Photo: Yana Lozeva
we are here
a man turned
into fog before my eyes
another into dust in the eyes
a third into wind and alienation
the fourth a suicide
the fifth a bank
the sixth a betrayal
the seventh a couch where the lie can be seated
the eighth a birthday party
for merry criminals
and so on
some became delirium
others a virus
I keep looking around
for my friends
they were just here moments ago
sometimes I find them
in the square
or
in a rainbow
right before it scatters
into a cat waking up
and the simultaneous flight
of hundreds of pigeons
that sense the menacing presence
of a hand
invisible
to some
early in the morning I told
the driver of the 74
that the chalga he was listening to
was blasting throughout the brand new modern bus
because it has dozens of loudspeakers
and instead of turning it off or down
he said
spitting out the words with a screech
“you want me to listen to them talk about the war
all day long nothing but war
enough already”
I couldn’t keep arguing with him
obviously he can’t stop thinking about it
it’s playing in his head
and he is trying to silence it
but it makes its way to his heart
no one is spared
I want to give him a hug
but that could lead to an accident
or a bigger fight
I look into his eyes for a second
I nod
I see his hands
clutching the wheel
grow slack
and a soft sigh escapes
he turns off the music
but not the war
no matter our wishes
its stop is not coming up soon
the greatest living female poet in bulgaria
I saw her on the street today
in summer sandals
open at the front
no socks
her bare feet
white and swollen
holding a pile of letters
like a baby
in her arms
probably bills
looking up in wonder
barely able to walk
I didn’t have the heart to stop her
it was her
and it was
someone else
STEFAN IVANOV (1986, Sofia) holds а PhD in Philosophy from Sofia University. He has published five collections of poems: Ginsberg vs Bukowski in the audience (2005), Lists (2009), Inwards (2013), and Without me (2024). He has been nominated for the “Ivan Nikolov” National Poetry Award and a “Peroto” Literary Award. He has won the “Sofia: Poetiki” (2011). His poems have been translated and included in anthologies. In 2013, his play “Medea – My Mother” won The Union of Bulgarian Artists Award “Ikar” for best production. “Between the Holidays” was nominated the following year for dramaturgy. He is the creator of the long-running performance series, “Actors vs Poets” (2015-present), in which hundreds of actors and poets have participated in more over a hundred performances. In 2018, he was a playwright-in-residence in the National Theatre of Luxembourg. In 2019, the animated short film, “Tasks of the day,” based on his poem, won an official national nomination for an Oscar.
About the Translator:
MARIA P. VASSILEVA is a poet and translator based in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a PhD in Russian Literature from Harvard University. She is the editor and co-translator of Silvia Choleva’s The Unexpected Answer (Da Poetry Publishing, 2025) as well as the editor of Choleva’s Journeys There and Back (trans. Ekaterina Petrova; ICU Press, 2025); she also co-edited Linor Goralik’s Found Life (Columbia University Press, 2017) and translated essays for Maria Stepanova’s The Voice Over (Columbia University Press, 2021). Her translations of Bulgarian poetry have been published in Modern Poetry in Translation and Ploughshares.