We sit in times of great evil,

blinking,

trying something,

we cannot,

in times of great evil you cannot,

you have to learn how to breathe again,

with a different organ,

or how,

the suffocatingly thin air.

We sit in times of great evil,

moth-eaten tanning beds in hailstorms,

X-Box controllers on the ocean floor,

trash cans full of edible leftovers,

and we measure things,

how much we’ve become time itself,

how high the mud is,

who’s at fault,

and for what,

can we dream and how big,

while the hero

gets hit with frying pans

by self-exonerated black-belts

on his mortifying, life-or-death head.

We’re not any different,

just a different table,

and it’s not all that great a joy that we’ve at least

reached

this table

with our minds,

on the contrary –

that’s what’s inscribed

on our coat of arms: “ON THE CONTRARY”

We sit in times of great evil,

hiding

proudly amongst our meaningless cramps,

sharp answers that prey on questions.

This is how it is.

If our elbows sometimes bumped oh reality,

we didn’t like it,

but fanatically hating

fictional conflicts’ heroes we did,

the tantrumers in the heart of motion picture —

and it’s hard at such times to stay in character

if fear accidentally becomes too real.

The letter W for ex:

—war, heat warning—

we had just happened to miss school

the day we’d learned it.

What luck.

That’s why we didn’t have when either,

only later.

The rest came on its own.

We sit in times of great evil,

that’s what we say sometimes, not there,

but yeah, sure as hell we do,

and the whole thing stinks,

it should at least burn, but it just stinks,

even though everyone, and I mean everyone,

pats their own back

until its blue, like the sky.

Us too.

So, it looks like this isn’t a solution after all.

Clapping in terror for our livelihoods,

that one at least we haven’t started (yet).

Still not posing in style

Among rods of baloney,

hanging briskly, oh, the inlay,

we didn’t sign up

for the soft-bodied spine exercise class either,

in the quality jostling.

We knew at some point everything would

wash away into something unbearably beautiful.

We really wanted to be free,

That’s all.

We aren’t.

It didn’t happen,

though we knew how to by heart.

And no one will give a damn

that we were right

once.

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Translation by Timea Sipos