food for fungus
by gabor g gyukics
who will teach us to forget
god perhaps
if it exists
and if not
which is more likely
we have only ourselves to rely on
no relatives
no friends help us
to forget
our past
on which we build our present
among the dry barked trees
we take off our clothes
and the woods of the forest
for they still want to live
through our skin
suck our past out from our bones
trapped
in our memories
BIO: gabor g gyukics, (b. 1958) Hungarian-American poet (jazz-poet), translator, author of 13 books of poetry in six languages; 6 in Hungarian, 3 in English, 1 in Arabic, 1 in Bulgarian, 1 in Czech, 1 in Italian, 1 book of original prose and 19 books of translations including A Transparent Lion, selected poetry of Attila József in English published by Green Integer in 2006, an anthology of North American Indigenous poets in Hungarian titled Medvefelhő a város felett published in 2015 and a Contemporary Hungarian Poetry Anthology in English titled Swimming in the Ground in 2001. He published his third jazz poetry CD in English with three Hungarian jazz musicians (Béla Ágoston, Viktor Bori, Csaba Pengő) in 2018. His latest work of poetry in Hungarian titled Végigtapint published in 2018 when he turned 60. His latest work of poetry in English titled detoxification of the body was published by El Martillo Press in Los Angeles in 2024. He is writing poetry in English and Hungarian. His latest works in translations are two Contemporary Hungarian Poetry Anthologies in English. One is with eight women and eight men poets titled They’ll be Good for Seed published by White Pine Press in the fall of 2021, the other one titled Shelter Under the Sun, three Hungarian women poets that was published by Singing Bone Press in 2021 and an anthology of American Poetry and Prose in Hungarian with writers like Robert Pinsky, Paul Auster, Bob Kaufman, Eileen Myles, Tracy K. Smith, Heid E. Erdrich, titled Viselnéd a szemem published by L’Harmattan and Károli Publishing groups in 2021. He recently co-translated and was the chief editor of the Hungarian version of Essential Allen Ginsberg titled Nélkülözhetetlen Allen Ginsberg which was published in Budapest by Europa Publishing in October 2022. He was honored with the Hungarian Beat Poet Laureate Lifetime award in September 2020 by the National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc. based in Connecticut, USA