Boyan Manchev
WINTER: WITCHES, COMETS. BOOK OF HOURS AND WONDERS, I
(n Bulgarian)
Original title:
ЗИМА: ВЕЩИЦИ, КОМЕТИ. ФАНТАСТИЧЕН ЧАСОСЛОВ, I
Sofia: Metheor, 31 October 2020
Book of Hours and Wonders is a series of four books corresponding to the four seasons.
Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn include poetic and philosophical fragments in which time bends through the images of the four seasons: a fantastic measure of irreversibility and the cycle of time.
The first book Book of Hours and Wonders includes
Book of Hours and Wonders, 1 –– Autumn: Witches, Messengers
and
Book of Hours and Wonders, 2 –– Winter: Witches, Comets.
Hans Baldung Grien, Zwei Hexen, 1523, Städel Museum, Frankfurt
*
Who are they? These evil, unblinking, desirable, fiery women? They are witches.
Yellow clouds swirl around them, crawl, rise, smoke like a lava stream.
The witches are desiring us.
*
My witches, indifferent witches, evil beauties, trunks of gloomy joy, turn here in the corner of time, bend more and more the space here, tighten it. No, don’t be sensible, don’t be submissive to the magician’s art. Just like you, I am a restless soul, just like you, radiant flesh and darkness, nothing to do with man.
(Excerpts from “Witches of Time”, October 31 – November 1, 2014)