VANITY FAIR

By Yasen Vedrin

(Freezing Point)

To a ball I was asked by old Vanity:

"Hey, you cheerful, bright charmer! Come near!

Come and dance with the elite of humanity,

With no weight of human sorrow or fear!

Look, the cognac is festively gleaming

In this glass made of delicate crystal...

How many others are waiting and dreaming

For my invitation to cross this threshold...

I chose you! For your mind is so splendid!

With your lyre, you write with such ease!

On the crest of the wave, Yasen, blended,

This prestige will be yours, if you please.

Here a courtly, grand lady is glancing,

There a famous professor observes.

Drink the cognac, while we are advancing —

Blessed poet with Vanity's nerves...

I am tired of worldly, prose thinking.

With your wonderful verses, praise me today!

Give the most fiery rose without blinking

To this brothel of mine, on display!

Courtesan next to virgin patrician —

No plot could be more captivating.

Look at me with deep eyes, your ambition!

Possess me in rhymes, escalating!..."

I was cast out... I refused to obey.

Vanity traded me for a snob's name.

And I went to the slush, far away —

Where sadness rings out just the same.

A TALK WITH VALJEAN

By Yasen Vedrin

(Freezing Point)

Invented by Hugo’s immortal pen,

Within a story, holy and sublime,

I see you in your final weight again,

While ice has locked the earth in frozen time.

I am no radical of extreme thought,

Yet full of pure illusions, brotherhood.

By day I trudge through sticky mud, distraught,

Of mutiny, shame, sins against the good.

Your spirit comes to visit my own heart,

Your deep and harmless essence, so profound.

To stay deaf in the gale, to do my part,

Against the snakelike whispers spinning round.

Above a cup of soup with some gray wretch,

To read Christ’s holy words and contemplate.

To meet Gavroche before my door, and stretch

The Love of loves to shield him from his fate.

To leave a mark behind. A trace, a sign.

In hearts and minds. In palms and eyes awake.

So that the evil falls in floods, divine,

With iron handcuffs locked for his own sake.

And this, my friend Valjean, is where I stand,

My final, holy barricade and turn —

By evil of this world, unchecked, untamed,

Upon my fateful bonfire to burn...

WHITE BEAR

By Yasen Vedrin

(Freezing Point)

A white bear is the faith I am holding

In a world that is freezing so fast.

No future perspective unfolding,

And no calendars turned to the last.

They keep telling me: "Think more globally!"

And they push all their charts in my face.

"Warmth is coming, it's real and noticed!"

As the ice melts away from its place.

But the fears in my heart that are shrinking

Are prepared with another scale to measure.

For by day, when at souls I am looking,

I see shivering hearts lose their treasure.

There is no sign of mercy or healing,

And the time is so blank, so colder.

Under clothes, everyone is concealing

What is holy, and personal, and bolder.

Ice is drifting and crawling, untamed,

A sharp iceberg is threatening in white.

Even if like Titanic my heart had been named —

It would perish and break in the fight.

Maybe ancient and deep intuition

Keeps my soul in a shield, unrevealed.

A white bear is my faith and condition

In a world that is freezing and chilled.

A POTION OF SIGHS

By Yasen Vedrin

(A Potion of Sighs)

Upon the warm stove of my lifetime and fate,

A kettle of bitter herbs simmers and sighs.

I gathered the weeds when the starlight was late,

And mixed them with faith and with wisdom likewise.

At first, I left footprints. I pressed with my heel.

In these little hollows I wept, all alone.

A tear in each space — for pure dreams I could feel,

And grief for the colorless life I had known.

From within my own heart, seeds for herbs I then chose.

Each seed filled with yearning, anxiety, care.

Deep down in the soil, the seeds I enclosed,

And offered to God a hot, passionate prayer.

Time passed. Many summers extinguished their light.

My hair started changing its shades and its gleams.

Like a sad, ancient fated queen, youth took its flight.

It wept right beside me. It packed up my dreams.

And then I rushed up the steep slope in a race

To find all the footprints I left long ago.

Those herbs that were planted with moans in that place.

Those sighs that were bitter, with sadness and woe.

They had sprouted and grown. They had bloomed in the air.

Not a single wild herb, but a garden, whole-grown.

There is tea for the soul of the poet so rare,

Who passed through this life quite ingloriously, alone.

So I sit here in silence. I stretch out my hands

And warm myself up with live memories’ trace.

I drink from the potion. On my palate expands

The glow of sad sighs, bitter-tasting with grace.

FAREWELL

By Yasen Vedrin

(A Potion of Sighs)

Stripped of my leaves, in dark forebodings grieving,

From truths and worries that came true, so tired.

A late, cold autumn with its gusts is weaving

A final shrift for me, by winds inspired.

“I’m leaving now. The winter comes behind me.

I shook your branches in my freezing rain.

But life will go on long, as time outlined thee,

So hold your faith deep down through all the pain.

The leaves grow green, then wither and decay.

So fragile — like words caught in cycles’ spin.

And feelings slow down, panting on the way,

Within this seasonal world you wander in.

