Variations on a Poem by Kosztolányi Dezső

Variations on a Poem by Kosztolányi Dezső

This what autumn brought. Haughty fruit

on a glass tray. Heavy, smaragdine–dark

grapes, huge jasperglossy pears,

great riches of gleaming jewelry.

A drop of water strides down a plump curve

and rolls by, in a shared brilliance.

This pompous, unsympathetic, bright

selfward-turning perfection.

Better to live. But already beyond 

the trees signal to me with their golden hands.

1.

This autumn offering. Death’s glib

signature. Marble hall and glass busts

where the deep green of mind’s chess lurks,

the motion of shadows among enchanted wives.

Clarity outside the window in which my husband

make me doubt. The plump fruit he leaves

and the brilliant knife of its sour sleep enjoins me.

Everything speaks but one. 

This mysterious ear I. Hidden in my leaves

the trees assemble to let him pass.

2.

What I’m offering this autumn. Glass

hands for your fruits, the proud

genealogy of ui, grape sized Socrates

parked on tongue bed let tongue love you

with glassine embrace of word unspoken

turning brilliant across taught flesh.

Let light in, gleam wet and wet. Take this bridge

friend, the trees follow your golden looks.

Go where they want you to take them.

4.

Not autumn but silence. Everything has

its product, its glass tray

with whatever fruit is needed:

the spell in the apple, the sidewalk in the night

lines to keep the wild out, that shine

useful in its brilliance. There are other mirrors

too bright for us, that perfect

touch within the darkness.

Your face, she said, almost

reminds me. I wept as I turned away.

3.

The hostelry of Oz. Whose crumpled tourniquet

you vegetable. A haze, shouted smaragdine

soul lit, hit or miss, aspens faint fruit courted,

egg omlette duce, tuned or clove egg salad.

Fees chop a ramlike edge cover but you roll,

and will good rule, a car appliance.

A pompous, wrist-rattling, derelict,

megabus–bordeaux to keel in the shade.

Yup vulva ails me. I’m the tool of black bear

around guests you call intended necking.

4.

Ezt hozta az ősz. Hűs gyümölcsöket 

üvegtálon. Nehéz, sötét-smaragd 

szőlőt, hatalmas, jáspisfényü körtét, 

megannyi dús, tündöklő ékszerét. 

Vízcsöpp iramlik egy kövér bogyóról 

és elgurul, akár a brilliáns. 

A pompa ez, részvéttelen, derült, 

magába-forduló tökéletesség. 

Jobb volna élni. Ámde túl a fák már 

aranykezükkel intenek nekem.

ŐSZI REGGELI, 1929

(Remembering R.K.'s "Variations on a Poem by Stefan George")