Цъфтеж/Blossom

                                                  Orange under streetlamps, pink in the sun:

                                                  a swallowtail bobs and weaves

                                                  amongst these changeable flowers.

                                                  The politics is done on Twitter.

                                                  It’s elsewhere – and we’re sat

                                                  amongst remnants of born-again empires.

                                                  Unavoidable, the collared doves bleat

                                                  and sag the electricity wires.

                                                  It’s another place entirely –

                                                  an absolute concrete,

                                                  this beach, that ferry –

                                                  and what we’d call a myth.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Шкафът/The cabinet

                                                       I noticed something in the foyer:

                                                       a cabinet with smoked glass doors –

                                                       a fanciful designer motif,

                                                       distraction for waiting guests.

                                                       Inside, mementoes or signs

                                                       from another time gone by:

                                                       products of a craft

                                                       that sustained them

                                                       without clues to whom

                                                       they might have belonged –

                                                       though objects from a life

                                                       being realised in the world.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

След няколко години/A few years later

                                                            The lizard breathes in summer

                                                            while it rests on the wall.

                                                            Vulnerable, unconcerned,

                                                            it’s waiting for evening cool

                                                            and the insects’ return.

                                                            History has turned

                                                            its ugly back on us.

                                                            From inside the house

                                                            I can hear the gulls

                                                           that warn of difficult weather.

                                                            She has put flowers in a jug

                                                            to remind us

                                                            of where we first met.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Рила/Rila

Our wishes remain in the wall,

scribbled, folded tight and slipped

between the stones. It’s a point

at which we’ll decide how much

we’ll put trust in our coincidence.

I’ll have every faith, no doubt.

We’re walking upwards

and talking of this and that

as we’ll emerge beyond the treeline

and the vast valley opens below us.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

До морето/Beside the sea

A ship’s bright lights against low cloud –

it’s almost as if summer is ending too soon.

And it has done, or felt like it did, one year ago.

On long promenades where kids jump

and monuments are distractions

or remnants of sagas best forgotten,

we’d be walking out of the tunnel

that links the old town and the new.

I’m familiarly displaced in long trousers,

that shirt. That curt farewell

was everything that we had coming.

In the aftermath of another unexpected turn,

I’m the one who’s having to trace my way

above a seaside resort’s beckoning lights.

Newspaper splashes do their best to vie

with rolling-over waves at the shore.

We were out here, at some point,

escaping fierce, unfamiliar sun,

the news, a decision that came to us,

reported from all directions.

That shirt. That curt farewell.

That was everything we had coming.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Екзотика/Exotica

We are snuck in deep – that’s the hope.

The beds of exotics strive towards the sun.

Banana plants, orchids, the geraniums

that you didn’t know the word for –

and our grasping at language too.

This is where we are making our home

because the other one is being taken away –

not by those who come here,

but by those who insist on the differences,

who think they have a monopoly.

Maybe I am too dull to understand,

but I think I know what it will feel like

when the cases are unpacked

when we’ll be off to the shops

to buy milk and bread and cheese,

when the pot plants are out on the balcony.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Малките вещи вкъщи/Little things around the house

She’s already begun, sifting through

what we’ve taken for granted: the beasts

and other ornaments from the years

we’ve been together. She’s stern –

or trying to be – with our memories.

It has to be done. These shelves

which we hardly even noticed

are to be cleared. We’re moving out.

She’s already begun but I can’t imagine

how I’m ever going to get started.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips