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The Orpheuss broken lyre

POEMS

QERIM RAQI

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QERIM RAQIThe Orpheus s

Broken lyre POEMS

Translator: Dritan Kardhashi W.P.SLiterary Editor: Kristaq F. Shabani I.W.A, W.P.S Dritan Kardhashi, W.P.SRecensent: Aleksandra Shabani ( Majlinda ) U.P.L.I, W.P.SArt design: Dashamir Vraniçi

Cover from: Gustave Moreau (1825-1898)Thracian Girl Carryng the Head of Orpheus 1865...

The book is prepared under the care of LNPSHAPEGASI ALBANIA

Copyright Qerim Raqi 2011e-mail: qera65@hotmail.com

Printed in the press of the Publishing HouseMarin Barleti Tiranë

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QERIM RAQI was born inMarch 22, 1965 in Dardhishtë ofObiliqi region (today Kastriot).H e h as s tu d ied A lban ianLanguage and Literature at thePh ylolog ica l Facu lty , in th eUniversity of Prishtina. He hasstudied the research programme

Culture and Comunication inHalmstad of Sweeden.

He is a member of LNPSHA PEGASI Albania.Works of the author: Blood in my yearning, poetic

volu m e 2010, p u blished by p u blish ing p ress ERAPrishtina.

The Orpheus s broken lyre

is the poet s secondvolume in English, published by the publishing press

Marin Barleti Tirana, 2011. * * *The more the authors grow, the more the absence

of readers is felt! This is not the case with Qerim Raqi.The poetic volume Blood in my yearning , although itis his first book, strongly witnesses that we deal withgenuine authors... At the time of prose, this poet, carvesstanzas with dedication, which, though being separatedinto poetical cycles and poems, could be read as a modernpoetry, which includes three existential epochs of theAlbanian: before, during and after war

This is poetry where the feeling and the thought meltinto inspired stanzas, which not often we have the chanceto read .

Dr. Sali Bytyçi

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EFFORTS OF PIGEONS FORCED TO LEAVECARRIED IN A WIDE SCOPE OF POETICS

Opinion notes in the pegasi poetic journeyBy Kristaq F. Shabani I.W.A, W.P.S

Configured prologue

Solitude coming as a result of her absence bringingto a shrinkage of the self universe and of the years whichloose their shapes into a bursting yearning.

Liveliness and murder, nebu losity of two coloredmemories and their fainting into a strange nebu losityproduce a tightening hand in the throat.

With an artistic paintbrush fu ll of figures the poetfalls into the net of black and white memories.

1. The poetic thinking of Raqi sketches potentialnatural elements, visits bursting soul geography

The poetic psychology contains purging abilitiesin the human mind, in the luxuriance, joys, living shapes.In this relation You me, where the poet falls sensitively,slanders absence, shakes the temples of the nothing swords, stabs vital cuttings, making strange d iscovering;en ters in to a p rocess of life p u rga t ion of th e tw op ossessives, bu t he encou nters a d read of th inkingimpurity...

A curtain that falls after many caustic sayings about

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the absurd journey, where in the absurd theatre is playedin the roles of the listeners in the romantics and braveriesof the world , or in the relationship of the Orphic lyre

All this decanter journey is a watering in the beingtransformed into a toy in which the life of the emigrantpoet rolls the game throat in the head of the gamehis being and displays the acts a melodrama foretold bythe masters and the accused by the narrator protagonist.The concern for the forgetfulness and the fabling over thisbuilding of forgetfulness, where the forgetfulness is askedto never forget. A dynamic, fabulous find ing to ask forthe peak of improbability, but in the balancing of whatis vital: m em ory to sym bolize forgetfu lness, w hichshould never be forgotten. An interesting structu re inr a is in g , con tou r in g , an d r em em ber in g th e joy offorgetfu lness .in the initial point of view of lack ofreasoning this that we put forward above might look as ap hrasing gam e, bu t in the asp ect of reason ing it isacceptable and speaks of the poetic chronicle

A p rocess of forget fu ln ess or a p rocess ofrem em ber in g . A d ilem m a solved by th e th in kin gpunctuations