I’m leaving now. Let me embrace you tight,

For frost will cover you with white tomorrow.

But I will return, out of the winter's night,

And all between us shall resume past sorrow...”

My very final leaf was torn away.

It tried to fly, but failed and met the ground.

And I, who sent my autumn on its way,

Curled by the root to sleep in peace profound.

AUTUMN WISDOM

By Yasen Vedrin

(A Potion of Sighs)

My final autumn strikes me with its breeze

And shakes the yellow leaves into the air.

With secret leaven, kneaded with much ease

Inside my heart, to follow truth I dare.

It always wakes exactly at the stage

When loops and cycles near their final end,

And when the artist needs, at such an age,

To feel rich in the heights, as realms ascend.

Attempting at the sunset to stay warm,

Old men step forth into the gloomy phase.

They tap their canes in silence through the storm,

Forgetting their most mournful groan and days.

The leaves that lost the fight with falling down,

Have stripped away their summer shades of green,

And sooner, later, every leaf must drown

In withered foliage of this transient scene.

What could sustain their warmth if they must die?

Does their green yearning still remain behind?

Do precious, weary souls rise up and fly,

To break the chains that old age cast and bind?

No! That is not what’s written for us all!

For even in the autumn, spring can thrive!

But pine-needles they must be through the fall,

Not heavy oak leaves struggling to survive…

My final autumn strikes with heavy hand.

I shrink. A fading leaf I will not be!

A stubborn needle, small upon the land,

Ready to live two centuries, wild and free…

To still remain so radiant, fresh, and green,

And to endow everyone with breath —

This is my shared, wise truth, profound, serene,

For travelers to the Life that knows no death.

I AUTUMN...

By Yasen Vedrin

(A Potion of Sighs)

I autumn... Don't ask me for answers or why...

I am seasonally bound, it appears.

And a rainbow of leaf-fall is filling my eye,

And its magic is yours through the years.

I autumn... Subjected to rains of old traces,

Of days gone by, not to forget.

And a drizzling sky recites rhymes in my spaces

Of how green turns to yellow and wet.

I autumn... And within its wise, cyclical spinning,

The world covers me with its shade.

I am tired of youth in my dreams from beginning.

Perhaps old age is happily made.

I autumn... A silver bloom chases my track

From a radiant summer, now cold.

Embrace me! For life is a yearning turned back —

To transform all our silver to gold.

I autumn... Don't ask me for answers or why...

A gilded Yesenin, perhaps, in my soul...

And a barely perceived, subtle grief wanders by,

Making senses shed tears for the whole.

MY WIND!

By Yasen Vedrin

(A Potion of Sighs)

The morning caresses me, blue-eyed.

The autumn is whispering, pale-faced.

The long-sleeping yearnings inside

Awake to the scent leaves have placed.

All night through the window, flung wide,

The cool wind has frolicked and played.

With palettes snatched down from the sky,

Its art on my floor it has laid.

A golden-bright autumn design.

How dare I to step? I must fly...

A carpet of innocence fallen, divine.

Dear God! Is it real to the eye?

Each leaf is a magical sign,

Turned gold in the delicate sheet.

As if a new childhood is mine —

Awake by a tree, fresh and sweet.

As if my dear mother is near,

A quince in my hand she has placed.

The sunbeams are laughing and clear,

Like fish in a river enchased...

My wind! You have made me smile bright!

Now paint everything in my soul!

I’ll stay in your tenderness quiet —

Reborn with my childhood made whole.

Fly deep in my spirit, fly high —

Like dreams under skies old and vast.

See tears in my hand, clear and dry?

They’re dew from my eyes of the past...

Please, keep painting, do not depart,

With yellows of autumn embrace.

My reward is a verse from the heart

To kiss your invisible face...

TURNED PAGES

By Yasen Vedrin

(Fireflies in the Palm)

We turned all the pages that stood as our last.

We were folded by cold and by sharp loneliness.

For its shadows we were but two strangers who passed,

Lost completely in night’s heavy gloom and distress...

We dreamed of each other, tied fast in our fates.

We painted each other in watercolor, bright.

Satiated never, we drank of those traits.

We wandered through limits, seeking bounds in the night.

We revealed all ourselves in sad truths that were cast.

We shared all our secrets aloud from the heart.

We smiled, internally cleansed at the last.

We opened our doorways for us from the start.

We longed for each other in feverish craze.

We kissed one another in lines soft and clear.

We grew jealous, suffering from words in a daze.

We wounded ourselves out of sad, heavy fear.

We turned all the pages that stood as our last.

We closed ourselves down without being at all...

Unwalked boundaries remained from the days of the past,

And a grief that will bring a sharp pain like a wall...

UNREACHABLE

By Yasen Vedrin

(Fireflies in the Palm)

Through some stubborn and persistent hope inside,

The kind of which is never found in me,

I discover you, though you remain and hide,

I envision you, though blinded I may be.

I touch your hand, although I am so far.

I fold you inside moments left alone.

A verse is lit, where all my heartbeats are,

Ready from ashes to build dreams unknown.

At least through them you’re living and you stay.

Accessible in pulse. Caressed in sleep.

Though with no ray or prospect on the way.

Although I am with you. And yet can't keep.

Sometimes even a mere image or view

Sculptures from marble beauty and its trace.

The statue stays like calls, forever true,

Born in a white-stone mouth inside this place.

They do not breathe, yet they are burning hot.

They say no words, and yet the verses turn.

I feel you. But you feel me not on spot.

I paint you with charcoal and sparks that burn.

I reach you, still unreachable and far.

I chase your soul, just like a star ahead.

Although I have you not, you are my star.

Traceless you are, but in me traces tread.

And in this line my soul I will disclose,

Even if left unread by your own breath.

I stay a breeze that loves the storm it knows,

A valley, by a mountain peak faced with death.

THE UGLY DUCKLING

By Yasen Vedrin

(Fireflies in the Palm)

Tonight I invite you to visit my space.

I’m pouring some wine. The candle flames light.

For things that are simple, with mystical grace –

I warm frozen dreams in the dark of the night.

I know that the doorway will not creak or slide,

Nor will any doorbell startle me blue.

You’ll come, but somehow from heaven outside –

Like a fairy from palaces, shining and true.

Like a sharp, painful ache of my madness inside,

Like a soft, gentle whisper of my crying tone,

Like a moment of hard-suffered wonder and guide,

That you fall in love with the look left alone.

You will come, and I will be tender and clear –

Revealing each thought and emotion within.

That beautiful swan, snowy-white and so dear,

Who once an ugly duckling had been.

That ultimate meaning that all things so bright

Require their time for a blooming address...

I drink of this wine, bitter-sweet in the night.

I wait for you, frozen in icy distress!

You do not come, even from heavens above!

No fairy from palaces shines through the shade!

And the cold glass of windows, forgotten by love,

Grows foggy from snow-powder falling displayed.

Tonight I invite you to visit my space...

An empty, cold glass. The candle burns low.

An ugly duckling with questions to face,

And an unfulfilled wonder in night’s heavy glow…

A SPECK WITHIN THE EYE

By Yasen Vedrin

(Fireflies in the Palm)

If only this bright day could be a charm

And miracles would happen with no boundaries,

I would shrink down at once, safe from all harm –

Into the silken space your hair surrounds.

Bound tightly with a single hair around my waist,

I would descend down to your eyes so kind.

And after that I’d look, but late in haste, –

At what you hid from me within your mind.

You speak about a speck within your eye...

But tell me, is there truly such a part?

Should I become a Gulliver, to try,

Because a tear of secrets weights your heart?

That secret, filled with full impossibility,

In which even a single touch brings pain.

When everything grows complex with fragility,

And there's no meaning in the words "if" or "again".

That secret – meaning, all the kindness told,

Which never opens love or unlocks the gate.

Which passes by, untoward and so cold,

With all the craved-for things denied by fate...

I understand! We drift apart, we two!

A tiny speck within the eye divides.

And yet the day could be a magic view,

Where rains of miracles pour down from all the sides!

A LACE OF FULFILLED DREAMS

By Yasen Vedrin

(The Vine of Engadi)

“Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet,

and thy speech is comely...”

(Song of Solomon 4:3)

When hearing how your voice begins to weave

The delicate, fine lace of dreams made true,

My heart grows quiet, waiting for relief,

Not asking if wingless it can fly to you.

An unearthly dream uplifts it to the skies,

While in your lips the wind begins to spin.

You fill me up, yet more I want to rise.

I do not ask – when or where we shall begin...

Among the evening clouds within the setting light,

Your waiting voice will fall into a rest,

And feeling, like a burning fire in the night,

Will weave us in one lace upon your chest.

CAPTIVATE ME, O LOVE!

By Yasen Vedrin

(The Vine of Engadi)

“Turn away thine eyes from me,

for they have overcome me...”

(Song of Solomon 6:5)

In the snow-white-dyed ropes o’er an abyss,

My long gaze is transfixed on your face.

If I look to the side – I will vanish,

Like a smoke scattered out with no trace.

Let me pass into you, drawn and driven.

Past your eyes. In the wild captive storm.

Where alone in its beauty is given

The bright spring of green longing so warm.

Where the birds in their flight keep arriving,

And the world like a harp starts to ring...

Having conquered me, saving and striving –

Captivate me, O love, like a king...

LET THERE BE DOVES UPON YOUR FAIRY FACE

By Yasen Vedrin

(The Vine of Engadi)

“Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, 

thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes...”

(Song of Solomon 1:15)

I would not find a color in the bow

To capture in a stroke your shining face.

Through your sweet eyes, where beautiful things grow,

The doves will make a white and boundless space.

The wondrous poetry will softly coo.

A heavenly ray upon your lids will bide.

And in your gaze a break will shine for you,

Prepared to gather all my calls inside.

And in the flash, when visible and clear

You capture me, a whisper I will trace:

Let there be doves, so innocent and dear,

And let me fly with them in happy grace.