MAKATA Vol. 15 (Issue No.1)

9 SEPTEMBER 2015

Today is the fifty-third wedding

anniversary of my parents, like a devil

with clipped wings, not quite right

in the head, I hope that I’m off

in my calculations, thus, I might

seem younger as the first child they had together, being born fourteen months after

this date, just like the youngest son,

setting off with ash-cakes,

or to put it properly, I’d like to bring him out

of this text as well, with a heart

leaping into my mouth, making his escape

from my soul, from this house on fire.

WHAT REMAINS OF READING

He pulled

his glasses off his nose

as he took his eyes

off the shelf

on which

he put his glasses

back in the spectacle-case.

Only man

is capable of

vanity.

MOLDED EXPERIENCE

TO ÁGNES TÓTH

The sun is a fag-end,

I treaded on its heel,

just like I did with my mother

helping her hanging out the clothes to dry,

at least I won’t have this

on my conscience anymore.

SOLAR ECLIPSE

TO KRISZTIÁN BOZAY

We turn a deaf ear to time

and let it dash off in the middle

of the naive winter for the cherry-stalk pendant,

after his old love,

whom we know well from our dreams,

who walks through the narrow

suspension bridge of mortality,

destiny did not have the heart

to finish the last meters.

CLOSENESS

Evanescence

recycles your past,

you can’t even die, when

coming up from the cellar,

you already plead resurrection

while

you kill the time

and get the picture,

moreover,

when language is the most vulnerable,

like the letters

in your poem,

motionlessness stands still

with its weary legs.

PARNASSUS

My primary school deskmate lies out there,

in the cemetery, the poor fellow, homeless

even in his grave, my high school deskmate,

a thriving monumental mason measures me

with his eyes at our thirty-year

class reunion, meanwhile, death turns out

to be biased, idle, he knows the meaning

of life, so he sponges on the past biting

its own tail, as does the present

on unspoken words.

Translated from Hungarian by Károly Sándor Pallai

The translation was supported by an individual grant (NTP-EFÖ-P-15-0180) of the National Talent Program.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR

Károly Fellinger was born in 1963, in Bratislava. He lives in Jelka since his childhood.

He used to work as an agronomist, now he runs his own smallholding. He has published 18 books in Hungarian so far. Most of them are collections of poems for adults and children, a village monograph and tales. As a mythographer, he collected the tales and legends of Mátyusföld (region of the Mátyus, Matúšova zem). His volumes of poetry have been published in English, German, Romanian, Serbian, French, Russian, Slovak and Turkish. He has been awarded the Golden Opus Prize of the SZMÍT (Hungarian Writers‘ Association of Slovakia) twice and the Imre Forbáth Prize for the best collection of poetry written in Hungarian in 2014. In 2013, he was the winner of the Bóbita poetry contest of the Hungarian Writers‘ Association. He was a deputy of the municipal council for twenty years and the deputy mayor for for years.

Good Friday

or an ode to a fall
last night
i was in the garden of Gethsemane...
listening to the doveliness of your songs
in your voice and laughter
the sound of a distant sea
i was at peace with my self
and with the world

but then i fell and broke your silence
with my poems and prayers
and yes with whispers
i fell so many times before
it left me with bruises and memories
and intimate verses
the bruises are healed now
there's not even a scar left
the memories faded
the verses are bleeding
and burning
i fell and your silence tonight is
breaking me into pieces
this time it would be hard
as if i would die between metaphor
and hyperbole
this time it would be my Calvary
my beloved
i do not want you
to be another mem'ry
written on a page
you are to me more precious
than any of my poetry

 -- Santiago Villafania