Friday 26 February 2016

Сутрешни маргаритки/Morning daisies


One morning, I will surprise you.
One morning, while you sleep,
I will shrug off another hangover
slip back into yesterday’s clothes,
take pains on tip-toe not to wake you
and let myself out with only
the lightest click of the latch.

One morning, the sun will gild
the clouds’ underbelly
while first early workers sling
files on the backseats of cars.
One morning, I will thread
my way through spent cans,
recycling bins, lost tickets,
ripped-out circuit boards
and trespass over walls
with the neighbourhood cats.

One morning, there will be
no news whatsoever
and the radio will hum
with a negligible silence
while the gift I return with
will have got there
I don’t know how.

One morning, you will see
a day’s weather prospects
in changed light patterns
and we will relent
our differences one morning
in the cut smell of flowers
and you will surprise yourself.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips


Friday 19 February 2016

Удобство на зимата/Comfort of winter


A comfort of winter,
this steady, soft fall
furs edges, branches, hushes –
brings close the low sky.

In the immediacies of snow,
we might be walking
through the aftermath
of our own breath,
as if gusted back
into childhood’s
glaze and forests
forever stretching outward –
until reaching into the winter
we’ll find comfort
in knowing that now
there's not so long to wait
until we reach shelter.

Friday 12 February 2016

Виждам/I See


Across from the picture windows
of a 1930s hotel, light plunges
at cove water, digs up soft turquoise
while you’re labouring up
its bracketing cliffs.

And this is our beginning,
some thirty years ago,
chance meetings, quirks
of fate, endurance
in the face of uphill climbs.

Do we have to go back over
all that now? I doubt it.
Tidal stones shoulder parked boats.
We should walk by this stream –
at the stile we’ve already forgotten
the questions we were going to ask.

Friday 5 February 2016

Ах, живот/Ah, life


Ah, life. You’re a late-night run
to the off-licence through the rain.
You’re scrapped out-takes
from a Beach Boys album.
You’re Albert Camus with a fag
absurdly hanging from his lip.

You’re a diminuendo piano
in a cocktail bar, an aria
in some foreign city,
a gallery hung with Rothkos
and other strange effects.

In the clinch of public transport
innovations, I’m gnawing at
a sandwich. That’s how
it comes and goes. The flow
and ebb's a world away:
things I remember, like
snow around those distant trees.