Теменуги/Pansies

Thoughts, of course, in the language of flowers –

and mine not tidily gathered, but they exist

and somehow thrive in those parts

of the garden that we’ve forgotten.

And perhaps that’s the best way – to leave

things where they fall and just wait:

for the greenery to come first and then

dark petals, the yellow pristine eye.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Перспектива/Perspective

And now the taste of it, this autumn.

It’s there in the first brown leaves

that scud across the pavements,

the departure of experience

into memory and those other adjustments

I’m having to make, being home

and not really here.

                                    On the bridge,

love's hope gets locked as if fixing it

could be anything more than a promise

that might well declare its own failure.

This is where we live and what we have

to look out on: the edge of the city

and, beyond it, the lives which seem

to diminish towards the horizon

but nevertheless exist and have been lived.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Нейният ваза/Her vase

Uprooted from their places in the house

that’s soon to make way for some dream home

or business enterprise, brochures and letters

arrive as forgotten enthusiasms – fading

and patinas of dust make plain the known fact

of their age. I’d hardly recognise the hand

in these calligraphies of blue ink turned pale green.

Repossessing her memories, my mother’s,

after another generation’s settling in,

is a kind of re-acquaintance – as if here

she is again with stories of moonlight flits

and trespassing afternoons at London University.

In the bottom of the suitcase, cushioned

in newsprint from the year before she died,

her vase whose porcelain pattern reflected

in the candlestick table’s polished sheen

by the window on a September morning.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Петък/Friday

Laughter across the harbour

and the lights wink out Morse code

on the new refurbishments.

It’s not so late but suddenly again

I’m a long way from home –

being right in the heart of it,

as if in a foreign country.

And that’s somewhere I may well be

if you choose to believe the headlines.

Portrait: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips; photo: John Fru Jones

Към септември/Towards September

The slightest chill in the night air might be

autumn’s first breath or thoughts

of imminent departure – and I am trying

not to count how many more times

I’ll pass the building with its red display

announcing the current temperature.

The cyclepath’s emptiness stands in

for anticipated regrets – but then,

here I am again at home, where,

through the spill of courtyard light,

a bat is weaving figures-of-eight:

a surprise visitor to our block

and a reminder that possibilities

still unfurl across the distances

like a view of autumn hills.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Случайно/By chance

Somewhere on Graf Ignatiev or Shishman Street,

posies of wildflowers laid out on a tray:

brought in from the country, they’re almost lost

against another era’s architectural promises.

I was on my way to somewhere else,

but what if I’d stopped, bent down and chosen

one of those transplanted bouquets?

If I’d crossed the street where I’d meant to,

I wouldn’t even have seen them.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Сезонни игри/Seasonal games

Strewn amongst green crowns

below the balcony, horse chestnuts

are almost ripe here in August.

Our best conkers came from trees

around the church: they fell

and split on the asphalt path,

dark hearts in pulpy flesh,

like promises of future triumph.

There were tricks, yes, and theories:

soaking or baking them into hard skulls

to crack against each other –

and rapping our own knuckles

for our autumn playground sport.

Somewhere in a different part

of the wood, I was telling you this

as you tried to fathom the rules

of another improvised game.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips