Peycho Kanev

This World


I watch a girl dressed in a blue Catholic
uniform pushing an old man in a wheelchair,
yellow and dry like an old melon,
it is afternoon,
and she just pushes the chair in circles
and whistles a cheerful little tune,
above them a pigeon circles in the sky, searching
for its lost love or something
nicer, I keep watching through the window
with my four-day beard, drinking wine and listening
to some lyrical symphony, while the view
outside is banal and tasteless like everything else.

And the girl goes on with her slow circles
and the old man is sleeping now or dead:
but somewhere out there is China and ships crossing the great
blue ocean:

there are armies and dictators and
little girls,
but that’s no good for me and even for my opinion
on world affairs,
because soon there will be enough bombs
to blow us all the way to Mars.

The pigeon keeps circling
in the sky,
showing me there’s still a chance for me,
for you,
for me,
for us—
even for the bombs.

Peycho Kanev is the author of 12 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. 

Banner Art:
David: “Oh, that I had wings like a Dove! For then would I fly away, and be at rest.” Psalm 55:6, Frederic Leighton, 1865

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