I didn't want it to be autumn once more...

...here one long hair needs to be pulled out and I am thirty-three what should we do you say it needs to be pulled out but how much longer are you going to love me I'm getting older like the garden, bit by bit nobody notices though not now while my head's lying in your lap the reed is flattened I have never caught time unawares before just when the leaves are changing colour your eyes too are sometimes brown sometimes when love reveals itself and I am washed up on the lake shore with a dark green wave...

Krisztina Tóth
From "Balaton"
2005

Translated by
Christopher Whyte

Essentially, it's undiscovered.

The afflicted don't say a word. Their eyes
stare emptily: they rock with silent sighs
an interior rhythm that can't be uttered


or, more expressively, standing, they rock over
the chair, leave with a clumsy walk,
lost in suppressed thought,
their backs still vibrating in the frame's picture.


They don't set themselves ablaze, don't even ask for a match,
they don't get any bright ideas walking by the railroad tracks,
they cross over the bridge, and look down, but only for a flash -


So what should I have done? Without expression,
rummage through my stash and, like in some movie,
coldly aim at him, and squeeze the trigger of my gun?

Krisztina Toth
"The Nature of Pain"
1990s