Peycho Kanev


Oedipus

The fall seems to be planted in each of us.

There is no one left to 
love—
Even in the uterine darkness. 



Inside it

That blood. That rose. That red carpet. That abyss. 
That loneliness. That loss. That empty room. That breeze.
That shadow moving slowly across the room toward
the open window and the dark sky. That knife. That air.
That stillness. That is the place where the unthinkable
happens, without fight, without light, in that opaque night.
How deep the knife must go before you can feel anything?
How rough, how deep should you go before that? 
The silence of stone, the silence of the bones, of the clouds,
even deeper than that. Everything must go now.
The breeze wanders around the empty room, touching 
the faded pictures on the walls. That blood. That rose. That
red carpet and you. That shadow. That shadow inside me.
That abyss in the world. That bloody world. 



Necessities

I need you to put me to sleep under the blue blanket
of stars. I need to describe my life in hushed tones. 
I need to dance with the fire into the eye of the storm.

I need to be the ash of my cigarette and the ash of
tomorrow. I need to eat а pound of air’s flesh and 

a piece of the sunset. When the light and the darkness
first met, that was the moment I signed my departure 
with a sigh from the future that never comes. 

I need to lick your ganglion deep inside you, I need to
be so close to you, like a memory of a twin. I need the need

to want you when the day comes to an end and lightnings
are stitching the black sky. I need to remember the snow
as a childhood nightmare. I need to drink youth.

I need to be free like the wind in a cobweb and I need 
my calendar to end every single day, with its dying 
wings flapping on the cold floor, the hands of the clock
hammering deep inside your heart, your eyes looking
outside of mine own, in the body that once belonged to me,

with its exhaled air and deep carbon feelings. 
When the moon is halfway again,

I will change my old face. I need the lemon’s brightness
and the rice’s thirst. I need the infinity of water
but not for a very long time. 
I need ruined churches where I can talk to someone
other than myself. I need serenity. I need to be the darkness

inside the candle’s halo where I can find even more of
your illogical fears. I need your saliva flowing into

the river of my sins. I need to be a knife in a drawer
full of emptiness. I need to be everything you need 
in this life, the light, the future, the craziness, the sky

full of poems. When all of this is over, then I’ll be
the beginning. I need to be what never ends.

Peycho Kanev is the author of 8 poetry collections and three chapbooks, published in the USA and Europe. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Rattle, Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others. His new chapbook titled Under Half-Empty Heaven was published in 2019 by Grey Book Press. He has several nominations for the Pushcart Prize.

 
 

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