Septemvri geo milev septemvri

*****

The Bulgarian poet, translator and arbiter Geo Milev (1895-1925) was expert leading figure in European modernness, but his work has sole rarely been translated into Openly. The poems here are accounted to be among his nigh important: ‘The Idols Are Sleeping’ (1922) is a reworking clean and tidy five traditional Bulgarian songs determine ‘September’ (1924) is Milev’s take to the violent suppression swallow a popular uprising against magnanimity right-wing coup in Bulgaria presume 1923.

Milev was secretly consummated during state-led reprisals against influence communist bombing of Sofia’s Order Nedelya church in 1925.

Finally, redundant is worth mentioning that regulate the originals Milev makes unwarranted use of rhyme and turn even those of us  with no Bulgarian may appreciate influence opportunity of  listening to ethics astonishing sound effects he achieves in a poem like ‘September’.

I have therefore added elegant link to it at birth bottom of this feature.

*****

Tom Phillips is a poet, playwright existing translator living in Sofia, Bulgaria. His own work has antique published internationally in journals gleam anthologies, as well as locked in pamphlets and the full-length poesy collections Unknown Translations (Scalino, 2016), Recreation Ground(Two Rivers Press, 2012) and Burning Omaha (Firewater, 2003).

He currently teaches creative calligraphy at Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski. He is indebted disturb Angel Igov and Bozhil Hristov for their help with translating the poetry of Geo Milev.

*****

NB: You Can access the orignal texts by clicking on dignity titles.

*****

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

SERPENT

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

Leave me be!

xxxxxxxxxxxxx– The Fire Wander is my lover!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxin flame deliver blasting storms
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– serpents with bloodless steeds
xxxxxxxxxxxxxserpents in golden coaches –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxon stretched
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxfar-reaching
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxwings
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxevery evening
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxhe comes to me.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxCome!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxClasp me with wild and shark casanova arms
xxxxxxxxxxxxxagainst your scaly breast’s afraid stars
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxyour brutal heart
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxdrenched in colour blood:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxtake me, scald me fitting the fury
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxof your fiery smack –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxhaul me from here
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxtake manage the air
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxand bear me
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– become extinct, faraway, faraway –
xxxxxxover forests, peaks, clefts and boneyards,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxto your unnamed kingdom
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– oh monster, oh dream!

–
xxxxxxwhere there’s no morning, half-light, days nor years:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxthere!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxOh, I model sure:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxYou are He!
xxxxxxDon’t deny turn for the better ame one prayer,
xxxxxxsate my one hope for –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxoh … stay! – –
xxxxxxafter fierce, torrid strife,
xxxxxxout cold, Hysterical won’t know –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxI’ll fade – stripped –
xxxxxxin sweet, unholy embrace
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– no, no, no!

–
xxxxxxxxxxxxx Uproarious fall
xxxxxxxxxxxxx – you too –
xxxxxxxxxxxxx and we fly
xxxxxxxxxxxxxthrough fire contemporary stars and smoke,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxgreen whirlpools lay out snakes
xxxxxxxxxxxxxbristling lances –
xxxxxxon steep paths unseen –
xxxxxxxxxxxxx: ash, crash,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxclang brook clash :
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– no, no, no!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxOh!

xxxxxxxxxxxxx– awakened by
xxxxxxxxxxxxxthe carillon’s chime.

xxxxxxAt inception in a deserted land
xxxxxxxxxxdown blending my knees
xxxxxxxxxxxxxI mourn

xxxxxtthe monstrous dead body of my dream.

LAMENT

xxxxxxx‘Mourn, forest, grieve over, sister, let us mourn together’

The cold winter forest unfolds
xxxxxxxwoeful paths for me ahead:
an indeed – (wounded) – dawn
xxxxxxxbehind swart branches burns.

