The Macedonian P.E.N. Review, Summer 2005
ISSN 1409-813X
Vera Čejkovska
Poems
BOSCH
hieronymus looks earthly and ethereally at the herto-
genbosch square:
the brabant demons of stone multiply on the
church facades:
the priests are book-keepers the holy
books are registers
hieronymus looks attentively even at sounds:
all golden trumpets of the majestic blue
pass through a swift gluttonous rhythm
like the rain’s:
when the raindrops like transitional mirages of heaven
descend towards: The gluey greedy depth:
the street is lucifer’s.
I. I.*
between two school bells – calcium formula on the black-
board
now a glazed syllogism between two cups of tea.
More:
between the bone frames of the definite interval:
personally owned rubber (elongation)
of time
self-recognizable packaging (condensation)
of pictures
specific smell of the personal "leather ball"*
unique taste of life
like "french plums"*
________________
* L. N. Tolstoy: The Death of Ivan Ilych
PLASTIC
Evenhanded taste of daily bread
+ indissoluble civilization waste
+ constant contents of expanded myths
+ embalmed prostituted lipstick
+ rounding up evidence
for concluding the evidence
+ grooves wedges notches plugs
thrust through thick atmosphere
+ cloning
sterile lust of protective gloves:
+ dolls + vibrators
+ tampons in ears
+ tight belly and rationed breath
+ routine operation
+ polyvinyl curtain
falls before the eyes
+ plexiglas-sun
+ the melting asphalt squeals under thin metal heels
+ in the picture of the moment
I count the bridled screams
like plastic-psyches
LIVING THEATRE
the conclusion of the situation undoubtedly leads
to hyperbole of some of its elements:
the rim of the stage wakes up, stretches,
occupies the centre and becomes itself
a bright universal and unique spot.
the voice amplifies through the first, second,
etc. membrane. to the parched palate. without
remainder.
Silence then is a bluish slit
in the screen
distilled thrust of the sky
O
the strong flight of light to the glass
fences screens to the glass parallelepipeds
to the etc. to the graded brackets
is a smooth volume of air
a systematic distribution of impassable mirrors
an all-flat euclid of the all-bright street.
Roundness exists only in grains
and waves of sweetness from slot-machines.
And:
i want to utter
the sky clip
the insane blue
MULTIPLICATION SIGNS
cartoons too resembled some old well-known
procedures of stripping, peeling and carving
of the expression to a firm non-interfering frame.
but the vision of the cities as systems
of perfect outlines in eternal festivity of an
absolute, empty, space is erased.
Today, i remember the fresh spaces between
his hands. mounds of the surrounding.
bubbles in a glass of milk. silken rays.
crusts of dawn in the eyes… flocks of rednecked
fledglings… permeating…
the shadows in the square lick the purple sun,
and when the windows turned into tongues,
our tongues writhed into fiery passages
toward deep, unexpected skies.
CRYSTAL DREAMS
the crystal tree
grows. the great beautiful
bell branches agape
to show its tongue’s
ruby-apple.
crimson lips kissing a crystal clear cheek,
but merely a reflection:
four eyes suck on each other and four hands
offer an apple to the restless tongue-tongue.
seething tongues freeze into pebbles
of light
at the foot of clear sights.
or lust, the fruit branch of evolution,
returns in clusters of mountain crystals.
so is wisdom engendered:
love for geological epochs
and a chain of symmetrical letters
ARTIFICIAL HEAVENS
our eyes in unbridled love with and glued to
the brown celestial branch, which burst on the TV screen
and in the slobbery air around the saintly silk,
through which blossoms decay, like an olive…
An olive, and slobber – an image and an image in keen
slimy rhyme.
Dream’s substance thinking itself
is the slobber.
We embalm an olive branch with fresh
silky shells
of selfhood.
Translation from Macedonian: Zoran Ančevski
