Peycho Kanev

Small revenge

I don’t care about the metrics, the iambus
and the rhymes - I have read the classics and then
I’ve put them back on their dusty shelves:
we write about something that comes from the guts
and the nails as the flowers outside
explode…
The poetry, can I say that I don’t care?
I prefer to drink alone in this room in front of
one candle
as the shadows in the corners sits and show us
their ugly faces;
ah, I know that the words are greater that we thought
and we will fall in their holes,
we will spill ourselves like ink upon the Chaucer’s paper:
let me be myself while I read the classics,
let me be afraid in airplanes,
let me be bored in churches,
let me be silent before the tigers in my blood:
these words are too tuff for us to misspend them
just like the big boys during their time.
The rivers are flowing through me
and I burn like matchstick lighted by the words
of all Shakespeares …
And today I am closer to insanity,
I am watching the black birds on the wires,
waiting for our degradation,
for our small defeat while we walk upon the land of
Dylan and Frost, especially on the thin ice
of Frost…
…find me one small torch,
not too big, just big enough to set this night on fire
and I can hear outside the young girls laugh,
never heard about the hunger of Villon or the madness of Pound,
please feed me so well and I’ll never again use their words,
let me find a little warmth,
allow me to find my sunflowers
shaking in the wind
and under the sun
and the God of the Word not Death.
 

Questions

On the street,
the grizzled, bygone Time
stops me and asks:
“What are you carrying in these bags?”
I slowly stretch out my hands
and say:
“In this – happiness,
and in this one – sorrow!”
“Give me this one,”
He points with staring eyes and
grabs it with His predatory hands,
and I reach to my back pocket
for the knife.
 

Peycho Kanev is the Editor In Chief of Kanev Books. His poems have appeared in more than 500 literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, The Monongahela Review, Steam Ticket, Midwest Literary Review, Third Wednesday, The Cleveland Review, Loch Raven Review, In Posse Review, The Penwood Review, Mascara Literary Review and many others. He is nominated for the Pushcart Award and lives in Chicago. In 2009 his short story collection Walking Through Walls and in April 2010 his poetry collection American Notebooks both were published in Bulgaria. His poetry collection Bone Silence was released in September 2010 by Desperanto, NY. A new collection of his poetry, titled Requiem for One Night, will be published by Desperanto in 2012.

http://www.kanevbooks.com