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      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
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      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
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      • 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 István Kemény

(Translated by George Gömöri, Richard Burns and David Hill)


Elves’ Morning Song


Grow up and keep growing or we’ll trash the daylights out of you.
All we’re after is some weirdo who gives us the creeps.
How old are you now, eight? In that case we’ll beat the hell out of you.
All of the other kids – that’s who we are.


And this is just our song for the morning.


We’re a bunch of wankers, what this says is made for wankers,
So don’t you dare go and put them down in your diary.
And watch it cos you’ll be followed home all the way from school.
So you’d better keep growing or we’ll thrash the daylights out of you.


And this is just our song for the morning.


Whenever you take a shit remember we’ll be watching you,
So keep growing or when you’re ten you’ll still be shitting in front of us!
All were after is some weirdo who gives us the creeps.
How old are you now, twelve? In that case we’ll beat hell out of you.


And this is just our song for the morning.


You’d better keep on growing coz we’ll grow even faster
And run on in front of you and wait for you with our own kids.
You’ll get twenty years off without hearing a word from us
But if you’re still on your own then, that’s when we’ll do you in.



​
Grand Monologue


The French will come to rule us once again
And splendid knightly orders be persuaded
To follow in the train of yet another
Lousy king towards the Holy Land,
Though he, en route, will stop to fight a battle
One would have thought impossible to lose
In which they, and their enemies, all die –
And what shall issue forth from this on earth
To greet the daylight? Well, there was a storm
Last night, with rain, and then on Tuesday what
The forecast said would happen, happened, and
The French returned to rule us once again.


When we say ’French’, we really mean the past,
The Gothic, Ancien Régime, the Terror,
Each of which, unparagoned in its style,
Epitomized uniquely a modality
Humans lived and died in. Nevertheless
By Gothic, Ancien Régime and Terror,
We also mean the Church, the Courtly Gardens
And the atrocious gas chambers – although
One day these things will also be forgotten,
And that will simply be that, and then suddenly,
The churches, courtly gardens and gas-chambers
Will turn alike into a sort of warm
Sunday afternoon in a quiet house
Sequestered far away up the Po Valley
With a monkish-looking jalopy in the courtyard
And the year 1938 will be no more
Than the year Mother was born, and the ladle
Used for serving at lunch fell in the bowl
And vanished in the bouillon several minutes
Meanwhile a longish afternoon’s expected
Though with no more omens, things having gone
Quiet for a change on that front nor shall we
Start trembling if, the whole night long, the foliage
Of our health keeps rustling in the west wind
For we have been changed back into a forest
And all that’s left inside the house is the droning
Of a vacant screen instead of the sea and
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
A big dark yawning alley gapes and nothingness.




Some Words on Blood


It’s life that fells a tree in front of the coach,
Life that fells a tree behind it once it stops,
Life that confuses the horses, life
That pours bloodcurdling howls out of the woods,
Life that hurls bandits from their ambushes out of loot,
Life that cuts throats, life that gets
A good price for the coat, life again, more life.


Life learns from blood, researches through blood,
Does its testing with blood, broods over blood and peers
Deep in its bloody ways. At the merest drop, that’s where life is.
Life loves blood, exchanges it for wine. So go and give life back
Some blood, jangle the bell. Life may still be asleep
But you’ll still get either wine or blood for it, and life
Will come down and meet you at the gate any time.
So you still haven’t got to know what life is, have you.


And you can’t deny you love life. So go on, do something,
For life is leaving, running out, whipping up the horses,
Taking the loot with it, the whole ruddy lot,
Then sloshing it all over the place, having a ball with it
And then changing whatever’s left into background music,
Into one of those tacky old film scores of your childhood
Which life used to use, just to make a fool of you,
And that’s how you’ll end up, with it glued into your ears,
And that’s how you’ll die, fool, humming and whistling it.




The Bee-Keeper


I have been a bee-keeper for six thousand years 
And for the past hundred years an electrician.
Once I retire I shall keep bees again.
Something should hum for me, oh hum for me,
Hum and hum and hum
Just for me.​

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István Kemény (1961) is a poet and writer. His first poetry volume was published in 1984, since then he has become one of the most influential and critically acclaimed authors in Hungary. His works are translated into German, French, Bulgarian, Spanish, Polish and Romanian languages. He works and lives in Budapest.   

​


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  • 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