There was a beauty. There was sweetness.
I contemplated
a delicate rose.
And reality smashed down on me
like a loose boulder.
The boulder is just an image.
It'll be best to
tell everything.
The daily grind's edifying
and has the whip-hand.
My instinct followed the right track.
When that man came in
it boomed like breakers:
"I know him. Electricity.
He'll switch off the mains."
I was sharpening my pencil
the knife in my hand.
If I stab this man
I know that I shall be at peace,
at last reconciled.
I was embittered. Well, all right.
The whole flat will be
dark and depressing.
An animal can protect its home.
This war's different.
Violence will just be futile.
I'll get beaten up,
turn sick and twisted.
And no light. Where there's rule of law
cash is armament.
The technology of war's changed.
The splendid hero
needn't draw his sword.
Five pound notes are bomb explosions,
pennies are shrapnel.
That's the way I reasoned it out.
So I said: "Hallo"
and stepped aside.
At nightfall the generous moon
smiled at the outcome.
Attila József (1905 - 1937) Hungary
Translated by Nicolas Krasso and Lucien Rey
I contemplated
a delicate rose.
And reality smashed down on me
like a loose boulder.
The boulder is just an image.
It'll be best to
tell everything.
The daily grind's edifying
and has the whip-hand.
My instinct followed the right track.
When that man came in
it boomed like breakers:
"I know him. Electricity.
He'll switch off the mains."
I was sharpening my pencil
the knife in my hand.
If I stab this man
I know that I shall be at peace,
at last reconciled.
I was embittered. Well, all right.
The whole flat will be
dark and depressing.
An animal can protect its home.
This war's different.
Violence will just be futile.
I'll get beaten up,
turn sick and twisted.
And no light. Where there's rule of law
cash is armament.
The technology of war's changed.
The splendid hero
needn't draw his sword.
Five pound notes are bomb explosions,
pennies are shrapnel.
That's the way I reasoned it out.
So I said: "Hallo"
and stepped aside.
At nightfall the generous moon
smiled at the outcome.
Attila József (1905 - 1937) Hungary
Translated by Nicolas Krasso and Lucien Rey
Source: Attila József Poems, edited by Thomas Kabdebo, Danubia Book Co., 1966
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