The p rocess of forgetfu lness and ap p ealing forremembering flaming feelings create a contrasting tableauof a creation for the self Troy, but that this creates a nameconnection , an inner relationsh ip a m onu m en t iserected in d ed ication of forgetfu lness a d eliberatedeath, which greens the leaving after a love affair

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Th e p oetry of Raq i sketch es p oten t ia l n a tu ra lelements, d raw s bu rsting sou l geography, w here them asterfu l eyes, language, exuberant d esire interp ret,which highlights at the profuse cells, an exclamatory andgroaning memory the presence of a lyric with othernew dimensions, where the earth remains static and theearth s circle is rep laced w ith a circle of the sp iritualbeing, it is astounding and is used masterfully for theraise of the comparative level.

The figure is present and gives figurative meaningto poetry silence, fall, emperors and all the good hopesgerminate in the figurative source of the words.

Often or in most cases the poetry of Qerim takesbeau tifu l natu ral and climatic shapes, is filled w ithattractive climatic elements as we mentioned above, butwhat d istinguishes it is the effect bringing of grandiosityand beauty. A very beautiful relationship of the presenceof natural beauty and the importance of the importantelements of the earth, which, never achieve to halt theimpetus of circling. It is naturally displayed: the drawingof the Cape of the Good Hope, figu rative d raw ing...absence halts the river, the fountain, asphyxiates, cuts offthe presence of the so much favored flow for the streams.Beautifu lly in this presence or lack of presence: My love,you are going beyond limits , the process of humanbreaks is delivered figured in the breaking of heartverticality and natu ralism is felt in the waiting of thewinner of the poetic pleasure or its spinner. Above all itis evaluated

In many of the creations which have as an ou terbackground the love the conditions are prepared for thedates, breakings Heart breaking is not d iscerned , as it

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does not produce flashes the chosen fable in the poetrywhen hearts break is super dynamic.

All in all the poetic book Blood in my yearning ,of the author Qerim Raqi is a modern lyric of impressionand reflection

The poetry of Qerim is a poetry of transformation, ap oet r y w h ich ca r r ies excit in g com p ar ison s,

irresponsible in the figurative meaning.The poetry is raised in the Orphic sky in which the

p oet w ith a clean thou ght flies em bod ied , d ou blebrained and w ith a resound ing Orphic voice, bu t theOrpheus s lyre is broken... he has taken with him theresearch, Eurydice, Penelope s image, the doubt for theless im portant breathing w ithou t the Tw in sou lrelying on these creations su ch as: The Alp habet ofPatience, Soul s alphabet, stolen chapter of your life, thenarration to that that starts the poetry to a sensual pathand in a way of writing in both directions, by reaching apoint in which burning cannot be stopped , and not tocom e ou t of the sou l, w hich is m altreated by theoccupied feeling, parted with an action of a great reachof sacrifice, the p oet is stationed and p u zzles overfiguratively for the way and the further walking.

In all the poetic book of Qerim Raqi Blood in myyearning , of the author Qerim Raqi is a modern lyricsof impression and reflection, in which the spiritual feelingon the contrary of the classic works interprets, but withded ications and creation of poetic tableaus in Orphicskies, in a unreal fancied shift, but in painted events inearthly environment, in the real life filled with willingand unwilling phenomena, but not d ictated by mentallit...... as a result of this method used in the creation, the

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reading begins and is outlined in presence with a thinkinglit, brain lit, fabrication of thought and feeling. It movesin th e fou r p oin t s an d h or izon s an d is r eflectedeverywhere. The poet raised on his feet contamplates,despairs, and he is transformed into a chapter, into bookp ages, in to absu rd ity , in to in existen ce, on ly to bediscovered by the lost Penelope .

2. Appealing of the land abundance

Return, my white pigeons..the fulfilled theory of return for abundance

In the second chapter of the book you come accrossan apeal by the poet d irected to the Piegeons fed withblood and runaway as a result throwing with stoneswhich have already become red, blooded because of theston es ... an d en d in g in m ajor cu ckoos for cap ita lpunishments... the Pigeons left forced in yellow skies withtheir heads turned back...

