Zoltán Lengyel 

Translator

The master rang, the servant appeared at the doorway at once. Come in, urged the old man the
freshly shaved nipper. No one is here, said the master delightfully, and pointed at the bed. The
servant knew what’s about to follow: he ungeared his belt, pulled down his pants, his snow
white lap flashed. He leant onto his stomach on the large purple coloured baldachin bed. No,
no need for a rope, it will work anyway. Sure? The master took the whip and caressed the
fuzzy strips of leather. Then he swished, not with force but gently, finely. The servant did not
scream just whined, he tried to hold in his gasp. I want you to scream, screamed the master.
The servant did so obediently, the master caressed his favourite lackey with increasing
gentleness and frequent breathes. He swished the servant’s goose-skinned bottom until a
noisy, cracking sound ended their chamber piece. Out of the servant’s bottom a silverlight
spring sprung out. I can’t believe this, growled the master, it is already the second time this
week, the revolution sucks, he sighed while pawing the stuck out spring. He was fighting back
his tears. Putrid sin filled the room. Don’t you believe, don’t you believe, don’t you go after
it.

“My skin sits on me like the shirt of Nessus.”
(Derek Jarman: Blue)

I leaned my bike against a huge fallen trunk. Dezső ran forward, losing himself in the orgy of smells by the shore. The cracking of branches told me where my dog might be. I followed him slowly, made several detours to the water, knelt by the fluid sanctuary. A fish emerged, I was not sure whether it was a chub or a crucian – it is even less clear now – it splashed into the millpond calmness of the surface. I climbed back to the path, starting to call the dog, nowhere, began to be scared, he must have found a den for himself, hid himself away, never to reappear, the ancient law has won. I didn’t give up, called him again and again. In the meantime I saw blue
flecks, blue flashes before me. I thought it was only my eyes dazzling,
so I rubbed them. Flecks began to blur, they grew larger and multiplied. Finally blue flew
from the sky, from under the earth, painting space, come,
I’m your chalice,
fill me,
don’t bark!
As if I’ve gone blind, but seen blue shades instead of nothing, blue tree trunks, blue lines of branches stretched like cobwebs, I spat blue suffixes, in the bay of the womb the rusty ball
laying low laying low
laying low!
Birds squawking blue, birds chirping blue, birds screaming blue, your mind is
a crater blue!
Fish crawled to the shore from the depth,
gasping blue, blue phlegm flowing out from them. Hate is with you,
stroke it! I breathed damp blue. The leaden air was getting heavier
drop dead drop dead drop dead drop dead
whether it is there or not just
pit yourself! Blue was getting at me, too, enmeshing me bit by bit. You want to love me,
I want to love you, to love your whip,
in a stone vessel my heart your heart the prophecy is heart pulp Tisza centaur: I became half man
half a blue reptile,
now I am the lord of guts,
be quiet, my kiss,
be quiet.
The skin stretched on my body, blue suffocated me, I gasped, I wanted to break out,
I wanted to suck myself out from
the corpse
my seed my seed I saw
got woven into got splashed into got pickled into.
Then someone, or I, bit my hand. Blue fission on the narrow layer. Blue passion in the flesh.
I drew.
Blood alone. Blood alone is not blue. It is warm.

Taxiing up on the narrow
serpentines of Chitrasal’s slope,
up to the church of
nine celestial bodies.

In the parking lot wandering tourists,
garbage and monkeys.

The rusty white door of the church
wide open.

Anyone might enter.

I pull off my shoes
at the red stairs.

Step barefoot on the warm stone
and set off for the
squat chapel with
a ridged dome.

Golden bells like udders
hang on top of the
peak-arched entrance.

As when you look up at
the August night sky:
peace in the sanctuary’s
gloom.

The eight lingams in circle,
knee-high erected
pillars of Shiva.
The tiny candles twinkling
at their feet are
sparkling sperms.

I pass round
the lingams
clockwise.

My body’s force is
my mind’s.

The priest behind
encourages me to step into the centre,
the ninth one, the Sun,
is waiting for me there.

As if I was walking on
warm black wax,
soft stone under my
soles.

I lean down to the Sun.

I would photo
The space enlightened by candles
But my phone is
Dead.

Someone laughs outside.

A scraping monkey of smaller size.

One step ahead of it
an open rift.

