English

ENGLISH –  translated by 
Dr. Fatmir Terziu, Gëzim Basha

THE FLOWER’S BLOOD

Tanks shed the blood of flowers.

The flower’s blood with cut tongues,

Of Garden daisies that have just shyly raised their head,

Of the ‘Touch-me-not’ flower’s (which are cruelly touched),

of roses, tulips, mimosas,

blood of all colours of the light spectrum

that fall before the booming iron chains

And I hear the groaning of the grass

the flock of migratory birds coming from far and roam

                                                            away again terrified,

waves that get hoarse by talking,

black-haired clouds that indifferently hover over our heads

sunset that sits like blind in benches with its century

                                                                         of stars

Catherine of Rada who is kidnapped in the naval base far away.

Suddenly pedestrians languish

young girls who with their whispers and secrets

                                                                 fill the air.

I hear the long barrels of tanks that shoot the doors of banks

Like battering rams in front of gates of medieval towns.

Thousands of sad eyes behind windows eyelids clap

Like the flash of a camera.

Ironically the light chain of gold over there

Buttons the chest of the day. But who

will button the pain of mothers which will come as a

                                                          piercing cry

                               of the Strait of Otranto?

What tragedy gets ready in the almost blinding blue of the Ionian?

Tanks shed the blood of flowers.

Down on the ground lays the symmetry of lilies,

the algebra of gardens,

the geometry of the pavement,

lay down to the state ground.

Saranda, 1997

THE EMPTY SOUL

A hollow voice, a phoney song, fake torments me.

How can you undress the skin of meaningless words?

I walk as if in some of the Moon’s deserted beaches.

The day does not make me happy, even the tinplated sea

nor academic conversations about art.

An empty soul.

At the end of days

The remains of the coffee

And bitter twilights.

I want to collect my shadow, to flatten it

So as to release it at another time.

And I want to go away from this path

that disappears under my foot

like a scared snake.

At the stone gate of winter, covered with dead leaves,

a bird squirms, a heart.

1988

FREEDOM

Just for you we were looking on the streets

Because you might appear

Just as you appeared in mid-sea to

The ship-sunken men

dear land of salvation.

Moses did not promise us

A quiet path without pain.

But we began and get through

The wilderness of neglect,

through the labyrinths,

flounder in the abyss

and we never left the road,

we didn’t abandon hope,

that one day, after forty years,

old and grey haired

In front of you we would arrived.

Old and grey haired,

we would arrive in front of You.

Dumbed, confused,

because we did not believe

if it was you or a mirage 

that appeared because of fatigue.

On a stack of lost years

We stayed, unable to go further,

since surprisingly over

was the meaning of sacrifice.

Since surprisingly our suffering

​​were values that we created,

Were the wooden cross

Sanctified inside of us.

Saranda, 1993

WALLED IN

For decades I have been floundering

By the bank of the river of forgetfulness,

Building the bridge of poetry

To link me with people.

Day and night, alone I lifted

the heavy stones of words,

from the foundations, rooted deep in the times,

up to the belts of trendsetters.

The booming words that fell

Deafened the river

What mystery, inside of the night

Collapsed like caves?

What mystery, erased my work

so suddenly?

And I stayed sleepless at nights,

Like a gray-haired alchemist.

From far bureaucrats and spies came

With sketches, ideas, methods,

Careful, since even a wrong thread

And the bridge collapses.

From far inspectors came,

And carried out their inspections,

This many metaphors, and this many similes

Every line would be soullessly measured.

And every critic tactfully

Changed my orientation,

So that I could never find North

So I could never touch the beginning.

But an ancient  arrives

With a cloak of myths over its shoulder;

‘You need to hide the tools of your trade,

the metaphor, the simile, the trowel.

You need to hide the meaning

Of your line, of the words,

So that the spies cannot

Destroy the walls of heavy stones.’

So as the bridge of poetry stays

Stays above the torrential river,

You need to wall yourself

In the wall you have built

Don’t forget that the Golden Bridge,

They who built it,

Are not ordinary people

But master builders.

And to hold their work

Their soul needs to be inside

Hence sacrifice was born

As a heavy forfeit.’

Hence I walled myself in,

In the inside of the words,

So as my soul could link the stones,

And the of the appearance of messages.

Limjon, 1974 – 2011

TO MY DEAD  BROTHER, LOSHI

Every evening

Climbs down from the cross of struggles,

And sits at a bar table

with the philosophical stone in hand

and the skulls of angels around.

Every morning

The blood which was shed is visible near the glasses

of despair

where waitreses try

to eradicate

the tracks of last night.

Sarandë, 1995

Translated : Dr. Fatmir Terziu

 

IONIAN

One step further starts the universe. The divers nearby

                                                            Plunge into the sky

And the Astronauts touch the ocean’s bottom. 

A world of mirages embellishes me.

