Насилие

Завърнах се у дома от България. Да, правилно ме разбирате. У дома съм, защото след насилието на България имам нужда от нежността на тези, които ме обичат. Няма друго по-дълбоко и трайно чувство, което да определя всяко завръщане в България, колкото насилието. Нефизическо (в повечето случаи), но достатъчно видимо и чуваемо, насилието се ражда от … Continue reading Насилие →

The Native Speaker Falacy

About twenty years ago native speakers were employed mainly as Assistantes – teaching assistants to qualified teaching linguists. Rather like scientists whose nationality is immaterial, these linguists developed a passion for the subject: French phonetics, German expressionist poetry, Italian dialect translation... It used to be just wonderfully normal for an Englishman to become passionate for the Russian language and start a course at university, fired by Dr Zhivago. No more. With the advent of the native speaker, the depth of linguistics, literature and cultural studies of all languages taught in Britain has shrunk.

Makes Bridges Sing

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He makes the bridges sing and knits light into notes of his sadness. He walks through city streets, drunk on neon, drugged on ambulance sirens, weaves sounds of darkness into music of light. Then sits on the bank shore and types with headphones muffling the river, the cries of the tourists, the shrieks of the … Continue reading Makes Bridges Sing →

The Why? Christmas

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This Christmas will remain a Why? Christmas, which means that from now on all Christmases will be Why? Christmases because the answer never came. Even if it comes later, it will be at the wrong time.

The Cycles of the Ring

I'm driving down a country lane straight as a rolling pin. It crosses flat fields undulating with mournful high grasses and green-to-rusty gold crops. The horizon wraps them in fluffy but menacing clouds, wind and rain bashing the car windscreen. But what transfixes me, keeps my eyes open to the point of watering and my … Continue reading The Cycles of the Ring →

Only Caterpillars

They're all trying to be clever. This is how we're supposed to do creative writing: exquisite descriptions. Shadows of ideas travelling like clouds over the steps of St Paul’s cathedral or memories in a whiff of a ghost’s whisper through the stained glass of the Dean’s Altar. I can write like this and better. The … Continue reading Only Caterpillars →

Easter Bread

There is so much Easter magic for the children of the Thracian valley, cradle of Orpheus. The fields of fertile black soil shimmer with emerald-green waves that soon would become golden wheat. Saint Todor, riding through the sea of wheat on his black Arabian stallion, takes off his seven sheepskin coats one by one, under … Continue reading Easter Bread →

Forget-Me-Not

Ralyo was born on November 1st, All Souls’ Day, 1906 in the village of Great Clover, Bulgarian Thrace. He was born just a year after his refugee family settled in Bulgaria. They had run away from Aegean Thrace, their home and their land eaten up by yet another Balkan War, their roots cut off to … Continue reading Forget-Me-Not →

Beware of the Wall

Once upon a time there was a garden And a wall. Love filled with juice the mint and lavender Quiet River wrapped The singing insects The thrush and tit and robin Learned to fly when foxes wandered and shiny shadows built the earth’s breath raw But there was the wall The border wall The sentinel … Continue reading Beware of the Wall →

Taming Fear

Michael Rosen read my thoughts when he wrote this poem a few months after the referendum on Brexit and a month before Trump triumphed to power. Friday, 7 October 2016 I'm not on the list, I'm not on the list I'm not on the listI'm not on the listAll I have to do is tell … Continue reading Taming Fear →