VPT Poetry Retrospective

The Parliament has voted the new government whose alternative of priorities seems to comprise of the integration of the country’s major business infrastructures into those of the European Union, and the settlement of local specifics into clear local business levels.

It is a real merit global strategy has gained in as few as twenty years with the achievement of an almost velvet-gloved substitution of the trainees of the Soviet policy with those of the different western programs that base on the combination of a person’s natural aptitude and the behaviour pattern that person is led into adopting.

The period that was assigned for redistribution of influence over the country, which separated the population into the group receiving benefits coming from the west through the structures of the east, and the group enjoying new possibilities for mobility given by the eastern structures at the expense of the western populations, seems to be culminating in the formation of a local pyramid of power where all levels are controlled by local politicians and officers, both groups with a declared determination to fight against any negative legacy left from previous governments, and struggle for the country’s stability.

Any future comparison with the period directly after the introduction of the socialist regime on September 9, 1944, will be a blasphemy, though many people sense vindictiveness in the atmosphere.

I seem to have failed in my attempts at understanding the mechanisms and tools with which the global levels are gaining stability through an inner instability that steps on all sorts of confrontations.

I have an alternative: to humbly witness what is about to happen while order is being reintroduced by the law, and partially by the people who violated the law during the past twenty years, that is, be like the old man sitting on the curb to listen to the music coming out of a summer window across the street, or I may swagger around, supported by my accumulated exhaustion, and urge myself on in life, like the seemingly insane skeleton of a woman following her own encouragement of ah-aha-ah-aha-ah-aha.

I think that this blog will not be a safe place for some time, so I had better write a story about love, maybe about the impossibility of love between the Ah-Aha Woman and the Man sitting on the curb to listen.
V.P.Toucheva 27.07.2009 Sofia, Bulgaria, EU

It is interesting how little I fit among the new type of supermarket customers, and how suspicious I probably look to the security cameras that keep records of my three entries into the shop over the past 10 days.

The tall fake customer who chose to stand right behind me- as if to drop something into my shoulder bag- at the openly broad biscuits counter had probably picked me out from the recordings of my previous visits and was now practising face control on a level well below his former job at the customs house.

Selecting whom to suspect has certainly something to do with the creation of new structures and the hiring of personnel that instinctively eliminates the competition of the structure architects, and more certainly than that with the human types, some of which have parted with the hope to develop the haughtiness of the impoverished aristocrat, but have stolen from their natural opponents the right to develop the instincts of the hunter.

I must read my literary itinerary named “Dorman” to see what of the social background then has turned into social specifics now.

There certainly are more than one Benjamin now to suspect Jane Brown of interfering with her presence in the new style of pools and structures, and more than one Dorman to buy off the security cameras the recordings that turn Jane Brown into an unaware advertising agent on brochures and book covers.

I must rewrite “Dorman” and make it a more serious book.
V.P.Toucheva 24.07.2009 Sofia, Bulgaria, EU

Living in a small apartment in an entrance of larger apartments places one in the position of a minority that has an equal share in covering the costs of common repairs and innovations by the principle of ‘as many apartments as many shares’.

Local rules rarely observe laws, and when a local majority is strong enough to abstain its group’s interests, one may turn into the ‘black sheep’ that either obeys or is ousted.

The protests of the minority against the unfairness may be good-humouredly interpreted as insanity or seen as aggression, both of which a clever minority may elude with small picks from the common ‘pie’ or silently suffer.

In line with getting civilized, which I have certainly gone through, ware or unaware of its mechanisms, here is an old poem of mine:
A Compassionate Thought
I will be hungry, will be thirsty
What will be then the helping hand
The memory of this now plenty
or that someone is what I am
The prime is with me, though scared,
but almost equal to thirst
It will stay tired, with me paired
and wait for me to leave it first
I fought my road, left life in ambush
Above my head's the dome of skies
One of the moody fate-announcers
takes his own turn to read my sign
The world's progressing, breaking, building,
preparing in rearguard
Its overlapping, tapping, spinning,
is something better, someone's start
Who needs some water, I am drinking
Who needs some food, I eat and eat
Will someone think that I am needing
when sad days slap on me their leap
I try to help you, I am thinking
I keep and give what I have got
Please do not leave to memos sinking
to help me with a compassionate thought
V.P.T. 25.03.2003
V.P.Toucheva 23.07.2009 Sofia, Bulgaria, EU

There have recently been so many political resignations that the many resignments I suffered before I was permanently unemployed- though I eventually did get a deserved small teacher’s pension- seem like training sessions.

The poem below, brimming with positive mood, was written shortly after a school’s headmistress, accompanied by the school’s psychologist and its secretary, gathered round me to see me write and sign my resignment.

That was another historical period that brought me another resignment, all negative to my physical and mental survival, but all as customary as is for a mouse to run from the cat, hide in a hole and plan a new food expedition.

The difference between the shifts of political resignations and my instigated resignments may be found in the fact that when on no income or charity I am looking around for a job, like spreading my unused genes on the horizontal to hitch my desperate personality to whatever source of life, while the resigning politicians, having taken turns to alter whatever, plus the education, system to the extent exacting new recruitments to mend all, will be turning their parties into business clubs.

Christmas Tree
Around you there winds a garland,
and stars sit quiet in your green
No story’s told, no memory round
to tell your feelings to your dreams

Your feelings are for people happy
Your dreams keep in their tunes your sighs
Beyond this place of honoured standing
is neither this hall, nor this night

Don’t sleep to wake up in the morning
with presents under your fine skirts
Enjoy the night… enjoy…enjoying
the quiet of a holy birth

A year climbs up on your branches
full of my wishes and my dreams
Oh, Christmas Tree, let light embrace you
Let happiness be round me
V.P.T. 4.12.2004
V.P.Toucheva 22.07.2009 Sofia, Bulgaria, EU

The old government has resigned, the new is not yet formed, and in between both, like right after a revolution, individual interests are playing own games, checking the weak points of their natural enemies, and preparing their own ace cards for when a new change will exact by rule people of no belonging to a previously powerful structure. In one word, when one’s position in a structured order is shaken or uncertain, one has the right to create an own pyramid of information and triggers out of the people one has chosen to be a target or a resource.

It really is a period of total uncertainty but for those people and countries that are participating in the creation of the current upper global levels.

In line, here is an old poem about skies and trees:

One Thing Only

There's one thing which I really love-
the voice which penetrates my soul
But skies are hungry, and above
it soars into the spaces cold
All left for me is a red light
above the tape, all mine and turning
My soul, strong, in need to fight,
can lock your voice in lightnings burning
There's one thing which I really love-
the voice which penetrates my soul
V.P.T.
V.P.Toucheva 17.07.2009 Sofia, Bulgaria, EU

The new National Assembly is holding its first session today, and the mass media are interested in the many new people elected members of parliament. Many new people’s representatives seem shy and ready to work, many seem reluctant to undertake own steps and relaxed in their own life styles, many seem used to order and taking commands, many seem irritated by the existence of structures other than the one they are part of, many are curious about their own job, many are ready to speak about their own career, many are in a hurry to sign in and start doing, many will be giving brilliant ideas about the welfare of Bulgaria, and many, many more will be representing all the layers and levels of a country that is now the product of twenty years of structure growth and social adaptation. It is now the time to go back to writing poetry about trees, bushes, waves, and the sky with all the invisible satellites and spaceships above it:

In line with my own past twenty years which seem to be quite different though affected by the globalizing past twenty years of the party workers who guarded the socialism infrastructures, and the security institutions who introduced the elements of capitalism, here is an old poem of mine:

ALMOST LATE
The waves
take all
into the bay-
their calm,
their hopes,
their strength
But they are hurrying,
almost late,
to span
the whole
sea shore length
V.P.T.
V.P.Toucheva 14.07.2009 Sofia, Bulgaria, EU

On one and the same day, many people have ideas about sharing the scanty means left.

