5 CORN SONGS WITH GRAPHICS
(written by Kinga Tóth, translated by Timea Balogh)
song one
Corey Taylor on why his scream changed
the grasshopper sat on the ground
of the corn stalks that grow in straight lines
and separated the cicada from the tractor in its mind
only the tempo is different the clicks and the chirps
it drags you through the leaves the same way
watch out it’s sharp and will scrape your finger your foot if you sit on it
its sings differently when the knee is enough to bend the leaf
it doesn’t wrap its entire leg any longer
the sound rises grows louder when the glasses run out
when no one needs the fermented stale seed juice
anymore the cricket sits on it slowly and clicks in
the throat harvests the saliva and lies down
song six
deer come for the acorns mom dad
their heads flash and shine on the hill in the afternoon
then turn to the fields they flash
white when they notice us
but they don’t flail quick deer-
and squirrel tails small propellers
the recyclable trash cans
the outer aqueducts the lanes of the tourist
elevator shafts are being put into a
cemetery still life
song seventeen
it picks up polly’s house rips off its roof
it squeezes the window out of molly’s room
it breaks open the threshold to dolly’s room
their ears hurt the cold blown into their hair
from the guest who no one called
the sound of so many dolphins
they warm them up in blue blankets
cranes pull them flying dolphins
which way is the other ocean
song twenty-eight
Santiago Giralt: Antes del estreno
we can be seen through our mother’s glasses
rolling down the hill in her delicate smell
getting red cloaks from her
the same pearly chichidolls
she is our mother who opens up her belly for birds
buries things between blankets and can’t catch her breath
in the cupboard we fish inside pillows
crouching the corner of our robe sticks out
this is where we’ve hidden
here mom we can fly away if the house burns down
if dad mows the lawn in the shower inside the fairy house
our coats will get heavier
we are afraid to be forgotten
we leave the corner of the robe outside
and close the cupboard on it
song thirty-five
we sew small balloons on our skirts
that’s what we’ll use to fly to the geese
from the lake when a dark hole only the sun isn’t out
street lights how will we find our way
the geese left when we arrived
we were led here gathered around the lake
we will wait out the balloons and light up the fireplace
with the ribbons the gas will guide our umbrellas up
we break sails from the reeds and we will snap them off
flick them off if they hold us down by our ankles
Kinga Tóth writes and publishes poems, fiction, and drama pieces in Hungarian, German and English. She is a musician, visual and sound-poet, and has presented her work around the world. Tóth’s book publications include the poetry collections PARTY, All Machine, Village 0-24, Wir bauen eine Stadt, and the visual-art catalogue Textbilder. Her novel, The Moonlight Faces, won the Hazai Attila and the Best Novel Special prize in Hungary. English translations of her poetry have been appeared in POETRY, Arkansas International, and the Wretched Strangers anthology by Boiler House Press. She was recently a resident of the International Writing Program at Iowa. She is currently in the process of completing Corn Songs. You can find more of her work at www.tothkinga.blogspot.de.
Timea Balogh is a Hungarian American writer and translator with an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. A 2017 American Literary Translators Association Travel Fellow, her translations have appeared or are forthcoming in The Offing, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Short Story Project, Two Lines Journal, Arkansas International, The Enchanting Verses Literary Review, and the Wretched Strangers anthology by Boiler House Press. Her debut original short story was published in Juked and was nominated for a PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She divides her time between Budapest and Las Vegas. You can tweet her at @TimeaRozalia.
