Сняг на слънце/Snow in the sun

                                                     The old man accepts a Lucky Strike. 

-                                                                                                                   ‘At the Fishhouses’, Elizabeth Bishop

                                                These finds, with no effort, such as

                                                rectangular painted grille faces,

                                                or how you’d be under leaves

                                                turning now from green to gold,

                                                are forming into a view.

                                                Downtown, we’re beyond

                                                corrugated fencing, at the lights,

                                                waiting for traffic to disperse

                                                along this city-centre boulevard.

                                                Intent, a man and his son

                                                are attacking folk songs

                                                on acoustic guitar and accordion.

                                                We’ll read our books,

                                                too early, in the event,

                                                for where we’re due later.

                                                A translated ‘Hamlet’ quote

                                                painted on a junction box

                                                is further evidence

                                                of disjointed time.

                                                We’re in shirtsleeves,

                                                smoking Lucky Strikes,

                                                under the mountain’s

                                                offer of orientation,

                                                these early strata of snow

                                                laid across its shoulders.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Улични истории/Street stories

Planes crossing a web of stars.

It's early morning.

I'm out on the balcony

and, today, there's work

being done. It shakes

the floor. So what?

I'm in pyjamas

and our neighbour

in the purple top

is changing a tyre.

We didn't take a walk,

but opposite the school

the bakery did good business.

The women came out to smoke

at the laser dental clinic.

We've all got the same cups

in our hands, the same notes

from songs we remember.

Nobody knows the name

of this street, but like streets

in every city in the world,

it's got its stories. Here's one.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Уличният цветар/The street florist

We’re making our way, as you do,

back home from the Women’s Market –

though not up to speed with vocabulary,

we’re empty-handed turning out

onto Boulevard Slivnitsa.

Except that beyond a fishmonger’s

late-season catch blued with ice,

a sharp, sweet smell of chestnuts,

belts, plates, German accessories,

you’re taken with bucketed bunches

she’s brought from her garden

beyond the edge of town.

This one or that, it will sit

on our kitchen counter

through an Indian summer

we’ll be told another name for

as we piece together a language

and the words falling into place

will bring new things home.

Beside the carriageways

directing traffic east,

you’re squinting into sunlight.

We’re nearly there, as always.

At the crossing, you hold up

what you’ve exchanged

for the coins in your pocket,

these migrant flowers,

these transplanted blooms.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Реставрациите/The restorations

                                                            A square of late sun holds still

                                                            just long enough as here,

                                                            beneath incoming flight paths,

                                                            renovations progress.

                                                            Stripped-out furniture loads

                                                            a flatbed truck: tables, chairs

                                                            in use till yesterday –

                                                            their inherited possessions.

                                                            And down the stairs he emerges,

                                                            hands ghosted with plaster,

                                                            hair flecked with white paint

                                                            from newly pristine walls,

                                                            to fetch new lampshades

                                                            piled like hats from a car

                                                            pulled up beneath the balcony –

                                                            the balcony where we’ve put

                                                            potted autumn flowers:

                                                            a first small sign of our own.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Приспособяване/Accommodation

                                              A bafflement of carrier bags in the corner shop.

                                              Peeling goalposts on what I took to be a swamp.

                                              Wolves that slink through the dusk the streetlights

                                              recast as pet dogs. Gunshots are fireworks

                                              and the lime-green depth charges of summer

                                              are horse chestnuts ripening under my balcony.

                                              Amongst cubist monuments, apartment blocks,

                                              light spills from doorways, crackling radio voices.

                                              A kitchen chair left out on the pavement

                                              as if for a tired passer-by. Tilted stones

                                              cracked open by weather extremes.

                                              Magpies squatting rooftops. A look of home.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips
'Accommodation' was first published in Raceme magazine.