Wrong Roads Sometimes the heart fills up and becomes bigger than a cloud, thoughts get condensed into a ball from which mothers will not knit scarves. In him, in that heart, the whistles of the winds do not herald rains, nor do they send signs from the sky. In him, in that heart as quiet as the fire that the first people keep from being extinguished, there lives a pain painted with a smile, a pain that is difficult to name, and represents all the wrong choices we have ever made. Because of them, God sent December in July. We silently know why. Fairy Bride My mother has been sowing seeds of paradise for twenty years so that my hair smells of hope. She regularly waters violets, daffodils, jasmine and orchids so that my words have an air of eternity. She clothes me with prayers in skirts that nothing can compare to. And I, I hide in the deepest pockets of sadness the confession that I regret every day in which I rushed to work, in which I forgot to ask her how she was doing, in which many things bothered me... An confession that everything could have waited, just not her, now a fairy bride who every time I slip, covers me with her invisible hand. Мy Hearth Afraid to settle worlds that only occasionally meet mix, the vase rejects the water, the flower is handed over voluntarily. If the meteors were imagined for a moment stealing the thoughts of haughty existences, would plasticine in children's hands turned to dust? I admit that I don't like chimney sweeps that every color turn into black, who court the mists by putting out the fire, I admit that I tore all the buttons myself - happiness does not depend on needle thread and funny holes. I myself keep my hearth burning.
VALENTINA NOVKOVIĆ (Serbia), graduate philologist, poet, prose writer, literary translator. Editor in a publishing house. Published four book of poems (Timeless 2014, Drop by drop 2018, Riddles of Tenderness, 2020,Poems to the Heaven, 2022, which won the first prize at the Fifth Drina Literary Meeting) and one prose book (Two hours from reality, 2020), Winner of many awards for poetry and prose as well as for translations. The book of stories by the famous writer and translator Rahim Karimov, “Stories for youbg people” Alma, 2019, which she translated into Serbian, received the award for the best translated prose book in 2019 by Literary Translators. Her verses have been translated into 16 world languages, and the book Odgonetke nežnosti was translated into Romanian in 2022 (Leo Butnaru translator, Timpul publisher.) She has translated individual stories and poems of more than 300 authors into Serbian, interviewed all important creators around the world and interviews were published in more widely read newspapers or magazines for culture and art. Member of the Association of Writers of Serbia and Kazakhstan, the Serbian Literary Association, and many associations in the world. Editor and host of the forum “Literary Conversations”.
Confessions 