MIHAIL RENDZOV
b. 1936

Born in Shtip. Poet and translator. His poema are translated in Serbian, Russian, Romanian and other languages. He translated Gilgamesh in Macedonian. Included in all major antologues of Macedonian poetry.

WE WALK HOLDING HANDS

We walk
holding hands:
Angel and mountain
Nightingale and silence
Soul and darkness

We walk holding hands

We walk
holding hearts
Wild beast and mountain
Sparrow-hawk and silence
Worm and darkness

We walk
holding hearts.

MORNING POEM

Wash your eyes,
open them to the sun
and leave your peacock to puff himself
just as my mirror puffs itself up
when you negligently
pass in front of it.

It is time I told you
that you're beautiful Letter
with which each morning
I begin my poem:
the illuminated initial
of longing.

I WAS RETURNING HOME

I was returning home
by a road of excavations
and gravel piles
And returning with me were
my Little Things:
the pebble with which someone
hit me long ago
the drop of blood from my nose
the fruit I stole at night
the forest where
a bird hid from me
(after some forgotten poem)
the sins I committed
defending myself
the angel I forgot
while quarrelling with friends
the life I let slip by
staring at god knows what
and god knows where.

One night
all my Little Things
were at home
only I was not there

I am lost, they say,
staring at god knows what
and god knows where.

AUTO-DA-FE'

I am on fire.
Red-hot.
Burning.

I am counting the constituent drops:
one drop: birth
one drop: passion
one drop: wonderment
one drop: fear

What the last drop is
I don't know
Probably the drop: nothingness
Something like a possible remnant
of life.