ACO SOPOV

Participated in the Yugoslav fight for freedom about which he has composed the poems Love and Partisan Spring (dedicated to the brave Vera Jocic). Author of a number of poetry collections. Won many literary awards including the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia Prize in 1971.

IN SILENCE

If you carry within you something unsaid,
something which pains and burns,
bury it within the depths of silence -
the silence will say it for you.

TO THE SEAGULL CIRCLING MY HEAD

Seagull of mine,
do not land upon my eyes.
There is no way to capture those estranged waves.

Swoop down to all depths,
Soar up to all heights
and enable me to see.
I no longer have eyes,
Seagull of mine.

Do not land upon my heart.
My heart is no longer mine,
Seagull of mine.
Fly beyond all unknown regions
to all the living, unknown, dead.
See the lonely, the alienated,
the icy peaks, the green fields
and listen -
As long as your as your wings peacefully flutter above,
my heart beats restlessly with them.

Do not descend seagull of mine,
but return again to your flock.
I am a boat drifting alone
in the uncharted unknown.

READING THE ASHES

Burn within the fire, poem,
which you lit yourself.
Words scatter and disappear
within the ashes of flints.
Reader of the ashes,
do you see the historical drama there,
that comes from the bottom of that dark spring.

I rescued you, poem, from the beak of a bird,
which flies through my blood,
through the red sky of my burning veins,
through the cables of two contradicting worlds,
through sunrises of unknown change.

I rescued you from the anger of the icons;
those unappreciative spectrums,
capturing the lightning as it strikes
the spear of a stone warrior,
and from the dreams of those
who are greater than the dreams that entice them,
and are reborn as soon as they are extinguished.

Now we are two worlds, two enemies,
two conflicting sides,
which are now at war without a truce;
dagger against dagger.
Who is defeated? Who is winner?
Who arises with significant scars?

Burn within the fire, poem, which
you lit yourself.

WOMAN IN IVERNAZ

Night overflows. Vehement rain.
Night and rain. Rain and night. Ivernaz
and a woman alone in the night and ivernaz
beneath the distant thunder of the tom-toms
serpent-like she writhes in the rain
as in the arms of a man.

A woman in the night; an old and squeaky car,
a woman awoken by the noisy rain,
a woman insane from pleasure -
dances in the night, in the rain,
naked and alone.

And the rain falls like a cure
for severe wounds;
a cure from the dark powers and passions.
The rain falls like a murmur, a caress:
Arise and grow!
The rain falls and there
is no end to the ivernaz