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.​

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.   

​

---

---