Public Republic

Photo: Calliope Diavolo

I am the only stage director
and I need to:
gather all my unconscious perceptions
and form them in words;
my whole life –
I need to
hang it out like washing
to dry in the sun
of my mind.
With my imagination
I stage a “Tosca”.
My sole audience –
sensory nerves
in the biological labyrinth.

Curtain up.

1.
A little, fragile Audrey
at the steps of the Spanish
square in Rome.
Why is it called like that?
I don’t know,
she is waiting for her Peck
to melt together in the nameless crowd.

2.
A painting – “The Wedding at Cana”,
is looking at me in the Louvre where I come
to hate the “Mona Lisa” – she distracts me from
fully enjoying the master Veronese.
I step outside and like Rue de Rivoli
much better than the singing Champs-Elysees
for its live pictures – poor Bulgarian artists.

3.
A Lili Marleen is still waiting
for her lover by the gloomy barracks
in my head where
Hoffmann’s stories and Schiller’s poems
instead of armored German Adlers
march with the hymn of life –
“Kabale und Liebe”.

4.
A beautiful picture of the ugly
Spanish Queen by Goya and a young
woman from Toledo –
I can see them both in the black of
Feuchtwanger’s eternal coffee
by the Californian shore
away from home, away from the war.

5.
A funny story about Gustave Dore,
told in German by the Swiss border –
“Der verlorene Pass” –
it will follow me everywhere;
“How short he was!” –
my teacher’s words are stroking
my hair.

6.
A wildly corageous Tess,
the Mayor of Casterbridge
and Jude the Obscure
remind me of
how I used to be afraid of
Hardy’s genius in the young days
of my inspiring English amour.

7.
A purple carpet from the love
of the Indian poet and thinker Tagore
will pave my way to eternity… –
these are the moments on the tip
of my tongue, in the heart of my soul
– always scaring away the ugly fear of death,
reminding me of my role.

Curtain down.