Underneath meanders
as a green anaconda
the virile stream of the river of Asia:
the spoiled saint
Brahmaputra.

I bought a kilogram of apples but
wait he meant to be honest
smoke and anger rose
window smashed during evening
the police asked me
a car swept by when
the air was sultry and humid the skin
your breath hastened the trav
he can’t be with you I can’t be

I sharpened my knife and cut it in half
blood is drawn I draw you
blood and blood chase you
I thought I hear ezekiel cut it in half
my dream one half is wormy you
didn’t hate blood let blood chase
you then I cut
the apple in half the sharp knife bit
my finger the wound hissed

they gave me the scissors your eyes
were not open yet I cut
the supple umbilical cord blood is your mother
they said you don’t feel anything
I will give you a new heart he resounded
I will remove from you your heart of stone
and give you a heart of flesh but who said it
and why I don’t remember
the name of the street where he liv

you see me as I have never
seen myself like the animal
before language would not
they gave you into my arms in swaddle
I floated by your paperweight
talked to you then not
language but your attention the sound
filled me the sound of the animal but more
than animal, less me

“But, but”,
your first word was
being formed reaching after
Dezső. You were wondered
by the dog’s hairy body;
you had not yet
discovered your own
(the mobile structure of
supple skin, soft
flesh, solid bones).
With tiny hands you
massaged the cylinder-
shaped dachshund that
tolerated the easy torture
resignedly. Sirens
were heard outside,
a helicopter bayed
above the city.
I was about to speak but was
interrupted by the prophet Amos,
“Therefore the prudent shall
keep silence in that time,
for it is an evil time”.
“But, but”, you said louder and louder,
knowing that the one who bays
would possum on command.
I held your hand, we
stepped together after the dog.
“But, but”, once again you came
upon the black mongrel
laying on the carpet.
“But, but”,
the pure resistance
echoed in my ears.

then I hit a rising row of waves
then unswervingly forward I grabbed the salty
mass of water ravenously pushing into the foamy
swirl under the water I didn’t dare to spy on the
cosmos of fish crabs plants stones shells
I was afraid that salt would sting my eyes
I don’t open them in the Tisza either where sand
would make them sore and I could hardly see anything
so I imagined the forms under surface like I imagine
my intestines the planets weary of swimming
I glanced at the army of waves towering before me
the Adriatic spread before me as a crinkling carpet
but it wasn’t myself but the Adriatic that I saw
in its turquoise pattern I learned to swim
in the drifting Tisza I was averse to the
strong flow until I got attuned to it floating
in the sea as if my muscles were melting
my bones permeated with the Adriatic
like ink on a moistened piece paper
I blurred into blue specks lying flat on the water
exposed to the sun for minutes
then I threw myself towards a rising
wave water was lapping me my skin began to stir
going further away from the shore when I heard
my daughter calling I turned
back towards the gasping rocks
water slowly calmed down moaning
as I proceeded creating tiny curls
near the knee-high white pebbly beach
my daughter clung on to my neck
and you said I was worried we couldn’t see you anywhere
as if you were taken by the waves
at home I was feeling my whole body
for hours the bare sea is a smoothly
droning artery everywhere
you said and I like someone who forgot his
mother tongue could not speak suddenly
salty flakes grew on my tongue
it squirmed in my jaws
wanted to break loose splintering
the skull-aquarium
to devour devour devour your tongue
your ear your creepy-crawly neck
with intensifying waves of twitches
as a shell between your thighs flowing
into a rosy bay

At the East End Station subway she was selling herself. Ten-twelve years old at first sight.
Bold lips, lined eyes. No uppers or lowers in the front of her mouth. Maybe due to business.
Taunt mini skirt, skinny figure. Strolling knock-kneed in her silver spike-heeled.

Next to her an old man with played a couplet on an accordion. Spread out daily beneath his
legs, contents are hidden by coins.

She winked at me yawning. Then
began to gawp. No
sound. Nevertheless
I heard her clearly:

The earth was shaking
and the heavens were troubled

and the clouds were dropping water.

Then the voice
divided:

The mountains were shaking
Come,
before the Lord.

a minute job nearby.

They chose new gods,
Come into me, no problem,
then was war in the gates,

my womb has been surgically removed.

So may all your enemies
perish, my Lord!

Don’t you leave please,

But may all who love you
be like the sun
where are you…
in all its strength!

