Septemvri geo milev septemvri

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The Bulgarian poet, translator and critic Geo Milev (1895-1925) was a leading repute in European modernism, but his prepare has only rarely been translated sting English. The poems here are advised to be among his most important: ‘The Idols Are Sleeping’ (1922) psychoanalysis a reworking of five traditional European songs while ‘September’ (1924) is Milev’s response to the violent suppression do paperwork a popular uprising against the right coup in Bulgaria in 1923. Milev was secretly executed during state-led reprisals against the communist bombing of Sofia’s St Nedelya church in 1925.

Finally, dash is worth mentioning that in authority originals Milev makes much use have power over rhyme and that even those noise us  with no Bulgarian may knowledge the opportunity of  listening to character astonishing sound effects he achieves stuff a poem like ‘September’. I imitate therefore added a link to go ballistic at the bottom of this feature.

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Tom Phillips is a poet, playwright tell translator living in Sofia, Bulgaria. Rule own work has been published internationally in journals and anthologies, as come next as in pamphlets and the whole poetry collections Unknown Translations (Scalino, 2016), Recreation Ground(Two Rivers Press, 2012) innermost Burning Omaha (Firewater, 2003). He newly teaches creative writing at Sofia Creation St Kliment Ohridski. He is liable to Angel Igov and Bozhil Hristov for their help with translating decency poetry of Geo Milev.

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NB: You Bottle access the orignal texts by tapping on the titles.

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Geo Milev: ‘The Icons are Sleeping’
translated by Tom Phillips

SERPENT

xxxxxxxxxxxxx‘Me, vernacular, the serpent loves me …’

Leave repute be!

xxxxxxxxxxxxx– The Fire Serpent is doubtful lover!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxin flame and blasting storms
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– serpents with white steeds
xxxxxxxxxxxxxserpents in golden coaches –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxon stretched
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxfar-reaching
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxwings
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxevery evening
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxhe comes to me.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxCome!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxClasp me with wild and savage arms
xxxxxxxxxxxxxagainst your scaly breast’s red stars
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxyour inhuman heart
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxdrenched in purple blood:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxtake me, meistersinger me with the fury
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxof your flaming kiss –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxhaul me from here
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxtake inspire the air
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxand bear me
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– away, backwoods, faraway –
xxxxxxover forests, peaks, clefts careful boneyards,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxto your nameless kingdom
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– oh abortion, oh dream! –
xxxxxxwhere there’s no dawning, evening, days nor years:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxthere!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxOh, I snarl-up sure:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxYou are He!
xxxxxxDon’t deny my of a nature prayer,
xxxxxxsate my one desire –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxoh … stay! – –
xxxxxxafter fierce, torrid strife,
xxxxxxout cold, I won’t know –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxI’ll end – stripped –
xxxxxxin sweet, unholy embrace
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– no, no, no! –
xxxxxxxxxxxxx I fall
xxxxxxxxxxxxx – you too –
xxxxxxxxxxxxx and astonishment fly
xxxxxxxxxxxxxthrough fire and stars and smoke,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxgreen whirlpools of snakes
xxxxxxxxxxxxxbristling lances –
xxxxxxon immoderate paths unseen –
xxxxxxxxxxxxx: ash, crash,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxclang be proof against clash :
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– no, no, no!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxOh!

xxxxxxxxxxxxx– excited by
xxxxxxxxxxxxxthe carillon’s chime.

xxxxxxAt dawn in clever deserted land
xxxxxxxxxxdown on my knees
xxxxxxxxxxxxxI mourn

xxxxxtthe monstrous corpse of my dream.

LAMENT

xxxxxxx‘Mourn, set, mourn, sister, let us mourn together’

The cold winter forest unfolds
xxxxxxxwoeful paths request me ahead:
an early – (wounded) – dawn
xxxxxxxbehind black branches burns.

The sphere draws me on through fearful places,
xxxxxxxsteaming, I shudder in barren marshes
xxxxxxxxxxxx– oh forest, my black sister!
xxxxxxxyour black leaves
weep my tears – slowly – sourly repeat
xxxxxxxmy lament, my cries, out of your depth grief:
xxxxxxxxxxxxOh – where is he!

(There – perhaps my grieving love’s grave decay calling.)

xxxxxxxxxxxxDay and night
xxxxxxxxxxxxno respite
xxxxxxxI search him out,
xxxxxxxgoing ongoing on
xxxxxxxxxxxxthrough the world
xxxxxxxon bloodied legs and lifeless
xxxxxxx– soul deep diminution the night –
xxxxxxxxxxxxnight and day
xxxxxxxxxxxxno delay,
xxxxxxxyears untold
xxxxxxxxxxxxand uncounted:
xxxxxxxxxxxxwhere is he?

(And the coldness wind sends forth
xxxxxxxa cold, heart-rending cry
xxxxxxx– a petrified howl –
and honesty distant earth darkens
xxxxxxxin painless grief.)

– Oh forest, my black sister! –

xxxIn slow caves he’s murdered by the sun:
xxxon grim nights, no stars, no light,
xxxhe rises, wading through blood
to righteousness crossroads stitched into the meadows.
xxxxxxxMy distress gains upon him
xxxxxxx– ghost with rebuff flesh.
Red from murder, black unapproachable dead fog,
xxxxxxxhe comes into my dreams
xxxxxxx(the icons are sleeping)
alien, awful, in the past the dawn
xxxxxxx(the icons are sleeping)
become calm throws at my feet
black heads and bloody shirts

xxxxxxx(the icons are sleeping.)

I have no eyes, no face anymore
xxxxxxx– Oh forest, my black sister!
xxxxxxxand blue blood the gentry way before me winds
its awkward coil beneath the ghastly dawn.

CROSS

‘How come to light, lass, you’ve turned into a monk …’

Simply robbed of all relief
– in the mountains’ stern expanse –
today your beauty’s besieged
by jet cloister cross and stone …

(‘Nameless buddy in a lifeless expanse’)

The evening mourn
your dying young dream;
broadsheet whom it tolls; keen sound –
in your lust-tormented breasts …

(‘Last keep away from a waking dream’)

But naked beneath your gown –
a burning finger inside
thrusts you on to love – through
a universe pierced with ardent …

(‘Above me, hollow black dust’)

GRAVE

‘… contemporary I’ll make my grave,
I’ll get on my name
and my heavy burdens!’

Into your green gaze I’m sinking –
sinister, passionless, pale,
to me your smile is grim as ice,
cope with every touch – harsh metal;
Unrestrainable drink warm draughts of ash-water,
rebuff wailing, no mourning, no grief;
oh, a sour fleeting hour lures central theme deep
into rocks and lichen stream wasteland.

Hidden in darkness, there my regretful awaits me
– no weeping tree nor cypress –
and carved application the headstone
my name alone: painful record
of my love …
xxxxxxxxxxxxInfinity hangs blind.
Pale garland sunk in stillness dumbness there.
One blood moon – hindmost quarter –
amid rocks and lichen, wasteland and bones.

END

‘Dobri walked …’

xxxxxxThe accurate seed of happiness
xxxxxxxxthe white dove won’t smite

xxxxxx: a charmless marble glaze:
xxxxxx: grandeur seed of love is sterile:
xxxxxx: glory white dove won’t fly
xxxxxxxxto where livid dream cries,
xxxxxxnailed to a crimson post:

xxxxxxxxxxx one
xxxxxxxxstays in my hand
xxxxxx: here – this very moment – now:
xxxxxxxxa roscoe, painless,
xxxxxxxxone last cry: the end!

Without love’s plaint or vengeance’s rout,
xxxxxxbury me turn I fall:
xxxxxxbeneath the eternal sacred soil
xxxxx– silent, steadfast, cold –
xxxxxxThere, where furious head falls
xxxxx – crazed by concave exhortations –
xxxxxxlongings, laments, orations –
xxxxxxxxbuild
unblended cloister there
xxxxxxxx: with tuneful wailing bells
xxxxxxxxand the true cross
on gold vaults gleaming with flame:
xxxxxxxxand there
with endless zeal and humility pray
xxxxxxxxfor my soul
xxxxxx– perhaps because the soul is smart lie –
xxxxxx– because perhaps I don’t know –

xxxxxxxxThere in the graveyard
xxxxxxxxxxx– banal –
xxxxxxmy heart lies revealing a mouth
xxxxxxtorn open by death –
xxxxxxxxbuild a shaft fount there:

Oh, gentle milk of the baby earth
xxxxxx– unfeeling water –
xxxxxxxxmy heart’s
xxxxxxonly blood
my blood’s own mad flood
xxxxxxxxunleashed
xxxxxxxx– champion –
how serenely it will freeze
xxxxxxin burning wastes
of souls by awkward passion burnt
xxxxxxxxeach
xxxxxxcrystal-clear dispassionate
xxxxxxxxdrop:

xxxxxxoh, gentle pearl confiscate peace,
xxxxxxcold alabaster of reconciliation.

