A Law of  Protection of Colourful Dreams

A grumpy minister approaches me
And says: “As of tomorrow, we are passing
A full prohibition of colourful dreams!
However, we’re humanists, and shall
Theretofore allow you to dream in…
Black, and in white.
Tax-inclusive, of course.”

Colourful dreams? By God!
My childhood illusion.
My last known retreat!
No…Not my colourful dreams!
I’ll give all that you ask for.
My two acres of fatherland,
An old car, CD-player, my rusty guitar…
Take one of my kidneys,
My colour TV…
But no, not my colourful dreams!

What would life be without them?
Without Miloska’s infinite charm;
No Malvolio, Bluebird or Danaya?
Without the colourful dream
Of Lennon, Boulat, Bunuel and Bukowski,
Without the wonderful spring beam
Of Vivaldi and Garfunkel’s condor,
Unfolding his wings unencumbered?
Without the mighty, colour-born magic
Of  changing the world!
Of making it lawlessly lovely and good!
If only for several hours…

If one day I grow to be feeble enough
To take charge of the laws in this country,
First and foremost I’ll write up
A law of protection of colourful dreams,
Its first, and only, paragraph reading:
Colourful dreams:
An immutable right of all men!
A clerk or a gypsy,
Students, delinquents, even
Politicians –
All will sustain this equable right.

Only then will I sing out, rejoicing:
“Sleep tight, little children!”

Dawn rises above the heavenly bay,
Yellow and orange, and mourning…
Resembling an angel with an arrow of gold,
A playful sun gallops ahead.

Across, in infinity, the dauntless blue sea
Wrestles the scorching sunrise…
The sea-waves, besotted and thirsting for sin,
Toss out their slimy, green shirts.

Below, our Sozopol resembles a surfboard,
Abandoned in the midst of still blue.
Its wooden wings, strung tight, have quietened, silent,
Silent for one thousand years.

It’s been raining since yesterday on the heavenly bay.
September slips on a pullover.
The summer’s departing, and you along with it,
And everything starts all over again.

The Prodigal Dolphin

On days like this the sea deranges me
And a voice allures me in…
I ingress the water like a temple
Bearing my heavy stones of sin.

The entire sea cradles within me,
And violet blood gushes…
With a bang, water and earth are merged,
While thunderstorms drum on till morning.

Only when it dawns and the waves
Withdraw their wearied, blushing flesh,
The trail of my return from a long and distant journey
Will glisten in the sand.

And only the mad dolphins
Will wave goodbye to me.
But wait, friends! In a hundred years
I’ll still come back to you!

On days like this the sea deranges me
And a voice allures me in…
I ingress the water like e temple
And I leave behind the throes of sin.

Perche` ti amo!

You’ll come again another Sunday,
Ever so beautiful, and good, and gentle…
You’ll sit upon the ample sheets
Like a pauper on a festive table!

You will wake me with your wetted lashes
And with lips of scarlet velvet.
You’ll satiate my soul with magic,
And afterwards you’ll brew some coffee.

You’ll play some Floyd, pull down the curtains,
Fast uncloak yourself of modesty,
And through the night shall our bodies tremble
Together with the fading candle flame…

You’ll come again another Sunday,
Beautiful, good like a fairy tale…
If you leave again, I’ll shoot myself!
I love you! Have you not known it?

Rain Rhapsody

Far beyond the blurred horizons
Faintly dozed
A candle, left alit upon a Christmas table,
While the twilight, stern, fastidious
Like a passenger in first class,
Lugged, laborious, his bags and walked, departing.
A blade of sunlight blazed,
Tossing in bright skirts of gild,
And tore the clouds with fiery arrows.
The night leaked through my fingers
Without a bid of bye.
Perhaps for that, the rainfall
Followed her.
The ring of raindrops then remembered
Of a Rhapsody in Blue.
Swaying to their music,
You forget that it is rain.
Impalpably you enter
A remnant past that whiffs
Of dreams and rye after the harvest.

Outside, it rains. Raindrops in the hundreds
Bravely fall to death between the hushed white birches.
In my robbed heart echo,
Symphonious with rainfall,
Mother’s heavy tears.

*   *   *

No one is larger
Than the dreams of a beggar.
I beg you, don’t kick at this
Tin can.
In it, I gather
The crumbs
Of your charity.

*   *   *

I invented you
To have someone to sing to.
I loved you
To have someone to think of.
I trusted you
To have someone to trust.

Now I despise you
Because I wanted you,
Forgetting
You were an invention.

*  *  *
I don’t believe in fairy treasures,
I don’t believe the stars…
I don’t believe in myths or monsters,
I don’t believe in lies or truths!
I don’t believe in prophets or in marshals,
I don’t trust in the lottery,
I don’t believe in luminous ideals,
I don’t trust guitars and tears.
I don’t believe in cures or healers,
I don’t believe in friends…
I don’t believe my eyes:
You are returning?
Say no more – I believe you!

Translated by Boryana Aleksandrova