the retired skydiver and his kite 1.0

not talking is an old tradition and so
instead of writing to you
I have tried to write about you

you
waited 20 years to tell me you love me
and when you did the kite tied to your wrist had already flown away

a young skydiver leading the Bulgarian disillusionist movement
seduced by the masochistic appeal
of "only the talentless require education",

(that guy who failed 9th grade physics because he
hated
the teacher too much.)

a self-taught mechanical engineer.
when you started losing faith in flying
you were already building your first machine.

you carried it in your pocket for days like writers carry around ideas in their minds
and it made you so heavy that it divided your landing time
in half. your parachute barely opened.

month by month, your pockets filled up with
clockwork mechanisms.
the pilots complained -

the planes got too heavy with
you on board
so they forced you to stay on the ground.

it was then that i showed up, head full of clouds and curls
and you tied my light-green ribbon to your wrist
to keep me close to you

to keep you close to open skies.
in your factory, where the machines rested
we played hide and seek

and you prayed to never lose me out of sight
but never said a word.

and then there was the storm.

My Foreign Eyes

Here I have never felt either the tenderness 

of the mother-tongue or the support 

of any tradition other than civil 

war, just where for me the past begins.

- Joan Margarit

Through the windows of the cafe
I am dissecting the industrial landscape of my city -
there are cranes in the river, probably
waiting for a command to build something
which will never be used.
Like this mall, left almost empty. No one is renting.
My home is deteriorating into
skeletons of unfinished buildings, their teeth becoming
sharper each night.

The neurotic waitress stirring my tea
is mixing
chamomile honey home
exile,
and when she goes back to
telling the people on the other table that they need to learn some patience
I almost can't bear to sit in this cafe anymore, and yet
I stay and think about my foreign eyes on all this
and how harsh my judgement has become.

My first sip of my tea finds me
back in the old playground from my childhood
where we used to play a game called
cops and robbers until the street lights came on,
where chamomile used to grow and we would take it
and rub it in our hands until we started to feel that the smell
has been stamped onto our skin.

I remember you and how you hated the taste, but
once in a while you would entertain the idea of being open-minded
and have a cup with me.
In our last summer together, the one before I left
you walked me home every morning.
It took exactly twenty-three minutes
to get from your place to mine
and each time we passed by the unfinished constructions.
"You know people live at the sight now, right?" you would ask me.
Your hand locked with mine, stiff like a mumbled "goodbye".
I would just squeeze your hand until I heard your knuckles crack.

acute homesickness

нека "дом" се чете като европа, не като русе.

лудвам. мечтая си само за думички български. за летища. всеки път, когато стъпя на европейска земя, усещам рязката промяна в атмосферата. 

и си мечтая. за автобуси и столици. за хора, които разбират всичките ти подтекстове и метафори. за ски, защото може би най-после ще се науча. 

за коледа с родителите ми. за L'Europeo.

надявам се Гранта да е хубаво издание и в българския си вариант. 

последните ми няколко стихотворения са на английски - професорът в семинара ми по творческо писане не чете български. което всъщност е добре, защото осъзнах, че да пишеш на чужд език не е толкова непостижимо. 

казвайте ми някакви неща - следя статистиките и знам, че все още има хора, които четат тук. имам нужда да чувам мнения.

My Ode to Barcelona

The city, wherever you go it will go. 
                                        – Kavafy 
Here I have never felt either the tenderness
of the mother-tongue or the support
of any tradition other than civil
war, just where for me the past begins.
When I have searched penniless
for her dubious warmth she didn't even look at me.
I fell in love with her when I was young,
but now we know each other too well:
nor can she deceive me
when she comes out, eyes painted with twilight,
nor can I deceive her with a few poems.
If I were to go away, she'd never come with me.
And if I want to be more and more distant
there is no need anyway for me to go. But now and then,
when I least expect it, early some morning,
what terror is it makes me hear the echo
of footsteps where someone is walking away
before me down streets where there is no one.
                                                Joan Margarit

My Own Carnation Revolution

The lights of the Lisboa bridge 25 de abril are
painting the water red and green

your eyes are not green

It's okay,
your stream of golden curls
distorted alpha-helices
should be described in research papers
as an anomaly of perfect beauty
should be in history books
a fallen authoritarian regime
a sharp increase in double-takes
sleepless economists try to model it
journalists cover the event
and i am there too
the only survivor in
the fireless war that is your smile
honored and barely speaking.

