***
I no longer regret
The poems, unwritten
While writing for somebody else.
A couple of words, promptly unspoken,
Kiss on the skin covered by the curls of grief.
***
If you raise your head
To the second and third floor, you’ll see
How the bulbs of old age come to bloom
Between the window bars.
***
As the waters shall rise
All the animals shall descend from the two of us
And the stars shall bend down to their bosom to suckle
And we’ll hide from them under the crimson pines
And one under another.
I SINK
Into the postal slot of fog
Like a parcel to darkness
With the wrong address
EARTHLY, THE FEAR
Is painted so well on the inside
With such mastery of perspective
That the walls seem to vanish
And its home to be infinite.
SHRUBS
I took scissors, and stopped
The grave from outgrowing its limits.
All the sociable greenery
That swelled from the inside
And extended a bough over neighboring graves -
Duly trimmed.
Then into my open arms – and the trash bin.
AS SEEN FROM THE AIRPLANE,
The sky looks like the folds of our brains:
The grey of the blue and the grey of the green
And the graves of grief growing quickly apart –
To make room for me.
AUTUMN CAME,
There’s no telling the trees from the anchors,
Nurselings interrupt the abstract sermon
And the stretches are washed by the hour
Ambulances go crashing without visible reason
Houses look even emptier with us.
I grind Yes and No between thumb and forefinger – and mix them,
But it’s not yet a remedy.
ONLY SILENCE WILL NEVER BETRAY YOU –
As the wearied master does not leave his aged servant
Only silence will teach you to sleep behind unlocked doors
And anticipate nothing.
THERE ARE SOME GOODBYES
Like a stain on the tablecloth.
You pull the plate to hide it
Beforetheotherpersonnoticed
Andthinkofnothingelse.
Translated form the Bulgarian by Zornitsa Hristova