Three Poems by Peycho Kanev

 

Seasons

 

The leaves on the branches are getting greener, inside them

quiet music sounds.

Into the empty sleeves of the shirts hanging on the wire,

time whistles.

The sky is a sketch of a blue canvas.

 

Sun’s notes dance in the fire of a major scale.

The stones breathe heavily. And the sky is getting heavier.

My personal “I” crumbles into billions of “Us”. Wheat bows

before the ground and falls asleep. There is no mystery.

 

Water falls upon the puddles. At some other place, which

we can’t see, the painter picks the brush. Brown decay. Dance

of the substances. There are tracks in the mud which remember

the oblivion. The dung beetle pushes and hides his own sun.

 

In each fireplace a small Prometheus is working hard.

Crystals lick the windows, the silence chew whiteness.

Through the keyholes into the hearts of the cats the big sleep

passes. Darkness. And there is nothing else.

 

The Old City

 

I’m walking down the street of bygone greatness

the street of sleeping old eunuchs

the street of no children and white cats

the narrow street of absorbing darkness

the street where the moon moans for forgiveness

 

And I still walk down the street of forgotten Nazis

where black dogs stand in circle and look at me

with oily eyes empty of regret

and drawn blinds behind the windows of dark

centuries-old houses who have witnessed the rolling

heads of kings and queens on the cobbled street

 

I finally found myself in front of the cemetery

where there are no streets but only stones with names

and alleys covered with dirt and dark grass

whispering silently to each other of the future

and two gravediggers dressed in dark overalls

which shovel after shovel build a new bed

 

This is how it all begins said one of them

This is how it all ends said the other one

and the endless sky above with billions of

dead stars as their only witness

and me of course but I was somewhere else.

 

Awakening

 

To fall asleep in the theatre

during a play

about your life

in which the main character

dies at the end.

Peycho Kanev is the author of 10 poetry collections and three chapbooks, published in the USA and Europe. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Rattle, Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others. His new book of poetry titled A Fake Memoir was published in 2022 by Cyberwit.