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

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.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

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.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

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.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips