- 1 -

I feel like I'm a snake in a dead skin, and my other skin is already on. Now, skins are usually shredded when they become too small for their owner, but my old skin is much larger than I am now. I am so tiny. I can't even reach the outside world, so now I'm stuck in the dark, which smells of my rotting corpse. I'll spare you the image. Also, snake skins usually do not rot. They just become these dry things that are later overrun by cars and hordes of cows and people and everything, so they're flatted out like a piece of paper; they loose colour and the wind carries them around like it does fallen leaves and plastic bags. Should that be my fate now?

- 2 -

[ old thing desecrated rewritten ]

One night: The hauberk gleams faintly, distantly when he places it on the back of his chair. Moonlight plays with its rings - (or is it just some afterglow of Tirmo's magic fingers?). They're thinner than the scutes of a snake, or the threads of gold vowen into the curtains in the Hall of Fire. They seem to silently laugh at his weather-beaten, worn out self.

(The spirit of the maker lives on in the gift).

The previous eve: He hates to see the flash in Her bright, clear eyes when he dons that hauberk over clean garments. Part of him gloats, relishes, bathes in Her smile; another part of him knows that such smiles are not for Strider, haggard Ranger of the North, but for someone else.

(Aragorn, son of Arathorn, valiant Chieftain of the D�nedain had betrothed Arwen Und�miel, daughter of Celebr�an and Elrond, kinswoman of Tin�viel upon fair Cerin Amroth. Not Strider).

(Strider is a skin, a mask, a role he plays. Strider is a foreign accent over the natural flow of his Westron. Strider is the bunch of rags hanging from his body. Strider is a pair of dingy boots, a haystack of untrimmed beard and unkept hair).

Next morn: for the first time in decades, Strider, haggard Ranger of the North goes about his business without a single word of farewell.

Years go by: pitiless, uncounted, and Aragorn is becoming Strider. Is that what Und�miel deserves?

(This might never end. The road goes on and on, then winds, then turns back, then starts over again. His feet are chained to the road).

(Is that what Und�miel deserves?)

- 3 -

it used to be
fresh rainwater
storks as they fly abroad;
each day a new storm
trees to shake, river to bloat

it used to be
less shitty metaphores -
essence against putrescence
animity against enmity
strength against length
(wish I had better ones to show)

and it used to be
scenes not to be deleted
phrases not to be changed
lines not to be effaced
without the dire need to flee...

and it also used to be
something worth sharing
stories alive by the telling
chunks of text that cut and hurt
like sharpened glass against
skin that knew no toil;

like instruments at work.
if you know how to pull the strings
music is born; if not, then
it's either them or you -
but someone will break.

that is how we have - today;
when words all smell of sweat
and shit
and things that would be great
if I had not missed.

- 4 -

( Lucynak a t�rt�net jelenlegi �ll�sa szerint nincs inkarn�l�dott patr�nusa, a k�s�bbi pedig nem kutya de - ez a r�vid magyar�zat - : J�L N�Z KI).