GAS Featured Poet: Gabor G. Gyukics

Gabor G. Gyukics (b. 1958) poet, jazz poet, literary translator born in Budapest, Hungary. He is the author of 11 books of original poetry, 6 in Hungarian, 2 in English, 1 in Arabic, 1 in Bulgarian, 1 in Czech, 1 book of original prose, and 19 books of translations including A Transparent Lion, selected poetry of Attila József (2006) and They’ll Be Good for Seed, a Contemporary Hungarian Poetry (2021) (in English, both with co-translator Michael Castro) and an anthology of North American Indigenous poets in Hungarian titled Medvefelhő a város felett (2015). He writes his poems in English (which is his second language) and Hungarian. He had lived in Holland for two years before moving to the US where he'd lived between 1988-2002, at present he resides in Szeged, Hungary.
    His poetic works and translations have been published in hundreds of magazines and anthologies in English, Hungarian and other languages worldwide. He was a recipient of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre (BILTC) residency in Canada in 2011.
    His latest book in English titled a hermit has no plural was published by Singing Bone Press in the fall of 2015. His latest book in Hungarian titled végigtapint was published by Lector Press in May 2018.    
    In September 2020, he received the Hungary Beat Poet Laureate Lifetime award by the National Beat Poetry Foundation Inc. USA.

not on her own

with lowered wings

the wind appeared

she didn’t blow anyone’s hair

didn’t flutter the leaves on the trees

she swayed beyond the fence

in the early sunset

camouflaged herself as a reflection

as if she couldn’t decide

whether she wanted to be sensed or seen

she jumped over the fence a few times

looked around

and before an outside force

flew her away

she ran a fast round

leaving her scent behind

patch on the foghorn

under the wings of a dead angel

the moon is making love

to the sun

the negative of their bodies

lie in every river bed

mountain range

dirt road

next to your footprint

in every ditch

by the walnut tree

you’ll find a piece

of the moon

and not far from it

under the plum tree

shines a broken part

of the sun