Tag Archives: the season of delicate hunger

“Report” by Valentin Dishev

The Season of Delicate HungerOn a mark
of silence:

1.

A butterfly counted
my knuckles.
Declared the white
unnecessary.

2.

The wind recounted
to a lake
the color of my eyes.
The red—it said—is a little much.

3.

A tree
hollowed by thunder
painted my mistrust in green.
The bark—it whispered—is not just a cover.

My silence
was not.

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

“Only” by Petar Tchouhov

The Season of Delicate HungerOnly her dress
is red
in the black-and-white photo
but this is not proof
of murder

it is not proof
of love

the night train crosses
from one day to another
the door of the cabin opens
alone

Only his eyes
are blue
in the black-and-white photo
but this is not a sign of weakness

nor is it a sign
of life

the night train crosses
from one darkness
to another
the door of the cabin closes
alone

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

“Dying Mother” by Ani Ilkov

The Season of Delicate HungerThese fruits are mine
but the garden not
the light is mine
but the sun not
and the stars above
and the dried-up river
This sperm is mine
but the father not
their bodies mine
their beauty not
their names mine
the words not
and the tears mine
but the eyes not
these children are mine
but already the world
not

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

“Another Air” by Vanya Angelova

The Season of Delicate Hungerthe horse’s nostrils breathe.
And his moist eye
is half-shut on purpose.
Since he knows,
why does he need to see?
Only habit
still prevents him
from clopping
toward the stars.

Vanya Angelova,
Translated from Bulgarian
by Katerina-Stoykova Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger:
Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry

(Accents Publishing)

“Peopleology” by Sasho Serafimov

The Season of Delicate HungerI was so sick of my home
land that I started to love it.
No wonder!
I don’t love my country,
don’t love my job,
don’t love my dreams,
don’t love my history,
don’t love my faith,
and I’m still alive.Let others also ponder
what a difficult vocation
is the love of the godless.

Sasho Serafimov,
translated from the Bulgarian
by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger

“News” by Roza Boyanova

The Season of Delicate HungerOn the 7th of May the sea pulled away from Balchik.
the standing wave actually paused
to wait for the amazement.

The minarets of Taj Mahal are leaning dangerously….
An airplane with three tons of drugs crashed….
Still the good news hides
in the cave of your silence, Ali Baba—
imprint of lipstick
on a shadow.

While I toyed with the unread
I put a few questions
in random order
with unvaried tone:
does deep meaning hide
behind every ordinary thing?
and do the cosmic dimensions
originate from there?

Suddenly
the past equated itself to today.
But no matter on which side
of the equation I stand,
the scale swings
in favor of the other.
I lighten like a pressed flower….

And not a single piece of good news.

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

image source

“Soooooo…” by Elka Vasileva

The Season of Delicate HungerYou say: acquiescence is a way out.
I say: acquiescence is an escape.
That’s how we converse, acquiescent
and acquiescently gnaw at
the apples of our lives.
Acquiescently suck
even the seeds
and rescue them
in pots.
With time the fights abate,
it’s predictable.
Acquiescent,
we sweeten our tea
with crystals of love.

Elka Vasileva,
translated from Bulgarian by 
Katerina Syokova-Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger

from Visions by Kerana Angelova

The Season of Delicate Hunger[…]

4.

first I dreamed up a girl
a stranger
she looked so familiar
I have embarked on my path, she said
and set out straight through the patchwork of bushes and grass
this isn’t a path, the others yelled out
in the woods you’ll find jackals, abysses, and vipers
follow the trodden path
the girl did not so much as turn around
this is my path I grasped the direction
she continued walking through goose-skinned blackberries
as if they were wire fences
it’s not that scary
she called out
here you’ll find poppies birds deer aspen

besides
anything could be your path
anything could be your path
in fact direction is a path

5.

then
I saw a pregnant woman
panting, surmounting the ninth month
31
the steepest hill in life
folded in a yoga position
sucking on a thumb
swimming in the sea that is her dark womb
is a little wrinkled old man with unseeing eyes
set above a little turtle of a neck
and a blossoming belly button
the soft spot on top of his mucous head is shining
pulsing
opened up, the gorgeous rose is
full of life
not much time left till
he loses the answers
his wisdom is the burden
to be forsaken at birth.

after that
he’ll cry out for the first time

[…]

-Kerana Angelova
translated from the Bulgarian
by Zoya Marincheva

“We’ve Been Warned” by Stoyanka Grudova

The Season of Delicate Hungerwe throw stones and throw
we’ll gather them with bare hands
tomorrow—biting embers
when the weather starts blowing
we will pray for a single tear
to put out the fire inside us

Stoyanka Grudova,
translated from Bulgarian by 
Katerina Syokova-Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger (2013)

“You Don’t Need to Know Geography” by Ekaterina Yosifova

The Season of Delicate HungerThe issue wasn’t in the translation, they simply
did not want to believe that the country
their army had occupied
preemptively
wasn’t next to their border and was even
on a different continent.
We showed them the map.
They looked at it.
The girl asked: is this map Bulgarian?
They smirked.
Everything made sense to them again.

Ekaterina Yosifova,
translated from Bulgarian by 
Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger (2013)