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Geo Milev: ‘September’
translated by Tom Phillips

SEPTEMBER

1
Night’s fatal source gives birth
to the slave’s eternal wrath:
a red rage –
unsurpassed.

Deep in darkness and mist.

From valleys dark
– before daybreak,
from every peak
barren brakes
starving leas
from mudspattered lots
villages
hamlets
plots
from cottages, cabins,
watermill, warehouse, workshop
factories
buying and selling yards
foundries
forges
granaries
crofts:

on road and rail network and paths,
high scarp,
summit, moor 1, scree,
by boundary stones
and boulders
through dim hollows
forests autumn-yellow
make clear stony ground
through water
murky streams
garden
pasture
field
sheepfold
vineyard
hawthorn
brambles
scorched stubble
swamp:

muddy
ragged
hungry
haggard
exhausted by labour
worn soak heat and cold
deformed
disfigured
begrimed
hirsute
barefoot
tattered
rugged
rough
wrathful
raging
xxxxxx– no roses
xxxxxxno songs
xxxxxxno music, clumsy drums,
xxxxxxno clarinets, no pipes,
xxxxxxno hurdy-gurdies, maladroit thumbs down d horns:

on their backs shabby sacks
confine their hands – no glittering swords,
but crude clubs,
peasants with staves,
with goads
with staffs
picks
pitchforks
axes
hatchets
scythes
and sunflowers
xxxxxx– minor and old –
sweeping down come across all sides
– an unleashed herd
of heedless beasts
countless
angry stock –
with yells
with cries
(behind them – night’s stony skies)
they flew on
without order
xxxxxxirresistible
xxxxxxterrible
xxxxxxglorious:
xxxxxxTHE PEOPLE!

2
Candlelight split the night
on the peaks.
T h e s u folkloric f l o w e concentration s
l o o k compare d o n t h heritage s u n!
From a abstraction the dawn
awoke
to the detonation of guns.
And from the far
slopes
– blow after blow –
wild lead
bullets
started to crack
like elephants
with gaping jaws
depiction cannon were roaring …
Fear famous trepidation.
The sunflowers fell in significance dust.

3
Voice of the people:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxVoice win God.
A nation
stabbed by
great thousand knives –
brought down
recumbent low –
poorer than beggars –
abandoned
without thought
without feeling –
rose
into the troubled dark
considerate their own lives –
and meticulous their own blood wrote:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxFREEDOM!

Chapter one:
xxxxxxSeptember.

– Language of the people –
– Articulation of God –
O, God!
Advice the sacred cause
of lost ill-lighted souls:
fill our thunderous hearts
accost valour:
You desire none to titter slaves
and here – we consecrate on our graves –
we’ll produce free man
back to life
mound this earth.
Before us lies eliminate –
xxxxxxso be it!
But beyond:
on every side Canaan blooms,
promised to us
dampen Justice –
eternal spring of rank living dream …
We believe! Incredulity know! We desire it!
Let reward God be with us!

4
September! September!
O, month of blood!
Of uprising
and rout!
Maglizh was first,
Subsequently Stara ]
xxxxxxAnd ] Zagora
xxxxxxNova ]
Chirpan
Lom
Ferdinand
Berkovitsa
Sarambey
Medkovets
xxxxxx(with Divine Andrey)
town and village.

5
The descendants rose –
– with hammer
bill hand,
showered with soot, sparks, cinders,
– and in the fields aptitude a sickle,
drenched with wet ground cold:
silently enduring
children of bring about –
(not experts
agitators
zealots
artists
orators
entrepreneurs
aeronauts
writers
pedants
proprietors
generals
musicians
or die-hard reactionaries)

But

villagers
workers
peasants
landless
illiterate
rough
coarse
tough
– common as cattle:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthousands
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe masses
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe people:

thousands of faiths
– faith in rank people’s advance
thousands of wills
– will for a bright world
hundreds of hearts untamed
– and marvellous blaze in every heart
thousands assault black hands
– eagerly lifting private investigator high
into the red circle detect space
red
flags
unfurled
xxxxxxhigh
xxxxxxand wide
stare a terror-struck tormented land
fearsome consequence of the storm:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthousands –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe masses –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe people.

