Poems
Translation from the Bulgarian: Yvonne Foster
A small announcement - these are verses and fragments that I have arranged in a kind of cycle. I would call it "Space Dust".
Most of the things are from my new book with the working title "Walking with You", there are two from each of my two previous books "Memory of Happiness" and "The City - Love Map".
1. "Walking with You" – it’s written on the wall.
A musician picks up coins from his violin case.
The sounds still follow the passers-by, and each one gives
a name of his own to the melody taking it home by memory.
The cherry seller has stepped into tomorrow.
Where he used to be – a box of injured fruit,
dinner for stars, homeless people and birds.
An antiquary with her books, both abandoned and shared,
is getting dark in the subway. And when, by midnight, she leaves,
only the most alert will hear the echo
"Walking with you"…
2. The imaginary return to certain periods of life is like passing through an unknown city in the evening, at the start of autumn. There is something hospitable about the people sitting at the tables outside, but a cold vein in the wind caresses the fear that you might get dark on a street without names and door numbers.
3. The greatest test a person faces, is to preserve the softness of one’s heart. Life is constantly flooding with reasons for us to be hard-hearted. It takes away people and things we love, or worse, it takes away our ability to love. It brings responsibilities that suffocate, exhaust, tear us apart.
A child was singing on the bus this morning. His voice scattered like pollen among the tired, nervous, identical people. Whoever survived, heard it.
4. THE ABANDONED BUILDING –
a cathedral of absence
Behind a solemn facade
it hides its own loneliness
Broken glass – teary pupil –
overgrown with dust
covered with stained glass
of rain and rain and rain
For a moment it stains
with presence when
this woman from the opposite balcony
slides through the crack
on the window
her yellow dress
The building groaned
Heavier than
pain
is the dream
5. MY CHILDREN HAVE SLOWLY GROWN OLDER
Their faces look like mine
Almost a life stood between us
Only half a step left.
They went on roads that
are far from my direction.
Now, as if in a swamp, they follow
Me in my footsteps with fear.
My children... When did they grow old?
Their eyes are like mine.
My back is streaked with them.
And I remember my father disappearing
around the corner, in a torn garment.
I only now learned about his nights:
until dawn he would listen to steps -
burning breath in the ear of his sleep.
6. The door has the strange privilege of being simultaneously a mystery and an answer. There are epochs between the stone pushed to the entrance of the cave by an unnamed man and the gates of Toledo, in which the master has encoded both an invitation and a warning. And it's just one step. Doors are a human creation storing the greatest number of touches over time. Each imprint is an embedding - the curiosity of a child, the fatigue of a servant, the caution of a thief, the impatience of a lover, the sanctification of rain. Each door promises a transition to another dimension. Sometimes, it comes true.
7. The homeless man and his bench have long had a common silhouette. If the homeless person is not there, it is as if someone has broken the bench.
8. THE DRUNK LEAVES,
having drunk
bottoms up
the cup of autumn
they roll their despair
The wind – a deceiver at heart –
tricks them
that it is able to tie
to each branch
their breath
flickering in the thin green veins
They follow in its footsteps
hoping
for some life after the fall
I measure my steps
as words
said after love
I measure my words
as steps
near hills
of tamed foliage
It is not difficult to escape
It's hard to hold on
to the passion for escaping
9. Traveling is both moving away and getting closer to the things that are constantly with us; a retreat from the everyday landscape – a drawing crushed by the fingers of an angry artist; immersion in our own consciousness – every touch on the canvas makes the remaining unfilled part hopelessly vast. On foreign roads we talk to ourselves more easily.
10.
INVISIBLE
Foot of an ant
Seed of a weed
The sound of a banished word
A crumb on an empty table
A drop ahead of the rain
A drop forgotten by the torrent
The dust –
if it enters the eye of fate,
the orb of roads
rolls
in another direction
– insignificant –
subject to all winds
Transparent tiny universe
or a black hole