Piss Halo
I spread my arms wide open
amidst the snowfall,
and as if hit by a bullet,
I threw myself backwards
on a thick blanket of snow.
Dejo took my hand,
gently pulled me up,
so I wouldn't ruin
the body made print of a cross
We went over to the print’s head
and peed around it.
Gold on white background -
the dripped
piss-
halo
was glistening.
A few years later, war broke out,
Dejo grew a beard,
He wore a Serbian folk cap.
Volunteered.
When they brought him home,
it was forbidden to open the metal
casket.
Hungarian poet, writer, translator, musician and literary scholar Roland Orcsik was born in Becse (Serbia, then Yugoslavia) in 1975. Since the beginning of the nineties and the outbreak of the Yugoslav wars he has lived in Szeged (Hungary), not far from the places of his childhood and youth. He works at the University of Szeged in the Institute of Slavonic Studies. Orcsik is one of the editors of Hungarian literary monthly Tiszatáj. His research focuses on Hungarian and Ex-Yugoslav literary connections.
Gabor G Gyukics (b. 1958) is a Hungarian-American poet, jazz poet, literary translator born in Budapest. He is the author of 11 books of original poetry, 6 in Hungarian, 2 in English, 1 in Arabic, 1 in Bulgarian, 1 in Czech and 16 books of translations including A Transparent Lion, selected poetry of Attila József and Swimming in the Ground: Contemporary Hungarian Poetry (in English, both with co-translator Michael Castro) and an anthology of North American Indigenous poets in Hungarian titled Medvefelhő a város felett. He writes his poems in English (which is his second language) and Hungarian. His latest book in English is a hermit has no plural (Singing Bone Press, 2015). His latest book in Hungarian was published by Lector Press in May 2018. Photo by Sándor Gyapjas.
