The love rabbit 

 

I won’t be long, she said

and left the door ajar.

It was a special evening for us,

a rabbit stew was slowly cooking on the hob,

she’d chopped some onions, and garlic,

and carrots into little disks.

She didn’t take a coat

and didn’t put on any lipstick, I didn’t ask

where she was going.

She’s like that.

She’s never had any sense of time,

she’s always late; that’s all

she said that evening:

I won’t be long;

she didn’t even close the door.

 

Six years later

I meet her in the street (not ours)

and she suddenly seems worried

like someone who remembers

she forgot to unplug the iron,

or something....

 

Did you turn the cooker off, she asks.

Not yet, I answer,

 

these rabbits can be very tough.

 

 

Translated from the Bulgarian by Kalina Filipova

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey Jude, 7’09”

 

‘It’s the longest slow track ever and if you can’t score with a woman in that time, you are the biggest loser in the Universe.’

Gaustin, Grade VIc

 

It’s the longest track ever,

just that: 7’09”.

7 minutes and 9 seconds,

your hands electric

with the mohair of her jumper.

7 minutes and 9 seconds,

for your most glamorous story.

7 minutes and 9 seconds,

you are dizzy,

it’s hard to believe

but you are spinning around,

it’s hard to believe and yet she does move

around you,

yes, she is spinning around.

7 minutes and 9 seconds.

 

Never again,

never at all,

(though you don’t know it yet)

will you be in love

with a woman

for this long.

 

Translated by W.N. Herbert, Andy Croft, Mark Robinson, Linda France

 

 

 

 

 

The Crows of Vienna

 

 

Here November

is black with crows

unflustered waiting

not wanting anything

they don’t lament

they mourn us

they soar

slow and heavy in crosses

let’s cross ourselves

before they cross us out

they are too groomed

a feather operetta

there’s kitsch in death, too

and props

or another aesthetic

 

They come in murders and every November

tail-coat crows

bassoon crows

requiem crows

like skipped notes

sometimes atonal

stolen from Schoenberg

crows like Avars

in this empire of eagles

 

They come funereal, stern

proud and black

(every empire

has its November)

 

less of Mozart

less Mozart

more Salieri

 

 

Translated by Maria Vassileva

 

 

 

 

Time Is a Neutron Bomb

 

Nothing will be destroyed
The houses will stay
The streets will stay
The cherry-tree in the yard will stay
Only we will not be there
That is how I’ve remembered the lesson
About the neutron bomb

I have known ever since
Death is a cherry-tree
Ripening without me

 

Translated by Bilyana Kourtasheva