Poems by Vele Smilevski 

THE ECHO BOOK
(Addressing)
 
You are, merely coincidentally,
At the great passage
And, splashed by the sour smile
Of the irredeemable cynic Lucian Blaga,
You hear the footsteps of the prophet.
 
America: prophecy!
Europe: prophecy!
The distant echo of William Blake
Meets you on the way.
 
Whilst among the bars of the tongue
You rifle for words
Laying them from door to door
You unintentionally cut a lock
From Paul Celan’s hair.
 
(Out of the fire of joy
To the new embitterment
Louis Aragon shuts the windows
Defending himself from the red winds).
 
While you measure
The boundaries of the emptiness
That faces you with the Selfness
With the mountain being there only for you
At the other side, leaning on a cane with his left,
Waves with his right hand Miroslav Holub.
 
(Furtively, wearing white gloves on his hands,
In the small shop in Cambridge
Ted Hughes is stuffing cave birds)
 
While you sketch studies of the objects
Which you make clay imprint with
Before you crushes the world of Zbignjev Herbert.
 
(Be patient,
Behind the border of the days past
Alexander Blok etches heart in a birch tree).
 
While you fall asleep in the bed of the late hour
Mark Strand persistently claims:
This is the right hour!
 
Lonesome among ancient trunks
You hear the violin of Marin Soarescu,
And then Jean Paul Gilbert
Lengthily interprets you the face of gentle death.
 
(Blue water gushes in the memories:
From the bridge of Nezval
You see a woman in plural).
 
While you’re taking a rest in the breathing shade
You sense the still-folded breath of Yves Bonnefoy
And you breathe out, breathe out, breathe out.
 
While you travel to the station in desert
You hear the voice of Joseph Brodsky
Silently written between the covers of the Echo Book.
 
That is not the end.
That is only a beginning.
 
Translated from Macedonian by Ana Topencarova
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THE CAGE BOOK
                              My age, my beast, is there anyone
                              Who can peer into your eyes...
                                                            Osip Mandelstam
 
I can see myself in the beast’s eyes
Locked in my cell
In my plentiful wasteland
And I memorize the whole faithfulness
That I have expressed to myself
Walking through those long corridors
Through the veins with still warm blood.
 
Who would now recognize me
In this cage of words and metal
Under the skin being only mine?
 
(While I reflect the tongue of the beast
While I secretly walk the disease in the beasts
While I brick myself dream by the beast
While I compose the epistle to the beast
While I send pursuit for the beast
While I conclude alliance with the beast
Through the keyhole of the book
I am being read by beasts, beasts, beasts.)
 
I am now alone between these covers
In this architecture of assumptions
On the source of light
That reaches me sidelong
In the scrutiny of the bridge
Under which there flows
Long flows the attempt
To paint someone’s death.
 
(While I lament in the blood of the beast
While I roar with the mountain in the beast
While I return the world by the beast
While I leave my legacy by the beast
While I hanker to hell for the beast
While in fur I fall asleep with the beast
Through the keyhole of the book
I am being read by beasts, beasts, beasts.)
 
Whoever would recognize me in this cage
Of words and metal, with reek of fresh
Urine of an animal celebrating its freedom?
 
Whoever would recognize me in this cage
With mountain of an ocean, with shelves of bones
In which freedom is slaved?
 
Whoever would recognize freedom?
 
Translated from Macedonian by Ana Topencarova
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Vele Smilevski (1949) – poet, literary critic and essayist. He is the author of over fifteen poetry books and two novels, as well as books of essays, literary criticism and several works in the field of journalism. He worked as an expert counselor in the Macedonian Literature Institute and as a professor in the Department of Journalism, Faculty of Law, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. He has compiled several anthologies of Macedonian poetry and monographs on the history of Macedonian literature. Vele Smilevski is the recipient of the most important awards for poetry in Macedonia, including the state award for life's work. His poetry has been translated into many languages. He served as the president of the Macedonian Writers’ Association and the president of the Board of Struga Poetry Evenings Festival. He is the Chief editor of the Sintezi Magazine and an editor of the Dijalog Publishing. He is a member of the Macedonian PEN Centre.


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