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      • 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
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      • 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
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      • 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
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Poems by Mónika Ferencz

(Translated by Juana Adcock)
​

Cepheids – Sefayds

(extracts)


1. 
We’re sitting on the bed next to each other.
We can’t decide whether to go to the café nearby
or take the dog for a walk.
I fix breakfast, then we play a game,
the rules of which we both
remember differently.
The dog is sitting in the front room and watching.
It’s called Sorg, you say. But I don’t know the word’s meaning.
Every day, when we get up, you quizz me
and teach me a new word.
I ask you to tell me more about yourself instead
but you turn to the wall and start whistling.


2.
We’re sitting on the bed next to each other.
You don’t know how you got here.
The air in the room has cooled and you find it soothing.
I feed you, give you water. I call you Mira.
Mira means wonderful.
We’re sitting on the bed next to each other.
I pronounce your name and caress you.


You repeat your name and the movements of my hand,
as the stars contract in the sky one by one.
Their shrinking casts a shadow is cast over the room.


3.
We’re sitting in a café next to each other.
Tuesday, three o’clock. There’s no one 
here except for us, the bartender
and a brown dog
shuffling between the chairs.


Under the table, our legs are touching.
You know this dog, but you apologise
because you cannot say its name.
You go through the menu. I want to die
you whisper, and your face darkens
like the September sky. I order two coffees.
The dog is stretched out between us.
We sit wordless for days.
Our legs are touching under the table.


4.
You’re reading a book about the celestial body Mira.
Which is cyclically contracting and expanding in the sky.
You’re trying to define
the way it slips away between freedom and love.
Mira Ceti looses its footing
and topples or collapses to the ground from the sky.
Your palm is sweaty and dark,
you open it out and palp its highest hill.
You imagine its locust baryons
breaking off and colliding.
Expanding and contracting.
Their movement is independent from you,
leaves you unchanged.


6.
You don’t know what kind of celestial body you are. 
You read books and watch
documentary series all day long.
You dream that I’m the Moon, she’s the Sun.
So upon waking you reach the conclusion that you’re the Earth.
You have no other task than to feed and water
the creatures wandering around in you.
But your seas dry out,
your forests are ablaze
and you start worrying about what happens next.
I want to be good, you say to the dark
but in the room there is no one
who could appease you.


10.
I lie on the floor with a hole between my ribs
from which blood is leaking. I slip my finger into it
but the bleeding won’t stop, and the sweat trickling down my skin
starts to burn the wound.
Light percolates from the next room.
I can’t turn my head
without discomfort
but still it takes me only minutes to fall asleep.
Someone outside starts whistling.


11.
I lie on the ground
the blood is leaking from the floorboards into my ribs
I live alone with my dog. It’s called Sorg.
I should take it out for a walk,
but I’d rather fix breakfast.


Someone is knocking, I open the door. You stand there
at the bottom of the staircase, holding the hand of an unknown woman
I ask her name, you shake your head,
you show me her palm, and your face darkens
like the September sky.



Picture
Mónika Ferencz was born in March 1991 in Budapest. She has been publishing poems in various journals since 2013, and since 2015 translations as well. She received the Mihály Babits Translators’ Grant in spring 2016, and participated in literary translation workshops organized by the Petőfi Literary Museum in Budapest (2016) and the Association of Young Writers (FISZ, 2017). Her first volume of poetry was published in 2017.

​


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​VerseVille (formerly The Enchanting Verses Literary Review) © 2008-2025    ISSN 0974-3057 Published from India. 

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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
    • 2021 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXII August 2021
    • 2022 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXIII June 2022
      • ISSUE XXXIV December 2022
    • 2023 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXV August 2023
      • ISSUE XXXVI December 2023 Indian Poetry
    • 2024 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXVII October 2024 Bengali Poetry
    • 2025 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXVIII January 2025 Balkan Poetry
  • 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