For my birthday

About the picture

Attila József – For My Birthday

Upon my thirty-second year –
what a surprise, this poem here,
knicky-
knacky:

a little gift with which I say,
lurking alone in this café:
happy
happy.

Thirty-two years just blew away,
I never made ten doits a day:
hungry,
Hungary.

A pedagogue I might have been,
not this pen-busting, might-have-been,
saddie
laddie.

But no; Herr College Chancellor
showed me the outside of the door:
mocktor
Doctor.

It was a short sharp shock for sure,
my `father’ poem got its cure;
his word
and sword,

that saved the fatherland from me,
evoked my spirit and set free
its name
and flame.

`As long as I have any say
you’ll not teach here a single day’ –
bibble-
babble.

If Mr Antal Horger’s pleased
our poet’s grammar-study’s ceased –
folly’s
jollies –

no high school, but a nation I,
although he like not, by and by
shall teach,
shall teach.

Painting material:

Metal

Type of paint:

Acrylic

Size of the painting:

1×1 meter