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Night song
Put the cigarette out.
The night is falling down,
climbing the pines in the back yard.
The smoke is drifting under the ceiling,
sketching grotesque paintings,
of unforgotten memories.
Put the needle on.
Let the music crawl around the room,
inevitable and slowly like leprosy,
dwell with it.
Your hand is strong now!
Put some hard drink in it,
hold tight to it.
The moon appears,
dispersing the grey clouds,
penetrating the shades.
What was before
will never be again.
And now it is time.
Open your eyes!
- Peycho Kanev
(added 03.10.10)
Castling
Walking down the street,
pass the Pawnshop,
the Deli,
the Police station,
the bar,
the Serbian Café,
the Korean store,
walking among the hippies
showing me piece signs
and the yuppies
talking promptly on their cells,
nodding carefully to the bums
and the kids,
observing their mothers and fathers,
feeling scared of the police officers,
feeling obscure on the hospital’s
sidewalk,
humble in front of the church at the
corner where Sunday people remain
silent;
I enter the store where the Bosnian
shop boy sells me Jack and Coke
and then I continue to my apartment,
crossing the street,
thinking of Caesar and Rubicon
just for a while,
and then feeling too distant
for the rest of the day.
- Peycho Kanev
(added 03.10.10)
Status Quo
I grow tall from where I stand now.
Rivers of whiskey, vodka and wine,
thousands of cigarettes.
Still
aching for the Word.
30 years.
And I grow taller.
Hundreds of poems,
awful lot of problems, fights, wrangles,
poverty, starvation, homelessness, lovelessness,
and small flashes of happiness.
Living on three continents,
eager for the Word.
Only 30 years,
still growing.
Emigration,
alienation,
solitude.
Half of my life is gone.
All of my love is ready for donation.
Hundreds of read books,
speaking four languages,
and still…
My fingers are itchy,
my heart hurts,
my soul drifts
for the Word.
The Poetry is my fix.
- Peycho Kanev
(featured in the poetry forum 03.10.10)
Sunday blues
The alarm of the clock is killing the insomnia
Turning this new day into motionless pain
Coffee milk and cigarettes as the TV is showing
Nothing at all of the present or the future
The sun is climbing the sky behind the shades
Fighting back the lovely night’s melancholia
Stirring and sipping and drinking as the pages
Of the newspaper shows me that there is no war
Or peace that we're longing for all our lives
The world is still incomprehensible
And it will remain like that
As the next M.M or A.N.S or M.J is dying
On the first pages in every household
Feeding the hungry souls with stupidity
As the books of Tolstoy, Kafka and Celine
Keep collecting dust on the library shelves
And all the lovers in the world run away
With unfaithful women to wake up
In the morning forgotten and cold
As the only sound in the universe is this
String without soul.
- Peycho Kanev
(added 08.14.09)
Trash can of nowhere
stupidity, obviousness and abnormality;
what conclusion can we make of this?
feeling trifling,
not knowing about the geniuses of the
world-
knowing nothing about the H-bomb or
the expanding of the galaxy.
which one will tip the balance?
as we stood still and watch how all of
the greatest finish their subsistence
in the trash can of nowhere
and the question now is which direction
should we take?
as the modern heroes burn into the green
of their bank accounts
as the phony knowledge about the Art
dwell in the college auditorium
as the twisted politician keep on
telling me that there is hope for Humanity
I live with my minor wisdom;
I continue to empty my garbage outside
because I know that when death comes
almost nothing is
lost.
- Peycho Kanev
(added 08.14.09)
The dogs in my backyard
are dead
and although I am still leaning towards this window
I can no longer hear their barking against the moon;
the cats are sleeping on the red rug
redder than a blooming rose,
redder from your blood
and I think of leaping bodies from the bridges
of the world,
while I am ready to jump from the lip of the grave
into the mad swirl of the nothingness.
The curtains of the future are waving and yet there
is no wind.
- Peycho Kanev
(featured in the poetry forum 08.14.09)
Something in flowerpot
the night is coming slowly like old
gray cat and I am
looking for matches
the hunger of the mind
insist to carry on and not to feel sorry
for the missed words
the night knows how much to fill my glass
and after that to stand up and
to pour water from the kettle
on the thing in the flowerpot
the night is dying of thirst like
wheat in August
the streets are gloomy and silent
welcoming my steps upon the faceless
sidewalk, reminding me your silence
during the times of our war
the world turns slowly like a cripple
going nowhere with all the things upon it
and the silence the silence yes,
just for a while
while the audience applaud within
my bones
I could continue to paint but I will leave this
to the old dead dogs barking in my back yard
between the roses and the stones to do it
the night bents down over the flowerpot
and she says:
you are quiet
ah, you are so silent
my eyes believe in everything
and the honorable ladies sleep with
the picture of Paul Newman
waiting for their eternal repose
the water is pouring upon the green thing
just like the wind parts the curtains in the sky.
- Peycho Kanev
(added 06.26.09)
Life and something else
I am riding in the cab
and I watch the wrinkles at the driver’s skull:
I guess that this is victory-
the delight is pouring on me like rain:
I am on the faceless streets of Chicago
and from the radio is playing some good piano,
I watch outside through the window
the sun looks like a cat
sleeping in the corner of nowhere
I pay the driver, get out, walk in the light,
from the shelves in front of the bookstores
some faces are looking at me
faces of writers screaming for recognition,
words dry like autumns leaves,
my head aches
my eyes are weary,
I stretch out my empty hand
(the other one is holding the glass or
the conductor’s stick)
I am thinking about Hemingway
and continue to walk-
sometimes they tell me (but not too often),
that I am a fair poet,
but I am just dreaming for little quietness,
for one small escape from everything,
for one calm storm outside,
for the collected works of de Sade
some day
everything will have some meaning
but until then…
Angels,
give me something black and shiny
to put in my mouth.
