Pure-Hearted
I have no father, have no mother,
Have not your god, nor any other,
No homeland, cradle, burial-shroud,
No lover, not one kiss allowed.
For three days now I’ve had no food,
Not scant amounts, nor plenitude.
I have the strength of twenty years.
I’d sell them all. I have no fears.
And if the twenty go unsold
The devil then might make so bold.
Pure-hearted, I’ll smash all I can.
If need be, I shall kill a man.
They’ll catch me, hang me from a tree.
With blessed earth they’ll cover me.
And deadly grass will prick and start
To grow above my lovely heart.
On My Birthday
Today I’m thirty-two years old.
What a surprise, this poem’s bold
Rhyming
Chiming,
A surprise gift I write today,
To me, at this corner café
Table
Able.
Thirty-two years have jumped the fence.
Never a month’s two-hundred pence.
Poverty?
Hungary!
I could have been a high-school teacher
And not this servile pencil-reacher,
Poor, mad
Thin lad.
He flunked me, teacher-not-to-be,
The Szeged University
Inkpot
Despot.
His swiftly flying, half-formed curse
(“Pure-Hearted” my offending verse)
Perpends,
Defends
The motherland from such as me.
My spirit stamps with infamy
His flame
And name.
“Young man, while there are words to hear
You’ll teach not on this hemisphere,”
He croaked,
And choked.
Some of your joy, Prof Antal Horger
In my not teaching boys their grammar
Temper
Semper.
I’ll teach, sir, you’ll soon understand,
Not just high-schoolers, but my land
Entire
Inspire.
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