• Jovica Ivanovski in Translation: One of These Days If Not Tomorrow

Jovica Ivanovski in Translation: One of These Days If Not Tomorrow

Toilet

Let my departing be
        without approving.
In summer, on a sunny day, at noon,
with a pleasant breeze from the east.
From my bed directly to the other bed.
Before the autopsy deforms
        my body prematurely.
Let the voice of the priest be heard from
                        another grave,
let the mourning go to
   the fellow dead who deserved them.
I'd even avoid the chapel – the
ritual circling around the bed,
setting flowers like a spring terrace,
condolences – teary or dry;
half-acquaintances, hugs, black robes... Noooo!
I want a happy funeral, a hippy good-bye.              
Let somebody sing A whiter shade of pale,
a twenty-year old with an electric guitar,
                        of course.
A decent, sorted (not necessarily marble)
bar right from the hole – but only after
                 the shovel men gallop away.
No copied praises and a moron's speech to
    a microphone – with a broken speaker and squeaking.
And my old friends leaning on their elbows,
        should get smashed and forget where they are;
so the farewell turns into a party, all the way till the end.
And those whose bladders have too much
could relieve themselves – here,
in the new unfinished toilet,
right next to the bar.

Autumn in Skopje

Skater kids fall,
tiles from autumn houses fall,
saliva falls. White chewing gums
best turn black on the pavement tiles.
Morning dew falls, and so does sunlight and fog.
Feathers of the birds that do not migrate fall,
fathers and grandfathers on rollers as well,
rude pedestrians fall on crossings,
high heels fall on their knees.
Leaves fall on women
under the trees on top of beds.
Everything falls: the birch and the stock exchange
the harvest and trust, and confidence as well.
Soon the first snow will fall
        couple of months later the last one will also fall.
Then for a while nothing will fall.
And everything goes like this, in circles, same and boring –
all over again, yet another time, from empty into hollow...
Until the first handfuls of dirt start to fall
        on your coffin under the ground,
in a late, sunny autumn in Skopje,
not much different than this.

Translated by: Elizabeta Bakovska

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