English translations of poems included in my latest Bulgarian poetry collection

Here are the English translations of some of the poems in my latest Bulgarian poetry collection "Любов на площада" ("Love on the Public Square"), 2014.  The book includes love poems and political poems written ( in Bulgarian mostly) during the last 35 years.

 Vladimir Levchev

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND

(ЧОВЕКЪТ НЕ Е ОСТРОВ)

“No man is an island entire of itself. . .
We all live in Manhattan. . .
At 8:45 in the morning
I was walking downtown.
The streets went murky, the towers stood bright,
the House was deserted, the wind slammed a door. . .
A radio kept singing: “Downtown, downtown. . .”
Then I saw the tower of the world,
the sunny double tower.
And I saw the airplane hijacked by a dream,
I saw the swift shadow of the Unconscious,
I saw the archangel of Death
sink in the mirror,
sink in the sunny high tower
downtown. . .
Then the blast of bad dreams. . .
Then the late summer snow
of a million silenced letters and pictures,
the delicate snow of memories
pouring over the world. . .

“Flood-tide below me! I see you  face to face!
Clouds of the West – sun there half an hour high – I see you also face to face. . .
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!”
. . . a snow of letters, pictures and shoes
falling, falling on Mannahatta.

Then I saw the black wall,
the hundred and ten storied wall of depression
approaching on the narrow streets,
midnight approaching at noon
downtown,
I met the midnight of global madness. . .
“. . . if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me. . .”
Then the night passed away and I saw
Durer’s St. Anne with swollen big eyes
in a nurse’s green dress
walking through the rubble,
through dusty asbestos ambulances and wind. . .
I saw the faces of the dead and the faces of the living
walking together downtown.
I saw the faces of the world.
I saw your faces.
“And death shall have no Dominion.” 

9/11/01

                                                        written in English

FIVE YEAR AFTER 9/11

(ПЕТ ГОДИНИ СЛЕД 11 СЕПТЕМВРИ)

It's been like in those dreams:

you are at the beach,

in August, in high school,

green airy waves and laughter

of girls and seagulls.

And the snow begins to fall:

slow letters and shirts

from a heavenly explosion.

And the smiling faces

of teachers and kids

morph into monsters.

Later black kites and ravens

fly by low

over the leaden ocean.

And you realize

that your dream has come true:

you have grown up.

And you can't wake up anymore

in that warm

other country.

9/11/2006 

written in English

                                     

JUSTICE FOR ALL

(СПРАВЕДЛИВОСТ ЗА ВСИЧКИ)

When a poor man begs at the door

it is a shame.

When the rich man’s company begs on the phone

it is commercial strategy.

If a poor man sends someone

to kill his neighbor,

this is a terrible crime.

If the president sends his troops

to kill  some of the neighbors,

this is patriotism.

The rich man can buy himself a senator.

A poor man can buy himself

the newspaper of the rich man

and read about the senator.

Yes, the rich kid goes to law school.

Yes, the poor kid

sells drugs in the alley.

Justice for all.

                                       translated by the author with Alicia Ostriker

A WIDOW IN NOVOROSIYSK

(НОВОРОСИЙСК)

A southern sea and trees

white with cement dust.

Sweating concrete buildings

turned green.

Novorosiysk is proud

of its ugly monument to the perished heroes

of a senseless troop landing.

The city resembles

that young wrinkled widow

in torn stockings,

a dressing gown and slippers,

who walks the boulevard and stares at the tourists.

She knows

it is no good to be pitied.

And she does not want to be pitied.

But she hopes to embarrass.

Novorosiysk, USSR, 1989

                                     translated by the author with Alicia Ostriker

THEOLOGY OF THE SONG

(ТЕОЛОГИЯ НА ПЕСЕНТА)

God is something very small

and transient.

It trembles inside us.

Outside is death.

*      *       *

But if a man sings out

when stood against the wall,

is he not greater than death?

For is not man

stood against the wall?

Let him sing!

                                     translated by the author with Henry Taylor

THE BALKAN BRIDGE

(МОСТ)

                            For Ismail Kadare

For millennia we have quarreled,

for millennia we have built and demolished

the Balkan bridge

(over the Drina,

over the Danube,

over  the Ujana e Keqe

in Albania). . .

For millennia we have asked ourselves:

Where is the Golden City –– East

or West?

Where is the real Prophet?

And what will be our profit

from that bridge

between the Sunrise and the Sunset?

With knifes in our teeth,

we have asked ourselves:

Is it true that living people,

our people,

have been immured

to make the bridge stronger?

For millennia we have quarreled, and fought,

died and killed,

built and demolished. . . .

Meanwhile

the airlines were invented. . .

Today no traveler can see

our ancient bridge.

                  translated by the author with Alicia Ostriker

LOVE

(ЛЮБОВ)

You are beautiful

like a sea in the warm fall:

the ripe quince of the sun,

the horizon swimming with haze.

Your movements are shadows

on the flaming sand. . .

You are beautiful.

And a swift smile passes:

the shadow of a gull on the water.

You take possession of me

like the solitude of white dunes

under the thorns, the wind, the sunset.

You take possession of me

like the calm instant before sleep:

like a ride in a stroller

under the golden poplar trees of the first year.

                                     

Untouchable!

You are untouchable, like yesterday.

(Now that dreams rush on and startle me:

a swelling sea in the cold night.)

You are untouchable like the past

of the man without a future.

Nothing else is left for me,

but to imagine we are together

and kiss you in the cold

under the solitude of stars.

I love you,

because you do not exist.

