"small coffee with two cubes of sugar," "aim and look aside," and "present is god's sandwich wedged between past and future"
small coffee with two cubes of sugar
whitish parchments of the
unwound ambiance lingers
in your cellophane eyes
the distance subduing
the sounds of mountains
is bombed out skeletons
the bends of rivers
the thorns of the buckeyes
the swirling of anthills
the droning of beehives
the silence of spiders
are dispersing gasoline stripes
of airplanes
and the sound of men
mocking god
this might be the moment
when
you finally decide
to move ahead…
aim and look aside
the night watchman swears
the train never goes to places
where the river has no recollection
where the valley is the watch-pocket of the hill
where the pitapat sound turns to music
the train goes
where there are
possible offerings
where god
looks aside
present is god’s sandwich wedged between past and future
darkness and fog provides security
as opposed to the light of a street lamp
on the other side of the fence
stands a white washed house
unguarded
in the blade-mirror of god’s dagger
a cul-de-sac makes itself visible
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.