Péter Papolczy 

Translator

Frankly, I have had no task in the past
give or take twenty-five years, other than
preparing to lose you, or rather,
preparing to survive the loss of you.
Although I am the type who fiddles and tinkers,
I have achieved/produced a thing or two
in the past twenty-five years. My real (and only) task I wouldn’t
touch with a ten foot pole. If for some reason*
I glimpsed panic at the fringe of my field of vision,
it had no chance to spread, let alone reach my consciousness,
I obscured it with everything possible and impossible.
Lay off! it”s not that „I refuse to see”, there is nothing,
really nothing at all to see there!**

It is not possible to prepare to lose you, nor, eo ipso, for
surviving the loss of you.
It is therefore not fair to say that I had a task,
but omitted to accomplish it. No reprimand is called for.
And yet, here I am with my shitty life (and that is putting it mildly),
like someone who failed to do his life’s quest.
In life – such is life – there is no logic.
In life only merciless logic prevails.
Everything is choice, although – and this is what passes for clemency –
the bared Gorgon head of responsibility or (no less horror)
its repulsive face rarely shows itself.

Only I can absolve myself;
and not just because even with my soul
shredded to pieces (reduced to crumbs?), struggling for breath every day
I am proud and defiant again (or at least pretend); I am too crushed
and stubborn to crouch at anyone’s feet for mercy,
and such feet do not exist, at least I don’t believe so any more.
Therefore: only me, absolving myself.
But who is to say what the nature of
such absolution is, or can be?

* And by no means due to an alarm going off in me as a result of my analysis and evaluation of the signs, or because of foresight getting a word (pre-empting said alarm); no – I did get a warning (from someone who also was/could be a prophet only in another man’s relationship) from which I immediately and instinctively shut myself off.

** Escapism my ass! A life on the run is no life at all. I „made sure” I had nothing to escape from.

A dripping tap, a dirty tea mug,
A knife blade crescent looking in,
You ponder if it can get any worse,
or if it can only be uphill from here.

Aw, you old clown! You know it can get worse;
Worse it has gotten all the time.
You suffocate in your own room – not even that!
You’re just choking while everything stalls.

You know the answer to all of your questions.
It’s needless to ask and useless to know –
Thus turns the zip of loneliness into a stitch.

Apathy and calmness ooze in constant sessions:
a dripping tap, a chipped tea mug;
Were it up to you, you’d vanish without a hitch.

                                                                          Hommage à Bonaventura

The globe, my honourable Mr. Gardener, is now
totally covered with this mould called civilization,
and the worms, yes, by all means, the worms are
wriggling in it, not penetrating much deeper than the
core, but swarming with breath-taking speed
on the surface – although they resolutely wipe out one another
with great vigour, there appears to be myriads of them everywhere.

Only where the peel of the neglected (step)fruit is
bluish and sodden is the worm-density more bearable
(this sodden part however, is not intact either: ship wreckages lie in the salty pools)
This, my dear Jehova, is the curse of organic farming.
As a rule: the permissiveness of lassez faire (or maybe indifference if not outright
malicious cynicism?!) is bound to take revenge.
Let us draw your kind attention: the celestial chest
is no milk cow that lends a constant helping hand to
farmers in need due to fault of their own (whether the reason is
the lack of expertise or that the idea is fundamentally flawed).
May I suggest that we quietly forget about this failed project with „Earth”; if you know
what’s good for you, don’t even try to get funding for fixing this. – To start with, you would need to explain in great detail, how it went so far south,
Is the honourable Mr. Gardener’s conscious so clear!?
Absurd! Take a walk and take some time to contemplate in
other areas of the garden, come up with something new.
I realize that the existence of Earth, this corpus delicti, will bother you,
but take no notice of it, and (above all) do not try to get rid of it; that could be your doom.
Believe me, this rotting fruit doesn’t have a lot of time left.
Let us consider it the scrap of the learning curve. The tuition fee.

Wrap up for me
five ounces of forgiveness, please.
Forgiveness always comes in handy,
in case of past moral transgressions
or future minor ones.
Yes, no problem, I’ll take it as is.
A little more is all right too.

The excuses, I see,
are on top. No, I can’t deny it,
they are quite cheap. For this price
they are suspiciously attractive.
One is constantly being warned
about Gentech foods.
Oh, no, not at all! I was just talking
to myself, honestly.
But I have no need for any
right now, so, no thanks.

I see you offer redemption too.
First class, you say? Yes, I can tell from the price.
But, no offence, quite green,
it seems to me. Then again, it may be
a case of sour grapes with my wallet so flat.
Well, anyway, next time, perhaps.

Like someone who sheds tears over onions,
And ponders while wiping his nose:
Why he keeps tumbling to hell’s minions,
And is still unable the shutters to close.

Like someone who throws minced meat into the pan,
The odour creeping slowly up his snout,
Senses a mighty new force field that can
Pull him into the deep trenches of doubt.

