Pirinski poems

from the Bulgarian of Z. Pavlov Pirinski


I loved you,
you loved me more.
I loved you,
you loved me not.
I needed you,
you ran from me.

Go, enjoy the peaks and abysses.
For you I was too level land.



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"Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger 

in water and cool my tongue" - Luke 16:24

The angels' tender touch
The water's cool caress -
these are the devils' most cunning torments.
Man can acclimate to anything
but momentary mercy.


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A secret grief
sleeps fitfully, hibernates erratically
in its chosen cave
waking now and then
to stretch, sigh, yawn, and defecate
to scratch its back against
the cavern's jutting stones
to look bleary-eyed out
at the pale morning light
and gauge the day -
to sniff the chill air with expectant malice
deciding whether today
   or tomorrow
      or perhaps next month
         to slouch towards Bethlehem -
to disdain the present
and turn in place a few times,
curling its dense bulk into an opaque ball,
and to sleep once more, furiously sleep
till tomorrow's expectant dawn.