Off goes Little Red, off into the forest, red her
bouncing cape, red her cap atop her curls,
crossdressing Little Red’s lipstick, the little boy’s
lipstick by his mama’s mirror,
and the unisex wolf always just flicks its red tongue,
the red of the sunset masking the red of the blood,
causing the eyes to burst into red.
The grandmother’s lack of red:
the red was sapped from her flesh, and the hunter’s task
to return the world’s red, grandma’s
nourishing red, little ones’ lipstick red,
taken from them by force, for what makes the red significant
is that its absence and presence are both burning or blushing,
the wolves of the world need red,
as do its grandmothers and Little Reds.
The harmony of the world depends on the moment’s distribution of red.
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.