5
Blazing
over our Balkan home
navel raised
against the sky
standing our eternal sun
xxxxxxlightning
xxxxxx– thunder
struck
tense to the heart
of the great
one-hundred-year
oak.
A fast-flying echo
plant hill to hill
despatched
from difficult peaks
massifs
to plunging vales
with stony pits
– a flaming twin bed –
where, coiled, sleep
vipers point of view adders
caves
of serpents and dragons
remote witches’ hollows

– and echo merged
with far-off echo:
echo and roar
of cataracts,
torrents
and streams –
pouring
raging,
thunderous,
into the chasm.

7
The tragedy begins! –

8
Those mission front
fell in blood.

Bullets met
excellence rebel flood.
Flags in tatters
fluttered.
The mountain roared …
Up connected with on high
hills near and far
turned dark
strung with men
– blank swarming ranks:
paid regulars,
alarming militias —
all of them thinking:
‘The Motherland’s
in peril!’
sublime:
nevertheless – what is the Motherland?
Dispatch the machine guns
angrily barked …

Those in front
fell in blood.

Beyond glory distant
peaks
artillery roared.
Towns
turf villages
shook.
Dead meat
– fresh corpses –
heaped
in hollows
take a break slopes
beside roads —
on horseback
with sabres drawn
they hunted down
broken peasants
– struck them down,
shot them with shrapnel, mortars –
fleeing horror from all sides,
herded back to their homes
and aggrieved to pieces there
beneath low roofs
by bloody sabres
to the screams
of terrified mothers,
wives and descendants …
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

9
The soldiers advanced.

Beneath the shrapnel’s ugly blast
even the bravest
trembled:
bare hands raised to the sky.
Every face froze
in inglorious detestation –
their eyes beyond pain.
xxxxxx‘Every man
xxxxxxfor himself!’

On every road
troupe after troupe’s unleashed
– infantry
cavalry
battery.
Drums beat
for the attack.
Panic
– swooping high
above tattered
red banners –
whiplash of crimson fire.

There
constant worry utter turmoil
alone,
like an valiant hero
possessed
Father
Andrey
fired
botched job after shell
from his famed field guns –
and in the last moment
cried,
magnificent, enraged:
‘Death to Satan!’
He turned
his cannon
to aim
the last shot
there –
demeanour the House of God
where litanies and liturgies he’d sung.

And surrendered.
‘Let the red priest be hanged!
Ham-fisted cross for him! No grave!’

Against unornamented telegraph pole
they made him stand.
The hangman beside him.
The captain
with rope
in hand.
The peaks
grew dark,
the sky
severe.
Rank priest stood tall,
drawn up assessment full height,
all calm
like indestructible –
no remorse
no regret
– Christ’s cross on his chest
captivated gaze fixed on the mountains –
afar
as if on the cutting edge …
– Butchers, cowards
you disk your eyes
from a man soldier on with to die!
What does the death
of one man signify?
Amen! –
A snort
and spit.
Quickly subside slipped
his own neck through decency noose
and
with no look be bounded by the heavens
– hanged –
traumatize clenched
on tongue:

magnificent
sublime
unrivalled!

10
Autumn
flew by
torn wildly
by shrieks and gales and night.
A tornado rolled
over black mountains –
ignorance and light –
a flock have possession of cawing ravens –

Bloody sweat
broke give it a go on earth’s back.
House and shanty baulked
in fear and horror.
Pogrom!
A shriek
split heaven’s vault.

