VALENTINA NOVKOVIĆ

 

Swing of the rope

 

Life has gray eyes

that have forgotten

what happiness is

and soap bubbles

that a girl in a wheelchair

is trying to reach.

A smile is sometimes

a broken bone of illusion

and skin that is crucified

for a higher goal.

And most of all,

it is a slight swing of the rope

that keeps us upright

as we walk on the ice.

 

Judgment

 

I’ m waking up

at the end of the century

who has no name

they call him but he doesn’t answer

tired of wars, tears, blood,

the severed limbs of innocent children.

The earth whispers curses to those who are carrying guns

stepped on her back,

to those who rejoiced in the blood of the innocent

because the moment has not yet come

may heaven bring judgment to those

who have never looked into it.

 

The Father

 

The father is mine

pressed olive,

all his juices are now in the shoulders of his sons

and the smiles of his daughters.

His eyes are now

the light in the windows of the old house

who remembers well the crying and laughter

of everyone who took their first breath there.

 

My father is an unfinished book,

every page has golden prints of wisdom,

in his sore fingers is the eternal dust

of all those who lived before him.

 

When I hug him,

under the canopy of my youth

new shoots are born.

 

VALENTINA NOVKOVIĆ

 

VALENTINA NOVKOVIĆ (Serbia), graduate philologist, poet, prose writer, literary translator. Editor in a publishing house. Published four book of poems (Timeless 2014, Drop by drop 2018, Riddles of Tenderness, 2020, Songs to the Heaven, 2022, which won the first prize at the Fifth Drina Literary Meeting) and one prose book (Two hours from reality, 2020), Winner of many awards for poetry and prose as well as for translations. The book of stories by the famous writer and translator Rahim Karimov, "Stories for youbg people" Alma, 2019, which she translated into Serbian, received the award for the best translated prose book in 2019 by Literary Translators. Her verses have been translated into 16 world languages, and the book Odgonetke nežnosti was translated into Romanian in 2022 (Leo Butnaru translator, Timpul publisher.) She has translated individual stories and poems of more than 300 authors into Serbian, interviewed all important creators around the world and interviews were published in more widely read newspapers or magazines for culture and art. Member of the Association of Writers of Serbia and Kazakhstan, the Serbian Literary Association, and many associations in the world. Editor and host of the forum "Literary Conversations".