ZVONKO TANESKI

 

ZVONKO TANESKI

 

Room

 

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?

 

(TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY ZORAN ANCEVSKI.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDITOR: LEE SCHWENINGER.)

 

 

 

 

I Wanted To Write

 

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.

 

(TRANSLATED BY JOVANA STOJKOVSKA)

 

 

 

 

 

Making Love After Drunken Night

 

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

 

(TRANSLATED BY ANA LAZAROVA NIKOVSKA)

 

 

 

Tendernesses Without Warranty Sheet

 

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.

Tenderness’s are being sold

Without any warranty sheet.

 

(TRANSLATED BY ANA LAZAROVA NIKOVSKA)

ZVONKO TANESKI 

ZVONKO TANESKI (born 12 March 1980, Skopje) is a Macedonian and Slovak poet, literary critic, university professor in Slovakia and translator. Studies of General and Comparative literature was graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Sv. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. In 2007 he defended his PhD. thesis from “Theory and history of Slovak literature” at the Department of Slovak Literature and Literary Science on Comenius University in Bratislava. He worked as an independent researcher at the Institute of World Literature in Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava (2007–2008). In year 2011 the Commission for assessing scientific qualification of Slovak Academy of Science acknowledged his scientific qualification level IIa (senior researcher) in year 2011 and in the same year he received a habilitation at the Faculty of Foreign Languages FON University in Skopje, where he worked from 2011 to 2014. He worked at the Research Institute on Cultural Heritage of Constantine and Methodius in Faculty of Arts at the University of Constantine the Philosopher in Nitra from 2007 to 2011 year and at the same workplace acts as assistant professor (2014–2015). From September 2015 he works as an associate professor on Department of Slavic Philology in Faculty of Arts at Comenius University in Bratislava. Research activities: Comparative Slavonic studies and Balkan Linguistic and Literary studies. Author of six books of poetry: “Opened doors” (1995, Kuboa), “The Choir of Rotten Leaves” (2000, Matica makedonska), “The Ridge” (2003, Magor), „Chocolate in portfolio” (2010, Blesok), “Necking without warranty card” (2012, Kočo Racin) and “Waiting history” (2016, Antolog). His poems has been translated into numerous languages and published in the national literary periodicals, as well as in the foreign.