Sometimes I'll come when you're asleep,
An unexpected visitor.
Don't leave me outside in the street.
Don't bar the door!
...
What were you to me?
Nothing.
A land forgotten and remote,
a land of knights and high plateaux.
...
Spring of mine, O spring of mine so white,
as yet unlived, as yet unfeasted,
alone in visions vague yet dreamt of,
how low above the poplars do you skim,
...
The fight is hard and pitiless
The fight is epic, as they say.
I fell. Another takes my place -
Why single out a name?
...
Do you remember
the sea, the engines,
and the holds full of wet dark
and that great longing for the Philippines
...
My country's mine; blue and clear
above it shines the sky so bright;
at dusk gleam starry chandeliers
quenched at dawn by white daylight.
...
How like one another are mothers all over the earth!
And their hearts are always the same.
Go and try in the steppes of the rolling Ukraine,
then check up on it in Cyrenaica.
...
History, will you mention us
In your faded scroll?
We worked in factories, offices -
Our names were not well known.
...
Winds toss the leaves yellow and withered,
three long years our homes we haven't seen.
There our wives believe they're widowed,
wring their hands and gaze toward Pirin.
...
Like a concrete slab above us
the murderous threat grinds down once more.
Dismay and feverish tumult hold us,
within our souls we mutter 'War!'
...
She tried to get in with the morning shift,
the motor grumbled,
Looking stern and grim:
'You can't do that!
...
'Lori, aren't you asleep?
Lori, d' you hear?'
'Quiet, duck your head down! It could seem
they're scarce a foot away. You can't talk here.'
...
You want come back Fernandez, -
today machine-guns raked your lines.
And ceaselessly in the wilderness
like a tiresome dog the wind still whines.
...
Now the quiet full of fear
lowers in our little shack.
Over is the fight, my dear,
but you don't come back.
...
Nikola Yonkov Vaptsarov was a Bulgarian poet, communist and revolutionary. He was born in Bansko to a Bulgarian militant father and a Protestant mother. Trained as a machine engineer at the Naval Machinery School in Varna, later Naval Academy, he worked machinist jobs most of his life and wrote in his spare time. His only released book of poetry is Motoring Verses (1940). Because of his underground communist activity against the government of Boris III and the German troops in Bulgaria, he was arrested and executed by a firing squad. In 1949, the Bulgarian Naval Academy was renamed Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy. In 1952, he received posthumously the International Peace Award. His Selected Poems were published in London in 1954, by Lawrence & Wishart, translated into English with a foreword by British poet Peter Tempest. His poetry has been translated in 98 languages throughout the world. Vaptsarov Peak in eastern Livingston Island, Antarctica is named after the famous Bulgarian poet. His only released book of poetry is Motoring Verses (1940).)
Faith
Here am I-breathing,
Working,
Living
And Writing my poetry
(My best to it giving).
Life and I glower
Across at each other,
and with it I struggle
with all my power
Life and I quarell,
But don't draw the moral
That I despise it.
No, just the opposite!
Though I should perish,
Life with its brutal
Claws of steel
Still I would cherish,
Still I would cherish!
Suppose round my neck they tie fast
The rope
And they ask:
'Would you like one more hour to live?'
I would instantly cry:
'Untie!
Untie!
Come, quickly untie
The rope, you devils!'
For Life there is nothing
would not dare.
I would fly
A prototype plane in the sky,
I'd climbe in a roaring
Rocket, exploring
Alone
In space
Distant
Planets.
Still would I feel
A joyous thrill
Gazing
Up
At the blue sky.
Still would I feel
A joyous thrill
To be alive,
To go on living.
But look, suppose
You took-how much?-
A single grain
From this my faith,
Then would I rage,
I would rage from pain
Like a panther
Pierced to the heart.
For what of me
Would there remain?
After the teft
I'd be distraught.
To put it plainly
And more directly-
aftre the teft
I would be naught.
Maybe you wish
You could erase
My faith
In happy days,
My faith
That tomorrow
Life will be finer,
Life will be wiser?
Pray, how will you smash it?
With bullets?
No! That is useless!
Stop! It is not worth it!
My faith has strong armour
In my sturdy breast,
And bullets able to shatter
My faith
Do not exist,
Do not exist!
moze da e comunist no e POET! ! !