ELENA ALEKOVA

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SYMPHONIES

 I am addicted to the pale glow of stanzas,
Their solemn and unique architecture,
The perfect harmony and the philosophy of their structure,
Their silence before winds wake up for action.

And then the mighty lightnings ripping up the meaning
Like maddened dogs with fangs of conflagration
In the presentiment of new words, new ways and a new being.
And the strict rule- Above all the proportion.

I love the sparkling candles in the true words' essence,
 And that uncanny crackle of the spheres
Occasioned by the heavy crash of meters, rhymes and the darkness
Of those signs that detach here and there.

The ease of iambus, the imposing might of trochee,
The quickened pulse of streamy anapest.
Do not forget the kick- start of the dactyl, so explosive,
the power of the dreaming amphibrach.

I love the sudden and uncomprehensive rising
In semi- darkness, shadows, between walls.
When the body trembles on the alter without surprisal
Aware of this journey of the soul.

 And the crumbled frescoes sparkle, come to life again
The dome pokes through the clouds' infinity.
And now the muted ringing of the soul just cannot be the same-
 It's part of silent cosmic symphony.

 As for the parody of the demonic question:
What remains when life is a faded vision?
The outset was just Words, the end will be in the stormy Stanzas
Of our brave hopes, drowned into derision.

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TOWN- I

 The sky's a palette of all hues, it's bluish- silver- pink and white
In a blink of an eye the day will be turned to a nightfall.
Mister Death will be lurking, prodigious and homeless tonight.
In dark stillness and clearness you will be feeling so small.

All hopes and all things reveal in the dark their delusive essence
At dusk- time it dissolves, flows away, everything vanishes.
A junk- dealer comes and bends over a bin, ignoring Death's presence
Importantly whistling on the brink of his abyss of ashes.

Feeling the burden of rags, shabby hopes and laughs on his shoulder
The junk- dealer is walking in this night, his pace is incessant,
Importantly whistling, while drawing nearer to the border…
At dawn- time his coat can be seen but he is no more present.

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TOWN- II

 Vague hope is burninig a hole in the soul, making you blissful-
 Something will happen, something that is beyond a question
And it will make everything shine like a natural crystal
Primitive gorgeous and happy will be even the vicious.
 
Do you have an idea where you can go, where you can stay,
Baby- girl tenderly hugging a small ragged dolly?
You have neither mother nor father although it's too early
To swallow your tears and cope all alone with life's folly.

Baby- girl have no fear although all this is frightening
And no one will help you, no one in this world will ever
Ask how you have paid for your bread, for the joy of surviving
does something torment you, do tears have poisonous flavour.

A baby- girl tenderly hugging small bedraggled dolly
Sleeps few paces away from the stairs, tenderly smiling,
While snowflakes are circling above singing: "Don't be worried"…
And angel her innocent soul to the Eden is guiding.

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COLTS

Life is a muddy river, life is a gust of a wind that whistles
And vanishes away in the boundlessness marking it wih grief
Two colts are playing on this country mile and the air is misty
and I don't know how long, I don't know why I don't even ask if…

Two colts are racing and chasing each other under the fiery sky
I don't ask if they are a mirage or a dream in my dreams,
Something precious now or in the future. One more second and the dusk
Falls on their backs painfully fluttering with its broken wings.

Bleeds the horizon. The mare anxiously neighs, seized by some fear
Two colts disappear, into the pitch dark night they are lost.
Poor colts, why you have failed to restrain this reckless flight, this race weird,
To curb the insanity of this lightning gallop of yours?

Life is a muddy river, life is just a gust of a wind, just a rustle,
Just a circle of seasons and eras, a whirlpool of souls.
There is no point in our existence in this cause- lacking cycle-
Time brings everything and everything with the fleeting time flows.
Everything is born by time. Everything with the fleeting time flows.
Now these colts are in my soul in their headlong gallop almost flying
And the mare is neighing and the days are passing us by.
You poor, innocent colts would I be able to guide your mad racing
I am also a horse that smelt the Death's smell anxiously neighs.

In the pitch dark night of my dream, this awful prodigious abyss,
I gallop blinded, ignorant of my destination and way
While in profound silence above me the starry universe sparkles
In the depths of its sombre womb conceiving the following day.

The hot confusions of the passion pass

I feel the hot confusions of the passion for
The mystery of something- nothing passing over.
My life draws in, conversely all the shadows grow
In the warm glow of its twilight. Now I feel colder

 Refreshed a lot by eternity's breath. Its roots
Are through my veins, my bones and all my fibres passing,
Making my long indomitable solitude
A tiny part of God's existence everlasting.

I wonder if I am indeed myself like this,
Reduced to being hardly visible but patient?
Like risen river that has just overflowed its
Old banks my spirit seeks new form and designation.

More real in its unreality the world
Reveals to me now its extremely diverse nature
I understood, people come back to their true core
after they've reached the very end of their departure.

Translation into English - Dimitar Karageorgiev