VERSEVILLE
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact
    • Media Coverages
    • Copyright Notice
    • VerseVille Blog
  • Submissions
    • Poetry and Essays Guidelines
    • Book Review Guidelines
    • Research Series Guidelines
  • Masthead
  • Editions
    • 2011 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XIV November 2011
    • 2012 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XV March 2012
      • ISSUE-XVI July 2012
      • ISSUE-XVII November 2012
    • 2013 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XVIII April 2013
      • ISSUE XIX November 2013
    • 2014 Issues >
      • ISSUE XX May 2014
    • 2015 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXI February 2015
      • Contemporary Indian English Poetry ISSUE XXII November 2015
    • 2016 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIII August 2016
      • Poetry From Ireland ISSUE XXIV December 2016
    • 2017 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXV August 2017
      • ISSUE XXVI December 2017
    • 2018 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXVII July 2018
      • ISSUE XXVIII November 2018
    • 2019 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIX July 2019
    • 2020 ISSUES >
      • Issue XXX February 2020
      • ISSUE XXXI December 2020
  • Collaborations
    • Macedonian Collaboration
    • Collaboration with Dutch Foundation for Literature
  • Interviews
  • Prose on Poetry and Poets
    • 2010-2013 >
      • Sylvia Plath by Dr. Nidhi Mehta >
        • Chapter-1(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-2(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-3(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-4(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-5(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-6(Sylvia Plath)
      • Prose Poems of Tagore by Dr. Bina Biswas >
        • Chapter-1(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-2(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-3(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-4(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-5(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-6(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-7(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-8(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-9(Rabindranath Tagore)
      • Kazi Nazrul Islam by Dr. Shamenaz Shaikh >
        • Chapter 1(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 2(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 3(Nazrul Islam)
      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
        • Chapter 1(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 2(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 3(Kabir's Poetry)
      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-2 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-3 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-4 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
      • Poetry of Kamla Das –A True Voice Of Bourgeoisie Women In India by Dr.Shikha Saxena
      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
    • 2016-2017 >
      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
    • 2017-2018 >
      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions

Poems by Balázs Szőlőssy

In Presso Viewpoint


How many years will this cursed November last,
and how long do we have to wait for the evergreen rain to wash all the neon colours away?
The mass falling down the loess looks over the startled stumps,
not reaching it, and there’s no way back upwards the slope.
How many years will we try to make a circle out of quadrangles,
until it finally leans completely over? Hard walls,
don’t attempt to climb them carelessly and without a rope;
from the top, you have to do it from above.

***

The fog clears out. My rugged nails
grow over and unwrinkle. A couple of scratches
clank into the lazy hillside. We sit.
A few incidental pieces of stone draw,
assess a buffet, already assembled. Human I am, as well,
I eat embracement, I drink killings; I don’t expect encouragement
for my own weakness, I order another wine –
Still, sunset has some grace in Presso Viewpoint:
I imagine a peaceful old man with glasses as owner. We sit
at the start of the real efforts, in Presso Viewpoint
my life is not a fight at last: my life is spent in the open.


The Lions go to Rome


They pack all their obsolete beddings,
bones of preys, ragged
cartridge cases, long tussocks,
smells of landscapes from savannah to jungle,
tastes of shadow, digestion, lurking
and daylight, they put their cubs on their shoulders,
and reach your presence, Sublime Creator,


Piazza San Pietro isn’t even full with them,
although they even come from India, and from all roads,
because all roads lead to you, they don’t even
roar, their mane is motionless,
they’d watch all stirs of your Pope with fainted gaze,
if there was anything to watch: only statues look back at them,
they spread, ordered in disciplined troops,


they stretch out, they listen idly
on the Navona, at the Spanish Steps, the Colosseum,
they stay there for a few more days,
their cubs play around in the fountains,
they keep silence, they don’t touch your humans, while leaving,
somewhat as a revenge, as some kind of farewell, they tear
the greyed shrouds of your Mediterranean dominion.


Homeless people have to die


Migrant people have to die.
The blood, spreading around the body in the beat,
pauses down or densifies.
The little babies have to die,
sooner or later, pneumonia
or a cancerous tumour will find them all:
elderly people have to die.
Military people have to die.
Police people have to die,
in violent or peaceful ways, sooner or later,
or in an accident, either slowly or abruptly
Arab people have to die.
Living things are destroying themselves.
Homeless people have to die.
In Desolate Gaps of Time


How few people are going in and out,
how many valleys, alders and others,
how sad it is, that you bewildered from me:
ragged wasteland and bloomy misery.


From this perspective, life is a hard and weak question, 
if we slept it over, no one would believe.
We do not have judges to fly through out rapidly
to proclaim the end of spring in a shiny manner.


Nothing else left: the gap is the memory itself,
should the sky open its windows finally –
splendid mortals meet with their own selves,
and the sweet years penetrate me utterly.

