Пред очите ни/In front of our eyes

Close to, yes,

it’s possible

to detect the grain

in a slither of pine

(not so much the trees –

and never mind the wood)

or the ants’ cave in a clod.

Through such things

we might also glimpse

the big picture,

the epic shot,

the vista

of distant planets,

stars, anomalies,

the warp and weft

of space-time.

Let’s hear it too

for peripheries,

for the almost unnoticed

flap of plastic sheeting

in the wind that looks

like someone waving,

the pepper untouched

on the pavement,

flickers of light

that blaze the windows

of new apartments

as the sun clears

a ridge of houses

and the focus shifts

to a new vantage again.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Дългата зима/Long winter

                                                     I’m thinking more of solid things –

                                                     what we count on returning or what
                                                     stands by us: the wintry fields
                                                     this morning’s frost crust gripped
                                                     (the frost, of course, would melt);
                                                     or asphalt gritted for the weather;
                                                     statues, gargoyles, abutments;
                                                     or wood or steel or marble, flesh.

                                                     I’m thinking more of solid things

                                                     as words become sullied, put
                                                     to all the uses in the world.
                                                     A crate’s brute fact, ripe fruit
                                                     kept in cold storage start to look
                                                     like hope while we wait for the thaw.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Снегната страна/Snow country

                                                                 Echoes fall softly.

                                                                 The landscape’s baffled.

                                                                 Hawks scout the suburbs,

                                                                 extend their ranges,

                                                                 take what they can.

                                                                 Dogs, too, have reached

                                                                 some kind of limit,

                                                                 sit tight on boundaries,

                                                                 look out on fields,

                                                                 the hawk’s domain.

                                                                 None of them

                                                                 are waiting for spring.

                                                                 Snow is the present

                                                                 and will be

                                                                 until it’s no more

                                                                 than dust on distant hills

                                                                 then gone – as if the land

                                                                 has shifted beneath them

                                                                 and they are in another country.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Сняг/Snow

                                                       A little settling and the world is changed.
                                                       Snow comforts in its vagaries –
                                                       the blurring of edges.

                                                      We would rather look

                                                      at snow than the cold hard truth.

                                                      Elsewhere in the world,

                                                      they are plotting and devising.
                                                      They are in their air-conditioned blocks.

                                                      When it melts, the snow weeps
                                                      and fingers traverse the keyboard
                                                      while they plot out our new future.


Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Дървета в Портисхед/Trees in Portishead

                                            Fog swags over the estuary make it hard to tell

                                            if we’re looking at mud banks, islets or the far coast.

                                            If you hadn’t told me, I would never have guessed

                                            these flat-topped bunkers below us on our shore

                                            had once been used for storing natural gas.

                                            Old industries litter the littoral while behind us,

                                            in the field beside the main road, there’s a mast

                                            whose warning siren they still routinely test

                                            in case of chemical leaks, aerial toxic events.

                                            Such dangers in the air if we but knew it.

                                            And so here in the aftermath of Christmas

                                            we’re doing what we can to make sense

                                            of all that’s changed and changing.

                                            The edge has come off the temperature.

                                            Walking back up the hill, beside fences,

                                            dustbins, smoothed asphalt parking spaces,

                                            you ask if these trees are silver birch.

                                           “Yes,” I say. “They are.” And the past

                                           makes friends with itself and for a moment

                                           consents to our leaving it utterly silent.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Честит Коледа/Happy Christmas

As has become traditional, we take a short break from art and poetry over Christmas and New Year and take the opportunity to say thank you to everyone who's visited, liked or shared Colourful Star.

2016 has been quite a year. On the one hand, there was a Colourful Star reunion in Sofia in the summer; on the other ... Well, if you're reading this post and are interested in cross-cultural collaboration and international dialogue, you'll certainly know what 'the other hand' delivered in June and November.

We've also seen a giant leap in terms of the number of people reading Colourful Star - so please do keep spreading the word.

There is no agenda here. Just a delight in conversation.

Much love and best wishes for the festive season and beyond,

Tom, Marina and Vasilena X

Many thanks to John Fru Jones for the photograph from the CS summer reunion in Sofia.

Музика довечера/Music tonight

Music across the water,

that's how it is – a sound

which skirts the smooth docks.

The way home attended

by arpeggios, vamped chords.

 That’s how it is:

the old bloke on the fiddle,

the others on flute and drum.

 There’s music tonight

across the water.

And that sense of playing,

a sense of playing out …

The spittle wiped

from the mouthpiece.

Everything might be otherwise

without the need for translation.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips