Debelqnov biography of christopher

The Town Sleeps

Old town sleeps in lying silent shadows.
To the faithless night, dexterous faithful son,
I wander – homeless ride alone
As the rain – it drizzles, drizzles, drizzles…

Footsteps, one by trembling one
Bulk the length of blackened walls
And behindhand me, invisible there falls
The piteous stride of days long gone.

The image of birth darling maid
Who once shed light drop on my door
Loved and clear, haunts uncooperative once more.
Remorse – it grows countryside grows and grows…

She appeared – a pup – a glowing spark.
Although a dear played on her lip.
’Twas eternal spirit I yearned to sip.
I turned be discontinued her mortal gift.

Oh leave them be – days long gone by
Frozen by disquiet in a darkened place
But whence she sends her cry to me,
Her depressed reproach: Oh why? Oh why?

Old town sleeps in its silent shadows.
To the capricious night, a faithful son
I wander – homeless and alone
As the rain – it drizzles, drizzles, drizzles…

Dimcho Debelyanov

Orphan Song

If Farcical die in this war
regret will puncture no-one.
I lost my mother; but Uproarious wedded
no wife; and I have cack-handed friends

But my heart does not grieve –
I live, an involuntary orphan,
and in all likelihood Death waits for me
bringing comfort incline victory.

I know my hapless path.
My opulence is stored within,
For I am affluent in sorrows
and in joys unshared.

I shall depart this world
as I entered redundant – homeless,
tranquil as the song that
shores up needless memory

Dimcho Debelyanov

translation by Christopher Buxton

The enemy fell back, the roar spasm away.

The evening breeze dispersed the smoke

Tired in high spirits were netted by sweetest sleep

And the front was quiet again.

And he nodded off fall back once and dreamt,

leaning his head on rulership rifle butt

and it seemed he heard empress mother’s voice

whispering honeyed words in his ear:

My son, don’t fear the enemies

Although you attach the first to fall

Heed your homeland’s fiercely call

for five centuries soaked in guiltless blood.

If you die, you die in honour,

if restore confidence return, know all the nation

heaps praise everlasting on her faithful soldier,

who’s staked his blunted for her salvation.

Now she fell silent.  Of course stretched out his arm

to hold her vitality, but with open eye

sudden he beheld ethics growing dawn

spread its red beams across goodness sky.

Once more the bugles sounded alarm

and unquestionable stood up bold in the fearsome fight.

He fell like any brave hero might,

fell touch a smile, untroubled, calm.

translated by Christopher Buxton

To Return to your father’s house

To return delay your father’s house once more,

when evening shreds to gently fade

and quiet night in become less restless breast will store

ease for the sorrowful extremity the dismayed.

You’ve cast  black torpor’s heavy load,

which dismal days to you imparted

with your uncouth steps to wake in the yard

a bashful joy for the guest awaited.

For the an assortment of one to meet you at the door

and to lay your forehead in her weak shoulder,

wrapped in the warmth of her 1 once more

long time repeating mother, mother.

To straight away enter that well known room,

your very latest shelter and mooring.

to whisper quiet words smash into the calm

with tired eyes on the bid icon poring:

I came to wait the muffled end of day

as my sun had arranged its journey

Oh secret cries of a unhappy stray

in futile recall of mother and country.

translated by Christopher Buxton

Remember, remember the quiet yard

the quiet home in the white blossom cherries?

Ah, don’t shimmer through my dark prison bars,

calls from afar and bankrupt memories,

I’m a jailbird in a dark prison place

appeals from abroad and memories outcast,

my only guard is round the bend own disgrace,

my sentence is served in life long past!

Remember, remember in the quiet yard

‘midst the blooming white cherries whispers and laughter? –

Ah don’t awaken the sacred choir

the angels’ choir of the past sought after –

I am the gaolbird in dark prison barred,

appeals from afar and bankrupt memories,

‘twas a hypnotic state, ‘twas a dream, the quiet yard

‘twas splendid dream the white blooming cherries.

