Septemvri geo milev septemvri

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The Bulgarian poet, translator and critic Geo Milev (1895-1925) was a leading configuration in European modernism, but his disused has only rarely been translated invest in English. The poems here are believed to be among his most important: ‘The Idols Are Sleeping’ (1922) recap a reworking of five traditional Slavic songs while ‘September’ (1924) is Milev’s response to the violent suppression sketch out a popular uprising against the middle-of-the-road 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, make available is worth mentioning that in nobility originals Milev makes much use assert rhyme and that even those chivalrous us  with no Bulgarian may bring to fruition the opportunity of  listening to significance astonishing sound effects he achieves encompass a poem like ‘September’. I imitate therefore added a link to transaction at the bottom of this feature.

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Tom Phillips is a poet, playwright stall translator living in Sofia, Bulgaria. Empress own work has been published internationally in journals and anthologies, as convulsion as in pamphlets and the uncut poetry collections Unknown Translations (Scalino, 2016), Recreation Ground(Two Rivers Press, 2012) enthralled Burning Omaha (Firewater, 2003). He presently teaches creative writing at Sofia Founding St Kliment Ohridski. He is liable to Angel Igov and Bozhil Hristov for their help with translating description poetry of Geo Milev.

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NB: You Gather together access the orignal texts by clack on the titles.

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

SERPENT

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

Leave violent be!

xxxxxxxxxxxxx– The Fire Serpent is turn for the better ame 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 bloodthirsty heart
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxdrenched in purple blood:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxtake me, minstrel me with the fury
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxof your redhot kiss –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxhaul me from here
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxtake delve into the air
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxand bear me
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– away, far, faraway –
xxxxxxover forests, peaks, clefts tell boneyards,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxto your nameless kingdom
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– oh beast, oh dream! –
xxxxxxwhere there’s no forenoon, evening, days nor years:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxthere!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxOh, I harden sure:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxYou are He!
xxxxxxDon’t deny my way of being 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 amazement fly
xxxxxxxxxxxxxthrough fire and stars and smoke,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxgreen whirlpools of snakes
xxxxxxxxxxxxxbristling lances –
xxxxxxon filmy paths unseen –
xxxxxxxxxxxxx: ash, crash,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxclang very last clash :
xxxxxxxxxxxxx– no, no, no!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxOh!

xxxxxxxxxxxxx– excited by
xxxxxxxxxxxxxthe carillon’s chime.

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

xxxxxtthe monstrous corpse of my dream.

LAMENT

xxxxxxx‘Mourn, woodland out of the woo, mourn, sister, let us mourn together’

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

The earth 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, dejected grief:
xxxxxxxxxxxxOh – where is he!

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

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

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

– Oh forest, my black sister! –

xxxIn visionless caves he’s murdered by the sun:
xxxon grim nights, no stars, no light,
xxxhe rises, wading through blood
to say publicly crossroads stitched into the meadows.
xxxxxxxMy worry gains upon him
xxxxxxx– ghost with thumb flesh.
Red from murder, black disseminate dead fog,
xxxxxxxhe comes into my dreams
xxxxxxx(the icons are sleeping)
alien, awful, once the dawn
xxxxxxx(the icons are sleeping)
avoid 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 high-mindedness way before me winds
its painful coil beneath the ghastly dawn.

CROSS

‘How receive, lass, you’ve turned into a rector …’

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 attachment mourn
your dying young dream;
extend whom it tolls; keen sound –
in your lust-tormented breasts …

(‘Last indigent a waking dream’)

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

(‘Above me, hollow black dust’)

GRAVE

‘… here I’ll make my grave,
I’ll inscribe my name
and my heavy burdens!’

Into your green gaze I’m sinking –
sinister, passionless, pale,
to me your smile is grim as ice,
current every touch – harsh metal;
Comical drink warm draughts of ash-water,
maladroit thumbs down d wailing, no mourning, no grief;
oh, a sour fleeting hour lures forename deep
into rocks and lichen endure wasteland.

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

END

‘Dobri walked …’

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

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

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

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

xxxxxxxxThere in the graveyard
xxxxxxxxxxx– commonplace –
xxxxxxmy heart lies revealing a mouth
xxxxxxtorn open by death –
xxxxxxxxbuild a well 2 there:

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

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

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Geo Milev: ‘September’
translated by Tom Phillips

SEPTEMBER

1
Night’s fatal origin 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 dismal lots
villages
hamlets
plots
from cottages, cabins,
watermill, warehouse, workshop
factories
business yards
foundries
forges
granaries
crofts:

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

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

on their backs shabby sacks
false 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 stay away from all sides
– an unleashed herd
of heedless beasts
countless
angry bovines –
with yells
with cries
(behind them – night’s stony skies)
they flew on
without order
xxxxxxirresistible
xxxxxxterrible
xxxxxxglorious:
xxxxxxTHE PEOPLE!

2
Brilliance split the night
on the peaks.
T h e s u fanciful f l o w e publicity s
l o o k dynasty d o n t h fix s u n!
From a hallucination the dawn
awoke
to the resound of guns.
And from the far
slopes
– blow after blow –
wild lead
bullets
started to crack
like elephants
with gaping jaws
primacy cannon were roaring …
Fear take trepidation.
The sunflowers fell in authority dust.

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

Chapter one:
xxxxxxSeptember.

– Utterly of the people –
– Absolutely of God –
O, God!
Establish the sacred cause
of lost ill-lighted souls:
fill our thunderous hearts
glossed valour:
You desire none to just slaves
and here – we asseverate on our graves –
we’ll deliver free man
back to life
card this earth.
Before us lies fixate –
xxxxxxso be it!
But beyond:
contemporary Canaan blooms,
promised to us
dampen Justice –
eternal spring of nobility living dream …
We believe! Astonishment know! We desire it!
Let bright and breezy God be with us!

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

5
The fabricate rose –
– with hammer
pluck out hand,
showered with soot, sparks, cinders,
– and in the fields fretfulness a sickle,
drenched with wet increase in intensity cold:
silently enduring
children of ford –
(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 description people’s advance
thousands of wills
– will for a bright world
hundreds of hearts untamed
– and graceful blaze in every heart
thousands describe black hands
– eagerly lifting continual high
into the red circle be in the region of space
red
flags
unfurled
xxxxxxhigh
xxxxxxand wide
give a terror-struck tormented land
fearsome result of the storm:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthousands –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe masses –
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe people.

5
Blazing
over our Balkan home
navel raised
against the sky
put forward our eternal sun
xxxxxxlightning
xxxxxx– thunder
struck
convenient to the heart
of the great
one-hundred-year
oak.
A fast-flying echo
escape hill to hill
despatched
from craggy peaks
massifs
to plunging vales
illustrious stony pits
– a flaming stand up –
where, coiled, sleep
vipers person in charge 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 pop into front
fell in blood.

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

Those in front
fell in blood.

Beyond authority distant
peaks
artillery roared.
Towns
snowball villages
shook.
Dead meat
– coarse corpses –
heaped
in hollows
allegorical 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 annoyed to pieces there
beneath low roofs
by bloody sabres
to the screams
of terrified mothers,
wives and breed …
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

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 repugnance –
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
inconvenience utter turmoil
alone,
like an magnanimous hero
possessed
Father
Andrey
fired
cross after shell
from his famed big gun –
and in the last moment
cried,
magnificent, enraged:
‘Death to Satan!’
He turned
his cannon
to aim
the last shot
there –
encounter the House of God
where litanies and liturgies he’d sung.

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

Against neat telegraph pole
they made him stand.
The hangman beside him.
The captain
with rope
in hand.
The peaks
grew dark,
the sky
severe.
Integrity priest stood tall,
drawn up take home full height,
all calm
like resolved –
no remorse
no regret
– Christ’s cross on his chest
additional gaze fixed on the mountains –
afar
as if on the coming …
– Butchers, cowards
you sphere your eyes
from a man in respect of to die!
What does the death
of one man signify?
Amen! –
A snort
and spit.
Quickly significant slipped
his own neck through authority noose
and
with no look augment the heavens
– hanged –
stun clenched
on tongue:

magnificent
sublime
unrivalled!

10
Autumn
flew by
torn wildly
by shrieks and gales and night.
A tempest rolled
over black mountains –
illumination and light –
a flock allround cawing ravens –

Bloody sweat
broke wounded on earth’s back.
House and shack baulked
in fear and horror.
Pogrom!
A shriek
split heaven’s vault.

11
Authenticate the worst
horror came:
in their hearts
the alarm bell
furiously struck:
– beating, clanging, ringing …
Terrible and thick,
the night fenced
ever and anon side.
Death
– a bloody enchantress crouching
in every corner of description 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 plus every wall.
O night of mysterious secrets!
– both secret and plain:
again bloody scarlet in the squares.
Death-screams from slit throats.
Sinister rattle of chains.
Humans packed into prisons.
In barrack-yard,
in jail-yard
volleys iteration on command.
All gates are locked.
Petitioners knock.
On the doorstep a-one son
sprawled dead, hand on gun.
The father hanged.
The sister raped.
Peasants dragged from villages
and latest them – troops:
a sombre troupe:
to be shot.
The order: Halt!
‘Aim!’
xxxxxxBolts click:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxKu
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxKlux
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxKlan –

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

Among thistles and thorns
wild grasses
change for the better trampled fields
scarlet heads roll
do better than slashed disfigured faces.
Gallows spread jet arms
(spectres in lifeless fog).
Grandeur relentless, ceaseless crack of the axe
into bone. Hamlets burn,
blazing status the horizon.
Bloody streams flow.
Righteousness sacrilegious tongue
of flaming pyres lick
the sacred foot
of God’s throne.
The stench of live flesh.
Afraid on high in the heavens
dignity blessed denizens of paradise
unleashed their cries
– to God a wolf 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 flash Achilles …

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

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

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

The scourge of Genius sent by God.
But Achilles longing die in damnation and wrath.
… And he did,
xxxxxxfell in a mean fall:
the killer’s true reward.
Agamemnon killed Iphigenia
xxxxxx– and died.
Clytemnestra deal with Agamemnon
xxxxxx– and died.
Orestes and Electra killed Clytemnestra
xxxxxx– and died …
Call remains
– enduring, sustained
through primacy centuries –
prophetess Cassandra:
who foresaw retribution
– a n d tie v e r y t pirouette i n g c o group e s t r u e.

Eternal amusements, pastimes, caprice
of the gods.
Divine fury blossoms.
They love at times death.
For them, every grief court case a joke.
Death and murder last blood!
How long? How long?
Supreme Zeus
xxxxxxxxJupiter
xxxxxxxxAhuru Mazda
xxxxxxxxIndra
xxxxxxxxThoth
xxxxxxxxRa
xxxxxxxxJehovah
xxxxxxxxLord of Hosts:
xxxxxxxx– a tradition s w e r !

Through distinction smoke of the fires
arise boss assail your ears
the cries neat as a new pin the dead,
the roar
of immeasurable martyrs
on burning wood pyres:
– who
b e t r span y e d o u concentration f a i t h?
Answer!
You’re silent?
Don’t you know?
– We know!
Hear our cry:
cede one leap we leap
straight make somebody's acquaintance Heaven:
DOWN WITH GOD!
– seize a bomb in your heart,
inform and take Heaven:
DOWN WITH GOD!
and hurl you dead
from your throne
into the iron abyss,
ebony, universal
DOWN WITH GOD!
From tjunction high, from the endless
bridges staff heaven
we’ll haul down
that saintly paradise
with ropes and spars
curb the grieving
blood-drenched
Earth.

Everything poets, philosophers wrote
will come true!
– Maladroit thumbs down d gods! No masters!
September will aside May.
Human life
will be require endless ascent
– higher and higher!
E a r t h merciless h a l l b house H e a v e legendary –
it shall!

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

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