EMILIJA TODOROVA

 

Last One By The Sea

 

Waives weigh heavy over the oysters’ chant

whispering of the virgins’ dreams dreamt

when the salty tongues caress their lips and breasts

smooth and shiny like a primeval pearl

 

In the sand the secrets of being lie buried

empty shells wail over the death of life

no one hears them deafened by deceiving hope

under whose sword one dies with a stupid smile

 

Tied to the shore by chains of water

I cannot chase away the seagulls

hovering over my head coveting my heart

like a wriggly fish in the sun’s silvery gleam

 

And I an empty shell

with eyes mournful of time 

grab my own shriek as it sinks

like a tooth in the tender flesh of the water

 

No one will hear me anyway

The land I am headed to is far far away

 

Fruits Of The Soil

 

Was it the rain or us

that scented the soil with damp

when we rammed our fingers in its jaws

pure yearnings dripped from their tips

releasing sprouts of light

We could hear them bursting through

and we whispered prayers for our lips

tired of selling silence

Bent over the furrow

with our bodies we sheltered the light

Maybe we were dying

Like the last eye of the day

 

Language

 

We are cursed you said

I stood as if before a mirror

trying to invent a language

in which I cannot reply

 

EMILIJA TODOROVA

 

EMILIJA TODOROVA is a Macedonian Australian writer. Born in Skopje, Macedonia, in 1989 she migrated to Australia where she has held various executive managerial and leadership positions. She was engaged in a teaching capacity at the School of Modern Languages at Macquarie University, Sydney, for several years. Emilija started writing and freelancing while still living in her homeland. She was a regular contributor to a couple of newspapers, as well as the Third Programme of Radio Skopje and was one of the founders and Deputy Editor of a youth magazine for popular science. Emilija has won numerous awards in Macedonia, former Yugoslavia and Australia for poetry written in the Macedonian language, as well as awards in Australia and in the US for poetry and other literary forms in English. For her collection of poems Gravity Emilija received the 2022 Stojan Hristov Award at one of the world’s largest and most reputable international poetry festivals Struga Poetry Evenings for the best poetry book by an expat. In the same year she was a runner-up in the prestigious Nova Makedonija short story writing competition. Her poems have been published in literary magazines and periodicals, and her work included in several anthologies, more recently in the poetry almanac Frida – Women Speak (Književne vertikale, Belgrade 2023), Redefining poetry anthology (Litterateur RW, 2023), Woman Scream, International Poetry Anthology of Female Voices (Grito de Mujer, 2023), poetry selection Skopje Ascents (Feniks, Skopje 2023), Nano poems for Africa (Silk Road Literature Anthology, 2023), Senior Stories collection of short stories (selection by the Fellowship of Australian Writers – NSW, 2022), Poems for Skopje (Feniks, Skopje 2021) and  Contemporary Short Literary Forms (Feniks, Skopje 2021). Emilija translates from English, Macedonian, Serbian and Bulgarian. For exceptional achievements in her career, she has been awarded, among others, the Australian Public Service Medal and a medal for advancing multicultural Australia.