TRANSLATED FROM THE MACEDONIAN BY LJUBICA ARSOVSKA WITH PATRICIA MARSH-STEFANOVSKA

AS I AM WRITING MY FIRST LYRIC

Dirty dishes in
the text and
footnotes of symmetry
points of view, pure
runic poetry – perspective
lives in sequels
passwords of beverages, alcohol
combinations with lemon yes please
and again, yes, yes, yes,
tables and chairs with no identity
interlocutors from last night and
the interior for intimate use
scant and the beetle bears down
on the boundary crawling vertically
like the soul and the rust
the rust, yes, yes,
to the doorknob, glasses, the instruments
of the mouth
as I’m writing my
first lyric

ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE

The oyster is,
(oh, my open eye!)
an isle of shell and sea content
closeness, exchange, seen, touched
sucked and re-established
balance
stolen, separated solitude
a rare food for thought and palate
(oh, the combination screams out)
and the hungry ones say, more
(you’re asking me, how are you?)
and the voice of the sea roams around in my ears
my flesh throbs in the pulse of my eye
so I don’t hear, don’t see
what it was
while I keep to the bottom with the shell
the muscles and the fluid grow
enlarged and alone
I disappear in a bite
open
I can no longer tell
mother-of-pearl from
sheet of ice

AESOP’S DOGS

One day they had discovered a body floating in the sea.
They observed it from the shore. They thought and thought and decided
they would drink the water, reduce the distance,
walk to it over dry land.
They drowned.

Thus I was approaching you with my thirst and
my speech, drinking the road, the water, the direction…

The sea drowned in me. I spat out
the ones swallowed.

WHY NOT, A LOVE POEM

We sit face to face. In the vicinity of the eyes excitement too. No, a little higher up.

WITNESS

She saw his tears

And after that fawns
ran down from his eyes at night
and a fog had descended
all across his pillow
and rime had covered all
even the trees around, in the hills
had frozen
and his teeth chattered
in the dead of the night
and nobody heard him

He saw her tears
and after that in the winter night
she was running away to the hills
and slipping on her own
frozen tears
and every time she fell
back on his pillow
and sniffed with her muzzle
his frozen breath
with her frozen breath
and it was the dead of night
and nobody heard her.

MELANCHOLIA AETERNA

Not I
but my time
remembers you

Also, read Claiming The Sky, a book review by Oudarjya Pramanick, published  in The Antonym:

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