Albatross with Shopping Bag

I waddle along like an albatross on the upwardly
sloping deck of Csatárka Street,
winter and summer, clutching my shopping
bag, in winter as it happens, the fences
either side like a ship’s railings
beyond which drones the sea
with the infinite sky above,
but I look neither up nor to the side,
only forward, always fixedly forward,
my nose a scarlet compass point
that I must blindly follow, an explorer.
That’s what I am, for in their minds
everyone can fly, all are great travellers!
And me especially, in the morning between
eleven and half past eleven, as I trudge
into the store, for it’s not time that is important
but place, for the sea drones everywhere
wearing its immortal hat of sky with which we greet
the deity, good morning, good evening, and the time
between is ours, we can take it home with us.
My wings tucked into my striped sailor’s vest,
I breathe through the trusty compass of my nose
sniffling a little, even a trifle snotty,
but have no need of any other compass
waddling for ever in a single direction,
the mortal one I always waddle in
here on earth, but where else is there? And,
as I waddle among you, bearing my albatross
shopping bag I mutter a line of verse, "Milk,
a loaf, sliced ham, some brawn and yeast..."
All essential things, everything needful
for the long journey, for the last great voyage
when I shall discover the Land of Nothing,
as have so many other travellers before me,
none of whom have as yet succeeded in returning!
But I am merely practising for now,
developing muscles, developing the spirit,
getting my heart used to it, since that is precious,
and it really isn’t as difficult as you’d think,
and getting the world too used to it, so it shouldn’t
weep or drop false crocodile tears, for what
would happen if I chanced to return after all?
After three days, say. Now there’s a tricky problem.
I think I will also have a sly go at flying,
so my entry into heaven shouldn’t take me unawares,
so, standing on tiptoe, I launch myself off
from the pavement. It isn’t quite right yet.
I have a quick shufti. Has anyone noticed?
I wouldn’t like it generally known
before I was ready in case people laughed at me.
Let them laugh at the way I waddle round,
at my old shopping bag and my rubicund
nose, and, when it comes to the point, we shall see
who laughs last. In the meantime I can greet
the universe gaily with my immortal hat:
waving good morning, good evening to everyone!
And look here is the store, I have got there,
and I hide myself delighted among the loaded
shelves, snuffling and scenting, stroking
the image of the summer apple on the fruit tin,
picking at little pieces of cheese, thinking,
so much to do, no time to die yet, that can wait
till tomorrow. If indeed there is a tomorrow.
 
 

A Little Freefall

A little freefall somewhere between eight
and nine in the morning: after food, toilet,
and bathing, in other words clean and well fed,
full of confidence, having voided the previous day
from the system, after the first sip of coffee
and the first cigarette, I take flight, or rather
fall steeply on wings of raised blood pressure,
which every five minutes dips below 180/80,
but none could deny it was flying, who cares that it’s
downward, it’s free and that is what matters,
not the direction, since space is endless, even
in my small room, it is endless, no doubt of it,
and, as I fly, I am astonished and conscious
of the brain crammed into the top of my skull
and the world crammed within that, or at least
the part that fits in the space at the top of my skull,
a fossil dscovered, soon to be a poem,
a telegraph from one Cretaceous Period to another,
as I crack jokes while falling (there’s plenty of time),
thinking: someone will be glad of all that chalk dust,
and I go on sipping coffee, light up a fag,
stop and hover a little, look through the window,
hypnotise the telephone: ring, damn you, ring,
so I can get a break, any excuse will do,
a curtain of fog outside, the telephone dumb,
and I sigh and continue what I was doing,
the falling, and I try to actually enjoy it
as violated women are often advised to do, but
I can only get so far with that, though I’m
a proper old hand at it, and pretty well inured
to the business, you can tell how much by the way
I see myself as if from the outside, but then I close
my external eye, as I’m more attractive to the inner one,
and what a pity I think, as I grow sentimental
and shed a few tears, paddling in a sea of self-pity,
and let’s be honest about this, who better equipped
than me for the job, who else has seen me here, and this too
sounds familiar, but is true for all that, though I have a touch
of the modernist in me and don’t strain too hard
to be loved, not that I don’t give a shit, but
it makes me nervous when people brown-nose me,
all that arse-licking, all the saliva that drips daily
on the brows of humanity as their corpses slump
on the shitheap, as we go on sipping coffee, or light
cigarettes in the heated room, so it’s more honest
to indulge in a little self pity, with a clean conscience
so to speak, to weep and to curse as seems fit,
at how very much they’ll miss me, and what a terrible
loss it will be for them when I finally hit the ground.
 

What Happened to Twenty Kilos

Where had twenty kilos of István Csukás

gone? There’s a photo of it a year ago,

flesh of my flesh, and well worth thinking on.