All that laid dormant long within me, suddenly erupted the

 sleepy

Myths lava, flooding the pathways of this ancient city leisurely

                                    sunbathing 

          On the cliff of time

The horse- like rivers stumble on cascades.

I face old Noah; rob him of the list of all of earth species ocked

        up  in his ark                                                                                                  

The flood tide retreats,

Noah’s destination is inside me.  Lighthouses topped by radiating beacons

                              Shine afar as the midnight signals of an airport runway.

One step further is the universe. Nearby me

The waves wash up statues along the sea shore.

Careless if you are,

You may bump and topple a light column, over the tightened

                        up celestial

Strings, their Wagnerian sounds would echo in the deep

                        emptiness.

All ears I listen to Thamos rumbling voice coming from the

 vessel,

Spreading the news of Great Pan death.

From the other shore comes

 Lake Pelod’s shiver and a wailings symphony.

Who am I? How did the pagan Gods abandon me so?

 So lonely amid the sirens that started to fill up

The thin rows of Ionic Choir of Polyphony?!

A world of mirages envelops me!

 YOU CAME LATE, MY GODDESS

You came late, my Goddess! Waiting for you

Time and again I modeled your statue.

Since the childhood, I’d engraved in my memory

Primitive drawings,

Resembling those haunting scenes

                                 Of the early art found in the caves.

When my shinbones hardened up

I set off barefoot

Like a hermit, I found sanctuary in the secret sea inlets

Waiting for you to emerge as did Aphrodite from the waves.

You’re hidden behind every being

Screaming from above the far away line of the horizon

Behind every signal aimed at me from a falling star

I saw you beyond every opened window.

They gave me a brush and urge me to paint

The perverted epochal walls, scared

To utter your name, I went down to Butrint, secretly

I waited for you at the Skea Gate.

 At the same threshold crossed by the Homeric voyageurs.

Took a seat on the rows of the ancient theater

Wishing to come across your voice’s echo,

Amid the lament of old tragedies.

Laid down in the galleries of the Forty Saints

Alone, licking my sore spots caused by your expectation.

Late you came, my Goddess, time and again

I had to model you as in a DNA Lab,

Time and again I had to pacify your engulfing fever.

You came surrounded by a light’s aura while I was getting

                        ready

To put out all of my hopes,

As a mighty Amazon you brought me back to life.

Along with your eternal escorting duo;

Poetry in one side, and Love in the other.

  

MARIE TUCI

Day in and day out, I kept repeating your name, almost insane

Marie…Marie… Trying to set myself free from my anxiety

As I heard about your beauty torn off by the prison beasts, the

 one with sharp claws,                                                                                              

As I heard about them teasing, saying they were turning you

 into a saint.

And my anxiety became more severe.

They invented all sort of tortures

Experimenting with your pureness and innocence

Later on, tired of asking, losing the patience

They hurled you against the floor, sacked your naked body

Put it into a bag, along with a hungry prison cat.

  I hear now the beasts howling

We’ll make you a Saint… we’ll make you a Saint…

Beating up with sticks your body, (my body)

And the cat goes crazy, tearing open our skin

His sharp meows pierce the vast sky

Our dharma bumps ‘till we pass out

The beasts scream in vain; we don’t hear,

                     We don’t feel the beating sticks any longer.

Buckets of cold water failed to bring back our senses

Neither did their laughter, nor their teasing

They went celebrating after torturing us, after the old ritual of

                                  Hand washing.

Still overwhelmed by the anxiety of this day, Marie

Laid beside you and that poor animal. Perhaps I survived

Just to bear witness, perhaps only

To shutter into pieces my former atheism.

Perhaps to shutter my lock of faith

Until I announced you as my God, Marie

My holy altar

Icon of my sufferings, my virgin Marie!

ANDREA ZARBALLA

Waiting Andrea Zarballa for our morning coffee
I have a feeling that he’s coming straight from the ancient

 times
Little late after exchanging a couple of words with Homer,
Or a sentence with Cavafy.
When he emerges at the curve of the seaside avenue, I recognize
His hair, the color of a seagull
His eyes, quite as the morning sun.

Back in time, his eyes were full of lightning… Suddenly, unexpectedly
Mary Zangali robbed him of that light
To shine down the path toward her destiny
Perhaps where she is now
She would have been uneasy without that light.

A long twenty years he still cocks for Mary
In his lonely kitchen
Answer the phone calls of his sons abroad
Loudly, even the neighbors can hear.

If only to hear for one more time
Her voice in the other end of the phone…
All the furniture around him
Will turn into blossomed trees of Llazat.

I’m lost in thoughts when Andrea comes and greets me;
                            Good morning!
It seems like the life flows unchanged for millenniums
It seems like for millenniums in the Riviera Café
Me and Him, instead of cigarettes
Have been exchanging our poems.
I like a De Rada, He like a Cavafy.

Translated: Gëzim Basha