KINGA FABÓ

KINGA FABÓ

The Transfiguration Of The Word

Open, the sea appeared asleep.

Carrying its waves.

A pulse under the muted winter scene.

Throwing a smile on the beach.

A nun-spot on the hot little body.

A color on the broken glass.

A gesture that was once closed.

Lovely as the sea stood up.

Throwing a smile on the beach.

I wanted to remain an object.

But, no, immortality is not mine.

I am too strong to defend myself.

Waiting for punishment.

This and the same happened together.

Silently, I sat in the glass.

Only the spot wandered on the naked scene.

Sounds did not continue.

Only an omitted gesture.

Happiness like an unmoving dancer.

Beatings on naked, bony back.

And the sea will no longer be immortal.

TRANSLATED BY ZSUZSANNA OZSVÁTH AND MARTHA SATZ

Isadora Duncan Dancing

Like sculpture at first. Then, as if the sun rose in her, long

gesture.

A small smile; then very much so.

The beauty

of the rite shone; whirling.

She whirled and whirled,

flaming.

Only the body spoke. The body carried her

language.

Her dance a spell

swirling the air, a spiral she was

and

her shawl, the half circle around her,

the curve of the sea-shore and

girl,

the dancer and the dance apart…

TRASCREATED BY CATHY STRISIK AND VERONICA GOLOS BASED ON KATALIN N. ULLRICH’S TRANSLATION

The Ears

As if my ears were the sacraments, a crowd

appears, appears before them. Lucky

I have nice big ears.

Deep and hollow.

The hip and breast sizes are coming.

Here comes the lonely one. She wants my husband.

Here comes the housewife. She's married, frigid.

When she doesn't come, she learns languages,

travels.

The lesbian? Doesn't come at all. Though

I would seduce her. If nothing comes of it, my

Ears would perk themselves. (Big as they are.)

Feminine women I don't invite on principle.

Nor any men. I go

to them.

But all they want is my ears.

And the mouths? Nonstop talkers.

And my ears? My ears are mute.

I change only my earrings from time to time.

My ears are mine.

TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL CASTRO AND GÁBOR G. GYUKICS

Lovers

You are free, said the stranger.

Before I arrived there.

Costume. I had a costume on though.

I was curious: what his reaction might be?

He closed his other eyes.

I’ll send an ego instead of you.

Getting softer, I feel it, he feels it too. Hardly moves. He chokes himself inside me.

Now I must live with another dead man.

It’s not even hopeless.

Not vicious.

Serves the absence.

Delivers the unnecessary.

TRANSLATED BY GABOR G. GYUKICS

Androgen

The bees are tough, hard to break virgins.

Virgins, but different from us humans.

They have no ego. Hermaphrodites. Like the moon.

Butterflies. Phallic souls.

Soul phalluses in female bodies.

The daughter, daughters of the moon

allured me but only until

I figured them out.

As lovers.

I got tired of my ego.

And theirs too.

I’m bored of their services.

It wedges an obstacle between us. Neither

in nor out. In vain

I keep trying. I can break through

mine somehow.

But his? How?

Selfish, inspiring; but for what?

Is he like this by nature,

subservient, dependent?

On me? That’s dispiriting.

He doesn’t even suspect, that I depend on him.

I am the stronger, the unprotected.

Tough as a woman, austere.

Delicate as a man, fragile, gentle.

What would I like? I want him to

wrestle me gently to the floor,

penetrate me violently, savagely.

So I can become empty and neutral.

Impersonal, primarily a woman.

TRANSLATED BY GABOR G. GYUKICS

Anesthesia

I thought: he’d clean me out.

But he only vaporized me.

Strained my colors.

Crinkled them back. Inside the statue.

Then came the odors.

The badly installed roots.

As corpus delicti.

On the operating-table.

I’m sterile.

Famous outside.

Empty inside.

My auxiliary verbs are men with headdresses.

His donation: railway tracks without smile;

always ready for tragedy –

strange, like a heartbeat –

sin is only a decoration.

I have no peace. I’m certain:

I’ll take root somewhere.

He is a professional.

He wants me frozen.

TRANSLATED BY GABOR G. GYUKICS

Poison

I don't know what it is but very ill-

intended. Surely a woman must belong to it.

And something like a laughter.

I am rotating the city on me,

rotating my beauty. That's that!

Many keys, small keyholes whirling.

Gazes cannot be all in vain. And the answer?

Merely a jeer.

The vase hugs and kills me, can't breathe.

Now my features – even with the best intentions –

cannot be called beautiful.

And her? The girl? Her trendy perfume

is Poison. For me a real poison indeed.

And the vase?