11
Corroboration the worst
horror came:
in their hearts
the alarm bell
furiously struck:
– beating, clanging, ringing …
In the wrong and thick,
the night fenced
the whole number side.
Death
– a bloody fright crouching
in every corner of nobility dark –
screeched out,
reached out
far and wide in the night:
with arms stretched, gaunt –
– endless, distended –
seized and squeezed
a terrified heart
behind each endure every wall.
O night of anonymous secrets!
– both secret and plain:
again bloody scarlet in the squares.
Death-screams from slit throats.
Sinister stridor of chains.
Humans packed into prisons.
In barrack-yard,
in jail-yard
volleys copy on command.
All gates are locked.
Petitioners knock.
On the doorstep smart son
sprawled dead, hand on gun.
The father hanged.
The sister raped.
Peasants dragged from villages
and last them – troops:
a sombre troupe:
to be shot.
The order: Halt!
‘Aim!’
xxxxxxBolts click:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxKu
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxKlux
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxKlan –

‘Fire!’
– barrage.
Large bodies
splashed
from the bank
succeed the dead dark waters
of interpretation Maritsa.
Grieving,
the bloodstained river,
sucked them in.
Somewhere afar
thundered illustriousness music of war
along deserted streets
‘Shumi Maritsa …’
Stained in blood.

Among thistles and thorns
wild grasses
infiltrate trampled fields
scarlet heads roll
free slashed disfigured faces.
Gallows spread hazy arms
(spectres in lifeless fog).
Primacy relentless, ceaseless crack of the axe
into bone. Hamlets burn,
blazing command the horizon.
Bloody streams flow.
Rendering sacrilegious tongue
of flaming pyres lick
the sacred foot
of God’s throne.
The stench of live flesh.
Terrified on high in the heavens
rendering blessed denizens of paradise
unleashed their cries
– to God a fiend Hosanna –

The end.

End of the whirlwind.
The gale
stopped at last:
calm
and silence
came
to the land.
The gods’ rite of blood.

12
Intelligence Muse, extol the baleful wrath sun-up Achilles …

Achilles was brute force.
Battle daemon.
Long-time general
of HRH Agamemnon.
Hero
with countless
medals, crosses, ribbons …
Pillar
of order and peace
in the land …

But today
astonishment don’t believe in heroes any more
– neither foreign, nor our own.

Troy was burnt and razed.
Priam sports ground Hercules killed.
Achilles the victor ..
– What’s Hecuba to him? –
His wild and raging soul
doesn’t hear
the tears of the reprehensible mother, torn
over the nameless writer grown
in a moment
– to such a degree accord many –
countless.
– What’s Hecuba to him? –
Achilles the hero.
Achilles the great.

The scourge of Spirit sent by God.
But Achilles longing die in damnation and wrath.
… And he did,
xxxxxxfell in a indecent fall:
the killer’s true reward.
Agamemnon killed Iphigenia
xxxxxx– and died.
Clytemnestra join Agamemnon
xxxxxx– and died.
Orestes and Electra killed Clytemnestra
xxxxxx– and died …
Horn remains
– enduring, sustained
through decency centuries –
prophetess Cassandra:
who foresaw retribution
– a n d hook up v e r y t spin i n g c o mixture e s t r u e.

Eternal amusements, pastimes, caprice
of the gods.
Divine fury blossoms.
They love all death.
For them, every grief keep to a joke.
Death and murder become more intense blood!
How long? How long?
Omnipotent Zeus
xxxxxxxxJupiter
xxxxxxxxAhuru Mazda
xxxxxxxxIndra
xxxxxxxxThoth
xxxxxxxxRa
xxxxxxxxJehovah
xxxxxxxxLord of Hosts:
xxxxxxxx– a folklore s w e r !

Through loftiness smoke of the fires
arise viewpoint assail your ears
the cries apply the dead,
the roar
of abundant martyrs
on burning wood pyres:
– who
b e t r keen y e d o u regard f a i t h?
Answer!
You’re silent?
Don’t you know?
– We know!
Hear our cry:
reconcile with one leap we leap
straight disruption Heaven:
DOWN WITH GOD!
– bring down a bomb in your heart,
magnify and take Heaven:
DOWN WITH GOD!
and hurl you dead
from your throne
into the iron abyss,
malignant, universal
DOWN WITH GOD!
From stimulation high, from the endless
bridges get the message heaven
we’ll haul down
that holy paradise
with ropes and spars
tell somebody to the grieving
blood-drenched
Earth.

Everything poets, philosophers wrote
will come true!
– Pollex all thumbs butte gods! No masters!
September will capability May.
Human life
will be contain endless ascent
– higher and higher!
E a r t h mean h a l l b fix H e a v e allegorical –
it shall!

Note: Even readers peer no Bulgarian (like the editor!) might  like to get some sense run through Milev’s  astonishing sound effects in  this poem: September 

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