Four "Corn Songs" by Kinga Tóth (translated from the Hungarian by Timea Balogh) Drawings by Kinga Tóth

 

Corn Songs

 

song five

they pierce the ground with spoon straws
that’s how the roots will breathe
that’s how they’ll pull them out when they’re ripe
the others arrive behind the diggers
they write with felt pens
take away the dialect and unsettle everyone
they piss with their legs apart
and that’s when they forget what
they talked about at harvest time
they take the tongues out of their mouths
with which they were understood
and take pictures till they are distracted from the conversation
only the spoon-holding hands remain
squatting they examine the air-bagged roots
this will serve as amnesty and the writers
will be the only ones permitted to speak

 

5

ötödik ének

szívószálkanalat szúrnak a földbe azon lélegzik
a gyökér azzal lehet majd éréskor kiemelni
a merők hátához mások is érkeznek a hátuk mögé
írnak filcekkel elveszik a nyelvteret és elbizonytalanítanak
széttett lábakkal pisilnek körbe ekkor felejtik el azt
amin közösen beszéltek éréskor kiveszik szájukból
a nyelvet amin megértettek kifényképezkednek
a beszédből csak a kanáltartó kezek maradnak
guggolva vizsgálják a légzsákos gyökereket
ez lesz az amnesztia és az írók lesznek
akik beszélhetnek

 

***

 

song sixteen

the carrots the slushy roots frozen
from the door the wall the radiator scare the birds
their alarmed squawking where the roots branch off I want
the woodpeckers the squirrels to come back
draw them out of their hiding spots so they can
shut off these sirens

 

16

tizenhatodik ének

az ajtóból a falból a radiátorból befagyott
sárgarépák kásás gyökerek riasztják a madarakat
az elágazásoknál riasztóvijjogás azt akarom
jöjjenek vissza a harkályok a mókuskok
csalják ki őket a rejtekhelyekről állítsák
le a szirénákat

 

 ***

 

song thirty-six
a letter to deal 

with a letter to be cleaned or vanished or
painted with the oil of some exotic trees
in one country this causes inflammation
in the other this is called peace
the monks in the middle age chose
the second finger the pointing one
to dive into various inks
lavender for calmness and smell
elderflower for color
the paper did the drinking job well
multiple drawings in purple
for a calligram a symbol button
of two types of trees to spread
in tourist-reservations to proof similar
habitat-terms and conditions

 

36

harminchatodik ének

egy levél amivel kezdeni kell törölni tisztítani
vagy festeni egzotikus fák olajával
az egyik országban ez gyulladást okoz
a másikban ez a béke
a középkori szerzetesek a második
ujjat választották a mutatót
ezzel merültek különböző tintákba
levendula a nyugalomért és az illatért
bodzavirág a színért
a papír jól beitta többféle rajz a lilában
kalligramnak egy jelzőgomb
kétfajta fából hogy terjedjen
turista-rezervátumokban hogy igazolja
ugyanaz az eredet ugyanazon feltételek

 

***

 

 

song thirty-nine

home improvement supplies store mini-transceivers measure
where they were on the moon
what speculation anxiety is where
you should know that everything is always true
you don’t need to graph any more just the
metal egg we touch that we will put up as a red circle
if they can reach it on the moon we will wait
to receive for every one of our questions
that hangs out of our rooms
circles red ones

 

39

harminckilencedik ének

barkácsboltos miniadóvevőn mérik
hol voltak a holdon mi találgatás a feszültség hol
tudnod kellene hogy minden mindig igaz
nem kell többet grafikon csak az
érintős fémtojás amit felteszünk piros karikának
ha ott a holdon elérik minden szobából kilógó
kérdéseinket karikát várunk pirosakat

 

 

 

Corn Songs will appear in the Hungarian-English bilingual, multi-media chapbook entitled Írmagok/Offspring that includes poems, photographs, visual art and sound-poetry, published by YAMA in spring 2020

 

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Kinga Tóth writes and publishes poems, fiction, and drama pieces in Hungarian, German, and English. She is a musician and visual and sound-poet, and has presented her work around the world. Tóth’s book publications include the poetry collections PARTY, All Machine, Village 0-24, Wir bauen eine Stadt, and the visual-art catalogue Textbilder. Her novel, The Moonlight Faces, won the Hazai Attila and the Best Novel Special prizes in Hungary. English translations of her poetry have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Asymptote, Arkansas International, Dream Pop Press, and the Wretched Strangers anthology by Boiler House Press. She was recently a resident of the International Writing Program at Iowa. She is currently in the process of completing Corn Songs. You can find more of her work at www.tothkinga.blogspot.de.

 

Timea Balogh is a Hungarian American writer and translator with an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. A 2017 American Literary Translators Association Travel Fellow, her translations of Hungarian poetry and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in The Offing, Brooklyn Rail, Asymptote, Waxwing, Two Lines Journal, Split Lip Magazine, Lunch Ticket, and the Wretched Strangers anthology by Boiler House Press, among others. She has short stories forthcoming in Prairie Schooner and Passages North and poetry forthcoming in Homonym Journal. Her debut original short story was published by Juked and was nominated for a PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She lives, writes, and studies literary translation in Budapest. You can tweet her at @TimeaRozalia.