“Coal” by Ani Ilkov

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The Season of Delicate Hunger

You think: there underground
There we’ll manage to be kind
We’ll find work in companies
We’ll amass mounds of cash
(until the wife and kids arrive)

And you think: it’s so simple
Black sun shines above
And colorful ores below
Open their eyes with natural boldness
Like a man who’s overcome sickness

Actually it’s like this: you descend
All your life you’ve craved women
Dressed in clothes of alcohol and
Suddenly you see—time sleeps
Over heaps of listless manure.

Then you’ll tell yourself: life was only smoke.
Today let’s merge with the eternal:
To dream rose-colored dreams
While turning into coal.

-Ani Ilkov, 
translated from the Bulgarian
by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger:
Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry
(Accents Publishing)

Ani Ilkov was born on January 11th, 1957 in Ruzhintsi. He holds a degree in Bulgarian philology from St. Kliment Ohridski University in Sofia. He has worked as an editor and journalist, and has served as a visiting professor in Great Britain and India. Ani is a cofounder of the respected weekly literary gazette Literaturen Vestnik. He is the author of 10 books, including eight poetry collections, most recently Collected (2011). Ani currently lives and works in Sofia.

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