- Peycho Kanev
(featured in the poetry forum 06.26.09)
The way it happens
To feel it,
to grasp your heart
and to die while you write
poetry
is not so regally like let’s say
kissing untouched beauties
between the sheets.
to listen to Mahler
and after that to throw away
all the symphonies like
garbage.
Summer time,
I kiss the hog
and whisper
good night, darling, good night
child.
- Peycho Kanev
(added 06.26.09)
sound and fury
like a flower, like the wind
my time burns against the ages,
pretty words hidden within
and we think that gOD is Great
hammer tilting in my hand and
some rusty nails in the pocket,
I will try to repair my heart that
stood against the countless slashes
lonely words rocking the graves
of all the crazy loves unwanted,
I smile, I nod, I wince, and I tried
to bring back all that was wasted
happy summers in my lovely youth,
but now all is washed by the river,
and we all try to wish that we stood
against the scarecrows of our fields
endless clock ticking time away
of memories long ago forgotten,
we see its hands waiting at bay
but who the hell cares, who?
this existence decapitating us slowly
and even monsieur Guillotin is silent,
the history shows us that we cannot
win anything.
please ask,
Hannibal, Hitler and
Casanova.
- Peycho Kanev
(added 06.07.09)
small revenge
I don’t care about the metrics, the iambus
and the rhymes-I have read the classics and then
I put them back on their dusty shelves:
we write about something that comes from the guts
and the nails as the flowers outside
explode…
the poetry, can I say that I don’t care?
I prefer to drink alone in this room in front of
one candle
as the shadows in the corners sits and show us
their ugly faces,
ah, I know that the words are greater that we thought
and we will fall in their holes,
we will spill ourselves like ink upon the Chaucer’s paper:
let me be myself while I read the classics
let me be afraid in airplanes
let me be bored in churches
let me be silent before the tigers in my blood:
these words are too tuff for us to misspend them
just like the big boys during their time.
the rivers are flowing through me
and I burn like matchstick lighted by the words
of all Shakespeares …
and today I am closer to insanity,
I am watching the black birds on the wires,
waiting for our degradation,
for our small defeat while we walk upon the land of
Dylan and Frost, especially on the thin ice
of Frost
…find me one small torch,
not too big, just enough to set this night on fire
and I hear outside the young girls laugh
never heard about the hunger of Villon or the madness of Pound,
please feed me so good so I never again use their words,
let me find a little warmth,
allow me to find my sunflowers
shaking in the wind
and under the sun
and the God of the Word not Death.
- Peycho Kanev
(featured in the poetry forum 06.07.09)
storm and bones
big old house with blistered paint,
silent living room full of pictures,
I sit in the rocking chair and rock
back and forth, back and forth,
the sound of the family clock
humming silently in the stillness
and I drink quietly the red wine
tilting back and forth, back and…
old bones against wood,
creaking and squeaking
outside in the dusty back yard
there is the ancient cherry-tree
that stood against the ages and
the axes of my forefathers
suddenly I hear some other noises
and I take a look through the window,
one dark and hairy cloud is crawling
upon the untouched evening sky
and there is the lightening splitting
my paradise regained,
followed by the thunder muffling
the beats of my rusty heart
perfect moment, perfect hour-
the angry fist of the unmerciful storm
hits angrily the green grass outside and
I feel it in my wrinkling body –
old bones against the wind,
creaking and squeaking
O, Tempora!-
the branches of the tree are dancing
among the solitude of the passing time,
one perfect storm which shows me that
our world was created not for us
I think now
that this is the perfect time for someone to die,
no music, no dancing, no laughter,
just the boiling storm and
just this old clock going-
tic toc,
tic toc
tic…
let me be.
- Peycho Kanev
(featured in the poetry forum 05.10.09)
flower
the sky is blue and somehow
dumb:
flower, flower
scream for me
during all these centuries
you have seen the wars and the kings
and the different sun every day
and you sang
you have been picked by young ladies
beautiful as flowers
and you have given them something
and after that they took from us
a lot more
flower, flower
scream for me
I picked you once
and you said yes yes –and sang again
and I tore away all your petals
I thought I violate the maiden and
your aroma died
yes yes flower
my hands reach out for the glass
scream scream
I made a mistake, the world is turning
the fields the flowers
and the poems fall upon them
like the last thing that counts
in the silence
- Peycho Kanev
(added 05.10.09)
I count to 11
the impossibility of life is in
his beauty:
the beauty is a flower in
the cemetery-
new life
and old death:
dung-beetle pushing his own
little treasure,
and sunshine, always sunshine
why?
I hit the window
and my phone starts to ring,
I count to 11
and it stops.
somebody wants to speak to me,
to listen to my voice, somebody needs me
why?
I want to set on fire all the pigeons on
the square,
I want to drive my index finger on
the edge of the knife
I will send my love in a package
to Africa
the phone is silent
I water the flowers.
- Peycho Kanev
(added 05.10.09) |