The gathered over the years, empty glass jars which I sold today at the equivalent of two euro cents each, will buy me a loaf of bread tomorrow.

The many notices in the block entrance alarming to a recent theft will need my teacher’s pension to pay the already hired security agency that will guard the block.

On one and the same day, I am exhausting the last of my reserves, and security is exhausting the last of its resources.

No wonder my retrospective is turning upon its own back to see if it is supporting or threatening:

In Succession
A nation motley, brewed, amalgamated,
where roads human, peoples different met,
where wars were fought in timeless plenty,
where passions boiled, schemed, and slept

A nation of the best-worst mankind
In turn, prey, predators, tough, then ferocious
Ransacking ranks of friends to grow own pride
All pioneers slow rash, dispatched, and open cautious

Inside own claws of fear and self-confidence
Steel hardened fighters, laundered clever cheats
Inside own dens of remnants, nonsense, tokens
Instinctive cowards, insatiable jungle beasts

A nation wakeful, teamed, sincere, simple, hearted
The builders of the roads to the distant worlds
Earth’s messengers, survivors bred for hardship
The last to live their lives, the new ideas first to serve

A nation scattered in the need of grouping
Collected in the chambers of the home control
A nation pooled inside wooed order, order wooing
Rejecting places fixed in ordered everything and all

A nation motley, brewed, amalgamated,
where roads human, peoples different met,
where wars were fought in timeless plenty,
where passions boiled, schemed, and slept
V.P.T. 9.07.2009
V.P.Toucheva 10.07.2009 Sofia, Bulgaria, EU

The days, months, years, and decades of educational arguments over world politics and matter-of-fact science, which I and my son have had, though both of us simple philologists and both comparatively poor, seem to be asking an alternative question worth developing into a literary work: How can a future help its own past, even if in the same place; and how can a present help its own self if it is separated in two complete parts, each in a different sphere.

The question has much of Bulgaria’s past and present, of the people who left it to live abroad, of the people who came to live in the country, the people who need just the area, the people who need just the power, the people who are tools in the hands of other people, the people of difference and similarity, the people who act instinctively, the people who scheme and wait, the people of all the different spheres and scales, the people of all the different destinies and lives, everybody really.

In line with my future work, here is a retrospective poem:

Rhyming
There’s no hurry to describe the seasons
Enough to look and see the people going past
They seem to liken their all lives’ meanings
to natural divisions by a cast
The autumn person will be nice and cold
like autumn trees which, wet, wait for the night
with pine-tree needles scattered on the ground
and air that’s so strong though light
The spring-time person will be happy, flying
towards a flourish or a conquest
like spring which gives its blessings: arming
the seeds with the potential of days next
The summer person is the scarest to notice
the mist of heat and dust blur off the sight
The summers are forever, ever, thirsty
Don’t get the fruit they’ve grown, working hard
The winter person is the most lucky
Naught there’s to steal, naught there’s to take
The winter, itself, takes beneath its carpet
all, even dreams of spring which will be back
There’s no hurry to describe the seasons
Just say ‘hello’ to each coming phase
If you don’t match, you won’t be greeted: reasons
for this a lot, but you won’t be off-chased
V.P.T. 18.10.2003

Now that a shift has successfully been achieved from where the left wing subtlely implemented the right-wing projects, through the rush to establish a relevant business and party spectrum, and to the right wing that will have to reinforce with borrowed and established structures the marked social levels and clear the economy of excess, the old orthodox political parity is ready to teach order to the least protected by either business or party life.

I am now embarking on new lands, as if to complete a long and exhausting cruise that started in the early nineteen-nineties with the grand blue-bannered meetings of the opposition and went through the different business, party, and individual utilization of the information and picture material gathered by the special agencies. Here is a new poem in Bulgarian:
Живот-музей
Отпуснах аз юздите на живота,
не забелязвам дъжд, мъгла и зной
Навярно съм умряла без да мога
да разбера помагат ли, или пък търсят помощ тя и той
Успях от гробището своя паметник аз да изтръгна,
поставих го в живота си като в музей на път
Едни сега се кланят на останките, а други бързат-
настигнат ли музея, те своите следи ще заличат
V.P.T. 6.07.2009
V.P.Toucheva 6.07.2009 Sofia, Bulgaria, EU

Today is poll day that started while the country was still sleeping, and began well east and outside the boundaries of Bulgaria on a promised new parliament.

Almost every person in the streets and on the way to openly vote and anonymously express affiliation or negation seems happier today than at an own birthday party, as if the future of the world depends on each individual choice irrespective of the all the other choices.

Everyone is charged with a certainty, as if with an army rank that provides income and a stage to climb and tribune all the popular opera arias in the ears of someone differently talented who will want to turn up the volume to hear the strength of the masterpieces.

There is a restricted choice of parties and candidates, all seemingly with ranks and learned arias, and all seemingly with one definite role distributed on the different levels of the same pyramid.

One will be making a mistake to look for a squit party of ragamuffins to vote for and morally punish the political system for cheating one’s hopes of democracy and freedom, because there are none, and also the system has taken measures to co-ordinate the time of vote and the time of placing a second stamp on the bulletins.

Today’s poll is returning the country to about twenty years ago when the blue wing of the self-created democrats won over the red wing of the communists that had taken all the well-paid and powerful positions in the country, but today’s poll is also taking the country ahead to where the red wing cannot take the assets they accumulated while introducing the capitalist idea, and where there are very few unpaid or powerless supporters of the blue wing.

So far, so well. I guess I have an old poem of rank and for the stage:

SEA BLUE

The distant shore
The misty sky
The held-up waves
The blue-
so blue,
so blue,
so blue
above the water
V.P.T.
V.P.Toucheva 5.07.2009 Sofia, Bulgaria, EU

It is really stimulating when a round-headed young man of the low crop and of the low military ranks stops one at the front door of the block where one has been living since 1978, and asks: ‘Do you live here?’ and ‘What is your name?’.

No wonder many people, with me among them, look suspicious to any new wave of political recruitment come fresh from the countryside, all burdened under the certainty that they were born and bred to introduce specified order in the environment which they find to be unspecified appropriate.

The political fraction of the socialism past is now retreating into entrenchment and leaving the business fraction of the transition period to finish the project, both sides fearing qualified and genetic competition, both sides fighting for the few comfortable places in the city, and both sides clearing the ground for the advent of the big predators.

The double thought that predators have by birth the right to look for prey, and that the patches of grass start on plots where moss and mould have taken root, is consolidating and stimulating to my decision to either enter the opposition between people taking the poll and people refraining from voting, or enter one of the many political oppositions where the candidates have at least once changed party belonging, or have at least once changed a military or a business career for a political one.

In line with the above, and to verify my living here, here is an old poem of mine:

At Sunset
Believe me, clouds small,
the smallest clouds,
can separate the sun from thee,
can give a lot, a lot of trouble,
you must believe, believe in me
Can ride the sun,
slip down slowly,
the sun can ride them free,
can turn their white
to crispy popcorn,
like demons gaping breathe
The sun has yes, a thousand faces,
three thousandfold or more,
and well-bred is,
the sky embraces,
but blocks to dreams the door
Believe me, dreams,
the shortest dreams,
if brave enough
to stay around,
can help you fly
the slightest breeze
to get rid
of the hideous clouds
V.P.T.
V.P.Toucheva 4.07.2009 Sofia, Bulgaria, EU

The question ‘Where have you been?’, meaning the past twenty years, and the question ‘Where were you?’, meaning the same past twenty years, seem to have different literal and historical meaning to the different people in Bulgaria.

The more people express- during one or another interview for one or another position or job- that there must be more people ready to actively act for the four different aspects of social benefit: further development, fighting against inherited negative tendencies, social stability, and country growth, the larger is the army of functionaries ready to reintroduce methods where lots of peopled structures control the peopled masses, neither the controller nor the controlled in control of the economy, the science, the capital, or the projects for involvement in social control.