Like someone who washes lettuce, and pulls off leaves
And licks his fingers as the vinegar spills,
Muses whether to try something new that relieves
Or whether to stick to his coffee and pills.

Like someone who plays with his mouse and keys,
Unknowing if they lead him hither or thither,
And if it’s reason guiding his hands with ease,
A soft(ened) heart, or God, the old kibitzer.

Like someone who’s heard all that life has to say,
Being to him is a kitchen table wiped clean,
He moans not, nor does he exert any sway,
- were it up to him, he would vanish in steam.

Like someone who’s written a poor poem once more,
But is too reluctant to discard it again,
Admitting his failures he’s always been sore,
Fighting them would be an effort in vain.

An overburdened breakfast table; spotless napkins,
orange juice, cereal, eggs, ham, cheese, muesli (et cetera).
No room left for the basket with the bread rolls –
having made a round, it ends up on the counter
behind the host and hostess. You are blocked from half
of the tidbits anyway, you cannot constantly reach out
under the armpits of the co-sharers of the table, and even though the
source of gastric juices is not jammed by tireless “pleases” and “thank yous”,
appetite would surely fall a victim.
Feigned geniality: do take some more, fill up,
you mustn’t go hungry. Take advantage; enjoy, after all
vacation is for cooling off, or for becoming cool,
to be more precise.
Actually it would be advisable to hurry up just a little, you know,
the place we are heading to becomes real crowded
later on; aggravated jostling, snapping, and the acrid smell of sweat
are not uncommon. Even at this hour – high season,
what can you do – there are plenty of people, but at least
the queue to the ticket office is not a quarter mile long. If all goes well.
– You feel, and feel it with growing certainty, that you would rather be at home.
The only trouble is you were told (not leaving the tiniest room for doubt)
that you are at home.

The countless times it has occurred to you: to get off the train
in the damp autumn evening, when you can see your breath,
and the station lamps have halos with edges
iridescent, when only pale, distant light drizzles onto
the misty windows of the kiosk and the café;
your luggage is merely symbolic, and even
if pragmatism might seem to have guided
your hand when picking its content, it was
actually only strictness with yourself: not even in the
first days should you be provided with the excuse that
you have no deodorant, nail clipper or enough pairs of socks.
And of course you are alone, and of course no one is waiting for you.
(But surely there is a free room to be found.)
And then everything would be weighed*
in a matter of hours or days, a week or two at most.
For you either turn back or learn there is no turning back.
*(Though you yourself would not be weighed – especially
if you do not return – quite so instantaneously, as the
inner voice would demand to know, what kept you there so long, inmate?)

– – – You are disgraced not by your cowardice,
namely that you fail to embark alone with a symbolic luggage,
but by not knowing the cause or reason
why it does not even occur to you any more.

Into the female collecting box we drop
our solitude and anxiety. (Sperm ends up
where it was meant to go.)
We are happy if it is accepted.
Though on some level we know (or learn
sooner or later), that they do not take it away from us
(not out of wickedness, but because
it is beyond even their capabilities).
It stays with us.

And yet…

It is almost as
we were digging a grave into the winds. A spacious one
to use a word of Celan. We sort of long
to be held together but not suffocated;
we want her to be us, at the same redeeming us from ourselves;
we want a strong stemmed plant, an un-
wavering bedrock, but also a yielding
animal flesh providing warmth.
Her embrace should
adapt to our momentary needs of the moment.
– We feel we cannot settle
for anything less, although what we can offer
in exchange is pathetically paltry:
Our solitude and anxiety
in the female collecting box…
And then (and this is better: better than trying
to mould it to words)
our shamefacedly, perchance wrathfully grateful gaze.

The narrative – as always – is a pseudonarrative; yes, yes
Our words are pseudowords; we can
                                            just as well drape the narrative
with them, but to what end?
(Assuming we do not aim for a pseudocatharsis)

A trap that a phrase may set – may? does! – for us
is easily avoidable (with a bit of routine),
but to what shores – the question begs itself –
                                           will prudence banish us?
Nothing is pseudo there, I’ll give you that, but
                                                  does it bear any fruit?

I dream nowadays of big, white,
sheets of virgin paper
The manuscript arks of the concealed God
[Still a very down-to-earth image]
Are there strong verbs in the tongue of angels?
Is there any guesswork going on at all?

The real narrative remains unnoticed,
As it constantly (r)evolves around us
(accompanied by our protein synthesis, so to say),
so one could believe: it is the background
                                              Autumn, spring. Summer. Winter.
Birth, procreation, death (somewhat more
                                                egoistically)
A birdsong of an unseen source, bunches of flowers,
the scent of sea conveyed from skin to skin…
                                    (Um Gottes willen! Verging [?!] on tackiness)

I also dream of big, lazy, placid rivers,
ticker tapes undecipherable to this day;
We are obsessed that it is about something else
– compared to one thing or another, it surely is

No, we do not aim for pseudocatharsis.

