Zahari Zahariev
Zahari Zahariev (1989 – 2024) was born in Sliven and left this world far too early. He graduated in philosophy from Sofia University.
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His poetry is an unstoppable stream of vivid metaphors, a poetry of desire, oneiric poetry that rejects reality but also assimilates it—mythologizing its geographies. Zachari Zahariev published in a number of electronic and print outlets, and also released two collections of poetry – ‘A Handbook for Mythologizing the City’ (2017) and ‘Zen Drunk’ (2024).
THE AUTHOR’S VOICE
Поезията е:
Какъв е животът на твоята поезия (как се ражда, как порасва, как съзрява, как умира)?
Изкуството свързано ли е с политиката и проблемите на нашето време? Кои проблеми те гнетят?
Какво искаш да остане след думите?
Къде отиват ненаписаните истории?
The Loving Incision of Time
And it’s supposeedly August and yet, and grasses and wheat creak,
watermelons burst, pears fall, and cats at weddings, and the quince bites,
and you’re supposeedly full yet, you’re a sun, a melon, the girl’s neck prickles,
supposedly you’re a lot, supposedly you’re a bunch, and you’re whole, but it’s August, and it’s grass,
shadows sting, bite, wasps crack the grains, it’s hazy, and summer,
you walk, the river yawns, thirsty moans, rubs white teeth against fish,
and they flake and shine, tear up in the sun,
and it’s supposedly love and August and grass, the willows sway their call,
you look at their leaves, and you are enlightened blind, you opened your eyes to a candela,
you see August and grass burning, and you say to yourself, son, listen
to the donkeys, listen to the night of blind faiths, upturn the cart, break the pumpkin,
roll around in it in August in fish in wheat bread, hang yourself on the bell,
toll, toll, toll, and it mercy and yet, a cycle, the loving incision of time, and August,
in fact, and grass, and loving cats and secret frost in the shadows, morning, evening
midnight, mantises freeze, love screeches.
you stretch, you spread out, you are silent, you sow prayers and you are wind, with wind, you sing grasses August summer an embraced tree that weeps,
you gather the night in your palm you blow it into a harp you tied the girl’s hair
on a swing and run wild north wind, and it is grasses and August, and it’s wind, and North,
red yellow long round like a melon round like a beast, very quiet words, very quiet,
the leaves slowly play, the leaves slowly: it is a beast
August and
grass
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
To the herbs of love, the tigers and their offspring, Enyo purrs, That amber prince Lun
Through teeth and sun, unscrewing spinning top of the navel of summer to
spell me from tomorrow to the small age with a single grain
on Enyo’s coat alone, winter gnaws at me like wheat you spell me
where fleas bites him and he dances with the bag for North
early in the washed countenance you can glance your fate
how black men mend the white shadows of health
for my heels I spell that their wives secretly divine
mad with barefeet hearts stepping quietly among the herbs they grow
and the water, yes he water silent and no not to hear the shell universe
the universe water to water with quiet creation floats in the palms as it knows
you don’t spell us out, mother, and your daughters under the lads dream of the oats of the future
from it fields butterflies fly the sky and grows rich the first pure moon her navel
in it screwed backwards the first daybreak sun tiny mole
also a flea in the sheep on the back of the Cellar he has baptized us with water
you spell them out, mother, and with water you will resurrect us the men at the gates and Enyo’s black heels
stuck in their eyes while with rosaries they count the seeds of the watermelon
on which their tender caresses will return yes the women yes the women entangled
sleepily, a slow such a whirlwind among the treetops from the face of healing
they embroider themselves under the thread of their talking palms
seven billion to an infinity fireflies of talking hands
that on them the syllable by syllable mute women
bring themselves and with them
love yes
with themselves love
crucified over the abundant
they give birth birth birth the amorous cats of time
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
*** I have set out on the path
I have set out on the path,
I have set out
in life
and in death
with a tailwind of countless faces,
I wander!
I do not flinch,
I rot,
I read dead people
and I approach them,
their smiles,
their idle
dead consolations for
the dead,
I wander in a trance,
I talk on the wire,
I get impressed,
by his stopping
and by her sacred disdain – despise
speculative hinting,
that maybe in the autumn
something shall get clear,
that maybe,
that at some point everything,
that at some point,
someone
that never nothing,
listing
countless lives and destinies
and forever the meaning
and forever to hurt
and to bleed
and to fall silent,
to not stop,
to not arrange itself,
to be impossible to arrange and
to be named
to die
to get tangled in the web!
To be hated,
to be watery
and foggy
to be the empty heart
with
“no-definite purpose”
To be Eliot!
To
be the creed
of my father!
8.08.2011
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
What is poetry?
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Zahariev