Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska [North Macedonia]

                            

Life Exists Due to the Primal Fear of Death 

Life exists due to the primal fear of death.
Torn apart from the womb of the known, eternal and infinite
And tossed into the chaos of the unknown, final and finite.
Life sustains itself through pain,
through series of pains of varying intensity
that rhythmically bounce on the life line
that limits us just like the unlit cigarette
with pronounced facial expression bounces and performs
acrobatic movements in the air.
It depends on the force of gravity
and the virtue with which you can hold that cigarette
between your fingers for so long without lighting it.
Will it hurt much if it lights up?
And for how long is it safe to let it burn
before it burns out
and it’s gone
before it burns out and we are gone,
before life on this planet blazes out in a blazing flash?
 
 
Time That Slips From Our Palms (Incision 40)
 
time often rushes at us unexpectedly
from some side street in the night
and knocks us out to the ground
and then, in panic, we want to save from death
the atoms of happiness we were not even aware
that had belonged to us
we gather our words
scattered on the asphalt from the crash
and we want to push them back into our heads
like thoughts that keep us alive
without knowing that our skull is cracked
in several places
and that it can no longer contain
all our fears with which we keep ourselves alive
and then we cut our skin
to save our breathing
something must be sacrificed in the name of eternity, right?
we play Gods
holding knives and scalpels in our hands
above our heads an artificial sun shines
and gives us the illusion of false freedom
so that we can perform a surgical intervention
on the present and launch ourselves into the future
but the atoms of happiness cannot be saved
by any dissection of the present
someone must inhale and exhale them
so they may live within the circle
drawn around us
like helium in the balloon
of dreams
 
Mother (Cut 48)
 
She gives birth to us in the gaze of the sun,
and with the gentle feather of time
she opens our eyes
so that we may look at ourselves from within
with the heart of the universe.
 
(Translated into English by Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska)
 
(From “Cesarian Section of the Sky”, Skopje: Matica, 2025)
 
 
 
Author’s Bionote:
 
*Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska, PhD (born: February 3^rd 1979, Bitola, North Macedonia), is a poet, writer, scholar, literary critic, translator, and university professor. She is editor of two literary journals and initiator for opening the Center for Literature, Art, Culture, Rhetoric and Language at the Faculty of Education - Bitola, University “St. Kliment Ohridski” - Bitola where she currently teaches. She is a member of the Macedonian Writer’s Association, Slavic Academy for Literature and Art in Varna, Bitola’s Literary Circle and serves as President of the Macedonian Science Society – Bitola. She has authored 19 books in Macedonian, including poetry, prose, literary criticism, and academic studies, as well as eight poetry collections in English, Arabic, Italian, Polish, Bulgarian, and Romanian, published in the United States, India, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania. Her poetry has been translated into more than 40 languages.