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

QUOTES

“Real geniuses would like that what we think of ourselves is true.”
“There are countless circles of hell; believers never penetrate the ninth circle.”
“I wanted to write the most beautiful poem but that is impossible; the world has written its own.”
“Cosmos is God, who whispered the syllable of life.”
“Life is only a flicker of melted ice.”
“Stars are only the rain of the Absolute.”
“God is a cloud from which rain fell.”
“Darkness does not age; nothing is always nothing.”
“In the essence of truth lies deceit.”
“Deceit dispels the boredom of the Absolute.”
“Absolute equals nothingness.”
“Absolute is a game with only one player where Absolute forgets itself so it would have a reason to fulfill the motion while returning.”
“Omnipotence and omniscience are the end of power and knowledge.”
“Everything and nothing are the same in the Absolute.”
“Procreation annihilates eternity.”
“Existence is the end of endless eternity without a beginning or an end.”
“Unborn eternity does not die; existence is dying and falls asleep in the eternity beyond existence.”
“Eternity is a glorious word, but eternity is ice.”
“Knighthood lies above eternity; it doesn’t live off fame, but rather deeds.”
“Our eternity is not real; it resembles us; it is our own invention; its scent is vanity.”
“When following God, Zero we never find.”
“Infinity is the end. End without infinity is but a new beginning.”
“The world is God’s salvation.”
“Sun is a hearthstone, a merry-go-round of extinguished hearthstones.”
“Universe is the Sun watching its own self.”
“The world is a fairy tale; we are its guardians.”
“Two forces create eternity – a fairy tale and a dream from the fairy tale.”
“God is busy and has no time for you.”
“Get close to grass and you’ll see a star.”
“Sunbathe from within.”
“Arrival in the world is really a departure and that, which we call departure, is only a return.”
“The same word we love and hate, leaves in different directions, taking different paths.”
“Through words to the meaning of thoughts with no words.”
“Different languages, the same thoughts; servant to thoughts and their masters.”
“How many unuttered words died in the heads of those for whom a word was too expensive.”
“Everybody talks, but there is no conversation.”
“We hear only our own voices, still echoes returning to our emptiness.”
“When the long bygone Lee Po wanted to say something, he could do it with only a few words.”
“We forget old stories, but those stories remain the same.”
“How alive is thought, invisible, yet without thought there is no sight.”
“The deeper thought is, the taller she becomes.”
“A smiling lie is a whirlwind, easy to enter, but hard to escape.”
“Truth is hard-hearted and unrelenting, too clear, precise; a lie is much more imaginative.”
“In the lie of truth lies the truth.”
“Teaching others, he corrected himself.”
“He did not waste time in a vain search for a place in history.”
“After Homer and Dante, is a whole century of creating worth one Shakespeare?”
“How does one say something new and not retell?”
“We built tall buildings, but we have not become any taller.”
“Either all lights are turned off or one inner light is missing.”
“He did not profess to anybody how to reach others without professing.”
“You not only are hunted by others, you unknowingly hunt yourself.”
“Do not look too far for you will see nothing.”
“Either you will be you or you will not be at all.”
“We need knew knights, but without swords.”
“Say No! Accept the burdens of revenge.”
“Wherever there is somebody else, a war is not far away.”
“Even if you are alone you wage war with yourself.”
“A breeze, a forgotten summer, a smile, all can fit into a storefront window.”
“Holy books are an insult to a God with good intentions.”
“Whatever others may say, they say it to deceive and comfort themselves, not help you.”
“His Highness was always confident in his statements, especially about what he viewed for the first time.”
“Now that we are all so smart, we don’t easily find resolutions.”
“He thought others were small; that was his greatness.”
“This dwarf still observes the world from his own self-imposed height.”
“If you could have walked on the planet before humans lived here, maybe the Ivory Coast would have seemed more beautiful than La Côte d'Azur.”
“We measure everything by ourselves with almost a necessary conceit.”
“There are no winners in real games.”
“The game itself is bigger than the winning.”
“Serious affairs and history are carefully laid snares for the uninformed.”
“Creators of history always play with our impotence and our ignorance.”
“You mark and celebrate errors, transforming failures into successes.”
“All those big words produce disgust today.”
“Statesmen are grocers, ambitious clowns.”
“For a game, you don’t need a teacher.”
“Faith is a question of eyesight; even the blind can see that.”
“The universe is God’s son.”
“Burning the witch Giordano Bruno is one more wound inflicted on Christ’s body.”
“Christ did not ask or want to be what he was not.”
“Strangers are endearing because you don’t know them yet.”
“Your head is a lit chamber.”
“The light teaches you to convert life into a festive promenade.”
“What we call life is only talk of nature.”
“Nothing is inanimate; what is the rest is our interpretation.”
“We like to admit to only that which already glows, although it is nobler to support brightness before it glows, not afterwards.”
“It is easy to see the glow but hard to recognize the awakening of silence.”
“Disease often comes with a smiling face.”
“Don’t pay attention to those who offer too much.”
“He confided his deepest secret to you; be always wary of his secret.”
“If what we think of ourselves were true, the planet would overflow with geniuses.”
“Is it possible to write a poem or are these words just screams of outlaws exiled to the desert?”
“It’s not easy to write a poem about a poem.”
“You don’t know anything, but I know even less.”
“If you are good, they say you are weak.”
“They blossomed, they did not talk about blossoming.”
“They grew; they did not talk about growing.”
“Pose your questions to people and you will get countless useless answers.”
“From whichever side I start, I think I am in an old place where others have been before me.”
“For a moment at least, be a smile on someone else’s face.”
“Beyond all vanities, fights, and desires, omnipotent silence lies.”
“There are many secrets; don’t try to resolve them all.”
“If we were to understand how important it is to say something and say it well, maybe we wouldn’t write a single word, but that would be tragic.”
“Hope without love is hopeless.”
“Nobility is not only in forgiveness.”

POEMS

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.

SKY-MOTION

    A light cloud
    Moves into the night
    Igniting the world and
    Turning movement
    Into sky-motion

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?

GOD AND CIRCLES

The Day of the Universe

All forms a circle.
By movement, our motion, we pay back the debt.
Everything wants the old peace
Passing through storm to touch the circle;

Through shape into unshaped
Secret, through omnipotence,
The moment of this day’s dream
Of the universe.

Sky and Circle

By circle into circle,
Behind the circle by a circle
Moving in a circle

By quark into quasar,
Only one image,
A circle into a shape was transformed

Circle around the circled circles
The sky serves as canvas,
A pledge to permanent friendship

The Truth of the Circle

You look high up, then
Down. You don’t see much
But a bond is there—
Widening the heights,
Thickening the ground.

The truth of the circle
Engulfs infinity;
In it is dispersed,
Over it is clear,
Essence that abides.

God and a Circle

The circle is our origin.
Never leaving,
We open the door to enter another circle.

Where is the door that leads outside,
Is there an exit?
Or, is God a Circle
That feeds us with Himself?