Poems by- Borche Panov

Poems by-
Borche Panov
[Translated from Macedonian into English: Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska]

THE QUEEN OF THE TRANSPARENT CHESS PIECES

with my double that doesn’t think like a double,
I am playing chess –
he, with his black chess pieces,
and I – with my transparent thoughts.
When between the East and the West he moves,
he sunsets in one of my thoughts that knows – he was me long time ago;
when I sunrise with all shadows
like pawns in front of me,
he moves back and from my back
he attacks me with the Trojan horse of the night.
In the game, he is my enemy,
and he is constantly attacking me with me,
because he knows that in the real life
my real enemy is me myself,
although I am not aware that he is me,
and the only predictability
with which I could beat him
is that he thinks that he is me,
and when he is going after me,
I know how the bishop in me thinks,
nevertheless I have a weakness –
I have never felt like a king,
although I have always wanted the queen
of all my transparent chess pieces…

FOSSIL HESITATION

The morning touched me with the forefinger of a day
the day – with a moment
the moment with the whole time
and I was running
being pushed by the forefinger in front of the whole time
and my body
was the only space and time
as a large ship full of words
nevertheless
the flood of the unspoken words
cannot explain the fossils of the days,
fossils in which I failed to speak out all the injustice
and I know – on a square meter of the Earth
up to the edge of the universe we are being pressed by 10 N
or 1 kg of air
and the morning pressed me with the forefinger of a day
the day – with a moment
the moment with the whole time
the whole time with the question

How much does an unspoken word
that hesitates between the life and the chaos
weigh?

READING FROM RIGHT TO LEFT

If your windows are misty and moisty in the morning –
they are wet because of the breathing of your dreams
meaning that the room in which you sleep
is a womb that protects you from the cold.
If it is too cold,
the dreams will be frozen like a frost flower
in the floral garden of the winter that has already stepped in.
On the glade of the awakening,
no one can ever see what you have been dreaming,
unless you write something on the window glass.
That is how poets write down their dreams –
and you have to learn to read from right to left.
And it turns out to be good,
because that writing which has the end of the thought
as the beginning of the feeling
will never end…

DIPTYCH OF THE SORROW

1.
The ancient Chinese physicians
thought of sorrow as a lung disease

I often wonder
how little oxygen is there in the sorrow
and how is it possible a sky of the word to be created
from such a little amount of oxygen.

It is amazing how we are interweaving like two flames
that burn out of the same root – my hand was speaking to me and was writing down all that I didn’t want to tell her about the joy.

2. Poet,
have you heard that the ancient Chinese physicians
thought of sorrow as a lung disease,
have you ever wondered
how little oxygen is there in the sorrow?

It is amazing how the sky of the word is created
from such a little amount of oxygen,
it is amazing how we are interweaving like two flames
that burn out of the same root –
my hand was speaking to me and was writing down
all that I didn’t want to tell her about the joy.

POETRY

This mirror
is the smoothest
shaved cheek
on which
the beard
of time
doesn’t grow
anymore
so
watch out
you could easily
become sad
when
you stand
in front of it