I prepared the plates
for breakfast, then turned Radio
Bartók on. After lured into washing hands
the children sat at the table finally.
Blunt cutlery clanking on white
porcelain plates underlying the melancholy
of Purcell. Remember me, but
forget my fate, lamented Dido,
and just before I would have got lost
in the sloping sound canyon the broadcast
ended. A hogwash of news followed
with the well-known propaganda
repeated all the time. I turned it off
not letting it plague the smiley
snacking of my children.
I thought about Dido and her
love rooted beneath the grave.
They can write into my fate but –
eat at last, daddy, my son interrupted.
Suddenly I realized that I squeezed
the knife tightly as if an
invisible but thoroughly
tangible infernal ghost would
have sneaked into the kitchen.

                           I wanna be your dog

Through the prolonged afternoon
the tiresome bus trundles along;

before its arrival
it stops at the village gate.

In the rusted stop
no one’s anywhere;

just a pair of dogs stuck together,
messing around in a bizarre way;

the first one’s hind leg got stuck
right into the other’s heated hole.

Their clumsy gasping fills
the drowning land of damp twilight.

No One’s Anywhere
to separate these damned mongrels:

into the rubbed and bleeding hole of Europe
another Europe invades.

Travel nowhere.
I’d mew myself up and down Paris all the same
like I do here still in the heart of my room.
Now, shall I leave the cosy
navel of my world?
The Adriatic is the furthest,
i would have there a fling of course,
at least if someone gives me a lift.
Position holy horizontal.
Let them run who have no beer.
No room for nostalgia.
Let them chew the past who care for it.
Every man to his own taste.
Mine requires a beefsteak with gravy
and then a delicious coffee.
Tiny is my god,
my belly suits him well.

I.

It was enough to click (on),
fleshing Orphean gaze lit on,
from the trembling body
spread out light.
In the mine deep
between the thighs
for its undeveloped
shadow
the desire longs after.

II.

It was enough to link on,
the torn gaze lit on.
Its ruins have sunk
into the throat of dreams.
In its depth many splinters
unite for a moment,
the sight shines up:
in front of the dissecting cam
the blind body writhes,
then falls apart, like sentences
in damp darkness
without wake.

III.

It was enough to warmly blink upon
it, lovesaliva ran down
on the pleasure-stricken face
of the fetish-puppet.
Her lips open wide waiting for
the scene’s end, and open on its desire,
dumb in eter-
negativity,
as an inflatable angel
torn from the sky,
like an egg torn from the nest,
a cord from the navel.

IV.

It was enough to switch on,
to darkness the sight stick on,

till it came off,
pulling with it

the blood-suckers
of time sucked out

into the dewy dawning
if incoming oblivion –

V.

It was enough to knock on,
in the eye wide shut

the morning moaned,
its light sprinkled,

as the planets
in the bottomless underground

fart after
the big bang.

VI.

It was enough to toll on,
the video images have frozen,
the slimy dreams became still.
The tolling spiraled down
into the caves of the body,
as rings spiral down inside a tree,
roots stricken to the heart,
into her heart,
into her body,
her Voice.

VII.

It was enough to scream on,
another fissure
cracked over
through the body-bell.
A torn voice,
from the fissure pain broke out,
and all began to fall again,
body, light, scream fell,
childhood collapsed,
time torn to dust,
the whole heap of ruins falling
back to the dark mine,
to the still lap
of the dark screen.

VIII.

It was enough to reverse before the end,
to delay the orgasm,
in her dissipated look
snow drizzled in fat fluffs –
backwards;
in the rewinding frames
the land becomes more and more somber,
but you can hear her yearning
wet from snow,
the whole of her body remembers
the prolonged,
shining whiteness
at the end.

IX.

It was enough to click (off),
loving-light shot
into the dark land.
Her body tolled.
Tear me apart,
tear me apart,
she repeated
near the end.
Her yearning is not lost,
it has been reformulated.

X.

It was enough.

I rode my bike when
the kind, large-sized postman
shouted after me and
drew letters of Mahler from his bag.

The book saw the light of day in the widow’s life;
and in the light treachery was seen:
a strongly retouched portrait of Almschili;
for the winners’ touch remain on memoirs and letters.

But Gustl. himself was not a harmless pigeon either;
into the masterpiece he ground not merely
his wife but bits and pieces of his musicians, of himself, too.
Longed to be a martyr for real,

or rather a witness of music
like the zealous monk with
the harpsichord on Giorgione’s painting.
A copy of the picture hung in his working room;

or rather He was its reproduction,
the incarnation of the tough and strict spirit
with his sole god to exhibit: music;
and with all the others subjected.

However, it is the merit of the
fame-specialist ever-lasting widow that she
published the book in silenced times;
when street names were again spat on,

And no one knew where he lived then,
And the Adagietto stormed out long before,
For it had its storm, its tempesting love,
its farewell to mortifying Europe.

I was happy to ride my way home,
I have the book at last, and you wait for me there.
When they spat again on street names,
We move together with our book.

The Adagietto slowly stirs
permeating the Viennese Fall;
in its trace, we wade through leaves;
fading time won’t hinder us.

Looking for the Karlskirche
we were lured by the Adagietto.
And the Viennese sky did not fade
when behind the park we found

the fine temple of Gustav and Alma;
for we had cheated fading;
our love grieved about something else then:
he’ll never run dry but the body will.

               „In Necropolis music blew”
                         Endre Ady, Moving from Damn-City


The stage burst into flames;
with bitter smoke the fire
wreathed the audience:
the end came as an overture.

From his orchestra
Mahler wrung Wagner:
a cat sneaks through
the heroic romance.

Power ready for action
soon faded away;
Jew in the Opera,
the Parliament blew.

See you in the arena,
rallied Gustav the bunch.
Even the doorman spat after him:
Budapest is a failure.

Instead of a farewell in tears
he makes a cunning exit.
Cheap thrills are useless when
time’s hands are around your neck.

He was like the two heart-shaped
cakes in his drawer –
no Hungarian, no Jew.
Origin unknown.

I.

A documentary about Csontváry:
beginning-of-century photos, reproductions,
developing Budapest, frayed fallows.

On a black-and-white snapshot Szeged
sank underwater, the city had been thrifty,
deemed the regulation of Tisza expensive.

The river’s fury swallowed
up the countless smeared stories.
The surviving rest is yellow-stained.

II.

The canvas is filling up with new music.
Melodious blue gurgling,
the cattle are gathering at the watering hole,

colors flood the screen,
vast boulders from Tátra,
slow strings in the shade of the Cedar,

into a red spring sinks the white one,
the parched air drinks up
the green, dissolving with the horns.

The waterfall in Jajce wails:
the rest of the canvas is yellow-stained,
just like the sky above Mostar.

After each performance Mahler
used to sip two glasses of
Pilsner (no more no less)
with his chaps at Pri Roži Inn.

Thus began the conductor’s prelude:
The Magic Flute with two glasses of beer.

At the time Ljubljana was still a patch
on the rusty sack of the Monarchy.
Država skrbi, frowned a hundred
years later the group Laibach.

Empire fell on empire
with background music striking the ear;
meanwhile all remained the same.
All of its worth was heard when the music came.

C sharp minor enters the chambers
of the ear like a coffin en-
ters the food chain of the earth
grass grows in its trace as hair
erupts from a sound in the ear
no chance it clangs by the night
C sharp sleeping under earwax is
freed by the minor who
tolls the bells petrified I cannot tell
who looks into the mirror of the sound
my voice can’t you hear who limps behind you
through the waxy maze of the ear chambers
who plays harmonica in the harmony of
a Venetian gondola the eardrum is
beaten and torn by the sting of the bow
and as blood follows a penetration
your voice flows my voice the joyous one
until I am received and buried by Alma
mater the ‘joyous one’ caused a
blackout the dump of my memory stinks
who is dead today I read on page
seventy in the outside thunder and rain inside
the wooden cabin we arrived at the
end of our tour the black beady eye
of the animal glows unwittingly
it shows he is ready sounds
the minor in the concha a black pearl
a C sharp black springs up glowing
in the unfinished concluding piece

I sat on a trunk
close to the flow of Tisza.
The brownish green
river carried sediment.
A bulb got stuck
in branches on the bank.
Through the slim fissures
on the glass sandy water leaked in.
The one-time bringer of artificial
light was cast out in the wild.
It looked as if it was looking
for its roots within the Tisza
underworld sunk into sludge,
ready to dissolve –
unable to decay.