I Am With You : Kassák Lajos / Manuel Alvarez Bravo

Manuel Álvarez Bravo

In front of you I go
you in front of me
the early sun’s gold chain
jingles on my wrist.

Where are you going — I ask
you answer — how do I know.

I speed up my walk
but you speed all the more.

I in front of you
you in front of me.

But we stop in front of a gate.

I kiss you
you give me a kiss
then without a word you vanish
and spirit my life away.

By Kassák Lajos

Translation by Edwin Morgan

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Lajos Kassák (March 21, 1887, Érsekújvár – July 22, 1967, Budapest) was a Hungarian poet, novelist, painter, essayist, editor, theoretician of the avant-garde, and occasional translator. He was among the first genuine working-class writers in Hungarian literature. Self-taught, he became a writer within the socialist movement and published journals important to the radical intellectual culture of Budapest in the early 1900s.

Although he cannot be fully identified with any single avant-garde movement, he adopted elements of expressionism, futurism and dadaism.