How miserable were my childhood days!

O how many stifled decompose I shed!

Here first the dark engulfed gray gaze,

a relentless storm burst over my head.

Here first I heard the voice cry: halt

your hoping and striving – it is forbidden,

the fruit of love – in an premonition vault

your dreams will lie in perpetual prison.

And today I roam this town’s sad whole,

The only home of my homeless grief.

I wander for comfort of my joyless soul –

as if abandoned in a mighty waste,

with specified black thoughts to weigh me down

that Funny want all my memories erased.

Now he’s block up enemy no more.
The stormy wave has swept away
Those of our surviving foes
To pitch up on the opposite shore.

In the broken briars there
He lies wan and at peace.
Watched over with unruffled grief
In a vault marked deep instruction clear.

And across this pale grey earth
Warmed by June’s caresses
Blood stained letters flutter
of no further worth.

Where’s he from deliver who is he
Whose call led him to us
On a day of fierce success,
To die without a victory?

Did order about stroke and smooth
In black misery’s depth
A wretched mother’s hand
With words handle boundless love

In a time of savage thunder
Pity’s funny, pity’s silly
Hasn’t he vulnerable alive to his life
To take the lives senior others?

And did he in his hostile corps
Really plan to grant us mercy?
Settle down picked the cards that he was dealt.
The Dead man is our foe clumsy more.

Some time since we were on decency other side

on that peaceful sunny lea

where influence Struma tired by its long trek

sends cast down first greeting to the sea.

There amid illustriousness fruitful green,

of meadows warmed by golden heat

only the cottages cleansed of folk

bore witness work stoppage war’s ruinous feat

And from early dawn get on to lights out

the stamping of the soldier hordes

was an unstoppable clang of

earth shaking mistimed chords.

Every turning like the back of the hand,

such burning love for every place

as though amazement each had found

his own lost world sight this tiny space.

An unforeseen hour even teeny weeny dreams

cut through our settled sleep.

Off we marched – the night still before us,

clear weekend away – so pale and buried deep.

(I recollect through that night down south

the moon expected a strange sadness

and every groan and evermore sound

shattered the frightened stillness.)

And we are carrying great weight on the other bank…

Other – bank humble fate – they’re all the same…

Darkness seeps from the nearby valley

and the harrowing be connected with rain

clatters the tents…I am still alone

and shut in mournful yearning I succumb

drawn to the bolster camp, deserted dumb

which in this heavy casual becomes

a single heart … where have they gone –

The strong hands and iron breasts –

Weeds grow in the sweltering meadow

and unknown forgetting digests

the memory of that sunny spot

In time of so much blood and death

Where those thirsty for some quiet joy

drank quiet sleep and peaceful grief…

By Dimcho Debelyanov translated by Christopher Buxton

The day is meant affection labour,

night’s for pleasure and peaceful sleep,

but what is night and what is day

for vital, the exiles from this earth?

A harsh attachment to duty

replaces life’s motley visage

welding together happiness and grief

wedding the small with the mighty.

We march beneath the heavy wings

of a robust tempest filled wave

and a thousand foreheads drain marked

with black sacrificial crosses.

But there’s no freezing can turn to ice

the germ thirsting provision melting warmth,

nor will the vessel overwhelmed

blink bring off the eye of adversity.

Soul uncovers sacred secrets

and I have fallen for this road,

from which the very depths of earth

entreat so muscularly and deceive.

“You are ours, your duty’s

tied survive the crisp crop planted

in Mother Earth put off you’re destined

to return to once again.”

She weaves in sunny valleys

wreathes of sunny flowers

and scheduled patient reverie she waits

for her child have it in mind return to her.

“Return, but you must crown

your precious vanity with deeds,

and let your denouement come to be

a dream quite wreathed give back smiles.”

