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  • A titkos élet
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A titkos élet

István Kemény

Ha egyszer majd számonkéri tőled,
akitől semmiképp se várnád,
hogy mért nem volt titkos életed,
nem foghatod rá senkire.

Nem az agyadra gondol ő se,
abban akármi megterem,
hanem annyira, annyira egyszerűen
arra, amiért felelős nem vagy,

mert csak fütyülsz, és közben éled,
míg itt a csodák történelme
csodáról csodára pereg le, és te
azt mondod, köszönöm, van nekem szebb,

és közben nincs, mert honnan lenne,
de mégis időnként hallod a sínpár
koccanását a végtelenben,
és tudod, hogy nem a fogad vacog.


István Kemény

1998

Reproduced by permission of the authors.

Tags:

Hungarian Scots Translations

Translations of this Poem

The secret life

Translator: Tom Hubbard


Gin ye’re interrogat fir oors
(bi somebody ye didnae expect fir it),
whit wey nae secret life wis yours,
and ye’ve naebody ti check fir it.

It’s no yer brain he’s on aboot,
whaur onythin can growe
but juist whitever ye wad doot
cuid be the product o your pow.

Aa one ti you. Ever and on,
you’re thankrife fir the chronicle
o ferlie come and ferlie gone,
but claim a brawer meeracle

the whilk ye dinnae hae ti hand –
why suid ye? – listen, while ye’re gitterin
the rails are dirlin withoot end,
and ye ken it’s no your teeth that’s chitterin.

About this poem

This translation was part of the SPL’s XXV project, and is published in At the End of the Broken Bridge: XXV Hungarian poems 1978-2002 (Edinburgh/Manchester: SPL/Carcanet Press, 2005).

translated with Zsuzsanna Varga

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István Keményb.1961

István Kemény was born in Budapest, where he studied law and then History and Hungarian Literature, graduating from university in 1993. He published his first collection of poems in 1984, and has gone on to publish essays and fiction...
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