I used to be an astronomer,
who tirelessly inspected the sky and the stars
– although they talked about the distant future
or times long past; never directly about
things that “concerned me”.
Flocks of stars placidly grazed
on endless fields of ebony
around one bright shepherd or another;
on summer nights shooting stars snaked among them
like nimble herding dogs.
Then war broke out.
My heart bled when
I had to sell my telescope for next to nothing,
which in those days had little value:
unless altered, it was too good
for air defense purposes.
It was the best of its kind in the country
(the best in five countries, if you ask me),
but I was compelled to get rid of the thing
– they would undoubtedly have confiscated it;
Astronomy was looked upon as lordly tomfoolery,
the stars were too much
about times long past or the distant future –
The enemy, so to speak, is not choosy:
hospital, windmill, theater, observatory…
And attack is the best form of defense.
Summer nights were filled
with the roar of airplanes
and the cry of sirens,
and powerful floodlights
scanned the sky.
By the time I bought arms using the wretched price of my telescope,
and taught myself to use weaponry,
peace broke out.

People were relieved (first, they had lived
in the fervor of war, followed by the vacuum of fear and nonbeing,
and now, lo and behold, the stupor of salvaged life); weapons
were not in demand; food
on the other hand was – so I moved down
to earth from the skies.
I had of course no means to buy
a plot of my own; I was only too glad when someone
bought my wartime junk for melting down.
I managed to rent some land,
here and there an orchard devoid of life,
that had been ravaged by shrapnel (and which I replenished, denying my palate the fruit)
And I planted neat little rows of greens.
First year’s yield was measly;
Nature is not like a marionette –
There is no immediate return on the
investment of caring. In the second year,
the rescued plants began
to gather some strength,
but of course the newly planted trees
could bear no fruit just yet.
In the third year, before
the ripening of the produce: war once again.
Smoke during the day – burning churches, forests, refineries
– and at night, lights both high and low: air strikes.
Daytime blended with nighttime, moreover, seasons merged
into each other as well. Horrid wounds
on the body of the earth. – I defended myself
and those I was told to defend
with whatever the army gave me.
I survived somehow, and now we have peace (…) again.
I have no idea what I will do next.
– Perhaps civilian science will cease altogether.
                                             I do not care.
Even if I do not sit (and it is highly unlikely that I will)
by a telescope ever again,
I am certain, that from now on I will watch
the stars and the stars only with my naked eye;
I will not cast a look upon the faces of people, nor the popping buds
on the fruit trees, nor even the clouds puffing up
in front of the sun, ever again –
for it is solely
what the stars talk about: what has no use to me
in my own life, of which I shall not live to see
the proof or refutation; what has no relevance to the ant folk
of our days (counting myself); There is nothing else that concerns me.

When a rock is lifted, air rushes in to replace it.
Concurrently, the air, or some liquid matter perchance
(water, mostly, as rock-fates do not tend to be sooo varied)
that was there where the rock arrives during,
and finally as a consequence of, the act of lifting
and the (sequence of) movement(s) that (usually) follow(s),
is forced to move on.
Little thought is given to the process(es) above.
If one does call attention to it or them, a regular shrug,
Sometimes even a wary, doubtful stare comes as reply.

Hammurabi’s dead, Socrates is dead, Alexander is dead,
Caesar is dead, Erasmus is dead, so is Richard III, and no
crown sparkles on the head of Louis XIV any more. Immanuel Kant,
Napoleon, Kutuzov are dead, Széchenyi died, and so did Rilke. The glassblowers
of Silesia, the seamen of Marseille, the grocers of Berlin,
and the deacons of Pécs all died.
All my grandparents died, and my mother is dead too.      I,
at the moment, am still alive. (Scribo, ergo sum)
The Earth, in contrast, has remained the same.
It swims in the darkness dubbed space.

The Black Forest is still there, and so are the rainforests of the Amazon
(although threatened here and there).      But had Luther or an Indian
(who Montezuma met) marked a dozen trees,
                                        a single one of those would be hard to locate.
Little thought is given to the process above.
Only when death grabs a loved one from our side,
or we ourselves are threatened by the fist of bone,
does our heart sink. If it doth speak, it falters on destiny.
On law, which, inevitable it might be,
is still absurd and revolting.

And yet
       - philosophically speaking -
                                 the lifting of all rocks is a Hamletian deed.

Once I metamorphose to worms,
this poem will perhaps endure –
And you will read this mail that turns
up following a great detour.

and you will not know my looks, surely,
if I had lovers and a head of hair,
if I became an old fart prematurely,
if I went out enough for some fresh air.

Only this poem with its lines fourteen.
What could two strangers want from each other?!
Poets intrude even when dead. “How mean –

As if poems ever brightened our lot!!!”
Cantankerous successor! Don’t bother!
You’ll carry me onwards, like it or not.