Miklós Erdély

magyar

NEUMAE*

(.) Those who are needed need no one

(.) When we need no one, we need people who need us

(!) There are people who need us

(?) There is one we do not need

(:) We have lost who we needed so now we are unconsciously looking for people who need us

(.) we have found those who need us a lot therefore we pushed away those who we had everlastingly needed

(.) They demand our help and thus our own need faded away

(:) what we acquired when we were in need has become an unnecessary burden akin to breastmilk to a mother

(;) demanding need turns a son into a mother

(.) the rich and respectful son becomes a disrespectful, benevolent, increasingly impoverished and relieved mother

(//) Ah, more and more

(!) The demand of need: smother the demander

(,) Then the one who smothers the demander expresses her milk into the W.C.

(.) because what was needed matured into being superfluous, but the law of need still rules

(..!) When need becomes nicer than charity

(..!) When the one suffering from overabundance dreams of the demander

(..!) When the eagerly charitable people walk about like hungry wolves

(,) When the charity of omnipotent wholeness became hateful

(-) then the saints declare again: the heavens are thirsting, but nothing can be taken there

(:) no matter how great the abundance down here and the need up there, we will have nothing that we would need

(.) abundance will become poverty, gold will turn to sand

(?!) With the sand the infant

Miklós Erdély: Neumae, 1971

Studio exhibition III–V, Balatonboglár, 16 June–6 July 1971


Source: Miklós Erdély: Neumák [Neumae]. In: E. M.: Kollapszus orv. [med. Collapse], Magyar Műhely [Hungarian Atelier], Paris 1974, p. 103 <>

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© György Erdély <gyo.erdely[]gmail.com> and Dániel Erdély <erdely.daniel[]gmail.com>

English translation: Krisztina Sarkady-Hart, 2019