Once I were sitting on the same table with a true surrealist and other poems

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Room

Translated by Zoran Ancevski.

Why didn’t they let me change the room
and make me feel better,
now that even the critics are allowed to change their views
and earn more space in the magazines?

They all went for large and bright rooms
with evidently functional furniture,
and I didn’t even complain about the only one new, but hard armchair,
no trace of the second one, though there should’ve been a pair,
just like literature is inseparable from the science about it.

Why was I not standard guest when choosing the bed,
and was so resolute in my desire to experiment?

Literature needs fresh love masks for modeling:
a water-bed, an exotic partner with different skin color, faith,
an unexpected adventure…

But not much depended on, I thought, what view the window had,
everything depended on where and who she’d look at
and who she’d recognize.
“Each room has a mirror”, so I hope mine would have one too,
for it shouldn’t, by any means, be an exception to the rule.

Why does my head look like a syntagmatic axis
though it is laid softly on the pillow,
and becomes a hypertext when it sinks in deep sleep?

Shouldn’t they have let me change my room?

 

  

I Wanted To Write

Translated by Jovana Stojkovska

 

I wanted to write you a poem –
to strip you of all the metaphors, metonyms and epithets,
so that you be the naked truth,
official and recognized by the authorities
as a conclusive proof in self-defence

I wanted to write you a message
to describe you descending towards me
with a collected look,
without looking round
in case you’re being followed by anyone
untamable or indecent

I wanted to write you an e-mail,
to arise in your virtual tenderness,
and spend the ’ntire night lonesome in front of a running monitor –
so that my eyes don’t burn out in the dark –
before they get to see you in person
after a longer while

I wanted to write you a letter,
to reward you with mercy
so that you have it in reserve or in surplus
whenever you forget to smile
when greeting

I wanted to write but I’ve changed the plan.
So I further continue to want.

 

 Making love after drunken night

 

Translated by Ana Lazarova Nikovska

 

We’ll be washing our teeth early on

And we’ll be standing long before the mirror with foam in our mouth

We’ll taste our own embarrassment

 

You will merely ask me early on where you have put your watch

And I'll ask you

To turn on the radio, speaker of the morning news

That will inform us about the thousands of students

That had left home for the holiday

And she’ll tactically say nothing about our last night in the modern boarding school

 

Early on we’ll feel

Very abandoned and we’ll come outside

At the noisy streets

Searching through our pockets

While we seek out the lost time

And the valid passenger ticket

 

The wind will blow empty – handed

As unemployed postman

And joyfully will blow away

Crinkled card with hastily written unnecessary address

And so it will be so uncomfortable

To split apart with you

And to rely on

The cold window

In the bus

And to keep silent

 

Nonetheless we talk a lot now

All sorts of confessions are passing through our throat

Just as easy as drinking cups,

So that our words can be perfectly

Mixed up

And we’ll fly somewhere up

With no sense that

Hence we’re creating the new man

 

 

 

Tendernesses WITHOUT WARRANTY SHEET

 

Translated by Ana Lazarova Nikovska

 

To those that for the people

Create beauty,

People usually behave badly.

...

Each and every revolution eats its children, but firstly

It will well – feed them.

...

At the same time as the automobile, the marriage corrodes as well.

...

Whoever has luck at cards,

Will lose nothing

Well at least while divorcing.

...

With the spread of feminism

Even the muses incline more to the authoress than

                To the authors.

...

Very often we agree

About what will be tomorrow,

And then we disagree

About what it was yesterday.

...

In moments of weakness

We’ll say:

"I'll eat you out of love" –

And we immediately lay a criminal act at our door.

 

The gap is growing.

Tendernesses are being sold

Without any warranty sheet.

 

END OF THE SECRET

 

I am Macedonian folklore lover

Over there one awaits – even to the grave.

 

I will wait for you 100 years

And each day shall be June

And you shall watch out

The others to fall asleep

Ahead of us

So that you can tell me

About your own sons, and me to you about my daughters

And about the two Persian cats with big furry tails

 

I will wait for you 100 years,

But not any longer than that.

 

 

SHE’S WET

 

Entirely wet on the mattress

Lies the dreamed woman

 

Murdered

By the alarm clock

 

 

Clogged SONG

 

In memoriam

 

I throw away your

Already really last

Box

Of cigarettes

 

 

 

Once I were sitting on the same table with a true surrealist

 

He were telling me

About the voice of the blood

About the reflections of the wind

About the agitated muses

About the stones that burn

At the same time his eyes were closed

And breathed rapidly

 

I listened to him carefully

Without blinking my eyes

And in spite of the fact that

He made my flesh crawled

 

 

The first academic class

  

You have to start all over again,

From the beginning:

 

To overvalue the book of knowledge

And to acknowledge:

Hard work is the price

 We must pay for success.

 

 

NO MORE CENSORSHIP

 

No, my love,

I will not put on a condom.

 

 

THE AMBULANCE

 

Night, telephone exchange, the moon is fading away.

Dead paramedics

Are sleeping on their toes in the ambulance.

 

 

THE SKY

 

Before I read the poem at the festival they warned me that

Here one can become a star. In no doubt, post festum.

Several performances, I thought, so that one can create even a sky,

Adorned with stars. Constellation that shimmers.

 

That’s right: applause from the audience will carry you away,

It will inspire you (expression of time, right?!)

It will raise you up to the pedestal. Then you’ll charge tickets with consumption

(Or wine tasting) in your sky.

It wouldn’t be just whichever event for the others,

You’ll become a privileged individual with mystic character.

Suspicious one for the higher authorities, one of the chosen few.

Because even the sky (honestly) is a mystery,

Unprecedented miracle. Quick escape, filled with risks.

Returning to the stage of our acne. 

Before leaving the sky you’ll return the ticket to the smile.

 

Revenge lies at the bottom of the wine glass – tit for tat.


 

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