The Hungarian Quarterly Winter 2001 [antikvár]

Ottó Orbán 'jj í On The Destruction of !j the TiA/in Towers of New York's World TTade Center A New York-i Világkereskedelmi Központ két lerombolt tornyára Time runs on and on, like the Danube flowing along in its bed. We know not whence it comes, nor where we're being led. Three black machines launched like arrows into the blue, The madman's answer to this era's doubt—^what is false, what true? Blackest clouds billow from concrete with kerosene's bursting yellow bubble. Babel falls, and Babylon's falling too in mounds of smoking rubble. Time runs on and on, like the Danube flowing along in its bed, We know not whence it comes, nor where we're being led. Today's our day of slaughter, the news today brings news of ghastly death. The voice today's a fearsome voice that cries out, Dies Irae! with the world's last breath, Today is the day of wrath, and the day of the dead is today, The dead will be gathered with mourners who grind their teeth as they pray. Time runs on and on, like the Danube flowing along in its bed, We know not whence it comes, nor where we're being led. Shattered glass showers from myriad windows, from girders of toppling steel, Bodies float drifting like feathers blown down from the blue sky—unreal! Inconceivable, unimaginable—the-bright citadel On lower Manhattan suddenly sunken, subsiding in burning hell. Ottó Orbán is a poet and essayist, translator of many British, American, Spanish and other poets. Three volumes of his poems have been published in English translation, The Blood of the Walsung (!993), The Journey of Barbaras (!995), and Our Bearings at Sea (200!). I