Таня Кольовска / Tanya Kolyovska

Tanya Kolyovska was born in Sofia. After she graduated from the Sofia University, she has been working as a freelance journalist and translator.

Her first book of poems Elusive Light was published in 1988. In 1997 her second book Bird’s Compassion came out, followed by The Bottom of the Hat (1998) and Farther on Try Alone (2004). She has been awarded the Antonietta Drago Grand Prize at an All-European Poetry Contest in Rome.

Even though for the time being she is mainly translating (one of her latest translations is the best selling book Gomorra by Roberto Saviani), when she does put down verse, in the words of Kristin Dimitrova, “Kolyovska’s poems make you bleed, but they do not allow for whining”.

ITALY

The cypresses,

ah, the cypresses –

slender shadows

of radiant souls.

         * * *

When autumn smiles,

the rains

will hush up right away,

and in the very

corner of the eye

the gentle profile

of blood that won’t be shed

will be reflected.

OCTOBER

Across a well of autumn rays

the street sets out

for the sky.

The trees flow down molten.

Homeless dogs

warm the sidewalk.

The shadows vanish.

ORGAN

With austere pipes

God plays

His melody.

His back turned to the audience.

APRIL

Entered into spring

the trees

do not set feet

upon the earth.

       * * *

The old woman

I buy flowers from

every year

throughout the years….

Like a dry tiny blade of grass

she sways gently in the garden –

larger and larger,

amidst flowers –

taller and taller,

waiting for me –

every year

throughout the years.

        * * *

Perhaps it really is

time to go.

I bow.

I bow.

I bow.

My back is upright

and my neck is smooth.

        * * *

Men don’t bestow me

with memories somehow.

Assiduous, obedient,

devoted.

Counterclockwise.

That’s how

they implement the sentiment:

befuddled fantasies and efforts.

I know sand:

the grains are not worth counting.

        For K.

The suggestive curve

of a cat’s back.

Sheerly guarded

distances.

My sunlit

quiet expanse—

how laughably

conquered empires.

          * * *

Children

with eyes like wastelands

in scraped out faces, swirled

away from our innocence,

in the outskirts of the world.

What kind of random optimism

could lend a reason that consoles?

Children

with eyes like deserts

search our souls.

TURKEY-COCK DANCE

Carmen looks like a little old wife

now used to what comes in her life.

But her turkey mate stomps,

he’ll split the earth

because that’s the way he makes love.

His wing cuts the thick air,

the blood bubbles red in his wattles.

A few feathers, detached and unaware,

spot the knife being whetted.

                * * *

The sun and the little old woman

hunchbacked

walk down the path

towards me.

I can store them

as a memory

the sun and the old woman.

I am but a visitor.

STREET MUSICIAN

Turned loose,

the fingers draw out

a straightforward declaration of love

and the lips fiddle away

moist tenderness—

while shame lurks sleeping

at the bottom of the hat.

LIKE THIS

Like this:

with my living

with my dead

and the raindrops behind the windowpane.

So:

charged with decency and force

not becoming worse.

For long:

in the quiet understanding

of our cautious feelings.

TRIPTYCH

For Krassi

1

The rainbow loses

all stability

hurled belly down.

2

The street was expressive –

with shades in the eyes

and the splashed about skies.

3

A talking olive tree.

           * * *

A sound from someone else’s song—

a sign my own shall make its mark.

Birds like ashes.

Autumn.

Husky dark.

A WINK

To those who

love me,

I dedicate

my immortality.

(It’s delightful to perform

miracles

when there are

onlookers.)

MAGIC

Only fall and I can manage

Being beautiful and ageing.

© Tanya Kolyovska

© Translated from the Bulgarian by Valentin Krustev