The article featuring the Trianon experience-themed poetry[1] was originally published on Hungarian Review.
SÁNDOR KÁNYÁDI
BEHIND GOD’S BACK
Isten háta mögött
empty mangers empty stalls
christmas here no longer calls
no use waiting for
the wisemen at the door
the creator’s got a lot to do
can’t see to all those in the queue
the star of that night
is far from here to give much light
we know we must have faith in him
but the evenings are so dim
the lack of loving care
leaves us feeling cold and bare
in foresight oh lord you don’t lack
but take a look behind your back
folks here for a while
have been waiting for your smile
(1985)
Translated by Paul Sohar
LAJOS ZSÉLYI NAGY
A CZECHOSLOVAKIAN HUNGARIAN POET’S SUPPLICATION TO THE LORD
Csehszlovákiai magyar költő fohásza az Úrhoz
My Lord, enlighten our wits,
create ministers, scalawags
and piano tuners for us,
deliver us from tinnitus,
from earlobe-tugging and tongue transplants,
for our fate’s as thorny as a cactus,
and hard, too, as a ram’s horns –
look upon your peasants, my Lord,
stuck neck-deep in the ground like onions,
yielding nothing but barren invective;
do something with us, All-powerful,
let us not forever snare flies
like the fly-amanita fungus:
seat us on your shining threshold,
slip your business card into our breast pockets
and initiate us into your secrets!
Furthermore:
we’d willingly accept from You
some powerful trumpets,
the jawbone of an ass,
brimstone hail, and whatnot.
Be good-hearted toward us, my Lord:
we’ll rustle up a burning briar bush for You,
from which your crackling mercy
can pummel us, too,
now and forever after
Amen.
(1971)
Translated by Peter V. Czipott
ISTVÁN FERENCZES
ECHOES TO THE BLUES
Blues
Ladies and gentlemen
the man in whose blood
they pan for gold
Louis Armstrong
now sings for you
Homeless in my homeland
I’m a livid spot on my country
it’s me
the dirty scum
it’s me
the blood spat on snow
it’s me
the dark billiard ball
it’s me
the second-hand burial suit
it’s me
the twentieth-century black pine boksz
it’s me
the lump of coal thrown in the fire
a homeless
livid spot
the holy ascension of liberty
that’s me
the worn-out record
that’s me
the soot-stained glass
held up to the solar eclipse
that’s me
the shadow of graveyards
that’s me
a livid spot on my homeland
homeless in my homeland
in whose blood
they panned for gold
ladies and gentlemen
the man with the golden horn
Louis Armstrong
sang for you
Translated by Paul Sohar
DEZSŐ GYŐRY
IF ONCE WE DISAPPEAR
Ha egyszer elfogyunk
Often I can’t fall asleep,
the bed is hot, I’m tossed by the wave,
in dreams I see my people’s fate
is no great obsequy but a withering.
And I groan out loud like a galley-slave.
I don’t fathom ourselves and you, God:
so, have we no minds, have you no heart?
your hat will lose its crown of flowers,
it’ll be a shame if once we disappear,
and a greater shame, if we forever depart.
(1937)
Translated by John M. Ridland and Peter V. Czipott
1 A Nation Dismembered: The 1920 Treaty of Trianon in Hungarian Poetry. Hungarian Review, Budapest, 2019, 216 pp.
