EKATERINA GRIGOROVA

 

 

Ad Infinitum

 

It’s discomforting that we cannot be open with each other

without stipulating we keep the most important things unspoken.

There’s so much discomfort in our inability to

cope with the grievous psychology of the market for feelings,

and in the discovery that we love our children more and more,

while earlier we thought we loved them absolutely -

that we can love less and less, 

declaring instructively or with a fateful fear 

that we will love forever - whatever happens in this world.

And whatever happens, this discomfort will last forever -

that trepidation will no longer exist

                             when the white rake of a different day

fine-combs our thoughts.

It’s discomforting that our thoughts might remain the same

transformations of a well-known centrifugal cry

                                                that will never

allow us to blend I love you with I love you with I love you with I love you 

 

Translated by Hristo Dimitrov and Tom Phillips

 

Tom Pees On The Bedroom Suite

For A Second Time

 

I feel the vibrations of fear and joy -

it’s nice to get angry over such things.

You pour everything into this trivial incident,

even talk about stench and the unbearable,

threatening to throw out the cat just like that.

And at that moment when you’re led by other thoughts,

my daughter bursts into tears - real tears,

tears triggered by my threat to throw out the cat.

This is a simile! She cries sincerely like Job,

lamenting the struggle with an insurmountable force.

And then another voice comes out from the slimy

bubbles of that familiar female yowling,

knowing nothing else than that it‘s draining

like a puddle in the corridor

where I’m seeing her off to school and I’m kissing her dryly

while she smiles, as if unconsciously -

like a child who’s learned how not to drop the knife.

 

Translated by Hristo Dimitrov and Tom Phillips

 

Normality

 

I remember the brown water of the Baltic.

The internal discipline of a boundless 16 degrees.

Petra gave an ugly shriek and a flock of ducks shot

into the sky; we shouted wildly, raised our elbows

as if from nettles; our legs kicked

and sank into the seaweed fronds.

Imperceptibly they brought our beautiful housewife

to shore, they plaited her arms like ropes,

they took her to the water

and while summer held to the blown grass,

while the clouds above us departed without hearing,

her face concealed a sigh,

drawn

inward

and still deeper

than a normal thought.

 

Translated By Tom Phillips

 

EKATERINA GRIGOROVA

 

EKATERINA GRIGOROVA (born in 1975 in the town of Dobrinishte) is a Bulgarian poet and author of numerous poetry publications. Three poetry books by Ekaterina Grigorova have been published and two other are in process of publication. Published Books include: 1. “Faraday cage” (2013, Janet – 45 Print and Publishing) 2. “Board on the Wet Sand” (Ergo, 2014) 3. Empty dawn (Small Stations Press, 2019).  Ekaterina Grigorova is a laureate of the Binyo Ivanov National Award (for contributing to the development of Bulgarian poetic syntax) in 2014, as well as the Slaveykov National Award (second prize) in the same year. Her poems have been translated into English, Italian, Hindi, Greek and other languages.