Attila Jozsef (1905-1937) is one of the greatest Hungarian poets of the 20th century. His poem was presented by Tamas Jordan in 1975.ElegyBeneath a leaden sky plum,condensed smoke,like my soul, trials lowabove the grim landscape.Jerking not gliding.You stiff soul, you soft image!Following the heavy trace of truth,behold yourself, your origin!Here where below the liquid sky,upon the loneliness of lank firewalls,the moody silence of need,threateningly begging, dissolves the thicklayer of gloom on the ponderers heartand mingles it withmillions.A whole race is molded here.Everything in ruins.A siff dandelion opens its parasol inan abandoned foundry yard.Oh the faded stairs of tiny broken windowsthe days ascend to moldy twilight.Sayare you from here,where the somber longing never endsto become like other wretched mensqueezed by this enormous ageon whose faces every line is deformed?Resting, where the greedymoral order is gardedn protectedby shrieking, crippledfences.Can you recognize yourself?Here the soulspetulantly wait for beautifully designed, solid futurejust as emptily as the melancholy, gloomy lotseverywhere dreamingof nimble, noise weavingtall houses. Glass shards dried in the mudgaze at the suffering lawn with dull, stony eyes.From the dunes, thimblefuls of sandwhirl below at random... and from time to timeblue, green or back flies ficker,magnetized by mans scraps,and ragsform the lands of wealth.In her own way, setting a table, even here,the credit burdened,blessed mother earth,Yellow grass thrives in an iron spittoon.Do you knowthe barren joy of this state of mind, that draws me,that this land denies, andthe rich torment pushing me here?For his mother, a child,whos been beaten off to faraway corners,will return.Truly, you can smile, you can cry only here.Here you can endure, only here,oh soul! This is my home.(1933)translated by Michael Castro and Gabor Gyukics

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