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

Прогноза/Prognosis

                                                Not so long after dawn, the looming light

                                                is nostalgia for the sea in a landlocked country

                                                until there it is across the tree-studded field,

                                                returning colour like repaying a debt.

                                               The line advances, it’s pushing back.

                                               Things change overnight and the sun hits

                                               straight across the building sites.

                                               But then, at the end of the lane,

                                               there is always some hope,

                                               some shop that’s always open –

                                               the prognosis for other futures.

                                               Beyond the doorway and the window,

                                               life sprawls exactly as it’s always done

                                               and there’s the kettle and this is the view.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Стъкло/Glass

                                                    The decanters locked in the cabinet

                                                    with cocktail sticks and duty-free cigars

                                                    were the perks of the job, my father’s,

                                                    finally getting to fly at thirty-five.

                                                    They came out for parties, those nights

                                                    when friends came round to drink gin

                                                    while he ran through his latest slides –

                                                    New York, Nairobi, Tehran,

                                                    skyscrapers and street markets

                                                    under the same pellucid sun.

                                                    Never good to think how the years go by.

                                                    They’re not like turnings off a street

                                                    we didn’t take and can now revisit.

                                                    Those were his moments as each click

                                                    brought up another photograph,

                                                    and the decanters went round

                                                    and the neighbours talked and laughed

                                                    and the world looked just slightly larger.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Самопортрет с тютюн мустаци/Self-portrait with tobacco moustache

                                             The owner of the tobacco-yellowed moustache

                                             allows himself to spend a short time in the yard.

                                             He turns his face towards the sun like a lizard

                                             who’s looking for the best place for an afternoon nap.

                                             Behind his back he hears a sound which he’s expecting:

                                             the footsteps he remembers from the far past.

                                             Dream or nightmare? He doesn’t know.

                                             The walls of the building look real enough

                                             and the colours of the flowers bloom brightly.

                                             Did he say something he shouldn’t have?

                                             The flowers stay the same, colourful, impartial.

                                             A procession passes in the street. Planes

                                             cross the sky. A car engine coughs.

                                             The owner of the tobacco-yellowed moustache

                                             counts the windows of his house, its eyes.

                                             He finds a vase and fills it with reminders.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Думата, коята не можем да кажем/The word that we cannot say

                                                    Is изход.

                                                    Outside the National Theatre building again,

                                                     I’m doing my best to explain

                                                     how such things happen – that thought

                                                     which turned into a threat

                                                     and missed the point.

                                                     Not money, but my passport

                                                     burns a hole in my pocket.

                                                     It’s not at home here

                                                     and neither will I be

                                                     when we place ours over

                                                     these virtual readers

                                                     and it’s confirmed

                                                     that I belong to the database.

                                                     I’m thinking here, perhaps,

                                                     of walking back

                                                     to the apartment I let myself into –

                                                     the known walk to the lift,

                                                     the counted steps to the door,

                                                     the intimate geography

                                                     of where I'm living now

                                                     and the vase on the table

                                                     that holds these actual flowers.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips