THE POOR MAN'S ASTRONOMY

By Yasen Vedrin

(The Copper Bowl)

I saw the darkness of my life unfold –

A cosmos bound by coldness, space and time.

Instead of feeling joy, as I am told,

My heart is weeping in this state of grime.

I do not hunger after wealth or fame,

No palace and no shiny cars I crave.

If I should reach my pocket, it's the same –

A vacuum, where no rustling notes behave.

At restaurant doors they tell me: “Get away!”

In shops they watch me with a doubtful eye.

Like a black hole, misery holds its sway,

And sucks me in as options pass me by.

I notice stars. A few. They shine out bright.

From cinema, from life... on billboards tall.

They too are beggars, naked in the night...

Where do they keep their money, after all?

What a strange fate! A cosmos, it would seem!

With vacuums, with black holes and stars that glow.

Perhaps it is a planetary dream

Of purpose that was left from long ago.

About the hidden trap of our existence,

Where everything that glitters falls from grace...

I am a poor man, but with God’s assistance,

He will forgive my darkness in this place.

A TEAR FOR THE WRETCH

By Yasen Vedrin

(The Copper Bowl)

With heavy sighs and visible emotion,

At finding a poor cripple on her street,

A lady shares her thoughts with clear devotion

Regarding his repulsive, foul defeat.

“Oh, horror! Clothes so smelly, torn and shattered!

And tangled hair! Lice-ridden, I suppose!

I shiver looking at this creature, battered!

Why won’t he wash with Palmolive and hose?

Is begging not enough to buy some Ariel,

Or get a Gillette razor for a start?

To iron out his rags, make them more bearable,

And buy a little chair to cheer his heart...

Thus sitting on cement, what is he thinking?

The ants will crawl all over him, you see!

Oh, good God! With a headache I am sinking,

From fates so minor and of no degree...

Ugh, look! The sinner’s hand is reaching out!

He touched my lovely, beautiful mink coat!

If fleas infest my closet, without doubt,

I’ll surely know what note struck at my throat...

Why look at me? I take my napkin out,

For your deep grief has broken me in two.

Madame has shed a tear for you, no doubt!

A tear for all the suffering souls like you!”

A STORY WITH A TRAMP

By Yasen Vedrin

(The Copper Bowl)

For just a crust of bread, a tramp began to pray

Beside the trash bins of a city block.

“Oh, God! My woes have broken me today,

But You will help, for You are strong as rock!

A single slice is all I ask... For night!

To stop the rumbling of my empty space.

It’s hard to shiver with no food in sight,

I’m growing faint, darkness blurs my face...”

Out for a cigarette upon the balcony,

A snob o'erheard the beggar’s desperate cry.

To him, the groan below was pure comedy,

Much like a mock epitaph under the sky.

“I’ll have some fun! Why not, just for a thrill?

I have a leftover piece of bread right here.

That wretch below is praying with such zeal,

Though God will hardly show up and appear...”

A moment later, down the bread piece flies

And lands upon the grass... A miracle untold!

The poor soul fills with joy he can't disguise,

For God has heard him from His heavenly fold.

“Oh, at Your feet, Almighty God, I fall!

My soul now praises You with all its might,

For You do hear the mournful sights that call,

And heal my sorrow with this bread tonight...”

The snob bursts out into a roaring laugh:

“What God, you fool! The bread was given by me!”

“Old man! I asked Him for it on my path...” —

The comforted poor soul replies with glee —

“And He accounts to no one for His grace,

Of where and how He chooses to be kind!

And so to Him, the Glory shall take place,

Even for the smallest things that we may find...”

The cigarette burns out... untouched, ignored...

The snob stands frozen, not a word to say.

The tramp walks past the bins, towards his Lord,

In radiant prayer, he softly walks away.

THE DOVE THAT HAS PERCHED ON YOUR SHOULDER, DIVINE

By Yasen Vedrin

(The Bird Inside You)

Hear, O Lord, this true prayer from my spirit tonight,

Which flies to Your presence in heavenly flight!

For Your Faithful servant declares it out loud,

Ready to follow, of loving You proud!

This is my Faith in the miracle’s sign

Of the Dove that has perched on Your shoulder, divine —

To lift me as well with its white, holy wings

Where flesh cannot reach, past all temporal things.

And up there, within those vast, endless blue skies,

To see Eternal secrets unlocked for my eyes,

And enter in spirit through Holy Gates wide,

Where everyone’s rich, with True Justice inside.

To be in the ultimate Noah’s own Ark,

Held high by Your hand o’er the flood and the dark.

Let the children of Jacob, surviving for Thee,

Find comfort in Heaven, forever made free.

And if the Dove stops with an olive-tree leaf,

I will know that the old has passed by with its grief,

And down on the earth, from all evil now healed,

The stars of a wondrous Universe are revealed.

But let me be covered deep under the plumes,

Ready to meet the Dawn Age that resumes.

This is my Faith in the miracle’s sign

Of the Dove that has perched on Your shoulder, divine…

LET NOW YOUR DREAM TAKE FLIGHT AND SOAR!

By Yasen Vedrin

(The Bird Inside You)

Let now your dream take flight and soar!

Do not detain it with no wings.

For human dreams today, anymore,

Mad passion binds to earthly things.

To search across the world, all-round,

With passion of a digging mole —

A winning lottery ticket found,

Or betting for a golden goal.

Let now your dream create and grace.

Give it a Covenant to love.

Man burns for that celestial place,

When losing what is down above.

And in a bundle of bright rays,

The heart vows to a single spark —

To pay its price through all its days,

And love it always in the dark.

Let now your dream sparkle and glow,

And beg the Throne for Spirit's might.

Even if humblest there below —

It won't return naked to sight.

It will come down in fine white thread,

And look into your faith, serene.

To be its very first sigh instead,

Or the last victory on the scene.

Let now your dream take flight and soar,

For it is your own faithful bird,

Even if crushed by world and war,

Or turned a martyr, with no word.

For someday, on a Temple's stone,

It will be written in the sky:

When man grows great on his own,

He followed dreams until he’d die…

TURNING YOUR HEAVY CROSS TO WINGS

By Yasen Vedrin

(The Bird Inside You)

Do not demand that someone bears

The sorrow of your heavy cross,

Even if bare feet through your cares

Tread cold and rough earth to its loss.

Even if from the slanders, lies,

Your spirit feels so cursed and plain,

While winds that strike your cheekbones, wise,

Turn all your tears to ice and pain.

Though meeting coward Judases around,

And judges like Pilate in their state,

And every king turns you outbound

To trash heaps of this world and fate.

Feeling the scourges and the thorn,

With Christ's own Peace you must endure.

And let God love through you, reborn,

While you burn through His fire, pure.

Such is the examination of our faith,

With one single sentence in its charge.

Bearing Christ’s burden, past your wraith,

To be His own each day, at large.

And only out there, past Golgotha's line,

To hear: "It is finished! Come to things!

And enter into Life Divine,

Turning your heavy cross to wings!"

DANCE ON, WITH WINGS OF FAITH ALIVE!

By Yasen Vedrin

(The Bird Inside You)

“And David danced before the Lord with all his might…” 

(2 Samuel 6:14)

Before the Lord your God dance on,

Girded with linen, like David's trace!

And in His presence praise the Son,

Washed by the righteous Blood of grace!

For now the Savior shortens down

The years of this blind world today,

And every passing, brief renown

Vanish like sighs and fade away.

His Holy Love alone remains,

And His True Justice, like a stone,

To walk with us through earthly plains,

If we lift up our brows, alone.

When someone receives a reward,

He blooms with joy, so true and bright,

And in his soul a stream is poured,

Ready to gush with lasting light.

And when the water starts to flow,

When poured so pure and unconfined,

Leaving your worries down below,

Swing your own spirit in God's mind.

Become a bird of grace for Him!

Become a deer within the glade!

With spirit freed from dungeons grim,

Dance on, with wings of faith unswayed!

For if your bare feet start to shake

Upon the grass that grows so high —

The God of David, for your sake,

Bears you across His Endless sky!

THE PATHWAY OF THE MEANING — LIFE

By Yasen Vedrin

(Pearl Seeker)

The fate will tear away like leaves inside,

From here and there, the travelers passing by.

The early hours turn to late, worldwide.

After the dawn — our final hour is nigh.

And this so winding, little segment's space,

With such a long or short period to run,

Will always reach the point of endless grace,

Where all our written, earthly paths are done.

And there’s no fear that someone is arriving back,

While someone else is starting out at dawn.

A sufferer dies his whole life on the track,

To struggle when his final breath is drawn.

The old man will not ask where they have flown —

The years of youth that long ago took flight.

And past the mournful curtain, all alone,

There is no one to stay his step tonight.

He would remain, if there’s a need or space,

But only as a memory and sign.

A little lamp, however small its place,

Amidst the darkness like a star will shine.

Within a memory, man paints his trace.

He leaves behind his links and furrows deep.

The cosmos in his soul finds living space,

With brilliance that the ancient people keep.

And should someone sigh out that he was there,

Even if gone forever from the race —

In love, owed to a memory and prayer,

He will revive inside a heart's embrace.

For every seed grows like a sprout to view.

It grows and lifts its tender height to sky.

If one is man — he’s born to love anew

And be a spirit, where the dust must die.

And though the mortal remnant snaps and breaks,

Giving its final fruit until it's done,

It will not end... Yes! For the spirit's sakes,

The pathway of the Meaning — Life — rolls on...

A LIFE MORE SUBLIME THAN ORPHEUS’ SONG

By Yasen Vedrin

(Pearl Seeker)

A faith was possessed by the Thracians of old,

When burying some wealthy ruler and king,

To lay in his tomb all his jewels and gold,

For him to take down to the next world and spring.

Within the dark grave, they would also enclose

Some coins and an artfully crafted rhyton.

To drink with the gods divine nectar he chose,

Receiving by right a grand, heavenly throne.

They held a great feast when a life had passed by,

And when the old man took his final departure,

For somewhere out there, life won't stop in the sky,

And there it is better, and lighter, and brighter.

The ruler turned slowly to skull and to bone,

Decomposed into mold, turned to dust and away,

But later, uninvited guests to his stone

Would rob the grave quickly with swiftness and prey.

The ancient old customs have somehow decayed.

The mounds and the ridges of old left behind,

Were plundered by bands of grave-robbers delayed,

With pickaxe, a shovel, and adzes to find.

And it became clear — that a man doesn't bear

To the world right beyond either title or land.

An enigma is grave. Full of questions and care.

Why live this vain life that we don't understand?

Oh, there is the truest of gold up above!

The purest of silver you’ll find in that space!

But one must live richly, with spirit and love,

To turn to a Temple for God and His grace!

From earthly realms walking the Heavenly Way,

Surpassing the Thracians with faith and with call —

A life more sublime than what Orpheus could play

Awaits you up there, past the grave and the fall.

THE HOPE OF RODARI

By Yasen Vedrin

(Pearl Seeker)

"If I could have a little shop, clear,

With just two shelves, inside a wall,

Do you know what I would sell here? —

Hope. Hope for one and for all..."

Gianni Rodari

What could I distribute on this earth tonight?

Rodari’s sweet and bright hope to impart?

Will it pierce human sorrow with its might,

By striking with an arrow to the heart?

Transfixed — let grief collapse into the clay,

And let the trace of it be brief and fleet.

While joy, reborn so wonderfully today,

Will leave its lasting imprint, fresh and sweet.

Is it not worth it — for the beast to write

A ballad, sharpening his pencil’s trace,

While sunset — with the first stars of the night —

Overflows with pure love across his face...

The cruel tyrant — reaching out a hand —

To gently stroke a stray dog on the street.

No matter who he was within the land,

If today sleeping yearnings wake and meet.

The miser — like an autumn tree around —

To shake his banknotes generously and bold,

And in a flash let all the grief be drowned

On warmed cheeks of the beggar in the cold.

Let heaven rain with goodness from above,

And let the people have no raincoats there...

Let one holy hope ring out with love

In every heart and palms held high in prayer.

With what will someone gift you in this line?

With that same hope, so irresistible to view?

Take it! It doesn't cost a single dime!

Yet it is worth to have it live in you...

THE WISDOM OF THE TORTOISE

By Yasen Vedrin

(Pearl Seeker)

I still possess a true and shining reason

For this amazing concept we call "life."

And I believe, before my final season,

I’ll slow my hurried pace within the strife.

The summers passed at first sight, quickly spinning,

As if towards the end my stride was bound.

But my own soul, pure to its deep beginning,

Whispered these weary words with no more sound…

"Stop for a moment in your flight, O mortal!

The end will come, whether you wish or not!

And instead of soaring near the distant portal,

Kneel down at least just once upon your plot.

For only thus you'll see a bright bud growing,

Or catch the sunbeams in the morning dew,

While winds with trembling wisdom ever blowing

Will whisper holy calls from skies to you.

Transform a single minute to an hour.

Stretch out the instant to a joyful day.

Even the unheard word will give you power —

Once heard, you will be filled with meaning's ray..."

The soul grew still. The thought went out of vision.

Then flashed again beneath a crimson dome.

I still possess a true and shining reason

For this amazing concept of our home…

Is it not like that shelter we've inherited,

In which you live through centuries, secure,

When like a tortoise, wise and deeply merited,

You turn the minutes into hours, pure?

WHEN THE SUN ROLLS DOWN

By Yasen Vedrin

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

When the sun rolls down steeply to west in its flight,

And the sunset has painted white clouds with its breath —

Come out to the porch with dock-leaves, green and bright,

And two glasses of wine for our dreams beyond death.

Do not rush with the house-chores until it grows dark.

Rest your tired old head on my shoulder right now.

For a moment let’s look — past the roof, through the spark

Of the leaves, to that holy and sacred blue brow.

We plowed it so long — with white prayers and our dreams,

Yet until this very day not a daisy it bore.

We waited for Advent. Rare words, with no streams...

And a warm round of loaf, sprinkled with stars anymore.

The time has bent down, like a hoop on the ground,

And the old fellow-wind started sweeping the dust.

Take a sip of the wine! Gales will soon spin around!

And let God then caress us from above, if He must...

Just as we are together, He’ll snatch us unread.

With cross-clouded palms warm our souls in a dome.

And if this unearthly glance still rocks us ahead,

Then we’re surely in Heaven, but this side of home...

The tears start to swell. Final autumn rains pour.

It grows yellow on ridges. On gray stone it beats.

But somewhere — up there — the sky-flower we adore

Hears us all! It blooms, withers. And blooms in the streets...

I DO NOT WISH TO DIG THE FURROW DEEP

By Yasen Vedrin

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

I do not wish to dig the furrow deep of time’s own pace,

Nor in white bones of dead kin who before me used to tread.

The river flows ahead. Its rapid course is a wild chase.

And hidden future draws me with a breath concealed and led.

The lightning never strikes twice the same log upon the threshing floor.

The poet comes to birth, he lives and writes his rhymes of grace.

And all the blazing fire of his trembling inner core

He turns into a handful of word-sparks for human race.

A lamp that shines till pain, a prophet, herald of the morn,

The lonely stork of springtime, still with no high skies to view —

The poet gathers epochs into minutes, sharply born,

Whenever his quill starts to bleed upon the white page, true.

It’s no obituary. It doesn’t end in graveyard stone.

In vain they carve his dates, with bronzen honors to invest.

Do films and cameras ever seal the timeless and unknown,

When the poet is tomorrow, unfulfilled today and blest?

I do not wish to dig the furrow deep of time’s own pace.

Where there is broad eternity — no pantheon is found.

Once born, the poet sows his seed within the spirit's space,

And it revives — through thought — to make a painful, moaning sound.

THE BOY WHO HURTS INSIDE

By Yasen Vedrin

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

Will You give me back, Lord, all those years of a blue-eyed idyll?

So the aged in me can grow young like a boy at his start.

And when someone demands: "Did you drink from the river of sorrow?"

I would hide with no answer, with faith of a sparrow's heart

I am seeking my space — not the one that is endlessly high,

But the rope where my mother would hang all the laundry to dry.

And I wish for my dreams — not as juices that springtime receives,

But the ones where I scraped up my hands and my knees in the leaves...

I want mornings by river-pools, filled with acacia's sweet breath.

Or the evenings at cinema, watching the hum of machines.

Give me blue canvas shoes... Even grandpappy's wooden clogs, blest.

Give me back those same eyes lost in childhood, and all of its scenes.

Plow my memory deep, for they sank in the soil and the clay —

All those colorful years of a bright and a living world-fair.

Only faint, faded dreams sometimes warm me with sounds on the way,

To remind of the past which returns nevermore to the air.

And to say I'm alive — for what reason? To fill up their sheets?

Or perhaps I’m a sickness no doctor on earth can endure...

From the jail of the future, dear Lord, give me amnesty, please!

I just want my own freedom... The boy who is hurting, so pure.

IF YOU CAGE MY WANDERING FATE

By Yasen Vedrin

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

If you cage my wandering fate in a narrow shell's trace —

I will stay by your side, never asking if bitterness lies.

Just to have your sweet breath — as a balm for my spirit so rough,

And those lookers enclosed in a quiet hope within your eyes.

With the darkened old tinder we’ll kindle a hearth for us two.

We will fill the cezve to simmer with magical weeds.

And along the tight paths of a memory, anxious and true,

Every ghost of the past will foretell us and speak of our deeds.

Unregretted bright spring will soon meet with the summer so hot.

Autumn will spread out for winter a mattress of leaves.

Our hair will turn white — like a silver flock's fortunate plot.

Our hands will keep whispering, just as a mouth loves and cleaves.

And the world, once a den, will become quite possible then.

That bright space up above the asleep mists within the maple tree.

If you cage my lone fate — cage it just as you love in your glen,

Embracing till pain... And you know that it hurts sweet and free.