​

Homeland from Above


When the borders opened up,
even a tiny gap, in the past hundreds of years,
how the rush started then for a brighter future:
the decades full of memories;
why and how possibility and desperation correlates –
how this is the thing which we should find a soothing solution,
this was what I was wondering about in the seat of the airplane.
My homeland from above was plain and transparent,
when there was no cloud covering it.


I always headed South, because it’s warmer there:
I find this absolutely enough reason for it.
And I crossed the river Tigris day to day,
and I saw what it means to live in constant readiness:
finding memories of the haggard earth, fossiles, rusty plows
in the stubble-field on paths trodden by tanks.
And then I passed from Pest to Buda on a Sunday night:
sly and fainted silence, a number of evil thoughts
stuffed into the snapping cold.


I don’t have any more time to believe in the decline of the West,
as I don’t even have time to erase the cognitive dissonances
sticked on to my retina –
they roll over, reducated to teardrops,
freeze as slim strips, stay on my face:
atmosphere is an ice cold filter in January
when I reel through to the city
with thirty kilometres per hour, in order to reach
the newest meeting, in order to cross a newest border,
in order to be happy
that I am here.


(Translated by the author)
Picture
Balázs Szőlőssy (1981, Buda) poet, editor and translator, secretary of the Association of Young Writers' in Hungary, where he also edited the debut-book series of the association for six years. His first poetry book was published in 2010, the second is due this year at Subotica-based publishing house Symposion. He published poetry in a number of online and offline Hungarian literary papers and has been a guest of numerous international literature festivals. He also organizes literary and cultural events, and is linked to urbanist and cycling activism as a member of Budapest-based NGO Valyo - City and River Association. 

​


Archives

Interviews
Issue XXII November 2015
Issue XXIII August 2016
Research Series on Sylvia Plath
Research Series on Tagore
International Translation Project

The Magazine

Editorial Board
Guest Editors
Collaboration with Stremež
Media Focus
Copyright Notice
Blog

Support

Poets

Contact
Poetry Submissions
Media
Terms of Use
Featured poets 2012
Featured poets 2013
Featured poets 2014
Featured poets 2015
Featured poets 2016

Vertical Divider
Connect with us
© COPYRIGHT 2008-20. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Picture
Associate Partner:- 'The Resurgence Poetry Prize'

World’s first major ecopoetry award.  With a first prize of £5,000 for the best single poem embracing ecological themes, the award ranks amongst the highest of any English language single poem competition. Second prize is £2,000 and third prize £1,000.

    Subscribe to our latest updates

    Get latest updates and issues mailed at your inbox
Submit

Picture

​VerseVille (formerly The Enchanting Verses Literary Review) © 2008-2020    ISSN 0974-3057 Published from India. 


Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact
    • Media Coverages
    • Copyright Notice
    • VerseVille Blog
  • Submissions
    • Poetry and Essays Guidelines
    • Book Review Guidelines
    • Research Series Guidelines
  • Masthead
  • Editions
    • 2011 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XIV November 2011
    • 2012 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XV March 2012
      • ISSUE-XVI July 2012
      • ISSUE-XVII November 2012
    • 2013 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XVIII April 2013
      • ISSUE XIX November 2013
    • 2014 Issues >
      • ISSUE XX May 2014
    • 2015 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXI February 2015
      • Contemporary Indian English Poetry ISSUE XXII November 2015
    • 2016 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIII August 2016
      • Poetry From Ireland ISSUE XXIV December 2016
    • 2017 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXV August 2017
      • ISSUE XXVI December 2017
    • 2018 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXVII July 2018
      • ISSUE XXVIII November 2018
    • 2019 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIX July 2019
    • 2020 ISSUES >
      • Issue XXX February 2020
      • ISSUE XXXI December 2020
  • Collaborations
    • Macedonian Collaboration
    • Collaboration with Dutch Foundation for Literature
  • Interviews
  • Prose on Poetry and Poets
    • 2010-2013 >
      • Sylvia Plath by Dr. Nidhi Mehta >
        • Chapter-1(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-2(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-3(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-4(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-5(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-6(Sylvia Plath)
      • Prose Poems of Tagore by Dr. Bina Biswas >
        • Chapter-1(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-2(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-3(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-4(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-5(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-6(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-7(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-8(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-9(Rabindranath Tagore)
      • Kazi Nazrul Islam by Dr. Shamenaz Shaikh >
        • Chapter 1(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 2(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 3(Nazrul Islam)
      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
        • Chapter 1(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 2(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 3(Kabir's Poetry)
      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-2 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-3 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-4 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
      • Poetry of Kamla Das –A True Voice Of Bourgeoisie Women In India by Dr.Shikha Saxena
      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
    • 2016-2017 >
      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
    • 2017-2018 >
      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions