BORCE PANOV

BORCE PANOV

With The Whole Time I Speak To You

There is a time when I grow distant from everything,

when after the deepest sigh

I wait for you to show up from nowhere,

and I try

to pull out a moment with only one word,

and I asked the moment to pull out an hour for me,

the hour – a day,

the day – a day from tomorrow and the day after tomorrow

all days – whole time,

and I wonder

will you ever feel the whole time

with whom I am speaking to you

while you are standing timeless –

with one of your palms all in blossom

like the most tender flower

on the cactus of my patience –

and with a handkerchief full of goodbyes

in the other one,

so you could live everywhere with my distances,

some place where our souls

are comforting each other

in their unbreakable balance

and reconciliation in only one word,

with which we become timeless,

a word in which to believe in

is the same as to love.

Chain Of Sand

I was knitting a chain of sand

from the shore to you

and I was waiting

for the sea to pull in my chain

how many rings of moons

I have forged for you

in a chain of tides

one day as endless dream dreamt by the night,

will you pull out a ring for me

from the chain of breathing

and when you will raise a wave

taller than the wind

and when I will be pulled in by the strength

with which you have created the life

be the ring

that I miss for at least a moment, my love

and see how everything begins again...

A Room Envelope

I take

my double out of my head

carefully

and I fold the room in an envelope

I address the letter

to a distant country

and as I’m sending it

I tell it

If someone

reads this sad letter

aloud

should be careful

because it could push

this room down the stairs

when like a totally different person

on the end of the worlds

will open

that long expected letter

with words that

dissolve

from the paper

and white human mountains

leave behind

FOG 1

I have chosen

a street in the fog

convinced

that I am on the right address

I lifted

the letter from the threshold

and I left

the door open

through which

my

mad house

escaped from me again

Fog 2

I have chosen

a street for me in the fog

that took me to the town

I lifted the letter in front of the threshold

I let the wind-up toy

pass through the door

and I

I had firm conviction

that it was the right address

 

Navigation

A flock of storks is migrating to south.

The most experienced one is on the forehead of the flock – with the sun, the stars and the magnet fields

he leads the storks to their home.

Since the beginning of time,

God has given us this perfection.

For thousands of years we have been learning how to fly like the birds

so we could fly up in the birds of our longings.

We turn the perfection into weapon,

but we don’t know

whether we will have thousands of years more

so we could learn the perfection of survival.

BORCE PANOV

BORCE PANOV was born on September 27, 1961 in Radovish, The Republic of North Macedonia. He graduated from the ''Sts. Cyril and Methodius'' University of Skopje in Macedonian and South Slavic Languages (1986). He has been a member of the “Macedonian Writers’ Association” since 1998. He has published: a) poetry: “What did Charlie Ch. See from the Back Side of the Screen” (1991), “The Cyclone Eye” (1995), “Stop, Charlie” (2002), “The Tact” (2006), “The Riddle of Glass” (2008), “The Basilica of Writing” (2010), “Mystical Supper” (2012), “Vdah (The Breathe of Life)” (2014), “The Human Silences” (2016), “Uhania” (2017), “Shell” (2018); and several essays and plays: “The Fifth Season of the Year” (2000), “The Doppelgänger Town” (2011), “A Dead-end in the Middle of an Alley” (2002), “Homo Soapiens” (2004), “Catch the Sleep-walker” (2005), “Split from the Nose Down” (2006), and “The Summertime Cinema” (2007). He has also poetry books published in other languages: “Particles of Hematite” (2016 - in Macedonian and Bulgarian), “Vdah” (2017 – in Slovenian), “Balloon Shaving” (2018 – Serbian), and “Fotostiheza” (“Photopoesis, 2019 – Bulgarian). His poetry was published in a number of anthologies, literary magazines and journals both at home and abroad, and his works are translated into English, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, French, Catalonian, Mongolian, Albanian, Romanian, Polish, Chinese, and Danish language.Panov works as the Counselor for Culture and Education at the municipality of Radovish, and he is also Arts Coordinator for the “International Karamanov’s Poetry Festival”, held in Radovish annually. Poetry from Borce Panov translated from Macedonian to English by Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska: