Itt-Ott, 1996 (29. évfolyam, 1/126-2/127. szám)

1996 / 1. (126.) szám

while wading through the barren sand of synthetic fibers.

They do reach everything but whatever they touch alters its shape and becomes instantly trash. Things turn rusty and ugly, just as yesterday’s steam engines, today’s computers.

By then they’ll pursue new rubbish.

Elemér Horváth:

Death in New York

(Halál New Yorkban)

She has lived in Central Park since they dismantled the ghetto — her possessions found a home in a bag which was a pillow at night but a burden in the daytime

She was killed in the park by four teenagers, by chance black,

for the ecstasy her 50-year-old body oozed This former, private Eden She hailed from Hungary, could have become solidly human

but instead freedom’s savage bat —

it would be a lie if I said

that we have nothing but serpents, run wild

That there is no dew-drenched temptation,

only speed, dark gratification

The rose garden next door

pours its heavenly apathy

It pours innocent dreams under numerous eyelids that belong to no one

A Hungarian Thinks of his Country in America

(Magyar költő hazájára gondol Amerikában)

I wasn’t born where I live now

I wouldn’t feel alien here

if it weren’t for my poems

Nothing can change this: time, circumstances,

my Scottish woman

Love flitted into the hands of a long-lost girl in Hungary It blundered into the forbidden zone For now, earning my living is enough At least I’m free! I’m aware that many would trade with me if a happy life would equal the smart musings of the intellect I see the summer yard from my window

There is no reason to grumble

The white apple trees of rain are aflame

Miklós Kolumban:

What I Took from America

(Ami Amerikáé)

I used America as a shelter, possibly meant for someone else.

I grabbed ten years of college that could have easily served two.

I seized huge chunks of idealism and converted it into irony.

I took advice, made some money, but later dismissed them both.

I fashioned myself into a sovereign in this country of opinion followers.

I became home-bound, a letter fancier in a nation of professional migrants.

Of postcard dispatchers.

I hid inside a Yankee coat

although naked I remained a Hungarian.

I also absorbed much English, weaving from it a curious cloth.

From the Journal of a Long-Term Resident

(Naplórészlet)

America, you thrive on contradictions.

Your citizens love money to an indecent degree, religiously adore wealth, loathe poverty.

Here it’s shockingly shameful to have no means.

It signals unworthiness.

But you do assist the poor — even your rich were poor.

In your films they shoot, they decapitate.

In your streets they mimic the films.

But romantic love blooms in the heads of thugs, of hired killers.

Help for the sick, caring for pets is considered essential.

Sacrifice is the norm of the day.

Then there is the matter of sex, displayed vigorously in magazines, movies. Ads. One would think that America is a hotbed of joyful copulation. But this is not so.

Fear of God, fear of viruses

46 ITT-OTT 29. évf. (1996), 1. (126.) szám