Had it ascended to heaven or was it down below?
 
 

More important perhaps, most important still,

had a commensurate weight of soul too gone?

From where was it taken, the missing part?

How measure it? What scales to weight it on?
 
 

And that piece missing, flesh or spirit, was it

the better part or just some worthless bit?

Was it expendable? Is that why it went?

But what if the remaining part is without merit?
 
 

Those twenty kilos were me, since what I ate

had quickly become an aspect of me too!

But what has happened? What power has deprived me?

What purpose is it fattening itself up to?
 
 

Have those twenty kilos hunkered down

in nothing’s swollen impregnated span,

waiting for the end, for the birth in reverse

of an embryo drawn from this full grown man?

Is that how it will disappear, kilo by kilo?

And can I talk about myself in the past tense

while living? There’s quite enough of me left in any case

so I’ll drop the subject while it still makes sense.
 
 
 
 
 

Mad Race

Vad versenyfutás
 
 

It’s a mad race beneath my skin,

the forward heart looks set to win.
 
 

It skips, it throbs, a faint numb ache,

the liver follows in its wake.
 
 

It bloats, swells, pounds, runs everywhere,

burning on alcoholic air.
 
 

An ancient wood, my two lungs blaze:

a wheezing blackened cage of days.
 
 

Kidneys grow stones, a pliocene find,

a pebble to cast at boar or hind.
 
 

The brain where mind should rule is just

a duff explosive clogged with dust.
 
 

Sunrise? Sunset? Either is fine.

My organs strain for the finishing line.
 
 
 
 

in the End

Kinek számolunk el a végén
 
 

To whom are we accountable in the end,

throwing off our flesh like sacks?

Who’ll examine our cooling skulls

pitying our quirks and lacks?
 
 

Who’ll itemise and note it down?

Who’ll ponder on the infinite

patience it took to assemble it all

then, cell by cell, dismantle it?
 
 

Twenty Kilos Regained

Visszatért húsz kiló
 

Twenty kilos of István Csukás regained!

gasping and puffing we put our trousers on.

How to show my gratitude since we don’t like sweets,

and bouquets for gentlemen just isn’t done?
 
 

So I raise this glass of beer to it since it no longer matters,

and, it being smaller, quiz it with a superior air:

where have you been, itinerant, errant part of me,

what gods do you worship, what hells do you fear?
 
 

What angel nursed you, and what dreams did it whisper

into those degenerating cells of mine

floating like stardust about the universe;

what void or lack did its empty pocket confine?
 
 

Because nothing happens by accident, the great

and the small are opposite ends of the same telescope—

it doesn’t matter much which end we peer into

it is God’s hollow eyeballs we confront without hope.

Is this what my birth was like? And do you think

death will be as simple, so easy come, easy gone?

We don’t disappear piecemeal, by degrees, but wholesale,

a monumental lack giving one final yawn.
 

Poem for Christmas

Vers Karácsonyra
 

The winter landscape looks vaguely neurotic and yet

it is the Christchild’s season, nor should we forget

he should be born in our hearts, and his eyes are exhorted to stare

mild-manneredly through each man’s very own blood-infected pair,

for we are to killing inclined, all nails and fangs, no reprieve,

ready to blow up the whole caboodle this pleasant Christmas Eve;

my mind is as fogged as the view through the wintery glass

I desperately grab at whatever still aches or might pass

for pain, or simply is and contains me, if anything does,

and assures us the grandiose visions of Genesis need not end with us,

no sentence is incomplete, no words stuck in the gut

no full stops are required, one big bang ends the lot;

so I mumble like a simpleton and trembling form a prayer:

let there be buds on the branches come the spring of the year,

let there be eyes to see them, and let the sun shine for hours,

let ultraviolet rays befiltered and arrow down like showers,

and let there be stories, forged by past and present, late and soon,

and let night show us the charmingest smile of the moon,

in our hearts let there be both evil and good, let hearts simply exist,

let the struggle that makes a man within the heart persist,

let the spirit sparkle, let it win though defeated,

let it set maypoles on rooftops, surmounted and seated,

let there be birth and death, fit for our stature,

so that we may gaily raise our hats at the bodies’ departure,

let believers exist, and let flourish those who despair beyond hoping,

those who heal wounds, and those who find fresh wounds to open,

let there, let there, let there be those who toll in tomorrow

that there should be no stillbirth this year, no dead child for sorrow.
 
 

István Csukás
had published eleven volumes of poems before a volume of his collected verse came out in 1996. Animated and puppet films, both cinema and TV, based on his stories and novels for children are very popular. Bowler Hat and Potato Nose, based on one of his novels, won the Grand Prix and was chosen as Best Film for Children of the Year at a TV film festival in Hollywood in 1975.