A journey of yearning,.... corvine caw for the leavingpigeons and their unlucky wanderings thoughout thew orld , by leaving the beau tifu l cage ; leaving andfainting of the p iegons s song, their unlucky jou rneyfainting of their whiteness because of moving far and theirexhaustion,.. the poet seeks the return of the pigeons tofind a thirsty expectation... yearning of Bjeshkëve tëNëmuna has reached to the major grade of expectaion...

To be killed by a bullet in our fatherland ,Or to die here from yearning and burn down?

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This poem is a peom of pigeon-ness, which emptiesthe hemispheres of human brain in all that macabre story,all that strugle of the pigeons to win their freedom, allthat human sacrifice symbolized p igeon-ness ... Theappeal reaches the peak: The pigeons should return withtheir white color.. .

In foreign land we shall make the events of life anddeath, our tongue will be tied because of yearning, andwill choke us, ...

Homeric blindness, sister s blind expectation,.... os avery insuppressible find ing.

3. Don t you stop the song, my son, dance upon mygrave...

A madonian discovening in some sumerized poemsin the bloody lyrics, where the prince is the blood shedfrom sacrificing plans ; strangely the eye of the poetcatches unisons of Hitler and Maltus, opposite thinkersnow com ing close to each-other w ithou t insisting toprotect their thoughts , deliberate fusion, thus an amalgamof ideas that once fought each-other without hesitation,to take the throne...

the legend breathes fire from the mouth... broken thewires which accpompanied with their notes the songs andreigning of the curse

Adem tightens the firmness s wires for an octave aboveto the blood s accord :

Eh, the bad cough of autumn!...

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Poeti protects the name and identity: may our namenot burst like salt in the fire,...

The poet advices the other generation: Don t youcease the song, my son, dance upon my grave,... .

Poetic homage

In the lyrics of the shed blood massacred by the litminds... the most inhuman masacres against a heroicpeople, who sought its freedom... by the means of a pan-popular raising, gtrying to demontate the thirsty Empireof th e forced blood sh ed ..., th at sou gh t to d estor teverything: the sp irit, the earth, the sky, the Sun, theMoon, the trad ition, the grass, the trees, the river, thestones, covering them with a mental and bodily garmentof massacre. .. by comparing and motivating the poetbrings the m acabre p anoram as of bu rn ing, m acabreelemination and loss of lives... in heroic shapes and in asacrifice beyond limits. .. with the only major aim: Ribirthand not stepping on this unshameful and unprecedentedway of blood sheding. A bloody simphony...

4. Sketching and drawing of the World s evil mouth

Sketching and drawing of the World s evil mouth....by fabricating gossips and tales... though transformationsand articulated gestures: judgment, paradoxes, death ofwords, Judas s kiss, presence of blood in thinking, the selfways sitting around the table and speaking and dialogue,the main question where to and where the start... the bookin this last chap ter show s the poet to be matu re and

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achievable to his aims.Necessarily, he must be cheered for the achievements

in this book, w hich w ere synthesized w ith the abovethinking notes, yet he knows that the poetry is a genrew hich seeks carving, figu ration , elim ination of thenarration , breath ing w ith bronchi, d ehyd ration andelaboration. Highlighting of his poetry and my stationingin this book, his second book translated in English, is abeautiful stationing in this profile journey, which the poetQer im Raqi d eserve th e h igh ligh tin g an d h e is anassu m in g p oet in litera tu re w ith th e volit ion th a tcharacterizes him and the burning desire.

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Deep in the heartWe all feel a powerful yearning.

(Rabbi Seymour Siegel)

I. The SOUL S ALPHABET

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THE YEARS WITHOUT YOU

Years, unawarelyConsume themselves, enterInto the black hole.

My universe shrinksInto a dropSolitude,

The pain s knifeEnters into my bone,The claws of your absence,

I am almost dyingFrom yearning IBurst.

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THE MEMORIES

AliveDeadThe memories come

Black,White,They walk through the fog;

They watch meThey know me,Suffers

Catch me from the throatThe rampantHorses,Without reins the pressesOf the years

I fallHeadlessInto the memories net.

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CLEANING

Today all the day I have tried to cancelTo clean youFrom the untold , words, ironies;I have tried to forgive your sentencesFrom my mind,The nails nailed with black color,Fastened to the thoughts,...I have been trying all day and all night today,To erase something in you,To clean something within meThe black memory and the icy fire,From my day and from your night,To sw allow u p the w ord s and to sp eak of ou rsilences...,I have been trying to play in the scene our roles,DramaOf our absurd theatre always a premiereOur end ,To shake the foundations of the templeThe bastion of nothing,All the day I have been removing the stones,I have placed something in the emptinessAnd I have been trying to remove something fromyou,To remove something within me my lifeOh, how many things seem to be there,Horrible!... (Varberg February 2004)

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THEATRIC PLAY

Like a kicked ballMy life rolledAnd entered into her life.

She accepted it without hesitatingAnd she transformed all my beingInto a game

Ten years of play play And play:

Now I became Orpheus And then RomeoIn the strange gameOf my Eurydice,

A play of puppetsAnd fascinating talesIn the Absurd TheatreOf Love,

Until the curtain lowered.

(Varberg, 27 mars 2000)

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PRELUDE OF FORGETFULNESS

Eh, forgetfulness!now you can enter directlyinto forgetfulness,you can step out of forgetfulnessspeechless,

I can start another school,To leaf the book of life attentivelyAnd to memorize forgetfulness well;

There is nothing out of forgetfulnessNothing beyond loneliness

I must live forgetfulnessAnd carrying the pain,I sit down on the threshold of disappointment,Waiting for hope to emerge(Perhaps it will stretch the hand to me,Perhaps forgetfulness does not forget me).

Now we must open doors,Windows, break bones with our tonguesHow should we cause our forgetfulnessTo grow old?

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TROY

You are leaving

I am dyingBehind your backThe Egyptian night engulfs me

Now you are falling, like Troy ...I shall fall after you,My love,Crowds of spidersNetting the alienation s anthemWrite black chapters.

You are leaving, falling,My Troy,

A monument of forgetfulness,I am hymning

You are leaving...

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WHEN WE MAKE LOVE

The earth does not rotate,We are circlingThe worldShrivels, shrinks in the momentTime - space

(In the small deathOur eyesA Sun);

We fly;Like Icarus close to the sunAnd we do not burn

In my forehead is writtenThe remembrance of your groanYour tongue drawsDirty maps in my mouth,

The soul s geography widensAt the level of cells,The pleasure gets satisfaction,

When we make love.

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IN YOUR EYES

In your eyesI have read moreThan in the literature of the whole world,

In your soulThe wars of all the warsI have felt

In your silence,All the silences of the worldHave fallen, like emperors

In your wordAll the expectations

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THE GEOGRAPHY OF ABSENCE

You are erasing yourself from the map, my loveYou are halting the river,You are closing the

You are d igging the ground under the feet,Our slip is making the bed ,you are sinkingthe Cape of New Hope.

you are erasing yourselffrom my map....My love, you are running riot,

Beyond the mountain you are slippingTo the holes of the d isappointmentWonder are you taking,Are you taking my blood in the fountain,

My love,You are erasing yourselfFrom the map of our geography.

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WHEN YOU BREAK HEARTS

Not a single noise is heared ,the floor does not creak;when the hearts are broken, nothing creaks

the breaking is performed at a grave s silence,

No one reproaches you,Nor payment is sought;

When hearts break,Nobody collects the broken pieces,We re not d iscussing asymmetry of the pieces here,

The crack generates from within.In the cells, something through the veins explodes.Blood freezes instantly, becomes icy.

Strange breakingThe breaking from distance.

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LIGHTING OF STANZA

Is it IOr your breathThat intoxicatedMy inspiration?Which is shaped by my stanzaIt is not me writing,I m just squeezing, lightingMy feeling.YouGrowIn my stanzaThese is no place for words,You occupy all the space,The stanza catches fire.My stanza is burning,Your ardour the kiss write.The word does not obey me,You are burning meMy stanza,The letters ...Will you burn me completely?Is it I or youWho is writtingMy stanza?

