IANA BOUKOVA

Neighbors

First they come for a cup
of sugar for a cup of vinegar
for nothing
And you being well brought up
allow your kitchen to fill
with people and your days to shorten
as if winter has suddenly begun
Later all evening through the wall
you hear the muffled blows of bodies the dog’s
bark the ringing of the phone
which nobody answers
Your cigarettes pack up this night
you walk for miles in the room
and then in your dreams (having finally fallen asleep)
In the morning you see them refreshed they water
their flowers wave to you
go out in the open
casting a fourfold shadow
like a footballer’s
in the middle of the park.

Balkan Naive Painters

And when they reached the final door
the judges asked them
(simply to amuse themselves)
what is it that
rises with a roar and suffering
flies with delight
and quietly falls
all in flames
Boeing, answered the fireman
My song, answered the silent one
The bird which flew
from end to end of my head and loved me,
answered the third (happy!)
the youngest brother
all in flames.

“The boat in the eye”, Ikaros 2005

Translation from Bulgarian, Jonathan Dunne

Self-Portrait on a Background of Begonias

for Monty Python

A ship sinks in the square
smoke still issuing
from its chimneys
Faces pressed against the windows
guzzle down the outward scene
Somebody sells ice-cream
Somebody else has clasped his mouth
holds on so strongly that if he let go
he would surely fall break into pieces

At night those sounds start up
the scratch of pencils the distant
hem of understanding
Sounds that make you turn on the lamp
and sleep in the light
wasting electricity

You’ll say tiredness from work
you’ll say nervous hypertension
But they said this to Kafka as well
until once he yanked open the door
and fifteen well-dressed gentlemen
reading newspapers
piled on top of him.

A Short Poem about the Evening and Music

Seven o’clock the fans have stopped
the city’s muggy corridors
where the light ends and patience runs out
A child squeals as if being slaughtered
(or someone is slaughtered and squeals like a child)
Do I know
what goes on under my window every evening
Do I know
which cable leads underground
and which straight to the solar plexus
of my apprentice’s equilibrium
just as you play with the keys
most irresponsibly.

Translated from Bulgarian by Jonathan Dunne

The minimal garden

You opened the door
and there it was; the night
trapped
for weeks on end with no bread to eat
That’s the kind of person you are
you leave taps running
wounds bleeding
you wear your glasses inside out
you see me wearing the shoes I wore as a child
and my stockings up to my knees
But my knees grew like Alice’s
our garden caught fire because of too much moonshine
and the voices of our guests are still after the kitten
in the well
Now I see the room
from somewhere high up
in the background my little bed
Wild things
provocatively ugly
Procrustean.


for Miltos Sahtouris

Let us love our madness
she dances for us
with opaque music
like a cloud
that sticks to our teeth
let us love our madness
the burnt food of astronauts
side by side with the absolute sun
side by side with the unexpected sun
let us respect our madness
when we wake up with wide open eyes
in the middle of the blackest night
and we see all the shades
of black
let us love our madness
the way the shepherd loves his stick
when he thrusts it into the ground
and says: this is where I stop
and it breaks in his hands.

Translated from Greek by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke