CAIN AND ABEL

Cain, where is your brother Abel

do you still play hide and seek

in the field

I remember when you were little you left him

to come home alone

and you always ate up

the bigger part of the loaf

Cain, where is your brother Abel

I heard someone saw

a man lying down

and then the shriek of an owl

announcend the death

Cain, whosе is the blood on your shirt

where did you bury your brother´s bones

don’t you know

you cannot kill without staining yourself

thy brother’s blood

cries unto God from the earth

by committing the first murder

and giving the idea to

legions of followers will you

have the courage to look

up to heaven with clear eyes

 Translated by Hristo Dimitrov / Edited by Tom Philips

IF MY GOD IS AFRAID

If my God is afraid of me

when sin is crawling up my thighs

insolently climbing upwards

and I’m capable of doing things

that my mind is otherwise unaware of

then he is not my God

but some nocturnal apparition

which sometimes looks

completely real

just like you do when I invent you

and give you the name of his son

would you like to climb down

the steps of the Fall with me

or are you afraid just like my God was

when he created the woman he didn’t foresee

he was giving her more freedom

than she deserves

let’s lift the curtain

that covers Adam’s nakedness

God keeps his secrets but not for long

you and I just might succeed

in overcoming his obstinacy

and he in a moment of absent-mindedness

decide to make confession to us

having seen our little spectacle

in that bed he has no access to

Translated by Hristo Dimitrov / Edited by Tom Edward Phillip

P.S. I LOVE YOU

the empty wine glasses

the bed sheets frozen in the form of a shared body

everything reminds me you’re no longer here

once again my books keep me company

and reaffirm my loneliness

if Mann and Goethe are my only friends

am I rich or poor

but not sorrow - happiness is this pain in the body

which I acknowledge as my child

I know that while you make your common bed

and wash the dishes together

when you kiss the child on his forehead, reading him a story

you are exactly where you want to be

your happiness is my happiness

Translated by Hristo Dimitrov / Edited by Tom Edward Phillips

Llorona *

*Inspired by an old Mexican legend

tonight the river is calling me

to talk like two sisters

both of us suffering

from the same ache

when the knife points at

the most vital organ

and the wild woman suffocates

then madness is salvation

but I defeated my shadow

sister,

it is time you wiped away your bloody tears

and pulled yourself together

you who ripped the three golden apples

from your womb with bare hands

because they were conceived by foreign seed

and no one pulled you out of the puddle of blood

where you were drowning in an agony

unknown even to the Mother of God

because a foreigner had inseminated you

you who plunged the knife into your own chest

and gave your heart a reason to bleed

you should have brought up your children yourself

but you drowned them instead

so they wouldn’t join you in your grief

then you hid in madness

and embraced the river

sister, from whom everyone runs away

you chose the status of witch and made

a legend of yourself

to scare children and young girls

with the barren life of disobedience

and now you’re lying on the riverbed

cursed to search for your children forever.

because this crime is unforgivable -

the woman’s second sin

I heard your cries and I loved you

because your tears were true-born

it is time for you to stand up

and leave the womb of the earth

pick up one by one your spiritual bones

buried in the wood

time to leave the shelter of madness

and accept you’re a murderess

and that one can live nonetheless

 woman is like the grass

always stands up no matter how trampled

you - a female Christ

took upon yourself the crimes of all future women

now we are clean

Translated by Hristo Dimitrov / Edited by Tom Edward Phillips

SALOME

she looks like a deer that’s drunk from sacred springs

to stamp the time with a bloody mark

her light steps not making any sound

she looks like a statue with a marble skin when

she sits and watches the course of events

she’s a crystal looking at herself in the moon mirror

looking for the reflection of her own shadow

she looks a like a candle that has never burned

she is here to unlock the doors and let death in

to ask for the one thing her mother’s not entitled to 

with her fresh child’s flesh and stubbornness she demands

she comes in dressed in moonlight

in that great hour when the scriptures come true

 she’s here to utter the words which God himself wished for

and signed up with another’s blood: I want John’s head.

give it to her

Translated by Hristo Dimitrov / Edited by Tom Edward Phillip

HOW CAN I TRUST

how can I trust people

says the cat

when I ask her about her kittens

how can I trust people

says the knife

when I ask it

what they cut with it

how can I trust other people says the child

when I ask it if it wants to grow up

how can I trust

how to trust at all

in something so inconstant

and so uncertain in itself

possessing the whole palette

of possibilities

between good and evil

and always choosing darkness

how can I trust humans

when they refuse to be humane

Translated by Hristo Dimitrov / Edited by Tom Edward Phillip

CHILDREN OF THE WAR

perhaps it’s not so frightening

maybe it’s not such a tragedy

we were being born everywhere - in the field

in the trenches in the cellars of strangers

at gas stations and on the roads

in the rivers and even in the prison

the pain is the same everywhere

we have endured it and will endure it again

and this war will pass, without passing us by

but life will be born

on and on through our wombs

without asking if we want this

not caring what happens to our bodies

when it leaves them

the seed of immortality sprouts in us 

providing for God’s eternal return

Translated by Hristo Dimitrov / Edited by Tom Edward Phillips