Your eyes are not green, but there is red
red flowers in the barrel of a rifle
and one burning inside you
not like a fire, but
the first moments of an explosion,
before you know if the construction will
tumble down or
hold still.

The odds of becoming the new Orhan Pamuk

It's Friday night after the last screening of this new movie
and they are leaving the theater midst a rush of people
both of them thinking, "I guess this crowd is going straight to bed
god, look at their faces, stamped with apathy"
and the subway is already closed
and it's cold so they are not holding hands

He is trying to get them a cab
while she is on the sidewalk, jumping in one place,
her cotton candy hair going up in the air,
filling her nostrils with cherry tobacco smells, Oriental yet close
and suddenly, there are
thoughts running
behind her eyes
he knows what this means by now, so no questions asked
the city is glowing dark blue and yellow, the flashes of the passing cars
right there, at Park Street
make it seem almost metropolitan

It's warm in the cab and they take off their coats.
He is growing uneasy, thumping his fists against the bricks of silence:
"what's on your mind?" - his accent is thick and unshy
"you know i'm writing, I have been thinking about this for so long and I think I know how to say it now, do you remember what I told you before, you know when I'm thinking about writing"

They are headed to Harvard Square, but the traffic is heavy - heavy for Boston,
there are sleek white limousines on the road, maybe a final club party
or maybe a just because
so the two of them are stuck in the car to the sounds of smooth jazz
and as she rolls her eyes with disgust to all this, he takes another little stone
from his pocket and throws it at her
"why don't you give it a try then? really, actually try?
why don't you publish something, send it somewhere?
why don't you show all this to someone who knows or understands?"

and she looks straight into him through her tar-black eyelashes,
"I could also, perhaps, dye my hair blond and change my name
become a trophy wife, an event planner,
taking care of being beautiful and terrible and the beautifully terrible
and just call it a life
your advice always comes with a twist of unintended schadenfreude.
Let's be real here, what are the odds that I will be the next Orhan Pamuk?
You are right, I can't stop the dreams from dancing through my head or
the heights from giving me a rush
as skydiving did to my crazy parents but
they don't believe in flying anymore. And I don't believe in poetry."

what are the odds two strangers should meet

... and find that they weren't strangers at all?

the cheese is on me. 

but mainly your silence

day after day

all i dream about is

red strawberries

the old factory

and your silence

except for when we disagreed on something and your voice was racing against mine

raised above the music we were playing in the living room

the strawberries taste so real

it takes me hours to shake off the memory

i drift away in class, remembering that time

you held my hand and tried to brush a tear off

before it trickled down your cheek

i thought you were the strongest man i had ever known

yet it did not surprise me

when you told me i would be cruel to leave you on your own

even though you wouldn't be alone

and i knew what you meant but i disregarded it as egotism

i think about your carefully chosen words now and

i keep you on my mind

but i can only hope that..

what i mean to say is

i tell people about it

i tell them i have a father who builds his own machines

and grows the sweetest strawberries

your silence

i keep to myself.

градски песни

"танцуваш с мен от двадесет години"

"този град бие жените си"
(от "Музиката на Истанбул")

понякога забравям каква съм, когато съм вкъщи.

баланс

от изтока се научих
уверено да виря левия си крак в небето докато
ръцете ми са разперени без опора
търпеливо равновесие
като изписването на йероглиф
като научаването на бос танц в
свистящата трева

може би затова
неусетно забравих за дивия вятър
и той се втурна към мен вироглав
повали ме по гръб с ясен тропот

тук никой не владее
изкуството на изправянето -
подадената ръка
е нарушен баланс

от часове
лежа в тревата и чакам слънцето
да ме превърне в пепел.



черногледа съм, но най-после отново имам думи. думи и път. заминавам утре и обявявам началото на лятото.