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EURYDICE

Today my sky is an Orpheus ...Knifes of yearning or fire in my mind?Eurydice eternal exploration, my lyreTwo thousand years of expectation, twenty years ofthe Penelope s patience,Fragments of days, memories ...There is something pertaining to Orpheus in my voicetoday...What s the importance of breathing without you?I have become an exhausted voice, your facebefore the gate, where the realms of death and lifeseparate.to loose the condition, and face the gods;To learn the patience s alphabetToday you would have been here, my presenceThe nonexistence would not have existed ,Crucifixion in the death s spacetonight,My sky Orpheus...

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SOUL S ALPHABET

I m leaving you everything, my love,Here you areAll of them:Sheets, book, pencilDays,Everything,That is written and you write to me,Take them and read in me,Here s my tongue,Read the exhausted letters,Of my soul,Read , my love,The hieroglyphs, my alphabet,Wear the eyes of the truthPut them into your heart, read plainlyFrom left to right,From right to leftVertically

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Transform me into a cross-word,Multiply my word two foldsAnd soul, my geometry,I am a book page, a stolen chapterFrom your face, your eyesHere I am, totally yoursTyped in signs, parchments,If you know how to read my soulAnd then judge me speechlessly...,Read , if you wish, burn my tongueMy alphabet the torn chapterOf my absurd proseAnd judge me....

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ABSENCE

I am still breathing out fireYour lust from my mouth,My tongue flame

Is still steaming,My skin burnedBy your skin,

Your voice is still bumping up againstThe heat s walls, vibrationsWere vibrating my ear,

My eye is still keeping your imageFrozen,I am watching the remaining emptinessWith your eye,

My sense acknowledgesOnly your aromaThe unrivalled aroma

The brain?!!!The brain is in delirium,You have become a phantom of my brain,The dream of my dream,...

I am still steaming,

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Breathing out fire, my love,My traumaIn the epicenter of the absence!

TO FALL

To fall,To fall Terribly,To fallTo fall Despairingly,To fall MadlyTo fall

Fall,

To raise again,Falling intoThe heights of Serafins

To fall,To fall

In love ...

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II. COME BACK MY PIGEONS

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YEARNINGS EMIGRATION

One night, yearning was on its way to youWith my eyes I watched it comingWith its wings stretched, flying over Boundaries, Mountains ...

When it entered, stealthy,At the groundsel of my house,When it embraced long expectations,The dried tears in the cheeks,Kissing all with yearning,Plaintive;

Then it slept Quietly, Softly

Like an infant

In the morning,As how it was fighting with a stubborn policemanAnd was being expelled from the house s thresholdLike the first human beings from Paradise.

(Kristinehamn, January, 1994)

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THE CUCCOOS BIRDS

You were leftLeftover of the world,Cuckoos,

You remained without a nest,Wounded cuckoo s birds,Without flu ttering,

You will collapse,Until your return,Scattered throughout the world

You were left,Cuccoo s birds...

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COME BACK MY PIGEONS

Fly my pigeons, returnTo your eternal cage,Leave with sun lightLeave with the song of my roosterBleed your wings in the flight

How many years have passedAnd I am dying deafFrom the mad caw of the black ravens...How many years have passed and the song of mypigeons nowhere...Who enticed you, who cajoled you,Who stired your nest?

O you blessed ones, leaveWith the quiet flight of the mountain,Bleed your wings with these Yellow MagpiesWhich fly around through my sky,Come, lucky ones, returnTo the path of my blood ...

I d idn t know what to give you for breakfastAnd I gave you drops from my bloodI had nothing but blood for lunch.With my blood I fed you endlesslyAnd I kept laughing like a child

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Watching the ravens leaving.