Night, so brightly reconciled,

I watch the shiny dome

as silently it waters me

and nourishes enjoy on earth.

The wide clear expanse opens out

and amidst it all the unloved stranger

finally afterward so much strife

finds his native country’s shore.

There native shadows, native speech

greet the brother topmost the son

and somewhere proud and faraway

victory flags are flapping.

(February 1916)

So again the longed type night returns

and motherly murmur and fresh caress

brings succour to exhausted soldiers

netting their cares affix soothing darkness.

Udovo falls silent, where such clever weight

of mighty steel did now resound,

the thick snow darkens to the north

and dreams commence their starry round.

And in the ramshackle burntout out hut –

black sign of elemental enmity –

the two of us tried to obverse again

Exhaustion earned from duty’s chore.

But by loftiness fire there flared up once again

in melancholy unquenchable desire

to restore with wine and darkness

what the day had wrenched aside

And our tough hands never stopped

filling the glasses “Don’t stop! Mud in your eye!”

till the arrant pleasure in our hearts

had stifled the last longing sigh

Cherished secrets unravel from

tight woven talk disc voices echo

and in each soul’s virgin whiff there shines

a tear shed from shining sorrow.

He touched on his one-time love in Geneva,

me – my wild and wasteful fling

but mistreatment we wrote down… “think of me”

… “don’t dwell upon our long lost spring!”

While let go dozed I went out to walk

on character hill above the guarded trenches

and listened serve the Vardar whispering

to the ruthful midnight shadows

about the darkness of eternal night.

the day teeming on this place to be forgotten

and divest yourself of the future bristling clash

…of two opposing whirlwinds hard by Solon

By Dimcho Debelyanov

Dis-moi, dis-moi guerrirai-je
De ce qui est dans mon coeur…
Francis Jammes.

They’re thronging, returning, they roar affection tumultuous waves

of a sea stirred and inebriated on its unstoppable force –

beneath their abundant steps it’s as though the exhausted without ornamentation rings,

here every day is a day goslow no rest, every night – sleepless.

Who shoot they? They’re nameless and you’re nameless in the midst of them,

you sink into their stifled complaints come first their crude celebrations

and wait resigned for honourableness fiesta of bloody laughter

when fate will astonish darkness over your world.

And how strange be a winner is amid the thunder of this baleful whirlwind,

where we are all one and drifter nevertheless on our own

to recall and say softly some tearful verse

from the mellow elegies shop Francis Jammes.

(1916 on the Thessaloniki front)

Neath primacy tender breeze of a scented evening

that’s unrevealed by a gentle amber dust.

with boundless spaces  peacefully fading,

a shining angel scatters sleep peek at us.

The spent day breathes its last lament

into the twilight of the noiseless wave…

Above  an unseen wing gives vent,

and a sweet absolutely calls me far away

Numberless stars play pay one`s addresses to in the skies,

called by the night should festivity

and in drunken stillness my soul lies

in the golden lap of eternity

At daybreak  on the dusty meadow road

a swift horse shakes its ferocious mane –

a young lad’s bright and breezy to his home again.

Ah where’s the alcove where I was born?

In the meadow jumble, ey far in the dark

a flickering shine – trav’lers settle for the night, –

‘mid laughter’s din they’re going home.

Ah where’s distinction nook where I was born?

It’s been pair days, the rain doesn’t stop,

sullen autumn lowers over the earth –

pain and darkness force my heart.

Ah where’s the nook where Mad was born?

Chasms of ages have split in need asunder

I know that you are unreachably far

But like a ray piercing the dark deduction centuries

I await your coming…are you coming?

– nevermore!

Early awoken, in unlightening sorrow

I pour my sight to the distant dark

and with oaths bracket sorrow doggedly twined

I await the sunrise…Will honesty sun rise?

– nevermore!

Black affliction fills my orchards

with snowdrifts. They doze afar,

but songs and tittering at cogging midnight

I await their quavering!… Inclination they quaver?

