A MAN
And so, when my core cried out
that it felt everything was upon it,
I cast a bold look as far as the sky,
through magpie nests
and reinforced concrete.
With my eyes bulging
as if I held a knife to them,
I cast a bold look as far as the sky
through feathers and twigs, through the holes
in my children's, and everyone's unconcern,
through my wife`s, and everyone's pain,
I looked, I understood.
I looked, I understood
and saw the time I've spent hanging around
in the evening
in the morning
at night
without memory
without weariness
doom
strength
without churchbells
without guitars
amidst grinning beards
and eyes that forgive the innocent,
to the edge of the shore, to where the ocean begins,
where it ends, til1 I turn gray (alI too obviously),
till my bones start to creak and my hand repels me
so that I can take neither crumb nor knife from it.
I looked, I understood.
And it roused me, this boldness of mine,
to walk among creatures who put bread in their mouths,
enter the cinema, watch, buy (don't steal) macaroni
and on holidays, cabbage, comforted, comforting,
with their tickets, their justifications for every moment,
every coin,
with windows and curtains, creatures
(and among you, wasps, bumblebees,
doves, cats,
minnows in lazy lakes,
slender branches, spiderwebs,
a pebble from heaven,
from space,
some higher civilization
fallen at my feet.)
I looked, and understood,
I looked, and understood.
And suddenly my thoughts collected themselves
and returned beneath my hair.
I blocked out my whole self with the palm of my hand
in my shirt
on the chair
beneath the hoarse briars
out at sea.
I folded myself up, set myself aside without a thought.
A tree trunk all efforts and tendons
running fearlessly,
noiselessly on
so as not to disturb anyone,
not to give myself away through the thick windows where
the creatures with their justifications breathe, eat,
they eat like creatures with seats, with tickets, usherettes
with foreheads bent toward their flashlights, with breasts
that have sprouted buds for bees, burnets, drones, with thighs
between which sweetness itself - that most scrutinized
of creatures -finds its place, naked and alone,
secure and naked.
I folded myself up and set myself aside,
I stepped over myself, the earth was calm,
I was approaching, approaching, approaching.
THE WIND IS COMING AND I LOVE YOU
The wind is coming and I love you,
dawn lifts an arm, the sunset fades,
a cloud is drying and I love you.
You, sunstruck dust-speck, droplet
dripping from a roof tile's beard,
a single letter from a letter from a friend,
a maiden's lip, a mother's grief.
A pale, pale old man sits on his fur hat.
On three Balkan mountains bears he stalked,
on three Balkan mountains bears he skinned,
to have it growl on his uncombed head
in his eternal wars with vermin.
Yantra-fish crawl from the Yantra toward to Danube
where fish in bulging nets speak
thirty-three languages.
A gold-bearded she-goat climbs
Mount Musela's rib,
clouds butt against her horns,
dying to set the sea on fire...
The wind is coming and I love you,
a cloud is drying and I love you
I'm scattered by a surging
in your lakes - a dream beneath my palms,
by your grasses' udder
by the roosters on burning roofs,
by chimneys that scrawl
long greetings on your skies.
The wind is coming and I love you,
a cloud is drying and I love you,
when I lie down I embrace you whole,
you, dust-speck that entered my eye
for a tear, sun that lights my road.
____________________
1.This word in Bulgarian also means pagans.
* * *
Your low-pitched voice
has drawn me to listen,
your hands have pulled me
out of silence...
Mama,
your burdened shoulders
are crumbling to the ground
without resistance. My throat
hasn't the strength to call you back.
My hands can't hold you here.
A crazy sun is circling above us.
My desperate yell is a11 in vain,
except for who hears me, my son
rolling in the yard. He is my check.
The day darts straight at me
when he will grow to start calling me
back to life.
MAN, BEFORE FALLING ASLEEP,
THINKS TO HIMSELF
...to my brother
It's raining
perhaps snowing,
or the air flows of itself.
Time is running down my hair,
with the dust of roads
and the plumage of pillows.
You soothe me, my sons, my pair of mirrors;
you soothe me, wife,
rarely unfaithful, perhaps
(I hardly recollect - someone used to love me;
two happy families brought forth
an unhappy love.)
At age thirty I failed
to explore my country,
now I listen, enchanted, to strangers
who seem to know it better than I.
My head aches - am growing bald,
Maybe it aches from dreaming.
I often dream of airplanes,
never of winning the lottery.
I have swallowed a11 my textbooks,
so for a change I had better learn
something different. At least
to fall asleep on time.
* * *
At first for sometime, you can't sense it,
then it sighs, not moving, is silent again,
trembling a little, now a few feet farther on.
There for a while, more or less, it is lost to sight,
again draws itself still farther beyond.
Sometimes it just stays, sometimes it splits
by a hair the mist at its back layer.
THEN
Then I'll put on my hat,
I'll say so long - farewell - to the cat,
and I'll go out and look for you.
But the road will be strewn with thorns,
so I'll go back for my shoes.
I'll throw my hat on to the bed,
shake hands - hello - with the cat.
I'll put on my hat again,
I'll say good by-farewell - to the cat.
But on the way the sky will turn jumbly
with clouds, so I'll go back for my umbrella.
I'll shake hands with the cat.
But I'll have forgotten the words
I was to tell you. They're not behind the door,
waiting, nor does the hat and coat rack
hold them. I'll take off my hat
and
put
the
cat
in
it
Translations: G.Belev & L.Sapinkopf