It hugs and kills me.

But what am I to do without?

WRITTEN IN ENGLISH BY KINGA FABÓ

I’m Not A City

I’m not a city: I have neither light, nor

window display. I look good.

I feel good. You didn’t

invite me though. How

did I get here?

You’d do anything for me; right?

Let’s do it! An attack.

A simple toy-

wife? I dress, dress, dress

myself.

The dressing remains.

I operate, because I’m operated.

All I can do is operate.

(I don’t mean anything to anyone.)

What is missing then?

Yet both are men seperetaly.

Ongoing magic. Broad topsyturviness.

Slow, merciless.

A new one is coming: almost perfect.

I swallow it.

I swallow him too.

He is too precious to

waste himself such ways.

I’d choose him: if he knew,

that I’d choose him.

But he doesn’t. My dearest is lunatic.

In vain he is full: He is useless

without the Moon, he can’t change,

he won’t change,

the way the steel bullets spin: drifting,

the blue is drifting.

He tolerates violence on himself, I was afraid

he’d pull himself together and

asks for violence.

I watched myself

born anew with indifference:

(if I melt him!)

stubborn, dense, yowls. They worked on him well.

Right now he is in transition.

He is a lake: looking for its shore.

 TRANSLATED BY GABOR G. GYUKICS

The Promiscuous Mirror

1.

Is it detached or all-forgiving?

We need a passport to get through.

It nods us past in quick succession

Just anyone, no matter who.

I can rely on its detachment

As I move from place to place.

All those languages it masters,

Wherever I dare show my face!

It’s no big deal who’s looking in it

As it serves its own blind grace.

2

It neither befriends nor breaks up with you.

Though when you’re pushed in front of it

Whether you’re plain or just plain gorgeous

It frowns and takes the brunt of it.

Could this absolute indifference

Be Absolute? (It takes no joy

In my bare flesh, nor is it bored.)

In all my phases I am simply

What seems to vanish then return,

Part of its cosmic unconcern.

3

The distance is too terrifying.

It could be less but it is clear

Some speck of me would still appear.

The mirror will serve us blindly

And whether harshly or quite kindly

Forgets at once. There’s little fuss,

Or major choice required for us.

It lets us do just what we want.

Mine drops me quick without a trace.

Mechanically wipes out my face.

TRANSLATED BY GEORGE SZIRTES

The Complaint Of A Worn-Out Girdle

How many women have I tortured? God,

how many! And how perfectly deformed

their bodies were as one by one they trod

the red carpet, swayed and posed

in gratitude to me, I who prefer a closed

door to the blatantly exposed

(and they pretend to disdain me even while

seeking my good graces, S & M style)

insist I serve them with a wide eyed smile.

Those who possess me seek the praise

- and might receive it - of the blank male gaze.

They use me and disparage me all ways

and yet are one with me, have flounced

about while in my steady grip

or slipped into me unannounced.

Talking of perverts, I am stuffed with them,

(this is where it comes to S & M),

it’s like being in a prison cell.

I am the stock where these mad bats from hell

work out. I work my magic well

and turn them out as new after a spell.

They undo me, as might anyone.

I am what they have done.

But why do they insist on carying on

with me - the feeling isn’t mutual -

with me in particular!

Why pick on me when there are

plenty - women or worms - it matters not

happy to give them all they’ve got.

All clichés, you can stuff the lot

into one old hat and call it quits.

I’m not for clichés, not one fits.

I wish they left me alone, but it’s

hopeless, I am forced to serve.

I’m always different and will swerve

from following an alien curve.

Is this their thanks? This sorry item. .

All for some man to woo or bride them.

A pity it is to prettify them.

TRANSLATED BY GEORGE SZIRTES

KINGA FABÓ

KINGA FABÓ is a Hungarian poet. Her poetry has been widely published in international literary journals and poetry magazines including Modern Poetry in Translation (translated and introduced by George Szirtes); Numéro Cinq, Ink Sweat & Tears, Deep Water Literary Journal, The Screech Owl, The Original Van Gogh’s Ear, The Opiate, Fixpoetry, Lyrikline.org and elsewhere as well as in anthologies like The Significant Anthology, Women in War, The Colours of Refuge, Poetry Against Racism, World Poetry Yearbook 2015, Anthology of Contemporary Women's Poetry and others. Some of her individual poems have been translated into 17 languages altogether:  Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, English, Esperanto, French, Galego, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Persian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Tamil. One of her poems (The Ears) has among others six different Indonesian translations by six different authors. Her latest book, a  bilingual Indonesian-English poetry collection Racun/Poison was published in 2015. Fabó lives in Budapest, Hungary.