Veneta Kolev lives and works in Santa Clara Valley. She writes poetry in both Bulgarian and English.
I come from very distant places
when you stop by and you ask
what I am cooking on the stove.
How can I put in common words
the strangest recipe I follow:
after each ingredient in the pot
I put aside a line for a poem.
After the mustard seeds I travel
under rainbows in a carriage,
edgy stones under my seat
reminding that everything is paid for.
After the onion and the grains
I spread wide wings over valleys,
a tiny feather plucked by the wind
lands on a little boy's hat.
And when time comes for the basil
I head high into the receding sky
to thank the shiny naughty star
that pours its magic over me.
Do you really think I can put
all my mind in pots and spices
when the world with thousands voices
cries in its eternal dream.
Why do you lock us
When - thinly breathing, dizzy -
in your ticking dungeon
and with thousands of gears,
in our souls deeply pierced,
you drag us in your roller coaster?
finally you release us
from your precise cruel clutches,
we can see the dungeon walls
are nothing else but folly,
and you - hysterically laughing,
drag other unsuspecting parties.
Internal flames
stretch my arms and legs
with the hot air of desire
to look for acknowledgment
that I am alive
and lead me in the labyrinth of paths
toward a made up friend.
For just a while
I'll chat and laugh
and feel again
that I am swimming
with the stream.
With each word
it seems
the flames diminish
and get eaten
by the ashes.
Then I shrink again
in the next non-existence.
After one of many
Fermented passions from the past,
In dim temples from a past life
I catch a glimpse of you
Every night the Moon rolls up
conversations with you
that make me look for the Moon
between tree tops
and hear the soft breathing
of ants and flowers,
I wonder if a grateful being
has had the pleasure
to devote you a song.
and battles, prayers, suffering
have carved your kinsmen's faces
to make the golden patina
of your soft and warming smile.
you got together with your God
and kept him always alive
in every worm and all
that sought asylum.
in vast rice fields
with frozen feet to look above you
toward the barren hills
with the many eyes of Buddha
that humbly swallow
the tears of the Universe..
its sphere in the path familiar
and spreads its distant softness.
And every day your gentle face
offers the eternity for nothing.
***
An airplane split
***
If I could stand
***
The skyscrapers have cut
***
The lace of the horizon
The sky in two
I held on to the trail
Like a kite.
Behind my back,
I'd see the puzzle of the world
With my own piece in it.
Big pieces from the sky;
They make up for that
With their elevators.
Waits for the night
To get completed
With dark silken yarn.
Superb is life,
I let all birds nest in my eyes
among the flowers I've kept forever.
I climb up on a song as on a silken ladder
inserted in the sky
from where I dive
into the ocean of my dreams -
surreal, twinkling, and luring.
I am thankful that I sink
into the eyes of passers-by
and they keep me in the minds
of their meek and docile shadows.
I let my soul graze in meadows
of beautiful and rare words
with fragrances that penetrate
the formidable caves of sorrow.
I pray to stay forever where
the crosspoint of all dreams floats,
myself a floating mirage
in the eternal dream of Gods.
In a river
of pollution
and impatience
doze
untaken roads.
On alleged passengers
I pour
the loftiness
of the bridge.
On the rolling
unstable like its days
shaky ground -
glossy houses,
seeking shelter
from ever-consuming clouds
of fog.
Abruptly
stop the streets
and in steep
laughing leaps
hurl themselves
into the ocean.
As in yarn unwoven
the sidewalks are entangled
in the smell of fish and salt.
Falls
the wharf's banality
under the torrent
of a melody from the Andes,
and pour with it
their love the musicians
in the hands of this city -
shiny,
strange,
and reckless,
perched on the edge of its boldness,
risen from the ashes
to be immortal.
Sometimes
when you are not here
and when I confuse
the cadence of your steps
with my breathing;
when so softly
your hands climb
on the sunny side
of my shoulders' hills
and I try
to meet them
in the stillness
of your non-presence;
when soaring
with the creeping silence
hangs
the echo of your voice -
then I am more than clear
it does not matter
where you are.
There are two trees
I loved to pass by
all red and round,
big and quiet -
two giants
sprouted from the dirt
so long ago.
From their crowns
planes used to take off -
their trace, uncertain
pillar on which
the banner of the sky
sported its deepening silk.
The tranquillity used to wrap them
in two bundles of colors
and throw them into my eyes.
Every day
their image went deeper
toward my eyes' bottoms
until I had it sealed
forever.
..
Now
they awkwardly echo
the constant complaints
of the street
against tires;
and their fallen leaves,
addicted to exhausted fumes,
rush after each car
and fight with one another
to inhale more and more
in the roar of motors...
They throw their bodies on the rocks
like sinners begging mercy from the sky.
With their loose contagious passion
they burst in millions drops and bubbles
devouring the frightened yellow sand.
In a past life being air,
transformed in air they try to be,
and indeed, their manes full of bubbles
entrap a thin layer of the sky.
When they, subdued, release it,
with warning roar they retreat
to their unborn sisters, cuddled
in the blue belly of the ocean,
to wait for yet another turn
in their everlasting play.
All text and images in The Central California Poetry Journal are copyrighted. Copyright by © by Scott Galloway 1998. All rights are reserved. See main Journal page for
copyright information.
Authors and poets submitting original materials to this journal retain all rights to their
original work, except those rights specifically assigned in writing to Solo Publications including the right to publish the submitted work in The Central California Poetry Journal. The poems on this page are copyrighted by the author. Copyright © Veneta Kolev 1998.
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