The second collection of Dejan Stojanovic's verse, "The Sun is Watching Itself," is covered by a metaphysical and philosophical veil. Eleven segments are connected by these two abstract approaches and by such key images as a circle, suggesting infinity, and silence, reflecting space and eternity. The circle serves as a powerful symbol and a device of the perpetual in this poetry: "the end without endlessness is only a new beginning," claims the poet. Thus, one of the poems bears the title "God and Circle," symbolizing the perennial search for an exit and the eventual finding of one, which only leads into another circle and to continuous evolution. This prompts Stojanovic to pose the question "Is God himself a Circle?"--implying that God is endless and ever present.

Although concise, the poems convey in a powerful and specific manner messages from the triad circle-God-eternity, connected by man's destiny and the poet's concept of human life and origins, and of the universe itself. In other words, microcosmic observations lead to macrocosmic revelations and didactic conclusions. The poems seem to teach us what is obvious in the context of common sense, often surprisingly remote to the modern man.

In terms of style and format, the author has a coextensional approach; he uses relatively simple expressions and words in an interplay of brilliant meanings that bring about highly complex but easily readable structures. If elegance is represented by simplicity, then these are some of the most elegant verses imaginable; unadorned verses that are a source of beauty and wisdom.

Stojanovic's perceptions of light and darkness, of fantasy and reality, of truth and falsehood present us with a circular format of infinity and resurrection.

The format has its logical beginning and end. "The Sun is Watching Itself" begins with poems dedicated to God and the universe, then descends from the metaphysical to the philosophical, focusing on more ordinary such us the symbolic meaning of a stone, a game, a place, silence, hopelessness, and the question "Is it possible to write a poem?" Stojanovic's collection might well serve as an affirmative answer to this question. The poet has taken us on a long journey from God and universe to our everyday world. We all seem to be a part of a circle, says the author, searching for the eternal in the universe, only to realize the finality of life on earth. The poet's message is doubly effective for its extraordinary, soul-searching content and its reflective, powerful language.

-Branko Mikasinovich, Washington, D.C.
WLT World Literature Today, A Literary Quarterly of the University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
Volume 74, Number 2, Page 442, Spring 2000

Inferno

There are countless circles of hell;
Believers never penetrate the ninth circle.

In the squeeze of a storm,
The guards rushed out of the dark entrance hall.
Under web-covered eyes there are devices
With invisible antennas connected to its headquarters.

Butterflies cover the horizon
With the red-black drapery of their wings.

Howling voices in solo
And the clanging of the darkness
Relate the truth of this place.

There where the echoes
Of butterfly’s wings can be heard,
The doors to Inferno opened.

The Most Beautiful Poem

I wanted to write the most beautiful poem
But that is impossible;
The world has written its own.

First Silence

Hurrying to learn the secret signs
Hunted by your own dreams
Of the first picture in the final night
Seduced, you levitate over
A vast bottomless universe

Praying for strength you go farther
Move to foreign lands to find their dreams
To check if you’ll know
What kind of secret lies within you

Seeking to sense the essence of all
Over which the first silence sleeps
Amazed by heavenly mirage
Your dream tries to find itself

Top and Bottom

By play both sound and shape
You make an appearance on this side;
Arching the sky you hide its source
The very habitat of truth.

Over the stormy sea of a dream
You quiet the unbridled elements of your own bottom
In primordial chaos storms
Reconciling states of space and chronos

Using secret seductive scent,
The veil of endless high seas
Says you are the sole purpose, the Supreme Entity,
Falling from your own top to your own bottom.

Marked by Infinity

Marked by the sea, marked by infinity
I last this one day and disappear.
With the sea I merge
Again with infinity in the pre-being.

Between oblivions that are crucified
By a marked silence enslaved
Immeasurable bliss I find—
The mountain top of the sky.

Windmill

Seductive embers—soft gleams
Borne by the game—covering coldness
Enchanting chants—reflex of bliss
In the land of the spirit—somewhere far

Storm in the head—mover of spirit
Echoes’ formidable force
While loneliness alone
Hovers over its emptiness

Holy Fire

Holy fire
Glistens from the source of
The world and fire

From whirlwinds into nebulas
Fire spreads into the heights
Enabling microns with full force

Lonely bodies hang in emptiness;
Followers’ full of force are
Their only accompaniment

Vortex

First night lasted long,
Dreamed long,
Before it bathed.

The night was everything;
Everything was the night.

How the dot shone and
Broke the harmony of the night
Nobody will understand
Ever.

Cosmos

Cosmos is the body
That brought forth the secret.

Cosmos is God
Who whispered the syllable of life.

Cosmos Flower

From his hand
A flower has risen
Spreading the scent of the source
To reveal the pathway to the first beat

A festive flower dances—
Whipping-top that doesn’t choose a place
But with every jump is wider and
By unrest pledges peace

Are You or Are You Not?

Are you the world or an apparition
A ghost?
Are you the truth or simply flight?

Do you sleep or only dream,
Do you exist or merely practice sorcery?

Are you or are you not?