Marin Bodakov

***

 

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