STEFAN MARKOVSKI - POEMS

​Stefan Markovski is a contemporary Macedonian writer, poet, screenwriter and philosopher.
 
Born in the town of Gevgelija (01. 12. 1990), he’s completed primary and secondary education in his hometown, graduating on both the Department of Comparative Literature, Faculty of Philology and the Institute of Philosophy of Ss. Cyril and Methodius State University of Skopje.
He’s obtained a MA in Screenwriting at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDU) in Skopje with a feature film script titled “My Name Is Freedom” and theoretical explication of the potentials of the hybrid crime-drama genre within the future of Macedonian cinematography.
 
Markovski’s writing career and contribution to modern Macedonian literature has granted him literary prizes and honors in Macedonia, including the “Macedonian Literary Avant-garde” for a book of short stories, “Petre M. Andreevski” Prize for novel, “Beli Mugri” for a poetry book, “Krste Chachanski” for a book of short stories, The “7-th November Award” of Gevgelija municipality, “Knjizevno pero” of Croatian Writers’ Association (HKD), prize of UNESCO for Macedonian writers up to 30 years of age etc.
Mentioned in anthologies of modern Macedonian literature, participating in festivals around the country and abroad, some of Markovski’s works have been published in over 20 languages.  
He’s taken part in the Other Words literary residency in San Sebastian in 2018. 
Markovski is a member of Macedonian Writers’ Association, the Macedonian center of the International Theatre Institute, the European poetry platform “Versopolis” and other international associations.
He’s the chief editor of the oldest Macedonian literary magazine – Sovremenost as well as the poetry collections of the project Metric caravan.

 
A blooming day in autumn
​

​The roads are hugged by branchless Christmas trees
A beam cuts them like scalpel and gives
the morning summerly autumn to the squirrels
the natural hair of the street clown has whitened from too much fun
the loneliness steals large canvases from the cinemas
and sews itself in the dandy suits with which
pedestrians go to work
the tiny lights slowly set behind the grain mills
The Earth is loaded on airships that change its orbit
the fruits are planets in the yards
the thoughts are safely stationed in a temporary parking
like a hemisphere
and the body chooses to juggle at crosswalks to the red light
Gothic castles show the way of the soul with their sharp peaks
the roundabouts calmly blossom
autumn pastorals from the mouths of vagrants and few bums
that burn those parts of the soul that are reflection of
Heaven in you.
 
07.09.18,
Bayonne 

​11 243 meters, purple Mediterranean

The airplane wings draw new summer fragrances
in the fogs they’re expected by tomorrow's smiles
like a dawn or maybe a dusk 
with a calm, lazy eyes the day 
can witness the providence through all the blue truths
the winds lose their hearing with the speed of a fatal thought
squeezed into a cloud that looks like Helderlin
the three colors beyond the window are tightened in a harmony by the belt of a thought looking for waiting rooms 
with queues for the scents of summers to happen
every doubt burns in the contact with the perfect sea right in front of us
no mantra reveals the same silence again
the airplane wings confine 
new pieces of rigour in the collages of death,
Deceived like a flat rainbow at the end of the view.

The land, once again, with open arms and a deep breath 
is set to earn a temporary embrace
counting the seagulls following the shade-loaded boats.


​

Going after the White Griffin ​

In a body of demigod beast imperial shadows of chthonic forces douse 
kingdoms united into the singularity of all beings
become golden ruins under steel-feathered wings 
in an incense smoke sighs are clothed
through which gods send answers
when you pass through tunnels of glass hope 
virgin blood supplies your cells.

A griffin pierces far into the heavens
in search for
a magnificent day for a perfect melancholy.
Everyone knows
few believe
that the blank in each whiteness
holds the most colorful rainbow sewed up in a full stop 
the well in which the souls drown
suggests an illusion of all destinies
buried into a tunnel with one exit
where the celestial blueness reflects off the lonely trains’ glass. 
Asian winds blow statues of flesh
before showing you the way to the only truth - downward 
all the definitions of joy and wisdom are carrying explosive  
waiting for its moment 
in front of faces yet to blush.

The rain is rage of myriad of mirrors and swords
they guard the innocence of the land pieces between us
and the magic of the air with taste of white birds
black hounds chase the moon at dusk
and, hiding behind the mountains,
bark with a lion’s roar 
then the night sculpts new tunnels of hope from itself 
hope undefiled as an intact wine bottle
pointing the way.


​

Blossomlane ​

April comes slowly
calmly, gently, powerfully 
getting into time
when the only arabesques 
are question marks inverted like golden sixes 
drawn onto the glassy morning fog
which tells the eyes where crimson rivers flow
that each herb of the greenery
competes for a more dazzling view of the Sun
that’s a path through it
to the mountain from which white doves carry
a cry in unopened envelopes
which resemble a flat plate sealed
with a myrrh blossom and a scent of a dawnworld. 

​

Our ashes 
​

Our ashes are dust on the bodies of the
intact gods,
a shadow that builds 
all the world's heavens,
a flag waiting to be lifted
by the wind in between 
that only sometimes moans out loud.

Our ashes hide the sunwords
in an Easter basket braided with red thoughts,
our ashes precede the
gray shine of foreign universes 
once purified by moments of water
and grains of fire
our ashes 
are being crumbled in chrome plates
from the dining rooms of the homes of 
children who are not yet born,
light as the earth protecting us.

​

Slowly
​

Slowly I wake
as you get reborn 
along with a royal cape of bed sheets 
in my bed bent out of love
as if your royal art suddenly becomes visible
as if you exist along with art 
and I slowly touch your lips colored by the Sun
disguising you as a redhead saint
rising behind your visage
- you’ll drink this day with them 
as these pupils have drunk the once upon a time.

In your now my lips grow blind while you flee
I slowly sip wine
and the black abyss from the glass as deep as your navel
becomes the only landscape of your hiding
my body is slowly being dyed by green flames 
purging me from your curses
with the scent of basil soaked in water
nourishing the skin of a newborn dressed in fig leaves
that I tore one by one
when the zenith was a candle
under which the drunken god with red ink
slowly versified our destinies
built out of earth.  

Soon enough 
The red prophets of the city’s skyworld 
will slowly shorten the day;
the night will follow us soberly with a Venetian mask
taking it out to greet everyone except us
while the steel steps will ever slowly
ever narrowly
gently 
get us lost to the navels of the world. 



​