NENAD TRAJKOVIC - POEMS - TRANSLATED BY DANIJELA TRAJKOVIĆ

Nenad Trajkovic (Pirot, Serbia, 1982) is a Serbian poet, essayist, literary critic and traslator. He graduated from Faculty of Law, University of Kragujevac, Serbia. 
He has published three collections of poetry, Traces (2008), I'm Taking You to the Museum (2011), and Wind From The Tongue  (2016, for which he got The Rade Tomic Prize). 
His works has been published widely in literary magazines and national newspapers in Serbia and abroad. Translated into English, German, French, Polish, Macedonian, Slovakian, Russian and Bulgarian.
He has translated and edited collection of poetry The Hero Of The Forgotten Class by Zvonko Taneski, from Macedonian into Serbian.
In 2013 he received the award given by the Bulgarian publisher Melnik. In 2015 he received the award Rade Tomic for the best poetry manuscript in Serbia.
He is a founder and editor of an international literary manifestation Pisanija.
He lives and works in Vranje, Southern Serbia. 

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​INFANTICIDE
​

on the grave near the old village road
letters did not exist
people said it was a small Gypsy tomb
in which all the Gypsies from the missing mahala[1] were placed
so one night when the super full moon has shown itself the villagers saw
the headless woman at the top of the hill giving birth
and throwing her child on a stone slab
to eat all the letters
 
abstractum pro concreto
(first published in Duane’s Poe Tree, 2018)


[1] Mahala is originally Arabic word محلة, mähallä, which meant settling, occupying, but nowdays in the Balkans means a part of a town or village. 

​A CONVERSATION WITH A.

if you forget time
how old are you then
                                         in the ears you accept music
                                         only in a certain place
the voice you wait for
at the end always kills you
 
there is nothing new for you
you rotate by the law of  sweetness
and so you create more lives
the fiction that you exist somewhere else as well
it turns you against me
 
something is painful in Divano bar[1]
lots of antique clocks
with different numbers and needles
have weightlessness
                                                                       the room is empty
                                                                       (a waiter should not exist)
                                                                        still life
                                                                        and the swaths of
                                                                         withered flowers
                                                                         heavy fumes
                                                                         for easy life
                                                                          take you back to axiom topics
such knowledge does not give much hope
 
do you think sometimes about Poe
his dark world
did not leave secrets
                                                                              everyone loses wife
                                                                              and dresses her again
                                                                              using the measures of the previous one
                                                                              in this world no one is innocent
                                                                              in dot of fogging
                                                                             we become incomplete and outraged
 
when you find a dream
it turns off after some time
like the little candle in church
you've lit because of it
 
you see
eyes turn
circle cracks
irregularity leads
 


[1] A caffe in the town of Vranje, Serbia

​FIRST-DEGREE MURDER

if the wind did not throb the broken windows
we would not know for a long time
that the owner of the house was killed there
inconspicuous and unknown as he used to be
immediately he has begun to resemble to an artist
becoming more famous after his death
 
the police searched for days
for the perpetrator
in the notebook
of the inspector for blood crimes
was written only the following
                                                              social case
                                                              no family
                                                              no girlfriend
                                                             no friends
                                                             no enemies
                                                             jobless
                                                             only spoke with animals
 
after many years the inspector often remembers
the only unsolved case
because every day at the new kiosk
a homeless man reminds him
                                                      I met his killer
                                                      the day I became
                                                     what I am
                                                     do not ever look for him
                                                     and write this in your notebook
                                                     punished without the right to pardon
 
ad acta

​ON THE WIRE

​in a village my father comes from 
the toilets were outside 
their paper on a rusty wire 
when I first entered them 
I found Emily Bronte 
whom my grandfather had tried to hang there 
it was unpleasant 
to be there with a lady 
so I took her out in my arms
in the morning 
I was shown a suitcase full 
of convicted writers 
ready for hanging
and these were the first people 
I ever freed
 
(first published in Poem, UK, 2015)
 

Marketing Fraud
​

it's good that there are commercials
about great new things
where your consciousness travels to
removed from the courage of the decision
somebody else makes your decision
and tells you to believe in every word
which is paid per second for the duration
 
it's good that there are commercials
how to know what to buy
even when you do not buy anything
 
because the beginning of all the beginnings
it's based on lies
 
(first published in Modern Literature, India, 2018)
​