For the Voice of the Psalms

Hide me in the shadow of your wings,
not to be seen in flight, when I
would fly with you, not for the eyes
is the wing, the eye breaks off the dove-
feather on the upstretched muscles.
Dirty guano is all the flutter
on the square where tires drive away
my jostling shame from the morsels,
for so much I long for you, with a split head,
with stupid dovelike motion, to be saved.
A bird's wing smeared on stone, the flesh is a road
to you, if it is, or isn't, at the end,
and it has no voice, it flops, the carcass of a dove.


Translation of "Zsoltárhangra." Copyright István László G. Translation copyright 2007 by István Geher. All rights reserved.


Read the author's "Aqua Fortis."

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Poetry From the November 2007 issue: Only Connect: World Writing from Iowa

István László G.István László G.

István László G. is the pen name of István László Geher, a poet and translator. He holds degrees in Hungarian and English Literature from L. Eötvös University in Budapest. He has authored five books of poetry, most recently I Lay Me Down Thy Soul to Keep (2006). His translations of Larkin, Dickinson, Shakespeare, Hughes, and Yeats have appeared widely in journals and anthologies. His awards include a fellowship to the International Writers' House in Rhodes, an NKA Literary Grant, and the Radnóti Award for Poetry.

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Translated from HungarianHungarian by István GeherIstván Geher

István Geher has worked in English and American studies for forty years in the capacity of teacher, editor, critic, literary historian, essayist and translator. He teaches literature at the university level and has published eleven books and around a hundred articles, edited fifty significant books, participated in two hundred literary radio programs, and intensively tutored several young scholars and writers of talent and stature. He has lectured at universities and conferences in Hungary and abroad, and organized professional (scholarly and theatrical) cooperation in Shakespeare studies on an international basis. He also writes essays and poetry.

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