Gourds and pumpkins

If I had my time over,

I’d make more pumpkin soup.

I’d bring you coffee in bed

on Sunday mornings,

then we’d dress for the weather

and scout market stalls

for gourds and squashes,

testing for signs

of ripeness in the rind.

You’d wear the scarf

you’ve had since before we met,

your favourite coat,

and we’d blow steam from our mouths

like children pretending

they’re smoking cigarettes.

Back home, we’d ignore

the recipe books and be

profligate with flavours,

promiscuous with spices, herbs.

While the thick liquid

bubbled in our largest pan,

we’d sit at the table

and talk of other lives

we might have led.

If I had my time over,

I’d make more pumpkin soup.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips 

Medals

To hear him speak of it,

perhaps you’d think him unclear,

the way sentences spiral outwards

until, reaching what’s yet to be spoken,

he’s finding new fixed points –

a dangerous promise, the hurt

which even triumph contains,

this year’s anniversaries of war,

the specific occasions and their weight.

It is not enough to reverse

into commemoration. That’s something –

but here he is and saying it again:

the game’s not up yet, no.

No, it isn’t. Not by a long chalk.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips 

Autumn in the Mountains

A landscape’s engrained.

Differentiated perception

gives name to, tries to

surface the unfathomable.

And coming up that slope,

up a last stretch of path

which seemed to give out

before you spotted footprints

in mud beyond slabs of granite –

there we were, at a vantage,

looking out and down

on mountain woodland,

unintended spectacle.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips 

Rhodopchanka

Facing each other across a tiled hall,

mirrors exchange reflections

into a diminishing infinity –

our shrinking reflections

look back as if imprisoned

in some alien dimension.

Elsewhere, in unvisited rooms

of this former royal palace,

crates, uncatalogued, hold

blouses, jackets, skirts,

painstakingly embroidered,

painstakingly collected,

but left, for now at least,

like miraculous secrets

on the far side of a looking-glass.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips 

Paprika

A reservoir’s evening sheen,

not fifteen minutes out of the city,

extends to matt, interleaving slopes

which pepper with house lights

as commuters, running late, come home.

By a converted rowing station,

I’m browsing a translated menu,

picking up conversations from a year ago.

What to choose for this return visit?

Flavours don’t just recall themselves –

they are memories and places,

friends you shared them with.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips 

Grandmother with Apples

Orchards were an Eden

just beyond the end of our lane –

a temptation for boys with scuffed knees

and memories of last year’s crop

as a daredevil scurry over railings

and a clandestine feast.

Come autumn, pickers turned a blind eye

to our impertinent raids:

what were a few scrumped apples to them?

Fruit trees are generous. Had we known it,

apples are gifts to be offered over fences.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips 

Independence Day

A grounded constellation in the distance

I’d like to think is your city –

but threaded onto radio beams

we’re coming in to land

in another country.

Not that anything’s far in time and space.

Crossing another decided border,

I’m handing over my passport with one hand,

texting news of arrival with another –

 then watching plimsolled shoes

measuring out paces along the yellow pavements.

In this swirl of whistles and vuvuzelas,

plash of fountains and shrieks from the tramlines,

I’m making for what I know,

I’m making for somewhere

which feels like home,

which doesn’t feel like a missed target.

20 September is independence day in Bulgaria - the anniversary of the 'de jure' declaration of independence from the Ottoman Empire in Veliko Turnovo in 1908.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips