Scars
After a senseless
struggle for freedom
that often excludes
the view of eternity,
kneeling smiles remain,
hats miss meaninglessness,
narrowed eyes of compassion
seek excuses in thunders
who do not recognize weakness.
Because of victories
that can’t be held
between the palms,
their goblets mixed
with poison.
In front of the door
without guards and padlocks
– the scars heal on their own.
By prayer
Knight of Mercy
In the glass
eye of hesitation,
dies the trail
that the knight
of mercy
to the brave unselfishly
giving away.
Trick of the times
She enters abruptly,
she does not recognize
peace and a glass of wine
on the table,
she is not bothered by pencils
and chocolate paper
on which I wrote that the wind
no longer loves me.
She is sitting on a wool carpet
with drawn laughter on the
third fringe,
she doesn’t care what the angry crows
will say because the sun
is setting earlier.
They won’t know that I learned
the laughter of owls and the anger
of squirrels when they quarrel over
the same hollow in the tree.
All that I am,
is waiting to be written
on the bark of a hundred-year-old tree
for the memory of those
who live from the present,
just as I live from our love.
Which enters everywhere
without knowing
the tricks of the times.
While God listens
There is something devastating in
the smile of a day
that carries hunger
and prayer on the same shoulder.
In it, an old woman with daisies
and a primrose prays for
a lump of survival,
folds of grace in the palm
of your hand.
The world has the claws
of the wounded
swan and the smell of joy
in the eyes of children
that no one was able to pamper.
He has us with invisible ink
we spell new ways
agreements between
willows and water lilies.
While the Lord listens.
Swing of the rope
Life has gray eyes
that have forgotten
what happiness is
and soap bubbles
that a girl in a wheelchair
is trying to reach.
A smile is sometimes
a broken bone of illusion
and skin that is crucified
for a higher goal.
And most of all,
it is a slight swing of the rope
that keeps us upright
as we walk on the ice.
About the author
Valentina Novković, (Serbia) graduated from the Department of Russian Language and Literature (second language English). He writes poetry, short stories, translates from Russian and English into Serbian, an writes reviews. She has published poetry and prose in many magazines in Serbia Književne novine, Trag, Književni pregled, Brankovina, Buktinja, Stremljenja, Savremenik, Istok, Balkanske vertikale, electronic magazines Ekerman, Hyperboreja, Zvezdani kolodvor, Društvo živih pesnika, as well as many literary magazines in Russia, Uzbekistan, Spain, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Romania, Macedonia, Kazakhstan and many others.
Represented in numerous domestic and foreign anthologies, (Rahim Karimov, dr Agron Shele, Quarlos Jarquin etc) one of the most important is the one compiled and translated into Romanian by Leo Butnara, a poet, prose writer, essayist, journalist and translator, nominated by the Moldovan Writers’ Association for the Nobel Prize. In the mentioned anthology, in addition to Marina Cvetayeva, Mayakovski, Rilke, and other world-famous poets, represented Valentina Novković.
Her poems have been translated into Hungarian, Russian, English, Romanian, Polish, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Italian, Vietnamese, Spanish, Portuguese, Indian, Nepali and others. Winner of many awards for poetry and prose. She has published four poetry books Timeless (Draslar, 2014) Drop on Drought (Parthenon, 2018), Puzzles of Tenderness (Liberland, 2021), Poems from heaven (2022), Riots, reconciliations (Sunčani breg, 2023) as well as the book of stories Two Hours of Reality (AWS, 2020)
Her book Puzzles of Tenderness was translated into Romanian and published by the well-known publishing house “Timpul” and translated by Leo Butnaru, and turkish, too. Publishing house „Baygenc Kitap“ (2023).
Editor at the Liberland publishing house, where she edits works by artists from Serbia and the surrounding area and translates works by authors from the Russian and English speaking area. Journalist of the Focus News, Konkretno, Pokazivač and KRK portal, where her interlocutors were many creators from Russia and the former Soviet Union and writers from all over the world.
She received a large number of awards for literary translations, and as one of the translators she received the award of the Association of Translators of Montenegro for the best translated prose book in 2019 by a prominent author from Uzbekistan, Rahim Karim (“Book of stories for young people”).
She translated more ten author’s books by writers and poets from around the world, (Leo Butnar, Xosiyat Rustamova, Qochkor Narkobil, Krishna Prasai, Stanislav Li, Rahim Karimov, Arslan Bajir, Ali Alijev, Eduard Harens …) as well as over 200 hundred individual poems and stories by authors from around the world that were published in relevant periodicals in Serbia. Her poems have been translated into more than 17 languages and are featured in anthologies and literary magazines around the world.
