' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' Tova, Koeto Ne Vizhdate(The Things You Don’t See) - For Onelia Poem by Dónall Dempsey

“Zdravey...Smurt! ”
(“Hello...Death! ”)

“Can I still fly? ”
“Can I still sing? ”

asks the bird
of Death.

But Death
isn’t saying

...anything.

Or doesn’t speak
Bulgarian.

So, the bird
just lies there

in the middle of
the road

feeling stupid

& feeling
like it really really

wants
to fly

wants
to sing.

Death says
...nothing.
*******

A stroll around Sofia Art Gallery brought me into a close encounter with Violeta Tanova’s HELLO, DEATH(2007) which was a large canvas split into 12 sections each displaying a bird in close up...gradually one got to see that all the birds were in the process of being dead. The title stuck in my head as I drifted from painting to painting before meeting up with Michela Vlassea’s THE THINGS YOU DON’T SEE(2008) which were 3 large paintings of a woman in close up removing a transparent face pack which looked as if she were pulling the skin off of her face. Rayi Georgivei’s IN/VISIBLE was another cause and effect which stirred the juices of creativity. Out of rough marble were cut smooth eyes which had deep holes as pupils. One was inviting to plunge fingers into these eyeholes and feel the sculpture.
By the time I had left one painting and arrived at the other painting...the poem had insisted into coming into being. Later that night on Facebook I imagined Death also being on line and searching for new friends and so....HOMPAGE was born out of pain and lack of sleep.

Death who I had not conceived of writing about...had now become the main focus and I was glad to lose her somewhere in cyber space.