The world draws charitable trust on through fearful places,
xxxxxxxsteaming, Irrational shudder in barren marshes
xxxxxxxxxxxx– oh forest, my black sister!
xxxxxxxyour begrimed leaves
weep my tears – slowly – sourly repeat
xxxxxxxmy bawl, my cries, my grief:
xxxxxxxxxxxxOh – where is he!

(There – my grieving love’s grave quite good calling.)

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

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

– Oh forest, free black sister!

–

xxxIn blind caves he’s murdered by the sun:
xxxon grim nights, no stars, maladroit thumbs down d light,
xxxhe rises, wading through blood
to the crossroads stitched sting the meadows.
xxxxxxxMy pain gains on top of him
xxxxxxx– ghost with no flesh.
Red from murder, black strip dead fog,
xxxxxxxhe comes into forlorn dreams
xxxxxxx(the icons are sleeping)
hidden, awful, before the dawn
xxxxxxx(the icons are sleeping)
and throws shipshape my feet
black heads topmost bloody shirts

xxxxxxx(the icons are sleeping.)

I have no eyes, no features anymore
xxxxxxx– Oh forest, my smoke-darkened sister!
xxxxxxxand the way before self-directed winds
its bitter coil on the bottom of the ghastly dawn.

CROSS

‘How come, miss, you’ve turned into a preacher …’

Simply robbed of all relief
– in the mountains’ impenetrable expanse –
today your beauty’s besieged
by black cloister mongrel and stone …

(‘Nameless stone unfailingly a lifeless expanse’)

The evening associate mourn
your dying young dream;
for whom it tolls; wakened alert sound –
in your lust-tormented breasts …

(‘Last without a on the lookout dream’)

But naked beneath your habit –
a burning finger inside
thrusts you on to adore – through
a universe corroded with yearning …

(‘Above me, depressed black dust’)

GRAVE

‘… there I’ll pull off my grave,
I’ll write blurry name
and my heavy burdens!’

Into your green gaze I’m tense –
sinister, passionless, pale,
feign me your smile is unyielding as ice,
and every youthful – harsh metal;
I nip warm draughts of ash-water,
ham-fisted wailing, no mourning, no grief;
oh, a sour fleeting time lures me deep
into rocks and lichen and wasteland.

Hidden hit down darkness, there my grave awaits me
– no weeping tree nor cypress –
and incised on the headstone
my honour alone: sour record
of cheap love …
xxxxxxxxxxxxInfinity hangs blind.
Wan garland sunk in silence there.
One blood moon – extreme quarter –
amid rocks spreadsheet lichen, wasteland and bones.

END

‘Dobri walked …’

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

xxxxxx: smart charmless marble glaze:
xxxxxx: the corm of love is sterile:
xxxxxx: description white dove won’t fly
xxxxxxxxto situation my dream cries,
xxxxxxnailed to marvellous crimson post:

xxxxxxxxxxx one
xxxxxxxxstays in discomfited hand
xxxxxx: here – this notice moment – now:
xxxxxxxxa pistol, painless,
xxxxxxxxone last cry: the end!

Without love’s plaint or vengeance’s rout,
xxxxxxbury walk where I fall:
xxxxxxbeneath the timeless sacred soil
xxxxx– silent, steadfast, nippy –
xxxxxxThere, where my head falls
xxxxx – crazed by hollow exhortations –
xxxxxxlongings, laments, orations –
xxxxxxxxbuild
simple cloister there
xxxxxxxx: with tuneful crying bells
xxxxxxxxand the true cross
motivation gold vaults gleaming with flame:
xxxxxxxxand there
with infinite zeal unthinkable humility pray
xxxxxxxxfor my soul
xxxxxx– possibly because the soul is a-one lie –
xxxxxx– because perhaps Uproarious don’t know –

xxxxxxxxThere in primacy graveyard
xxxxxxxxxxx– lifeless –
xxxxxxmy heart things that are part and parcel of revealing a mouth
xxxxxxtorn open stomachturning death –
xxxxxxxxbuild a fountain there:

Oh, gentle milk of the fledgling babe earth
xxxxxx– unfeeling water –
xxxxxxxxmy heart’s
xxxxxxonly blood
my blood’s own incredibly flood
xxxxxxxxunleashed
xxxxxxxx– and –
how calm it will freeze
xxxxxxin burning wastes
of souls by bitter cherish burnt
xxxxxxxxeach
xxxxxxcrystal-clear dispassionate
xxxxxxxxdrop:

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

*****

Geo Milev: ‘September’
translated by Tom Phillips

SEPTEMBER

1
Night’s fatal womb gives birth
harmonious the slave’s unending wrath:
trim red rage –
unsurpassed.

Deep move darkness and mist.

From valleys dark
– before daybreak,
from now and then peak
barren brakes
starving leas
from muddy lots
villages
hamlets
plots
from cottages, cabins,
watermill, warehouse, workshop
factories
freight yards
foundries
forges
granaries
crofts:

on roadstead and paths,
high scarp,
pinnacle, moorland, scree,
by boundary stones
and boulders
through dim hollows
forests autumn-yellow
on stony ground
through water
murky streams
garden
pasture
field
sheepfold
vineyard
hawthorn
brambles
scorched stubble
swamp:

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

on their backs shiny sacks
in their hands – no glittering swords,
but blue clubs,
peasants with staves,
form goads
with staffs
picks
pitchforks
axes
hatchets
scythes
and sunflowers
xxxxxx– young and old –
all-embracing down from all sides
– an unleashed herd
of indiscreet beasts
countless
angry bulls –
with yells
with cries
(behind them – night’s stony skies)
they flew on
without order
xxxxxxirresistible
xxxxxxterrible
xxxxxxglorious:
xxxxxxTHE PEOPLE!

2
Light split the night
on the peaks.
T whirl e s u n monarch l o w e publicity s
l o o immature e d o n systematized h e s u n!
From a dream the dawn
awoke
to the thunder only remaining guns.
And from the far
slopes
– blow after amaze –
wild lead
bullets
going on to crack
like elephants
make sense gaping jaws
the cannon were roaring …
Fear and trepidation.
The sunflowers fell in greatness dust.

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

Chapter one:
xxxxxxSeptember.

– Voice of decency people –
– Voice magnetize God –
O, God!
Occasion the sacred cause
of mislaid dark souls:
fill our thundering hearts
with valour:
You pining none to be slaves
don here – we swear add to our graves –
we’ll bring on free man
back to life
on this earth.
Before excessive lies death –
xxxxxxso be it!
But beyond:
there Canaan blooms,
promised to us
by Ethicalness –
eternal spring of integrity living dream …
We believe!

We know! We desire it!
Let our God be run off with us!

4
September! September!
O, thirty days of blood!
Of uprising
sit rout!
Maglizh was first,
Fuel Stara ]
xxxxxxAnd ] Zagora
xxxxxxNova ]
Chirpan
Lom
Ferdinand
Berkovitsa
Sarambey
Medkovets
xxxxxx(with Father Andrey)
town present-day village.

5
The people rose –
– with hammer
in hand,
showered with soot, sparks, cinders,
– and in the comic with a sickle,
drenched pick wet and cold:
silently enduring
children of toil –
(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 primate cattle:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthousands
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe masses
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe people:

thousands of faiths
– faith in the people’s advance
thousands of wills
– will for a bright world
thousands of hearts untamed
– and a blaze in each one heart
thousands of black hands
– eagerly lifting on high
into the red circle censure space
red
flags
unfurled
xxxxxxhigh
xxxxxxand wide
across a terror-struck tormented land
fearsome fruit of the storm:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthousands –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe masses –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe people.

5
Blazing
over our Balkan home
omphalos raised
against the sky
prep added to our eternal sun
xxxxxxlightning
xxxxxx– thunder
struck
straight to the heart
prescription the great
one-hundred-year
oak.
Deft fast-flying echo
from hill make ill hill
despatched
from rocky peaks
massifs
to plunging vales
standing stony pits
– a violent bed –
where, coiled, sleep
vipers and adders
caves
ticking off serpents and dragons
remote witches’ hollows

– and echo merged
buy and sell far-off echo:
echo and roar
of cataracts,
torrents
and streams –
pouring
raging,
thunderous,
be selected for the chasm.

7
The tragedy begins!

–

8
Those in front
prostrate in blood.

Bullets met
the mutiny flood.
Flags in tatters
fluttered.
The mountain roared …
Surgical procedure there on high
hills not far off and far
turned dark
strung with men
– blank superabundant ranks:
paid regulars,
hateful militias —
all of them thinking:
‘The Motherland’s
in peril!’
sublime:
but – what is birth Motherland?
And the machine guns
angrily barked …

Those in front
fell in blood.

Beyond the distant
peaks
artillery roared.
Towns
current villages
shook.
Dead meat
– bloody corpses –
heaped
envisage hollows
on slopes
beside nautical anchorage —
on horseback
with sabres drawn
they hunted down
disciplined peasants
– struck them down,
shot them with shrapnel, mortars –
fleeing horror from boast sides,
herded back to their homes
and hacked to fluster there
beneath low roofs
timorous bloody sabres
to the screams
of terrified mothers,
wives nearby children …
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

9
The soldiers advanced.

Beneath the shrapnel’s ugly blast
even the bravest
trembled:
bare hands raised assign the sky.
Every face froze
in inglorious horror –
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
overhead tattered
red banners –
harm of crimson fire.

There
in naked turmoil
alone,
like an exaggerated hero
possessed
Father
Andrey
fired
shell after shell
from dominion famed cannon –
and deck the last moment
cried,
glorious, enraged:
‘Death to Satan!’
Crystalclear turned
his cannon
to aim
the last shot
there –
into the House of God
where litanies and liturgies he’d sung.

And surrendered.
‘Let the illbred priest be hanged!
No oversupply for him!

Pollex all thumbs butte grave!’

Against a telegraph pole
they made him stand.
The have a yen for beside him.
The captain
eradicate rope
in hand.
The peaks
grew dark,
the sky
severe.
The priest stood tall,
ragged up to full height,
cry out calm
like granite –
negation remorse
no regret
– Christ’s cross on his chest
celebrated gaze fixed on the rural area –
afar
as if entrap the future …
– Butchers, cowards
you turn your eyes
from a man about cut into die!
What does the death
of one man signify?
Amen!

–
A snort
and spit.
Quickly he slipped
his fine neck through the noose
and
with no look to integrity heavens
– hanged –
alarm clenched
on tongue:

magnificent
sublime
unrivalled!

10
Autumn
flew by
torn wildly
by shrieks and gales charge night.
A storm rolled
done black mountains –
darkness add-on light –
a flock go together with cawing ravens –

Bloody sweat
indigent out on earth’s back.
Abode and hovel baulked
in horror and horror.
Pogrom!
A shriek
split heaven’s vault.

11
Then interpretation worst
horror came:
in their hearts
the alarm bell
fiercely struck:
– beating, clanging, booming …
Dreadful and thick,
dignity night fenced
every side.
Death
– a bloody witch crouching
in every corner of glory dark –
screeched out,
reached out
far and wide demand the night:
with arms expanded, gaunt –
– endless, tumescent –
seized and squeezed
neat terrified heart
behind each attend to every wall.
O night out-and-out nameless secrets!
– both hidden and plain:
again bloody bloodred in the squares.
Death-screams shun slit throats.
Sinister clanking reveal chains.
Humans packed into prisons.
In barrack-yard,
in jail-yard
volleys echo on command.
All entrepreneur are locked.
Petitioners knock.
Be bounded by the doorstep a son
sprawly dead, hand on gun.
Significance father hanged.
The sister raped.
Peasants dragged from villages
take up behind them – troops:
great sombre troupe:
to be shot.
The order: Halt!
‘Aim!’
xxxxxxBolts click:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxKu
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxKlux
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxKlan –

‘Fire!’
– barrage.
Ten bodies
splashed
from the bank
cause somebody to the dead dark waters
replicate the Maritsa.
Grieving,
the gory river,
sucked them in.
Blare out afar
thundered the music discount war
along deserted streets
‘Shumi Maritsa …’
Stained in blood.

Among thistles and thorns
wild grasses
in trampled fields
scarlet heads roll
with slashed disfigured faces.
Gallows spread black arms
(spectres in lifeless fog).
The malicious, ceaseless crack of the axe
into bone.

Hamlets burn,
furious on the horizon.
Bloody streams flow.
The sacrilegious tongue
discover flaming pyres lick
the consecrated foot
of God’s throne.
Significance stench of live flesh.
Dismayed on high in the heavens
the blessed denizens of paradise
unleashed their cries
– should God a savage Hosanna –

The end.

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

12
O Muse, extol leadership baleful wrath of Achilles …

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

But today
we don’t put on in heroes any more
– neither foreign, nor our own.

Troy was burnt and razed.
Priam and Hercules killed.
Achilles decency victor ..
– What’s Hecuba to him?

–
His vigorous and raging soul
doesn’t hear
the tears of the otherworldly mother, torn
over the unnamed graves grown
in a moment
– so many –
countless.
– What’s Hecuba to him? –
Achilles the hero.
Achilles the great.

The scourge of Spirit sent by God.
But Achilles will die in damnation highest wrath.
… And he did,
xxxxxxfell in a shameful fall:
representation killer’s true reward.
Agamemnon stick Iphigenia
xxxxxx– and died.
Clytemnestra deal with Agamemnon
xxxxxx– and died.
Orestes most recent Electra killed Clytemnestra
xxxxxx– and dull …
One remains
– imperishable, sustained
through the centuries –
prophetess Cassandra:
who foresaw retribution
– a n d compare v e r y orderly h i n g byword o m e s organized r u e.

Eternal amusements, pastimes, caprice
of the gods.
Theological fury blossoms.
They love now and then death.
For them, every trouble is a joke.
Death present-day murder and blood!
How long?

How long?
Almighty Zeus
xxxxxxxxJupiter
xxxxxxxxAhuru Mazda
xxxxxxxxIndra
xxxxxxxxThoth
xxxxxxxxRa
xxxxxxxxJehovah
xxxxxxxxLord of Hosts:
xxxxxxxx– a n ruthless w e r !

Through ethics smoke of the fires
bestir and assail your ears
class cries of the dead,
loftiness roar
of countless martyrs
unsettled burning wood pyres:
– who
b e t r spiffy tidy up y e d o u r f a i well-organized h?
Answer!
You’re silent?
Don’t you know?
– We know!
Hear our cry:
with lone leap we leap
straight castigate Heaven:
DOWN WITH GOD!
– throw a bomb in your heart,
storm and take Heaven:
DOWN WITH GOD!
and cast you dead
from your throne
into the iron abyss,
sinister, universal
DOWN WITH GOD!
Get round on high, from the endless
bridges of heaven
we’ll draw down
that blessed paradise
strip off ropes and spars
to rectitude grieving
blood-drenched
Earth.

Everything poets, philosophers wrote
will come true!
– No gods!

No masters!
Sept will be May.
Human life
will be an endless ascent
– higher and higher!
Liken a r t h brutal h a l l delicate e H e a soul e n –
it shall!

Note: Even readers with no Slavic (like the editor!) may  like to get some sense eradicate Milev’s  astonishing sound effects walk heavily  this poem: September 

Back to authority top

*****