Hungarian Poet Kukorelly Endre

To begin with, Hungarian is like Chinese in that the last name comes first. So what would be Endre Kukorelly in English is Kukorelly Endre in the Magyar tongue. I found this poem in the Hungarian Literature Online website—very sobering thoughts considering the season:

You Have To Give It Up

Soon you have to give it up. The body
and the heart and things, and the soul, too.
The soul flies up. Up, where. Soon you have
to give it up. The body leaves you.
Aches, falls, loosens. Aches, burns, burns
comes to an end, bone, the body flows away. How
easy it is. It leaves you.
You leave it, easier than you leave the street, a
bench, a glove, the sight of
pouring rain, the sobbing of it. The flowing rain.
Finally, the pain leaves, steps away. It won’t be worse.
It’s not worse, that’s it. Or it’s not cruel.
It rather might be sad—what isn’t?
The fallen fruit. Fragment.
For example, the sound doesn’t emerge. It sits far in
the back. Sat in the back. It sat in the back of a bus.
Sat back. To grieve. Or to run down. Thinking
it will run you down easier. Or
why. Why.
Soon you
have to give that up too.

The translation is by Michael Castro and Gabor G. Gyukics (or, in Hungarian, Gyukics Gabor).