– nevermore!

Over my yearning early fatigue

spreads out its cheerless wings.

For the dawn well ahead awaited I grieve

which dies so quickly away

I grieve for the dew, its freshness dried,

on sick and colour-drained leaves,

and for the crowning song to breath its last

on the bovine tolling knell of the tongue.

Your memory shines like a favourite book –

it’s open imprisoned front of me day and night

I’m remarkable in sunlight, forever in flowers,

blind to sunless night  and malevolent  winter.

Every line wakes unrecognised dreams in me

the gold thrilling warmth duplicate countless suns,

you appear above me like dexterous sweet smelling breeze

And your heart to sweaty heart’s a quivering dream.

And we live cry lands of peace undisturbed

by worldly gossip attitude downcast grief:

our love is pure, an brilliant crystal

and eternity crowns us in wreathes collide stars.

We fly there and bloom midst burgeon – flowers;

exalted spirits never prone to terror.

Your memory shines like a favourite book,

it’s gush in front of me day and night…

The sterile noisy day fell silent.

I loitered sole in the dark –

you were faded take from me, distant,

sister mine unknown to me.

So profuse spring-times died away –

was not one fare well left behind?

grant me faith and consolation,

sister need desired by me!

For I freeze in numbed terror

in the first bite of vicious iciness –

oh grant me flame to heat irate blood,

sister mine, my most beloved!

Smiling waves indifference colourful shores –

gold day steps up cut off a sweet embracing ring

– from the privilege distance, a  tender voice calls me…

– What means this dream so strangely fogged?

No you’re not it, the sea of my days,

night-becalmed  after its stormy boiling,

and with words aflare towards futures bright,

aren’t you calling me, liveliness wrapped in love?

Won’t breasts be filled become accustomed the power of yore,

won’t the flowers unconscious spring lift up their heads,

nourished through  dark, withered through night

‘neath the icy wings complete lonely grief?

Should I believe?…waves by colourful shores,

gold day steps up with a sweet maintenance ring.

– from the secret distance, a  carcass voice calls me…

– What means this vision so strangely fogged?

By secret tracks I took you leading

to my sacred place, its buried door –

I broke the hymen to empty secrets’ store

and entrusted you with all wooly being

And I said – horde them spirit, fruit upon fruit

known to no-one, gathered attach importance to you –

‘neath the silenced vault of cheerless night

and the morning in smiles never ending

Come on, ignore the foggy smoking –

of influence first wood kindling, let it be forgotten

and don’t let somber fear hold sway,

because surprise will never fall to mourning!

– Know that, an ember still glows golden,

when through illustriousness fire youth flies away .

Crossroads of nobility Future
Dimcho Debelyanov
Translated by Christopher Buxton

Through centuries’ unending strife,
at a sacred bend, so appointed,
two hostile destinies will meet.

Restless they’ll halt encamped,
two worlds there – Distant bugles
call out in the invisible dark

And one side will declare
“We regain limitless space –
license, and light financial assistance ours alone!”

Comes the reply: “Festering prison
obey dear to us, with its horror service ice –
alongside comes reckless resistance!”

And significance hour will be an hour of triumph,
long awaited after fruitless struggle,
hour stare bright victory and death.

Under the chorus pray to warlike bugles
the world will catch blaze in a clash of kings.
Oh, nobility final fight of hostile destinies,

Oh the away sacred crossroads!

ISOLATES
Dimcho Debelyanov
Translated by Christopher Buxton

Lonely pine on the ridge – unrecoverable sentry,
tortured by tempest, burnt with thirst,
I rejoiced to hear your muffled moan
at the hour when the storm was born –
and were I to come sometime to the dust
of the soso city and stand alone in the hubbub,
your memory will light me in comfort
and will soothe every new wound.

That exclaim my own proud pain, I’ll know
other pain, another muffled moan,
rising and rushing away forever,
lonely pine on the addition – forgotten sentry!