You left with the northern windsYou moved away from the age-long bodyA squad of barbarians followed, burnedAnd you left by silent night,All around foreign pathsFrom the nebulas to the glaciersNowhere you saw Eldorado,You flied over yellow skies Cold skies, Unfamiliar skies,

* * *Black was your flu tteringAt the circles of Dante s sky-inferno.That night something cracked in the bloodAnd the dogs barks d idn t cease all the night,Now the sky is becoming yellow, my pigeons,And the sun shrivels invisible in the nebula,Some black clouds are weighting on my skull,The limes shadow the silenceDances with the ravens judges,Neither song, nor bird or word,In groups your endless journey;

god grew deaf by the ravens caw

Return to the blood s pathYou cause your wings to bleed in the bleeding of theSun,Return o my pigeons,

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Find the blood s tracksAt the crests of history,(The stones that hit you are there red)Return to the blood s path,Fly over the Bjeshkët e Nemuna(The tragic nest of the two thousand year love)Come back o my pigeons,My gentle pigeons,My white pigeons,Because this sky is dying from grief,Return to your color,O my pigeons,Of my blood .

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WHEN I TRAVEL THROUGH THE HEART

I feel burning,Sailing in silenceThrough the sea of my soulKeaton s shipDrops of yearning waves of lonelinessAre swallowing me,The waves the bloody seaI drip ,The yearning is becoming like an Orpheus to me,WhenWhen it travelsIn meYearning through the heartIn silence,When I travel,Along my soul,Through the heart, ...I keep burning from yearningUnconscionableI keep burning.

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SHAKESPEREAN SONET OF END OF THE CENTURY

Blood will curse us, mourning covered us,The sky will tw ist, and become black in the blackweatherThe graves will be rise from our wails,Like the Hamlet s phantom, o God!

in foreign land we shall have our births and deaths,Our tongue will be tied up becoming a hitch, to chokeus,Beyond the Kaaba Bridge our bones will remain,Until we eat ourselves up, may it fail in our throat,

Icy is the sun here, salty is the bread,The anxiety does not leave us in peace, the soul oozesus,When the name when our name will disappear,And our being will leave,The murdered conscience bestrides the d ilemma.

In our fatherland w e got killed in the battle by abullet,Are we dying here, from yearning to burn out?

(Vänersborg, October 1992)

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REREADING IN ANTIQUITY

Don t read Homer, sister,

You know only to expect, expect blind lyUnfold the lost time, you become blindEnter into the blind world,Read blind ly Homer and believe,Everything by heart, sister,For Itaque, you see and feel gods grudgesSteps in the long wayTerribly troublesomeAnd you blind Homer again,You know only to expect blind lyThe return twenty years, a hundred years, alas,And nothing happens with me.

You can consume your expectation completely,For twenty years to fall snow in Itaque,And I, ten souls to change, sister,A hundred,And to loose the way again;Half Odyssey always in journey, o god .

Sister, don t read Homer...

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DEATH IN SLEEP

We shall d ie sleepingIn sleep we shall d ieWithout seeing the dream

Bear s sleep is nothingNor is the stone s silence

We stretch our legs beyond the quilt of vanityWe do not snore or we are not delirious at sleepOr become drunk in the *Morpheus s bosom

We shall d ie sleepingWithout knowing whether is it night or day

Horrible deathTo d ie sleepingTo be asleepOf Nothing saidRilke

(September, 1993, Kristinehamn) * greek god of sleep

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III. LYRICS WITH BLOOD

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THE TAIL OF EUROPE IS BURNING

Tail of Europe is burning,

The bloods are heating, the knives are sharpeningHanging on Bartolomeos necksThe stabs in our bodies like necklaces, o God,Manhood is transformed into bestiality.Hitler and Maltus have become together.Bestrid ing the Troy s horseTime is stealing smile from us, the skyShadows of hyenas, is covered with grace

The hour is knocking, the drums are beating.Who has ears, the bell deafened us,Rusty sound, shaking of conscience,The anxiety of madness vibrates,Firm order, missile hook like evilForeign shoe in our garden,Is kicking my sun...My God, what dance are we involved in,Where am I leading to?Why should I leave my threshold, beyond the wall?Nothing is worthy, two hands for a head,My blood , forgive me, if it boils todayTo burn to heat at the boiling point,My blood , the antibodies fall dead ...

The tail of Europe is burning!

