VELE SMILEVSKI
b. 1949

Born in a village near Demir Hisar. Studied philology in Skopje. Works at the Literature Institute of the Philosophical Faculty in Skopje. Several volumes of poetry and essays. Co-author of a five-volume publication on Macedonian literary criticism. Selections of his poetry have been published in Serbo-Croat and Albanian translations. Winner of several prizes.

HITTING THE TARGET

Open flesh
Sheltered from wind.

Red curtains over the threshold.
One more step
(since the night passed in a gallop)
to the target
which pops up
as I aim at it.

And you say:
The core has a deeper meaning
and the journey there
doesn't wait
from this sheltered spot
from this unbuttoned room
from this store of overripe seed
life
begins.

BREAKFAST

We exchanged our dreams
and everyone now silently
is stealing the rest of wakefulness
from the mutilated night.
My morning happy pill: vitamin A

Blessed is the bread
and the emptiness filling it
like parted lips
before our
insatiability.

Platefuls of sea
and the aquarium of the sea
roar from the sea's depth
The word which only now
will be ours alone.

THE DOOR

It yawns and chews it,
all that emptiness
which perhaps tomorrow
will harden
into words

And yet blank sheets
and papers fly
I clutch a few words in my hand
to squeeze them out
and dry them for gunpowder.

Easy therefore with the lighter
for, lighting my cigarette,
I flare up like a wick
and blazing, appalled but without shouting,
I'll cross the threshold.

THE BIRD

I drew a bird I drew
the fragrant wind too
so the pencil's lead
could resist
be a
cage
and hear what's unspoken
in the poem

Meanwhile
dense ozone
has open our pores
and the mortar rang out
rhythmically on the wall
and the marble sang
while I was descending
to a blank sheet

And under the whiteness
in the base of the lead
the bird was flying up into the poem
and the cloud under the lightning
carried an egg-shaped quartz