As if a rusted centrifuge spun inside me, clashed a gasp, I wrung out the stains of our last days together.
But how could I escape you when even your clothes spoke to me? Some of them declaimed angrily rebounding rhymes, some whispered in dark cadences, some endlessly screamed obscenities.
My ears still ring with the head-voice of a violet blouse that shouts: Tear me limb from limb, you coward shit! At the time I stood there, holding back, later I set out for a louder noise.
Elegynoise
Day never dawns, it’s always dawning, and through this dim obscurity behind our yellow curtain I sit waiting for your silhouette below.
Is the moon somehow involved in this high tide of dirty cobblestones, or do my overtired eyes invent a continuous rise and fall?
I leaned over the mash-tun once to inhale the promising odor of decay. So I wait, but day will never dawn again.
(Translated by Genevieve Arlie)
The spring
In the irrevocable melting you dragged yourself like a deserter along the bloodtrail, so this is the last day of winter, you asked arriving in a clearing where snowflowers bloomed from mud patches, but still the wind bore the smell of carrion, so this would be my past, the chattering branches, the red dots on white background, and you spotted from behind a bush the deer emerging to appease its thirst, and saw as it bent forward the wound bleeding from its side, you lowered your rifle and stepped closer, much closer, so this is the spring of my future, then it looked upon you and said, yes.
The wife
That light still falls inside the garden, is baffling, as the sky had already turned dark, an unfamiliar fat lady approached in your dream, spread her arms and embraced you, almost scratched your skin with her nails, but I don’t know you you said, drawing away from her, oh, yes you do, she replied, I am your wife, then you searched the last patches of sunlight and quickly hung out the bloody sheets from last night. (Translated by Chad Campbell)
Dénes Krusovszky (1982, Debrecen). He was one of the founders of the Telep (’Settlement’) poets’ group (2005-2009). Krusovszky published seven books so far in different genres from poetry and fiction to children’s poetry and essays. His poetry collection Elromlani milyen (2009) had been translated to German (Wie schön das Kaputtgehen ist, 2011), Swedish (Att Gå Sönder Är Så, Rámus, 2015) and Romanian (Când te strici, Charmides, 2017). Krusovszky is also the editor-in-chief of the poetry website Versum (versumonline.hu). He received numerous awards in Hungary including the József Attila prize in 2013. He lives and works in Vienna and Budapest.