From: FEKETE@bcvms.bc.edu (Zoli Fekete)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.magyar
Subject: AGORA-SCMPOST Miklo1s Radno1ti
Date: 28 Aug 1992 19:50:52 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
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From:	BITNET%"CSERGO@GWUVM"      "Csergo" Zsuzsa" 28-AUG-1992 20:36:13.00
 
The following translations of Miklo1s Radno1ti's poems were published in the
collection _Miklo1s Radno1ti. Forced March: Selected Poems_ translated by Clive
Wilmer & George Go2mo2ri.
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KEEP WALKING, YOU, THE DEATH-CONDEMNED!
 
Keep walking, You, the Death-condemned!
In front, the dark trees ranged in line
Topple towards you; bushes hide
A cat and the chill wind.  The road
Turns white with fear, arching its spine.
 
Shrivel away now, autumn leaves!
Shrivel, O terrifying world!
Cold hissing from the sky is harsh,
And on stiff, rusty blades of grass
The shadows of wild ducks are hurled.
 
O Poet, now live a pure life -
As dwellers on the snowcapped, tall
Mountains the wind sweeps; innocent
As the Christ child - made flesh in pain
On pious old pictures - frail and small.
 
And be tough as the big wolves who bleed
From many wounds, yet live indeed.
(1936)
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FOREST IN OCTOBER
 
There on the bush wet chaos breeds:
Still golden yesterday, dead leaves
Under the trees have turned to waste -
Brown mud that covers worms snails seeds
And a beetle's shattered carapace.
 
In vain you look around you - here
Terror has flooded everything:
A nervous squirrel squeals with fear,
Dropping his morsel through the air -
One bound, and he springs from limb to limb;
 
Learn to defend yourself, like him:
Nor will this wintry order care
For you, neither do archangels -
Like mother-of-pearl the light trembles,
And one by one your brethren die.
(1937)
 
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LULLABY
 
People are murdered all the time,
    Somewhere - be it in the laps
Of dozy valleys, or on watchful peaks
    That peer; so what a cold comfort
To say, 'Ah, but it's so far off!'
     Shanghai or Guernica -
Either is just as close to my heart
    As your small frightened hand
Or the planet Jupiter, high above us!
     No don't look up at the sky
Don't even look at the earth, just sleep!
     For Death is racing through
The sparkling dust of the Milky Way
     And pouring molten silver
On headlong shadows tumbling down.
(1937)
 
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PEACE, HORROR
 
When I stepped out through the gate it was just ten o'clock,
A baker sped by on gleaming wheels, a song on his lips,
A plane droning high overhead and the sun up, it was ten,
And my dead sister came into my mind and with that they
                                              were all
Flying above me - those whom I love and who are not alive-
Darkly across the sky, a host of the silent dead ...
Then, a jolt, and a shadow crumpled against the wall.
Silence.  The morning came to a halt on the stroke of ten:
Hovering over the street, peace - and a certain horror.
(1938)
 
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FOAMING SKY
 
The moon bobs on the sky's foam;
I wonder at being alive tonight.
Assiduous Death keeps searching our dark time
And those he finds are all unearthly white.
 
Sometimes the year looks back, lets out a scream,
Looks back, then passes out appalled.
Again what a grim autumn's crouched behind me
And what a winter, numbed by pain and dulled!
 
The forest bled and, in the cycle
Of time, each hour would shed its blood.
The wind scrawled numbers, vast and dark,
On the snow drifts in the wood.
 
I have come to see both that and this;
I feel how heavily air weights on the earth;
A warm silence, alive with rustling noises,
Envelops me - as before birth.
 
I stop under a tree whose leaves
Seethe with anger.  Its branches creak -
One reaches down: to grasp my throat?
I am no coward, nor am I weak,
 
But tired.  I hold my tongue.  The branch
Gropes through my hair in silence, fearfully.
I know one ought to forget, but I
Never forget a single memory.
 
The moon founders in foam; across the sky
A dark-green track of poison has been driven.
I stand an droll myself a cigarette,
Slowly, carefully.  I am living.
(8 June 1940)
 
*******************************************************************************
 
SPRING FLIES ...
The Prelude to the Eclogues
 
Ice glides down the river; the bank darkens, blotched with thaw.
The snow is melting.  Now, the infant sunbeams paddle
In the small puddles that form in the tracks of roebuck and hare.
Spring flies, hair streaming loose, over recumbent hills;
Deep in the mine shafts, and down in the burrows of moles,
She runs along roots of trees and under the buds' soft armpits,
Rests on the stalks of trembling leaves, then rushes on.
And over the meadows, on the hill's ripple, over rippling lakes, the sky
      With a blue flame is flickering by.
 
Spring files, hair streaming loose, but the angel of past freedom
No longer flies beside her, but is sleeping deep down, frozen
Into yellow mud: unconscious, he lies among stunned roots.
He sees no light down there, not even the troops of tiny
Green leaves from shrubs unfurling.  It's hopeless, he will not waken.
He's captive.  And splash in his dream goes the harsh sorrow of prisoners,
Blackly it swirls - his heart burdened by frosty night and earth.
He dreamed and, down there, not even a sigh, not yet, makes his chest rise
      To crack the ice in which he lies.
 
Cry out, dumb roots!  Leaves, cry out in a shrill voice!
Dog, bay, as you froth at the mouth!  Fish, beat the foam!
Horse, shake your mane!  Bull, roar!  Riverbed, weep!
     Awake at last, O Sleeping One!
(11 April 1942)
 
*******************************************************************************
 
THE FIFTH ECLOGUE
(Fragment)
In Memory of Gyo~rgy Ba'lint
 
My dear friend, how the cold of this poem made me shiver,
How afraid I was of words.  Today too, I have fled it.
Have scribbled half-lines.
                    I tried to write about something - about
Anything else, but in vain!  This furtive night of terror
Admonishes:  'Speak of him'.
                    And I start up, but the voice
Is silent again - like the dead, out there on Ukrainian fields.
You're missing.
              And autumn's brought no news of you.
                                                   Again,
Through the forest, wild prophecy of winter is soughing;
                                                  Clouds fly
Heavy across the sky - till, snow-laden, they stop.
Alive still?  Who knows?
                    Now _I_ don't, nor do I fly into rage
When people shake their heads or in pain hide their face.
And they know nothing.
                    But are you alive?  Or only wounded?
Are you walking through fallen leaves and the odor of
                                            forest mud,
Or are you yourself but a fragrance?
                          Snow flutters over the fields.
'Missing' - the news thuds home.
                And my heart thumps once, then freezes.
At such times, between two of my ribs there's a bad pain that tenses
And throbs, your words said long ago now live so clearly
In my mind, and I feel your bodily presence as vividly
As if you were dead....
                    Still, I can't write of you today!
(21 November 1943)
 
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POSTCARDS
 
I.
 
From Bulgaria, wild and swollen, the noise of cannon rolls;
It booms against the ridge, then hesitates, and falls.
Men, animals, carts, thoughts pile up as they fly;
The road rears back and whinnies, maned is the racing sky.
But you, in this shifting chaos, are what in my is constant:
In my soul's depth you shine forever - you are silent
And motionless, like and angel who marvels at destruction.
Or a beetle, burying, in a hollow tree's corruption.
 
(In the mountains
30 August 1944)
 
II.
 
No more than nine kilometers away
Haystacks and houses flare;
There, on the meadow's verges, crouch the swains,
Pipe-smoking, dumb with fear.
Here still, where the tiny shepherdess steps in,
Ripples on the lake spread;
A flock of ruffled sheep bend over it
And drink the clouds they tread.
 
(Cservenka
5 October 1944)
 
III.
Blood-red, the spittle drools from the oxen's mouths;
The men, stopping to urinate, pass blood;
The squad stands bunched in groups whose reek disgusts.
And loathsome Death blows overhead in gusts.
 
(Moha'cs
24 October 1944)
 
IV.
 
I fell beside him.  His body - which was taut
As a cord is, when it snaps - spun as I fell.
Shot in the neck.  'This is how you will end,'
I whispered to myself; 'keep lying still.
Now, patience is flowering into death.'
'_Der springt noch auf_,' said someone over me.
Blood on my ears was drying, caked with earth.
 
(Szentkira'lyszabadja
31 October 1944)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.magyar