Lidija Dimkovska

Translated, from the Macedonian, by Ljubica Arsovska and Peggy Reid

Projection

Laurie Anderson had a bad night.
Her bare arms gave the impression of cul-de-sacs in the dark.
The muscles grieved for total darkness.
Darkness, said Laurie, is the projection of the core
which although invisible is the goal of the electronic erection.
Laurie, I believe you met God face to face.
I met him face to face to face. Nobody knew who was addressing whom.
The people were turning to look at the blond in silk stockings,
the blond was turning to look at the nun with her head down.
Everyone thinks that in border situations like this
God looks at the one in black robes. But you, Laurie, know
that he looks at the one looking at the nun
and it's on her silk stockings that he sticks the "God's child" label...
God knows if he also pinches her as well.
But, that's their business. I look at my hands
attacked by love staphylococci.
I'm freezing in my folk-embroidered blouse
because she too was crazy about Indian blouses.
And he was crazy about Levi's
but may darkness swallow me up if I tell him that.
Sweet prohibition, keep Laurie's hands in good shape!
The contents of the bag are emptied into hot water
boiled for thirteen minutes and served with cream.
Then Laurie's aunt tells her Andersen's fairy tales.
Then Laurie's aunt dies
and the old maid is buried in a wedding gown.
Laurie interrupts the priest and sings to her aunt:
In the world beyond a husband is waiting for you, that's where you'll find your happiness.
You're a bitch, Laurie, and a big one at that!
But I know that you know how your palms itch when you're alone, when
the electricity goes off,
and the silence whirls in your stomach
I know that you know how hard it is
to dress in white after wearing black,
and have your arms not merge into the day
but be signs by the road
and to have nobody, Laurie, nobody travel
down your roads.

Recognition 8

How dirty your feet are, A.,
I could plant basil in them,
and even rape could take root,
only if possible, the pores of your skin beg me,
no sugars and no preservatives. Health food
for a healthy family, a condition stipulated in the virtual contract,
and nobody asked us if we have cockroaches at home,
and if we do, whether they are intellectuals, or
do they too, like the still lives in the garden,
serve as models for amateur painters.
Colours which hide in the ideas of them,
paranormal configurations,
and your feet, A., are so black
that even the plants in the school herbarium
would rise from the dead linked to their web page.
Nothing will wash the medieval statues,
or the memories of the night in the underground
when the midget got under the model's dress
and she just glanced at her wristwatch,
took her Elle out of her handbag and started reading
as if unaware of the body between her ideal measures,
well it was then, A.,
that history overturned like the swing-boat in the funfair,
scattering hats, civil wars and public apologies,
everybody was staring at your feet of black marble
on the white map of fallen empires,
a priest said: let me wash your feet brother,
but I just managed to show him
the birthmark on your right hip.
All rights reserved.
And this year again summer is the season when mosquitoes
infect the subconscious with malaria,
and I'd better plant some basil
in your black feet of natural proteins,
classified as environment-friendly with green apple,
only you seem to disapprove, you don't know what's it like to be a mobile garden,
and I'm saying to you, darling, even graves are mobile,
let alone a garden of basil roots
which sprouted first in my life, and in your feet
they just suck the power which does not know its power:
first it's a midget, then a model, then history itself.

The Stream of Consciousness

The embers, the broom, the bread crumbs ignored by the sparrows
--are the stream of consciousness of this room where I crumple my life
like a handkerchief for tears. Anyway, I have always stuck my snot
on the underside of the table, bed, or love.
When the bodily secretions have dried, I will lower you to the ground,
my corroded crane, herald of absolute truth:
that God is a polyglot. God nibbles at himself thus penetrating into
the word God. By the heat-stroke of the ember,
by the broom's blood pressure, by the bread I swear:
it's very easy for me to kiss acquaintances. And
I almost go soft when some woman in the church hugs me in exaltation:
"Aunty's sweetheart, aunty's sweetheart!" and I have never seen her before.
But how could I kiss the chimney-sweep? How could I kiss the trunk
of the plum tree left to dry up by my closest ones, and who but them?
How could I kiss the ones I loved even when I was a bat?
When I flew above humankind sprinkling them with vinegar
--the only way to be free in one's blindness.
And the storks licked my ankles, massaged my feet
and kneaded me like dough for a Christmas cake. When they put me up for sale,
I saw that the label read: the cake which will save the world.
What is important is that the coin inside it goes to God! Yes, but how? How, A.?
If I could fill your heart with chocolate filling
and peach juice, like the heart-shaped honey-cakes which make my teeth pulsate
like super-hearts, if I could survive the electric shock
on this three-legged stool in the bugged room,
how unhappy I would be A.! How unfair I would be
to persuade you that sweet is sweet and the bitter--
impossible in a life so short with three possible endings: embers, broom, bread.
Let the consciousness stream, let my mind stream into the wedding-party menu:
"brains in breadcrumbs traditional style."
Tradition is a stream of the unconsciousness: so if I die, I'll die of laughter.
In this room? In some other? In a room with a tax number?
My crane, shall I lower you to the ground or leave you in the heavens?

---

Lidija Dimkovska was born in 1971 in Skopje, Macedonia. She is a poetry editor for the online literary review Blesok (Shine). She took her Ph.D. in Romanian literature from the University of Bucharest, and now lives in Slovenia. Her books include The Offspring of the East (1992), The Fire of Letters (1994), Bitten Nails (1998), and Nobel vs. Nobel (2001). Ljubica Arsovska is editor-in-chief of the quarterly Kulturen Zivot, the leading cultural magazine in Macedonia, and translator of numerous books, plays, and poems. Peggy Reid is a translator of Macedonian poetry and prose. In 1973 she and her husband, Graham W. Reid, received the Struga Poetry Festival Translation Prize for their translation of The Sirdar, by Grigor Prlicev. In 1994 she received the Macedonian Literary Translators' Society Award; she has also won first prize at the Avon Poetry Festival, UK, twice for her own poetry. She teaches English at the University of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje. contents | previous | next