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BLOOD S SYMPHONY

When the dance of deathInvolves fatherland Prekazi,The Jashari tribeWrite withThe alphabet of resistanceWith hail of fire,Death becomes a lyric of bloodIn the two-stringed mandolinThe wires of patience are broken,One of the wires is accorded in pain,The other in pride,Blood rises on feet,The cracks crack on Jashari wayAt scores of the fatherlandThe epic moves away from the books, words...,This sun shines greatly, but warms littleHamza sings,The stars descendInto the bastion of Jashari

The epic, Shaban himself, sits cross-legged ...The legend breathes fireAnd they enter directly in the pages of history:Ten, twelve, twenty two stars fallDust in the fatherland s mahoganyThe blood s pigeons,The epic on the wall

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Takes the instrument of HamzaHalf burned the pain s chords break,One chord winded in pride,The other broken in pain.Adem for an octave abovePresses the chords of resistanceOf the blood s accordThe song in fire, the death in fire,Teaching our conscienceWrite in fire with bulletsThe resistance s alphabetAnd Jashari sing;When they die afoot,They d ie beautifu lly,When they born they die,SingingThe symphony of blood .

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THE BAD COUGH AGAIN

In the in the grey sky, in the grey landscapeThe dogs beat our names behind our backsIn the hectic skin, in the broken horn,Again a bad cough with the late autumn,

The blood revolts, it begins to rise,Because a night, had slept for a century,Tears drip from the bone, the root in becoming numbThe thirsty poppy in herbarium;

A bearded fetus delivers, in the end of summer,Will devour the globe, like a grape bulbAnd the black raven flutters its wings over the door sthresholdA live coat covered in the middle of the cinderwith embers.

Something is suffocating us in the root in the seedLet s place the rope around the patience s neck,That our name might not explode like salt in the fire,That we might not to do harm to ourselves

(January, 1992)

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DANCE UPON MY GRAVE

When the storm, floodsAnd the mad hurricane passDon t you cease the song, my son,Dance upon my grave,

The leavings return to the burned houses,In the dust of the burned books,In the pieces of our bonesWhich remain burnedWrite the word Kosovo , my son,...Dance upon my grave,

When you make the pieces together, our bones,It s not important whether they are all, the pulled eyeOr the detached skull, the undershot jaw,Ruined face,It is not important whether you find a head in RaçakOr the heart in Bajgorë,One leg in Likoshan and the hands in Llaushë,Assemble them with care,Make them together like the ideal, like the fatherland,My son, dance upon my grave

You can find my skull everywhereBehind a bomb, at a corner beyond,You be careful!You might find me into the wells,

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In the dust of the burned fieldYou, o you living man, keep pursuing everywhere,The traces of barbarity are unredeemedIn the black page of history....

Dance upon my grave!

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THE FALLEN

Not a tear drop,Not a pain s word ,

Not a man sOr woman s wailingNot a child s cryDon t you wear in black,

Not a crown, flowerOn our fresh land s surfaceour body wet,

We just enter into the depthOf this land,To carry it on our shouldersTo not let it fall.

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RAÇAK

The stream of Bebushi drains Albanian blood ,The black hand of hatred has stabbed inoccent souls,The screams of slaughter are frozenWith the frost of January,The frozen crystals remain silentBy the knife of hatred,Masked anti humansThe shadows have left the crime sceneDismembered bodies blood traces,Crucified cut heads, stabs in the throats, hearts takenout, half bodies,The eyes of the dead stare with the pulled eyesIn the forehead of the European civilizationMedievalism has stabbed behind the backWith a barbarian Balkan tail,Blood, bleeding leeching of snakes,The worm s smell hoenycombs the hill of Bebushi,At the crystalline night of January Raçak remainssilentGathers the pieces, assembles the cut heads,In silence eyes and heart taken out of the bodyStand hidden in the edge of the stream that dripsAlbanian blood ,From pain a boy s chest bursts,Mothers wail stabs like the Rachel s cryThe eyes of death stare at us

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The weary looks assemble,The walker s eye slips down comes out of the socketsAnd looks at stabs Albanian blood and tears,The evidence takes eyes, the looks come out,The eyes of Kosovo,At the w orld s chancelleries the looks of horrorpenetrateOf the eyes of Albanian mothers (perhaps they meet at the museums withThe eyes of the Rafael s Madonna which burstFall from the .... And enter into the empty holesOf the children of Raçak.

