Introduction

English is my second language, not my mother tongue. This means that I can never know if my use of the language is correct or not. To make my life even more difficult, I learned and practiced my elementary English not in England but in the US, so even my pronunciation has become different, which may make my rhymes rather clumsy. I may use English words but my ears have remained Hungarian.

On the other hand, being a foreigner may be an advantage: I can discover words and meanings native speakers rarely realize, since they learn the language in the real world, without thinking about the original meaning of the words used. I have a feeling that the multiple possible meanings of everyday words and phrases can be better discovered by foreigners.

Take my pieces as school papers, no matter how old I am. And be my teacher, correct what is wrong, and send me your suggestions. (My personal e-mail address is: mandygabor@yahoo.com.) Foreign adults always remain students, no matter how old they are.

My poems are often superficial, they play with words. But a few poems may go deeper. The selection is rather liberal. In the early 2000s there was a literary club in Hungary: the Budapest Bardroom. I participated and even had some success, since most of the audience were Hungarians, and they understood my limited vocabulary more than the really good poems of native English speakers from the US, the UK or Australia. My advice to you is: skip what is low quality. This is mainly student stuff. Even when the student is old.

During the years I had an opportunity to write lyrics to my own melodies. This literary genre is peculiar: the melody helps to endure the bumps in the text. (This is especially true with my bad rhymes. I hope the reader and listener will be more forgiving.) On the other hand, the melody may highlight the point and make the jokes more obvious. I have tried to publish these songs on free music sites and on YouTube but it is not easy. Since I do not perform, only could sing with the accompaniment of a cheap keyboard, the listener should have a great imagination to enjoy what he or she should really hear. (Some of these melodies can be found on YouTube.)

I have also written a few pieces of prose. It is even more difficult for a foreigner. To do that you must feel the soul of the language. A few superficial jokes are not enough. Some of these are shorter variants of well known fairy tales. My wisecracks (more solemnly put: aphorisms) are translations of the Hungarian originals. I hope some of them may make you smile.

So, have a taste of all this. Carefully, bit by bit. And forgive what needs to be forgiven.