                                      translated by the author with Henry Taylor        

                                              

IN THE STORMS OF CONSTANT PARTING

(В БУРИТЕ НА ВЕЧНАТА РАЗДЯЛА)

                            In memory of Danila Stoyanova (1962-1984)

In the hurricane, amidst the stubble

the bright bluebell, nothing’s eye,

is too small for the lightning to strike.

The sycamores, red-hot, hiss in the rain,

a bolt strikes the field, rocks are scalded. . . .

Unable to take cover, the flower stands watch

and at last becomes the blue sky.

Sky – short-lived and fragile flower,

brightened by magnetic storms,

breathing in the darkness, blue atop green,

it flickers, blooms, fades,

beholds the death of stars.

In the horror of the dark cosmos

who blew in the seed of the sky?

Who loves all fleeting things –

a ray of sun, each conception,

the history of the earth itself?

He could be as small as the tear

that brims in your eye

in the storms of constant parting:

a flashing beacon in the sea of death.

                                      translated by the author with Henry Taylor

BLUE POND AT BERKOVITSA

(СИНИЯТ ВИР КРАЙ БЕРКОВИЦА)

We swam naked out of the pond,

and the pond flew into our senses.

We climbed up the afternoon slope

and the chill inflamed our bodies.

Down the road I saw us walking.

But the road was leading inside me.

That bonfire was not only smoke:

the stars still singe me as I fall asleep.

On a damp sheet on an old bed

I entered your dream that evening.

But now it pulses on my forehead,

making love to my naked soul.

The desk and the lamp –a circle of light

in a churning creek, in the mountains. . . .

A scent of pine and snow and menace

and, down below, a blue dusk prowling.

The withered summer breathеs from the grass.

The grass smells sweetest when freshly mown.

After we looked into the dark space

the blue sky seemed warmer and closer.

The moon is mute and red, resembling

a widening wound in the dark.

Life is open, it bleeds and drains.

Only the death of the world is eternal.

                                      translated by the author with Henry Taylor

                                              

                           

DEVIL AND GOD

(ДЯВОЛ И БОГ)

The Devil is the difference between us.

The Devil is the secret

everyone knows about himself.

God is something we have in common.

God is what we don’t know.

DE PROFUNDIS

The dark blood of the late sun

slips in under the bars

of your kitchen window.

The backyard smells of pot and rat.

You hear gunshots.

You are free!

You are free to buy a gun,

and even shoot yourself.

You are free to watch television the whole day

and drink warm Bud

waiting for the eviction notice.

Yes, you are free

to buy that million dollar home on the screen

with the surreal blue sky

and the green lawn with the kids.

Or at least you are free to dream.

You are free

to apply for all the great jobs on earth

that you will never get,

because of bad color or bad karma.

Yes, you are free, brother!

You are free to dream the boldest dreams

alone, under the stars, or under the rain.

                                               translated by the author with Alicia Ostriker

A DREAM

(СЪН)

Like a drowning man

I embrace you.

I turn to you in the dark

аs a sunflower

тurns toward a lighted match.

I am speaking to you

as the lone tree in a long night

speaks to the wind.

It is cold

And you are only a dream…

The One I love

is not here.

I embrace you,

because you are

His shadow in everything:

You are the great absence

in the world.

                            translated by the author with Henry Taylor

THE BALKAN DANCE

(БАЛКАНСКИ ТАНЦ)

We are the Bulgarian soldiers in Macedonia

blinded by Basil,

the emperor of Constantinople.

We are 15,000 men.

One in every ten of us

has one eye to lead us.

We hold hands, walk and trip,

like a ring dance

from horizon to horizon

under the light of the sunset.

We were returning home

to our king Samuel.

The king saw us

and died of a heart attack.

But we didn't see him.

So we continue our dance

barefooted in wild forests,

on the embers of camp fires,

sliding on frozen lakes

under the cold sharp constellations ...

We are dancing towards a new millennium

and all we can see

in our future

is our past.

                                      translated by the author with Henry Taylor

THE FLOWER I WISH TO GROW

(ЦВЕТЕТО, КОЕТО ИСКАМ ДА ОТГЛЕДАМ)

Is a flower quite insidious and rare.

It fails in the hands of biologists

who pick

or plant it.

Hypnotic, the wind brings it from nowhere

and sows it in the corn.

Watchful farmers weed it out,

disturbed by their premonitions.

But the careless ones pay no attention.

It grows and ravages their fields;

steals forth, lays siege to the houses

and they fall; it slips into dreams,

suffocates the dreamers  – debases them –

and so they laugh,

insisting they're happy.

It can even crack open their skulls

and blossom fire into the sky.

It's an insidious creature:

subtle as everything so tender and fugitive.

It wakens quietly and multiplies in Death's bones and brain

and lungs – it spurts metastases

so incurably alive.

And it is contagious:

latent as sadness in the eyes
of a yearning woman,

in the eyes of a lonely man,
or in their bodies:

hidden like sorrow, gathering, abiding,
until such time as its victims writhe
with fever and laughter.

It is desperate, ravenous:

feeding on everything, transfiguring
what it eats, consuming foul slums
and turning them into new worlds.

It swallows banks and factories,
converting them to children's laughter.
It swallows loneliness  –

which becomes the voice of God.

It swallows sick bodies

and turns them into stellar music.
It consumes minds

and they become nights lit up by crickets.
It engulfs all anguish

and engenders a galaxy of love
violently opening in the dark ...

And in the end the Flower
will be the end of the earth.

It will open its sweet maw of fire
and swallow the unwell world

to become its meaning.

translated by Carolyn Forche