If one has a look at the Bulgarian political spectrum and the people ready to govern in the name of the country- the term ‘country’ now used to decreasingly imply ‘local population’- one may reach the conclusion that the candidates for power and posts are most appropriately forming a low dense social cohesion network woven by the collective endeavour of all the segments of the political pie chart, which network is reinforced with inter-party and inner-party similarity and opposition of the basic for the region, and historically developed for social positions, human types, economic dependencies, and coalitions.

In line with this, one may say that it is easy to choose whom to vote for at the general election on Sunday- one can vote for the person or party that will produce their next army of individuals ready to govern the assets they have access to, that can be used in the explaining of control failures with assets they have no access to, can control people they neither care about nor surpass in qualification and skills, can be used in the explaining of why a reform has reached a dead end, in one word, people who will climb to, or be hauled into, an upper network of denser rules and a compactability of job positions diversified with foreign specialists in all the relevant areas.

In line, here is an old poem of mine, almost rhymed with its own rhythm:
A Treacherous Partner
Life's such a treacherous, now, partner
It will slap its palm onto you
If unsuccessful to crush down,
it'll scoop you in a loving mood
It will, no trick of its now working,
hold your face as if for a kiss
Or it will fend off anybody
who can provide secured peace
It will raise you from the firm ground
to show its utmost respect
Or it will make your pride bend down
to learn its patience and its tact
Life's such a treacherous, now, partner
It needs you say that its your boss
All you can learn from life is how
to be more treacherous and cross
V.P.T. 7.07.2003
V.P.Toucheva 3.07.2009 Sofia, Bulgaria, EU

Taming the Shrew (to borrow the title and idea from Shakespeare) is a responsible job, and the larger area is shrew and to be tamed, the larger the staff involved in the job. The Balkans have always been untamed due to the incompatibility of the East and West in their major competition for leadership in the directions westwards and eastwards in search of new Americas to discover.

If there is a saying that quality cures, no matter that the quality matter might be inadequate for immediate use in an ailment, then the Bulgarian politician spectrum is the quality we need to be whole time engaged in neighbour relationships, on household, communal, regional, world, space, etc. levels, fixing problems that are progressively orderly and well classified along the vertical line, though we have to cope with them on the horizontal line.

It is obvious that the pie chart of the programs of the political parties is promising to accommodate the Bulgarian Parliament with professional politicians working for professional businessmen, working, in turn, for professional politicians of higher ranks, working for professional businessmen on higher levels, and so on. If one program has already been used for economic alterations, it is now in the social sphere and is introducing the stability of allowed oppositions, where a program based on social relationships, it is now giving ideas about economic development.

In line, here is my latest poem about how charmed I was to see in person a former minister of education, very charmed indeed as I spent half of his mandate looking for a job, and half in criticizing the absurdity of tramping down on the education system to be able to unhitch it from the socialist basic criteria and links and prepare its progressive uprising reform for the establishment of education as one of the many businesses supporting, and supported by, all the other businesses. No wonder a parent during that minister’s mandate warned me that he would do everything so I nowhere got a teaching job- the parent was a businessman doctor, more or less the god of survival.

To/From The Marketplace

To/from the marketplace I walked
Past politicians live campaigning
I asked myself the question long:
'Do the survivors double playing-
once at the table con opponents,
once at the table con themselves-
chase in a chain creating problems,
or cheat on all their close friends
To/from the marketplace I walked
Met politicians self-campaigning
Like kings saluted by their courts
Like cats round open trap doors playing
The city, in its work day plunged,
was stepped in skills con new conditions
All played their games at tables large
All carried grudges strong, ambitious
To/from the marketplace I walked
And took along my own life
All through my past with smile mocked
Ahead to traps of pride and strife
V.P.T. 30.06.2009
V.P.Toucheva 2.07.2009 Sofia, Bulgaria, EU