Kinga Fabó

Dracula Orchid

We didn’t choose each other.
We were locked together.
Watching his ugly face.

He looks back: I see myself.
Who is in which end of the cable
who is it that places me at his will?

This isn’t a game between the two of us,
this tug of war.
Someone’s pulling my strings from above:

once he pulls me, next he leaves me.
Smells the blood. Nosing around me.
The heat of the body. Steaming.

Can’t take it anymore. This distillate is too raw for me.
The beast wins out of beauty.
The scale goes off balance.

Two derelict puppets. Deteriorated.
Event in the greenhouse: behold.
The heart’s been stubbed.

(Translated by Gabor G. Gyukics)

A Drakula-orchidea

Mi nem választottuk egymást.
Bennünket összezártak.
Bámulom a rusnya képét.

Visszanéz: látom magam.
Ki van a drót melyik végén,
s ki az, aki oda-vissza rak?

Ez nem csupán kettőnk között játszma,
ez a meghúz-elereszt.
Valaki föntről is rángat:

hol meghúz, hol elereszt.
Vért szimatol. Szaglászik utánam.
Tüzel a test. Gőzölög.

Nem bírom már. Nyers nekem a párlat.
Szépségből győz a szörnyeteg.
Megbillen a súly.

Két gazdátlan báb. Elfajul.
Esemény az üvegházban: ím.
S átdöfve a szív.

Kinga Fabó

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)

Szeretők

Szabad vagy, mondta idegen.
Még mielőtt odaértem.
Jelmez. Jelmez volt pedig rajtam.
Kíváncsi voltam: erre mit tesz?

Behunyta a másik szemét.
Egy ént küldött maga helyett.
Puhul, már érzem, ő is. Alig mocorog. Belém fojtja magát.
Egy újabb halottal kell élnem.

Még csak nem is reménytelen.
Nem rosszindulatú.
Szolgálja a hiányt.
Szállítja a fölösleget.

Amantes

És livre, dixo o desconhecido.
Antes de eu chegar ali.
Disfarce. No entanto eu levava posto um disfarce.
Tinha curiosidade: qual poderia ser a sua reaçom?

Fechou os seus outros olhos.
Enviarei um ego em vez de ti.
Ao amolecermos, vou-no sentindo, tamém el o sente. Quase nom se move. El afoga dentro de mim.
Agora hei de viver com mais um cadáver.

É algo que nem sequer chega a ser desesperado.
Nem vicioso.
Serve a ausência.
Entrega o desnecessário.

(Translated into Galego by Suso Moinhos)

Kinga Fabó

Blow Wind, Blow

You sit me down. Make my bed. For me. For you.
For her. The way she swings around. Sways. Bows.
Let’s say: I’ll tell you. Let’s say: You’ll listen.

My dearest!
You congregant!
How should I use you?
I’m sitting right here and murmur.
I am sweet, you are sweet.

It was beautiful. Congregated. Used.
I should have done something to him.
There were many other
things. Things? Many?
It was winter, Hard. Un-
breakable.
There was a woman. A man. Insignificant.

(Translated by Gabor G. Gyukics)

Szél fúj. Fújdogál

Leültetsz. Megágyazol. Nekem. Neked.
Neki. Ahogy átlendül. Hajlik. Hajlong.
Mondjuk: elmondom. Mondjuk: meghallgatod.

Gyönyörűm!
Te tömörítő!
Hogyan használjalak?
Itt ülök és duruzsolok.
Édes vagyok, édes vagy.

Gyönyörű volt. Tömör. Használt.
Valamit csinálnom kellett volna vele.
És még volt sok
minden. Minden?
Tél volt. Kemény. Fel-
töretlen.
Nő volt. Férfi. Kis-semmilyen.

Kinga Fabó’s bio (below) ends with this: “In everything she’s done, Fabó has always been between the verges, on the verge, and in the extreme.” I begin with it, in discussing her work. She and I have been published in at least one anthology together (The Significant Anthology). However, we mostly know each other through the virtual world of Facebook. Our friendship began with a discussion of one of her poems, where I commented about just that sense of the poem, of being between, liminal. As I recall, the sea and its waves splashed through the poem.

The poems she’s shared here on my blog provide that same sense, of being on the verge of connecting and understanding that connections really do not connect us. The sense of the orchid as a lover, of a lover as a strangled ego, and the emptiness of a winter love affair all also convey something more—of our inability to understand the world, of our constantly standing on the edge, between what we feel and what we can articulate, what we sense and what is—on the verge.

I find her poems haunting, the themes philosophical (perhaps epistemological, or is that my projection?), the words spare but beautiful. It is a pleasure to (try) to read them here in Hungarian, one in Galego (Galician), a language I only vaguely had heard of before. The pleasure of the sounds, the pleasure of the poems, the pleasure of sensing the thinking and feeling person behind the poems—these all spark in me a desire to respond, to write, and, paradoxically, to listen quietly on the verge…

Kinga Fabó is a Hungarian poet (linguist, essayist). Her latest book, a bilingual Indonesian-English poetry collection RACUN/POISON was published in 2015 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Fabó’s poetry has been published in various international lit mags including Osiris, Taos Journal of International Poetry (Mexico), Basho International Haiku Forum (India), Sastra Digital (Indonesia), MeArteka (Albania), ATUNIS (Albania), Eastern World (Uzbekistan), Knot Magazine, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Screech Owl, The Original Van Gogh’s Ear, Numéro Cinq as well as in anthologies like Beletra Almanako, The Significant Anthology, Resonance, Women in War, The Colours of Refuge, Poetry in Action, Poetry Against Racism, World Poetry Yearbook 2015, etc.

Some of her poems are often anthologized (e.g., Isadora Duncan Dancing). Others have been picked up at random from here and there and happened to be translated into Persian, Albanian, Tamil or Galego. One of her poems, The Ears, has among others six different Indonesian translations by six different authors.

She has also written on Sylvia Plath. In everything she’s done, Fabó has always been between the verges, on the verge, and in the extreme.

Kinga Fabó on Twitter
Kinga Fabó on FaceBook
Kinga Fabó’s Author’s Page
Download Racun / Poison for free from this Hungarian online library
The English translations of these poems originally appeared in Numéro Cinq