Hungarian Poet Attila József (1905-1937)

The last few days I have been suffering from a summer cold. I know it’s not summer yet, but the temperature has been hot. During that time, I was reading a manically humorous detective novel written in the 1940s and finally quit as I was two-thirds of the way through. What I picked up next was a collection of 40 disturbing poems by a Hungarian poet who committed suicide by throwing himself under a train in 1937.

It’s not that I’m addicted to gloominess, but I am after all a Hungarian myself. So it must be something in the blood. Here is the title poem from the collection I read:

Perched on Nothing’s Branch

I finally arrive
at the sand’s wet edge,
look around, shrug

that I am where I am,
looking at the end. A
silver ax strokes
summer leaves. Playfully.

I am perched solidly
on nothing’s branch.
The small body shivers
to receive heaven.

Iron-colored.

Cool shiny dynamos revolve
in the quiet revolution of stars.
Words barely spark from clenched teeth.

The past tumbles
stonelike through space,
blue time floating off
without a sound. A blade
flashes, my hair—

My mustache is a full
caterpillar droopong
down my numb mouth,
my heart aches, words are cold.
There’s no one out here
to hear—