind your gaze –

unknown though intimated –

different – always. And my secret:

the empty pages of my notebook.

To these waste blanks,

e puszta ürességre, I trust your overflowing

world. To their invisible buds of

quiet. Words come hindmost.

Utolsónak

jön meg a szó. Now I have said it: my love

is a black stork, strutting graciously. Now

it has happened. We have entered

evanescence: I have said it on the eighth

day of creation.

On the eighth while we look back at

being. On the poem’s day, the last

day. Words come hindmost. Legvégül

jön meg a szó.

WORDS COME HINDMOST (85) LEGVÉGÜL JÖN MEG A SZÓ

Words come hindmost. Legvégül jön meg a szó.

On the day of the poem, the very

last day, we look back. On the eighth

day when

we enter evanescence. Suddenly silence

hurt me. I wanted to speak. I wanted to

speak about you, and this is how the day

came, day of the word, how the day of the

poem arrived – a clumsy sentence welled at

the quiet gesture of Prospero, my master,

who wrote the book of being. Soberly he

nodded,

with one raised finger. Respect the breath, he

whispered,

a kimondott szót becsüld, the breath of

words respect that bursts to life awkwardly,

new born from

the womb of nothingness – like a new born,

mired in blood – through the gate of

the aching throat.

BEING DUMB (85) NÉMÁK MARADUNK, BÉNÁK

In blood – through the gate of the

aching throat – the breath of words,

szavak lehellete, tears and bursts into

the world. Very often hearing inner

voices, I only rarely feel that

I can voice them. I listen to the stir,

word- movement in its womb, a

fleeting tune,

the finest cadences, impossible to

say, beyond the mouth’s reach,

unwilling to become a breath or

breathe but lurking

in the head and in the nerves, a

muted song that never reaches

through my hand to paper. Being

dumb. Némák maradunk,

bénák. As we remain: dumb, numbed,

listening vainly to true cadences within.

THE BREATH OF WORDS (85) AZ ÉLŐ SZÓ

In vain we listen to true cadences

within. We cannot word them, sing

or play them on an instrument. Or

almost cannot – or at times a little.

We jot a fragment, a frail

bit escapes through mouth or hand

despite the body’s torpid hindrances

– but only when our master helps,

our guardian spirit, who without, will

leave us empty-handed, thrashing, as

we snatch light-flickers, fleeting air

threads. My lover is a black stork

strutting graciously: I think my

words have named her, and she

steps aside and flies away. She

vanishes. Az élő szó, the breath

of words dissolves.