Danijela Trajković (Western Voices 2020)

Exclusive: Western Voices, 2020: Edited by Scott Thomas Outlar

Bio: Danijela Trajković (1980) is a poet, short story writer, translator and reviewer. She holds an MA in English language and literature from the Faculty of Philosophy in Kosovska Mitrovica, Serbia. Her work has been translated into Russian, Spanish, Romanian, Arabic, English, Bulgarian, Czech, Slovakian, Macedonian, Uzbek, Turkish, Bengali, Hungarian and published in journals (Matica srpska, SETU, Poem, Voices de la Luna, Live Encounters, etc), newspapers (Večernje novosti, Femida) and anthologies (‘World Poetry Almanac’, Mongolia, 2017-2018, ‘Balkan Poetry Today (UK, 2018), etc. Danijela’s first book ‘22 Wagons’ (selected and translated Anglophone Contemporary Poetry) was published by Academy of Arts, Knjaževac, Serbia, 2018.

While Life Sees a Dream

Life is outside
In the room there are
Golden eyes of the Moon
My daughter's calm breathing
And me

Outside life is quiet
It sees a dream of how
It is not to be life

Nobody wants to interrupt its dream
Dogs don't fight for the bone
That cats licked
Cats don't chase mice
Mice don't bite the corn
That a housewife
Hung against the wall
To have for popcorn

Wind doesn't blow-dry the white cherry tree

And so
Life sleeps
As a girl who sees a dream
Of having super powers.

Iranian woman


Flowers have a bath
In the sweat
Of his beautiful Iranian woman
Under his sparkling movements
The world gets swallowed
By a thirsty river in a gorge
Only his lips remain
Swollen with Iranian tea
The tongue slalom skis
Every flag in the oasis
Feels his touch
Trembling like sand
In the middle of a storm
The teeth tear the fruits
Of former Persia
At lightning speed
There is a new law
Above her
Just for her
The new sky
Red
And she gives birth
To geysers…

Rati*

He waited for the moment
When the sun
Would take off its clothes
Come close to the water
And be rapt

Then
He approached it from behind
Got it
And put it under her nightgown

Afterwards
For his Rati
He built
An underground palace
Its entrance opens
The scent of his body

And he vanished

Black Widows
In the black lace
Caught him
And now
Rati sits beside
The deathbed
Of the sun

*Rati is the Hindu goddess of love, carnal desire, lust, passion and sexual pleasure.

Setu, April 2020

Božidar Vasiljević (Western Voices 2020)

Exclusive: Western Voices, 2020: Edited by Scott Thomas Outlar

(Poems Translated into English by Danijela Trajković)

Bio: Božidar Vasiljević (1951) is a Serbian poet and novelist. He writes both for children and adults and has published more than 15 poetry books. His work has been translated in several languages. He lives and works in Belgrade.

The Sanctities in Kosovo

Holy chrome holy zinc holy nickel

holy magnesium holy copper holy mercury

holy silver holy gold holy bismuth

holy coal holy gas holy bauxite

holy indium holy cadmium

holy germanium

holy thallium

holy lead

holy manganese holy molybdenum holy boron

holy clay holy stone

holy air holy sun

holy moon

holy waters

holy land

holy land

holy land

(Translated by Danijela Trajković)

The World Will Become Extinct

The world will die out

not of aids cholera boredom

atomic bomb won’t destroy the world

the world will become extinct of fear

it will slowly seep

down the trouser leg

  

(Translated by Danijela Trajković)

I Am a Blade of Grass

I am a blade of grass

the dewed one that glitters

in front of the sways

of the lawnmower man

mowing in a row

some blades of grass early in the morning

some of them during the day

and some only at night

  

(Translated by Danijela Trajković)

Setu, April 2020