the hotel bedsprings creak with
her free rhythm haiku – it is
morning it is night this weekend
in sofia thousands of people
are making love wearing out
the beds the floors the sheets
the sounds of lovers penetrate
thick walls like doof doof or
the ocean though not so soft
as that her voice grows with
tsunami passion wires da da –
oh now she has fallen off the
bed (i look across you’re asleep
sounds melt in the†metropolis
oh bulgaria!
what has money done to you
no one here has change
girls & striptease club posters
make us all less human
oh bulgaria!
your elevators have doors
to trick foreigners
pretty girls in miniskirts
keep our change as tips
oh bulgaria!
you serve us red beer & white beer
& green salads with flags
your children play hackey-sac
in subterranean liquor stores
oh bulgaria!†
can i buy a bus ticket?
i mime a bus on the boulevard
where i meet my haiku friends
we are strangers to each other
Like me they cannot speak
of a Slavic memory, or Soviet
tanks, so they bark all night
along the streets of Sofia.
The echo is empty, like the
cobbled lanes beneath the
abandoned Palaces of Culture,
Science & Agriculture. Dreams of
living & speaking again. Slippery
tongue, translated into coffee
grounds. Contact with nocturnal
demolition crews, the car wash
& the dilapidated trams. Ozone
glow bleeding off the bark. Some
broken glass. Rusted monuments
in a maze of nameless parks.
i sing the throbbing pains of
your great nation’s bad coffee
hot plates keeping the entropy
warm out along the turnpike
your name is†dissected by the
moon-like stares of motorists
stupified by the concrete glare
i sing the car electric may it
render your oil wars useless
though to be truthful walt
these you never did envisage
may the worn hands of peace
close together over industries
radios play the†turnpike down
rock us†into that†gentle sleep
in each of our final rest areas
You remain the least of their
paranoid worries, smouldering
up the Hudson flowing grey
hair. They paid for tips once;
now change is loose, vengeance.
Cold uniformed stares outside
exits and gas stations. Over
platforms red numbers, an eye
for a letter. Destinations yelp
songs for the settled. Obvious
melodies time warp plotlines
distinguished by our humour.
Ascend gently into a dim light,
hands stretching out to catch
the glowing halos of redwood
like giant laser beams of truth.
