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I
Dawn unties the
sky from the world
and from her pure,
soft voice
the bugs, the
children
swirl out to the
sunshine;
there is no mist
in the air,
and shimmery
lightness flutters!
The leaves are
tiny butterflies
that flew upon the
trees during the night.
II
I saw blue, red,
yellow daubed
pictures in my
dream and I felt, this
is order,
not a speck of
dust messed them up.
Now my dream
circulates through
my limbs like
twilight, and the iron world is the
order. A moon wakes the
day in me,
and if night
arrives – a sun shines inside.
III
I'm skinny, I eat
bread sometimes,
among these
shallow, garrulous souls
I'm searching,
without pay, for more certainty
than in the roll
of dice.
Lush meat doesn't
caress my mouth,
nor does any child
my heart –
even a smart cat
cant catch mice
inside and outside
at the same time.
IV
Like a pile of
chopped wood, the world
sprawls one piece
on top of another,
each grips,
presses, holds
one thing onto the
other and thus, every
one is determined.
What doesnt exist,
possesses a bush,
what will be, is
the flower;
what exists, falls
into pieces.
V
At the
freighttrain station
I lay flat beside
the trees trunk
like a piece of
silence: gray weeds
touched my mouth,
raw, wierdly sweet.
Deadly still, I
watched the guard,
intent on his
senses, and his shadow
in the silent
wagons jumping
stubbornly over
the dewy coal.
VI
So suffering is
here inside,
but out there is
the explanation.
Your wound is the
world – burns, fiery.
And you feel the
fever in your soul.
You're a prisoner,
til your heart rebels –
You'll be free,
if, for your pleasure,
you won't build
the kind of a house
that a landlord
takes over.
VII
From under the
evening I looked
up into the
cogwheels of the sky –
the loom of the
past was weaving a law
out of the threads
of glittering accident;
again, through the
haze of my dream,
I looked up to the
sky, and I saw the seam
of the law
kept coming
unravelled all over.
VIII
Silence was
listening - a clock struck.
You should visit
your youth;
there among damp
cement block walls
you can imagine a
little bit of freedom –
I thought. And as
I'm standing up,
the stars, the Big
Dipper, sparkle
the way bars shine
above a silent
prison cell.
IX
I heard the iron
crying, I heard the rain
laughing.
I saw how the past
split apart,
and how only
illuisons can be forgotten;
and how I know
nothing, but to love,
bending under my
burdens –
why must we
construct weapons
from you, golden
consciousness!
X
The adult man is
he who has no mother
and father in his
heart, who knows that
life is something extra
thrown in beside
death and, like a found object,
anytime it can be
given back –
that's why he
treasures it, he
who is neither
god, nor priest,
neither for
himself, nor to anyone.
XI
I did see
happiness once, it was tender,
blonde and must
have weighed four-hundred pounds.
Its curly smile
tottered
on the rigorous
grass of the farm yard.
It plunked down in
a soft, lukewarm puddle;
it winked, grunted
in my direction.
I still see how
waveringly the light
fumbled among its
ringlets.
XII
I live by the
tracks. Lots of trains
come and go and I
watch how the shiny
windows fly by
in the
powdery-darkness.
This is how the
lit up days
speed through the
eternal night;
I'm standing in
every cabin-light,
leaning on my
elbow in silence.
1934
translated
by Michael Castro & Gábor
G. Gyukics
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