Баща и син/Father and son

For Nikola and Sam

The thump and weight of the newborn –

I thought I’d got used to it, but there,

amongst monitors, gowns, a choice

of CDs and the news of an assassination,

he rose up from IV scans and screamed.

In those conversational cross-currents,

some kind of bond began and down

corridors busy with emergencies,

he arrived in time – first breath

with the definite hesitancy

of an opening chord: outline

of a knowledge which would grow

and sharpen with every shift and jag –

the mornings waking up

with this whole new life between us.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Поглеждайки нагоре/Looking up

Flat out on a hillock,

we’d lie in wait

for perspective shifts,

the great curve,

the rolling of the earth.

Nothing so much

disturbed our view

of high-altitude jet streaks,

cumulus hatching into

the far sky’s

inverted geography.

Amongst ambitions

flitting and darting

across the flight paths

of swallows, we’d plot

dispersal routes, ways out

through bracken beds –

not back up the lane

but over fenced land

where cattle hulked

and lives in future tense

took shape with all

the fixity of vapour.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Жена с лешникови очи/Woman with hazel eyes

I can’t say much

because those details

at the roadside

are no more than clues.

Cattle grunted and shifted.

We lit cigarettes.

We talked again

of where we were.

I was at a loss

in this geography.

On the city streets,

I was far more at home.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Геология/Geology

Out in the deep blue,

the crumpled plates of our world

are locative coordinates

in this landscape that eludes

all metaphors and similes.

We are here –

and unexpectedly –

like records of old fishing towns,

mismatched maps,

a staggered memory

of being in or on or at.

Colour is a blaze

across the ice fields,

an extravagance,

a touching base.

Against the swell of the Earth,

rock faces sheer against horizons.

The red flare billows out and snaps

against those vagaries, our words.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips