A Literary Arts Journal
Peycho Kanev
3
poems
Peycho Kanev
Born in Silistra, Bulgaria, Peycho Kanev is the author of four poetry collections and two chapbooks, published in the USA and Europe. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawai'i Review, Barrow Street, Off The Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review.
@PeychoKanev
Decision
It is up to you now: guess
which one of my three hearts lives
in this world or in the other three
worlds for which no one knows
anything, not even you. And I’m
not saying that I’m not looking in the eyes
you see me with.
My skin is a wrinkled indigo paper,
a mirror of the night sky.
You’ll have to plow deeper than that
with your tongue. Because each
constellation keeps its own secrets
within the shadows, and all life
comes down to principle:
you just have to be there.
a Painting of а Suicide
How this world exists within a frame
containing death
or life from the other side: precious,
nothing.
Here I am: drinking red wine in a chipped
cup
and the cat sleeps in my lap, a curled
question mark.
And I feel a step from the other
side: fragile glass
and heart.
Here you are, though somewhere
my
dreams can't reach you,
but you know…
This wine I drink now is paint
mixed
with memories, smeared
on the paper of our skins.
At the Black Sea
I’m standing at the shore and looking at this dark
vastness. Is this a mirror or just my imagination
playing dirty tricks one me? Take it easy now.
I know that the sea is dead and it always has been.
To be alive is to breathe, to have eyes, and to look
in every crevice of this world. But in my own world
I’m the one who is constantly watched, and that
is why I plunge my head below the water and open
my eyes to see this deadness, but something looks
back at me.