🎶 QUIET — A New Wave of Musical Prose with Reggae Soul 🎤📖 🎸

artwork & poetry specially provided by NS

QUIET — A Whisper That Echoes Across Oceans 🌊✨
A chapter from my ACOUSTIC NOVEL Regg(A)enration

“Sometimes, devotion doesn’t need recognition to have meaning. It just needs faith.”

In “Quiet”, a candle-lit evening on a Jamaican veranda becomes a quiet storm of memory, poetry, and the kind of truth that doesn't shout — it hums.

🎙️ Four People. One Night. One Question.
Stan, Stella, Nina, and Dr. Mihalev sit beneath a moonlit sky in Hellshire Hills. The only sound? The sea, breathing in silence.

Stan asks the question artists whisper to themselves in the dark:
“Do our songs matter?”
Bulgarian poetry recorded in Jamaica — does it have meaning? Is it art… or escape?

And what follows is not an answer, but a quiet revelation.

🖼️ Pirosmani’s Flowers & Grandpa Dobri’s Sandals
Dr. Mihalev doesn’t preach — he tells stories.

A Georgian painter, Niko Pirosmani, who sold all he had to cover a street in flowers for the actress he loved.
His gift went unnoticed. But his painting made it to the Louvre.
He didn’t — yet he’s still there.

A Bulgarian beggar, Grandpa Dobri, who donated every coin to churches. No fame, no bank account. Just barefoot generosity.

Two lives that seemed small. But they left light behind.

💌 A Poem Like Lavender Smoke
Nina brings the soul of the night to life with a poem — tender, surreal, full of skin and silence.

“If I untie the directions of the world / the roads will go mad / the rivers will be soft satin / and the stones — butterflies…”

It’s not just read. It’s analyzed, felt, and honored.
Dr. Mihalev calls it:

“An intimate cosmogony… where love defeats the logic of time.”

They discuss it like a sacred text — a mantra of emotional revolt. A quiet, erotic, metaphysical revolution.

🧭 The Theme: Meaning Without Expectation
What binds this chapter is one radical idea:

True devotion doesn’t demand applause. It plants seeds where it may never see the bloom.

This is not a glamorous portrayal of artistry. It’s about the sacred absurdity of still choosing to create, to love, to give — even when no one may notice.

🌀 From Bulgaria to Jamaica, via the Heart
At the end, they agree to record the poem.
No plan. No perfection. Just truth.
Let it hurt, like truth often does.
Let the sea be their witness.

🌊 Final Vibe
“Quiet” is not a loud chapter. It doesn’t need to be.
It’s the kind of writing that lingers, like a distant echo from a conch shell.

A meditation on art, time, sacrifice, and why we do anything at all.
A love letter to those who give, who believe, who create —
Even when no one is looking.

🍷 To the devoted.
To the mad.
To those who leave roses, not resumes.

The sea heard them.

ххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххххх

QUIET
They were sitting on the veranda of Stan’s Jamaican villa in Hellshire Hills. The night was silent—only the sea was breathing. Stella, Stan, Nina, and Dr. Mihalev sat around a low table with Jamaican rum, iced coffees, and dying candles.
The doctor had arrived in Jamaica just the day before. He had come from Cuba, where he had, for once, allowed himself a vacation. Stan had invited him spontaneously:
— Doctor, if your path takes you through the Caribbean — drop by.
The path did. And he dropped by.
The conversation flowed slowly, deeply. Like a bass-heavy dubstep beat with no chorus.
Stan said:
— I don’t know, doctor… Sometimes I wonder — is there even a point? Recording songs in Bulgarian, here, on the other side of the world… Who will hear them? Who will they help?
Stella gave a thin smile:
— There’s something strange about it — reggae with Bulgarian poetry, recorded under palm trees. It’s beautiful, but maybe it’s just a form of escape?
Mihalev smiled sadly:
— Or maybe it’s not escape, but a return—through a paradoxical route. Dedication — especially the kind that seems useless, even foolish from a practical point of view — has a dark and strange habit: it leaves a trace. Sometimes — after us. Sometimes — despite us.
Stella looked at him.
— You believe that?
— I don’t just believe it. I know it. Let me tell you something.
There was a Georgian man. Niko Pirosmani. A poor man. A self-taught painter. A *“malyar,” that’s what they called him. He sold cheese and painted signs. And he fell in love — irresponsibly, hopelessly — with a French actress. Marguerite de Sèvres.
Niko sold everything he had to fill the street in front of her hotel with flowers. An entire street, buried in roses and lilies. Madness, right? An aesthetic insanity.
But his painting — The Actress Marguerite — survived.
Fifty years later, in the Louvre, an old woman stood before it and cried. It was her — Marguerite.
The painting made it to the Louvre. Niko did not.
But he was there nonetheless.
Stan whispered:
— He was there, after all…
— Yes — said Mihalev. — Sometimes, devotion doesn’t need recognition to have meaning. It just needs faith.
He leaned forward.
— I’ll give you another example. From our homeland.
Grandpa Dobri. You may have seen him — a small old man with a bag and leather sandals, standing in front of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. He collected 80,000 leva. Not for himself. For churches. No bank account. No foundation. No marketing. Just faith and humility.
He gave everything he had. Lived in a small shed. Ate what people gave him.
And you know what’s paradoxical?
The biggest donor in modern Bulgarian history… was a beggar.
A beggar and a saint.
Stella said softly:
— So it’s possible?
— Not just possible — said Mihalev. — It’s documented. As long as you don’t ask “how much will I earn,” but “whom will I serve.”
Stan thought for a moment. Then asked:
— And our songs here? Bulgarian words recorded in Jamaica. Do they matter?
— If the song is true — yes. If it speaks not just about Bulgaria, but from the person who carries it inside, no matter where they are — yes. Because the language of pain, of faith, of silence between words — it has no geography.

Nina joined in:
— I suggest you set this literary jewel to music:

---

If I untie the directions of the world
the roads will go mad
the rivers will be soft satin
and the stones — butterflies
then
above the lavender fields
your fingers
will breathe the messages of dreams
shhh, quiet
…and if I untie the directions of the world
the roads will go mad
the rivers will be soft satin
and the stones — butterflies
then
above the lavender fields
my fingers
will breathe the messages of dreams
will act beneath the skin
/that which rewinds/rewound the clock, you know it, right/
will put an end to the empty minutes
I fill you — you fill me
with…
“shhh, quiet”
I draw a fairytale to kiss your eyes
and when the clock strikes twelve
we won’t be afraid of the short embrace of the hands
this time they’ll miss loneliness
the night will be full of nectar
touched by the mad reflections
of my hands
on your thighs
but for now you are only a mermaid
writing on the bottom of the sea
while waiting for me
…and if I untie the directions of the world
the roads will go mad
the rivers will be soft satin
and the stones — butterflies
then
above the lavender fields
your fingers
will breathe the messages of dreams
will act beneath the skin
/that which rewinds/rewound the clock/
will put an end to the empty minutes
I fill you — you fill me
with…
“shhh, quiet”

---

— And why this one? — asked the author quietly. Stella looked at Nina and the doctor with focus.
Dr. Mihalev replied, visibly moved:
— This verse is deeply sensitive and metaphorical. It deserves a careful literary analysis. The author’s voice blends intimacy, dream-like eroticism, and a… nearly mythological rearrangement of the world — so that the logic of love defeats the logic of time.
Antonina nodded and added:
— Your poem unfolds in several wave-like cycles, beginning with:
“if I untie the directions of the world” — a phrase that introduces the core poetic gesture: dismantling order, convention, the geometry of reality in the name of emotional truth. The repetition of this stanza three times in different variations gives it the feeling of a mantra or incantation. The text breathes in the pulsation between the outer world (roads, rivers, stones) and the inner world (fingers, dreams, skin).
Dr. Mihalev, looking at the written text, added:
— “The rivers will be soft satin / and the stones — butterflies” — here we have the transformation of elements. The force of water becomes gentle fabric, the hardness of stone — fragile flight. This suggests a new reality, governed not by physical laws, but by feeling.
“Above the lavender fields” — this is an aromatic, romantic, slightly surreal image. Lavender symbolizes calm, purity, but also romantic magic. The field is a symbol of infinity, and here also a dreamscape.
“Fingers breathe” — a metaphor for gentle touch, filled with meaning, with sensory memory. “Breathing” is an act of life, fingers are the bridge between bodies and souls.
“I fill you — you fill me” — a powerful, minimalist metaphor for union, intimacy, equal closeness.
“The short embrace of the clock hands” — a beautiful allegory of time and impermanence, where the clock becomes almost hostile to love, but in this poem — for the first time — it misses loneliness.
Nina said:
— There’s destruction and re-creation of reality here — love has the power to override physical laws: directions are “untied,” rivers soften, stones take flight.
We have dreams as reality — the image of dreams repeats as a conduit of truth, of telepathy, of loving memory.
We see the body as a sacred space — fingers, skin, thighs, breathing — not as lust, but as a deep connection between soul and matter.
The fear of time and loneliness — overcome — the clock, the hands, the minutes — all that would usually bring existential dread is here transformed into sharing.
The mermaid — a body in exile — the figure of “the mermaid writing on the sea floor” is an image of silence, isolation, but also of constancy — she still “waits.”
Dr. Mihalev concluded:
— This isn’t just a love poem — it’s an intimate cosmogony. The lyrical pair doesn’t just fall in love — they disintegrate and are reborn through language, through dreams, through time. Here, poetry isn’t decoration — it’s a way of existing.
If I had to sum it up in one sentence:
This is a poem about love as a quiet, sensual revolution against the laws of reality.
Stella turned to Stan:
— Maybe… the song is like that bouquet of Pirosmani’s. You don’t know if it will be understood. But you still leave it at someone’s door.
Mihalev nodded:
— And you don’t expect an answer. You just hope that someday, someone will stop… and cry in front of it.
Then you’ll know it had meaning.
He fell silent. Then said:
— You see, Stan… Sometimes we think what we’re doing is a useless effort. Bulgarian songs in Jamaica, poetry with no market, kindness without recognition.
But the things that seem meaningless… sometimes last the longest.
He looked up at the sea. Then at them.
— Pirosmani never reached the Louvre. But his painting did.
Grandpa Dobri was never canonized. But churches shine because of him.
And now four people sit here — on the other side of the world — discussing their quiet deeds.
Do you still think it has no meaning?
They fell silent. Outside, the sea kept breathing.
A pause.
Stan looked up.
— Alright — he said. — Then let’s record it. No plan. With inspiration.
— And let it hurt — said Stella. — Like truth.
Mihalev raised his glass:
— To the devoted. To the mad. To those who believe.
Even when no one is waiting for them.
They all smiled. Quietly.
The sea heard them.

*malyar -a poor or mediocre painter; a self-taught, unsophisticated artist.
from the Russian маляр

TO BE CONTINUED...

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HERE`S THE SONG:
https://shemzee.bandcamp.com/track/--690