Rose pink always shows through somewhere,
out from the most unexpected darkness, beneath
honey in the comb, behind the scarlet of blood,
rose pink always shows through somewhere,
on underwear’s waistband, in the blackest black
of drifting to sleep, “this is not the old black,
this is a fresh, new black,” in the resurrections
of azure blue, beneath the film of my Roman
library card, rose pink always shows through somewhere,
from behind D-flat major’s first inversion in the moonlight,
beneath heroism, amongst tattooed tendrils,
rose pink is a stubborn hue, rose pink is always
able to possess, behind Boileau, Horatius, and the great crafts
it pillages, hides coyly behind terror,
its Rococo charm grows above slushy Sundays,
at home in the prison, the opera, the butcher’s, the garden,
rose pink has less and less to do with roses,
whether we garden or not,
rose pink is kin to the wind, or perhaps to frozen salmon,
cover it, hide it, lacquer it, love it, or die of it: rose pink always shows through somewhere.
From: Book of Colors (A little Hungarian Jarman)[1]
[1] This cycle’s overall pattern was inspired by the oeuvre of Derek Jarman, particularly his work entitled Chroma. The cycle of poems contains citations and motifs of his work.
We launched this project with the support of the Kult Minor - Fund for the Support of National Minority Culture. Its aim is to translate contemporary Hungarian poetry in Slovakia into English. We want to create a virtual anthology of contemporary Hungarian poetry in Slovakia.