JANOS PILlNSZKY
Holy
Thief
for Mari TorOcsik
By then the flies had covered him
beyond agony,
beyond tetanus,
and far beyond nails, wounds,
neither object nor body,
in public
in between
neither loitering
(dented monstrance)
nor flight
friend,
friendship forever.
Experience
Experience, like Kronos,
eats his sons.
Genuine knowledge
is inexperienced, knows nothing,
is acquainted, can be acquainted with nothing.
So he feels, so only can he feel
eternal peace, calm, when
the henchman snacks on bacon, and he himself
unsuspectingly arrives, steps in,
then stiffens, lies supine
and starts bleeding in a nonexistent space
that only heaven resembles.
Translated from the Hungarian
by
Emery George
