The Trump by György Faludy

Translated from the Hungarian and Edited by Thomas Ország-Land (August 2012)

The poetry of the Jewish-Hungarian master György Faludy has been at last admitted into the school-books of his native country, following a long and bitter campaign fought on his behalf by Our Correspondent (see György Faludy’s Happy Days in Hell, New English Review, August 2010).

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1:  FUTURE DAYS

History cannot be predicted.

The girls of today are lovelier, brighter,

the boys more sporty and more cheerful

and far less erudite.

Some seven nations fabricate A-bombs,

like machineguns or cannon of old.

If you worry, they will reassure you: We

produce them not to use them, you’re told.

There are a lot more than a billion

Chinese. We are not interested

in them. They work and keep their silence.

What if they make a request?

The mighty sheets of Arctic ice

melt beneath the polar bears.

Will the rising oceans spare us

behind our seawalls built of prayers?

Our great green plain becomes a dust cloud,

a dirt-grey, dry, deserted dump.

Only the Voice of God could help. But

the Lord never plays a trump.

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2:  LOSING MY SIGHT?

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Last night again I read, as I often do,

some poetry in bed until very late.

It’s 10 a.m. A brilliant winter sky.

Light and broken clouds in disarray.

My spirit soars. I raise an arm towards them

(in an appropriate greeting to the brightness)

until I pause and freeze and shudder frightened:

for I see my hand, but not my fingertips.

Above the divan, I note that the silver frame

of the Italian painting is slightly bent on one side.

I leap from the bed excited. As I finger the frame:

it never has been straighter than today.

I settle at the table and reach for the papers, in

a casual gesture in my plight, despite

not just a fear, despite the foreknowledge that this

unfolding horror is only about to begin.

I can still negotiate the banner headlines

but not the standard size print, as the tiny writing

blurs into a lengthy dirt-grey smudge on the white

without a single letter that I can distinguish.

I’ve been excluded from the delight of reading.

I cannot tell whose letter is put in my hand.

I cannot even read what I have written, and

I might as well discard my own library.

So that’s how it is. Yet, will I have the strength

to pursue my poetry still, on losing my sight?

What will become of me? I walk my path,

the crutch upon my left. At right, the wife.

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3:  MICHELANGELO'S FINAL PRAYER

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Your arm describes the sun's curved course while standing

beside the earth, Your anvil and domain.

For eight long decades, I've sought understanding

upon the scaffolding, my Lord, in vain.

I'm left with lifeless forms or idols moulded

beneath my chisel from the crumbling blocks –

Your fleeting rainbow has remained unfolded.

It glows beyond my reach within the rocks.

Although I have grown clumsy, violated

by every storm, rough, mute and isolated –

my soul reflects the light that You have shone.

How can I cast aside the body's inner

confines? If You still love an aging sinner,

strike here, great Master Sculptor! I'm the stone.

— György Faludy (1910-2006)?

THOMAS ORSZÁG-LAND is a poet and award-winning foreign correspondent who writes from London and his native Budapest. His next book will be THE SURVIVORS: Holocaust Poetry for Our Time (Smokestack/England, 2014).

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