Photo credit: Žarko Čulić
Katica KULAVKOVA(1951) is a Macedonian writer (poetry, short fictions, essays). She is full Professor of Literary Theory, a regular member of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences & Arts and of the European Academy of Sciences & Arts (Salzburg), a Vice President of PEN International. She has published more than thirty books of poetry (into Macedonian original and in translation), as well as two collections of short stories, one play, and approximately forty other books (essays, selections), as both author and editor. Kulavkova has received numerous Macedonian & other literary awards. Leaves in Skopje. Passions: art photo & astrology.
Confession
“What forces me
to invent
hush
add
relocate
alter?
Death’s hoof
jolts me,
makes me spill
even now, i cannot
hide it, my urges
out of their bed
rising like well-kneaded dough
like well-shaken champagne
Every night i wait
to hear God’s voice between the lines
and remember
My memory is bulked
flowing over the brim
surging lava
I’d give a kingdom for a good poem
I don’t need consolation
so long as the Prompter is giving me
the verses, line by line.”
Translated from Macedonian by Igor Popovski,
And transcreated by Veronica Golos& Catherine Strisik
Leviathan: The White Whale
– In praise of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick –
Vengeance is a white gush
a poisonous Druid
No man is your equal,
your path, a God’s finger
pointed and real
echo of the Equator,
a frozen soul in the warm waters,
vengeance is a white gush, heading southward!
Your image is unreachable, godly, satanic, immortal
white, haughty – hey, monstervain and greedy,
hey, Whale
your clear dewy rage
the bloody roar
the weed of your foam
– a lion’s mane on your back
The word can describe you better
than an icon’s paint, you false idol
– perverted sign on the whalers
Merciful marrow, core, rainbow
punish the heathens: hide the truth
you, cartilage of repentance
comply with God’s wisdom
You, Magus
who frolics in the sea’s abyss
– in the womb of the world
You, big nursling
heal your face from the depths
You, perfect lamia
splashy, oily, boiling, deadly…
Translated by Zoran Ančevski
SWARMING BEE
Mat, mat, Maat! Tam, tam, tam! Atman!
Here is thyme for you queen bee, Hypnos
scent in your beehive, hive in friction
and in blossom. Everything is made for you, bee
the sky, the hive
gaping as hungry mouths
a yearning cone, a home,
Spin you astute swarm, whirlpool
you that are in the sky, be on the earth
colonies, beehives, wax beds
ram-memory in the basement and on the floor I give
for your Latin din
for your priceless secretion
a honey-sweet word, an aphrodisiac
even the mead dripping from the skies I give to you
like an archangel and dowry
from somebody’s sweet soul
even a gush of eternity I offer you
“nude as a chicken neck”
so that you collect yourself, beloved
so that you come to the top of the willow
to my nest glowing with ether
with oil extract
with honey-giving herbs
I offer you enigmatic games
crosswords, puzzles,
to fill in the spaces and honeycombs
to make meaningful the cells –
the numberless wax cells
like miniature morels
Everything too you,
for a bit of beebread and pollen
forpropolis and thickly transparent
sticky and slimy amber
ambrosia and yellow jasper
for your immortality balsam
for your sweet youth topping
for the creation drama
for the childhood resin’ the spilt syrup
or
do you want me to say it clearly:
for honey, molasses!
Then come down, lower down
behind this world, dinning madly, monstrously
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Translated by Elizabeta Bakovska& Dijana Mihajlova
