Short Supplication Aboard a Sinking Lifeboat
(Rövid könyörgés)

My poems disgust me my lord
like self-inflicted wounds
did medieval monks
please give them
eternal unrest
and to me
a good
night
amen

Picture Postcard
(Képeslap) 

the winter we’re having is old fashioned hard
raises the ground level close to a yard

the evenings have mammoth-size nothing to say
more silence is what one digs up by day

under the ice-shield of tough solitude
for the fish we save some leftover food

the land is by winter winds steadily scraped
the wind is its monster-sized huge razor blade

with brueghel’s perfection the ripening frost
on creek-hugging willow twigs gets itself mossed

white patches grow out of all things around
white blood cells filtering out of the ground

Out of God's Sight
(Isten háta mögött) 

empty mangers empty stalls                              
christmas here no longer calls
no use waiting for
the wisemen at the door

the creator's got a lot to do
can't see to all those in the queue
far star is that sun
to shine on everyone

we know we must have faith in him
but the evenings are so dim
and the lack of loving care
leaves us feeling cold and bare

in foresight oh lord you don’t lack
but take a look behind your back
we’ve been stuck here for a while
waiting for your blessing smile

Brief Encounter with Cartagena
(Románc)

        Composed by a Hungarian traveling singer
        on a broken string of Federico Garcia Lorca

Plowing water with one wing
the airplane started flying low
till among lagoons it came
upon a landing strip aglow;
the sky was brightly bubbling blue,
the ground became a green concave
when the plane bumped down to land
letting its engines roar and rave,
the tiny little huts on stilts
tucked their scanty shadows in,
rattling like flea-market toys,
wind-up frogs, made out of tin,
earth in sky and blue in green,
each lived in the other’s face
with a drunken-love embrace,
and the sign said: Cartagena.

A noon like that I’d never seen,
fired by a flaming sun,
in it bushes, bays, and huts
mingled in erotic fun;
the plane stopped there a half an hour,
the time it takes to birth a child
or inter an unknown dead
found abandoned in the wild,
but in that time you seduced me
and since then kept me in your thrall,
I dream of life in one of your huts,
forgotten by and forgetting all;
atop the staircase rolled up to
the stranded plane I plainly saw
that your earth and sky, green and blue,
were mine to drink, oh, Cartagena.

Taking off I felt quite sure
the vibration of each hut
had a loving couple in it,
belly to belly, butt to butt.
Oh, why did we have to part,
why didn’t you tighten your embrace?
Now every season is a winter
and snow surrounds me every place.
I’d give my soul, my salvation,
for just one of your sultry nights,
I’d gladly exchange eternity
for one moment of your delights!
This love has made a fool of me,
a loving fool who sobbingly writes
about his fear he’ll never see
his love again, oh, Cartagena.

But one gulp of your light and color
will be plentiful enough
in the icy Carpathians
to gild my remaining years with love;
what we have is but a pale
imitation of your sun,
it rises and sets reminding me
of the brightness now long gone.
Oh, your blue and green, you Siren
of the Caribbean Sea,
your blinding light has forever
etched your magic name in me;
to gringos you’re a travel poster
but to me a love come true,
I often catch me calling you,
Cartagena, Cartagena.

Translated by Paul Sohar