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CHILDREN OF FLAME

They know nothing about PrometeusAnd they are half Prometeus

They run to the gates of my burnt townStubborn, poor they play the fire game, (time of fire is now)

That s how life seems to be like in flames,The birth that s how death seems to become in flamesTime steals from them the smile

And they know nothing about PrometeusThe whole life in flames, the death in flames,Before the threshold of the house the smile freezes,The children escape time, challenge the eldersThey hide deeply in the lap of history

They make guard to the night of the century...

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THE HEADLESS TOWN

A headless cuckoo my town remainedThe prime town walkingAnd roads, roads, roads,My town is getting cleansed with banishment,The roads with blood the alleysWalking,Walking,WalkingThe river of people like antsInto the dead sea of leaving the horror flowsThe weight of banishment weighs on the iron wheelsof the trains,The wheel of banishment moves about fastThe machine of cleansingPerpetual motion, violence, pain,Evacuated , the town is leaving, the roads tremble,Fragments of lives breaths in silenceThe accusation of the century against the civilization,Cries and throat cuts, knives behind the back,The little man comes out prostrating,A great flooding, a burnt silence,O stone open your mouth, the mouth stone,The cry is calling, taken out of life, the crowdWalking on feet ....In silence my town,Headless, the heads without a town,Lifeless bodies, bodiless lives cut limbs,

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The separated road s, separated d estinies and thespilled bloodThe choking children s cry and theCheap fallen pride,Nameless crippled man, burning of the nameThe identity card torn photography of remembranceOf the name and surname morphology of pain,Birth date place of living date of deathBecome together, the man becomes a figureMultiplied with himself and d ivided in square,The calculation cannot reach my Calcutta of pain,The cut heads in the cuckoo prime-town,Transformed into feet silent walking,Walking, walking in mouthless evacuationThe cuckoo prime town saw....

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IV.DISTRUBED NIRVANA

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MOUTH OF THE WORLD

Now I shall become the mouth of the world,Teeth and tongue will be brokenThe word seeks the tongue full of spit

The evil eye,Cold looks will stare at meIcy judgments

Now I will become a fairy taleIn my absurd reality,

The intrigues will be constructedIn the evil mouthsThey will overstep the mouthIn the black painting with tongue

And I must cryWith silence,To chew the mouths of the world

(February, 2006)

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JUDGEMENTS DAY

Is the UniverseExpandingOr shrinking?

The time spaceIn its cosmic egg

Moves forward and backwardIn shrinking or expansion?

With steps of crabsIn our shellOr with the light s speedIn d ispersion?

We shall all meetIn a boiling pointIn the black holeThe Judgment s Day

Is my UniverseExpanding orShrinking?

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PARADOX

Every day we murder loveAnd we call murder love,

Show our tongues to ourselves and othersAnd we call defacement a kiss,

We lock the feeling,And we swallow the lock up,

We want to drink all the sea,And drain all the rivers,

And we place the ice in the middle of the feelingAnd we call the ice a fire

We throw the seed at the tree s rootAnd we interrupt the watering from the growth.

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DEATH OF THE WORD

The word does not fall like peopleThe word does not deliver the soul,

Sometime we sqweze, the wordSuppress it until it d rips blood .

We spit and push, the soulTake it out of the word,

The word never slipsThe word never d ies

We throw stones to it,Catch it from the throat, knot it

Then we chew it, beat itThe word we want to eat untilThe word, word

Remains in our throats....

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JUDAH S KISS

Take itHere you areBehead the cheat,Behead the Pilate-s and Moses,

SawThe nip s teethStab the betrayal,Give poison

To the bastards of denial,Throw the bones of betrayalTo the dogs,Behead the rampantHorses of Judah,

Deafen the trotThe raven s ghastOf Allan Poe,The inflamed sky the burned earthThrow the seed breastfeed and feed with bloodThe pigeons pelicans,Or become PhoenixesOf blood .

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BLOOD IN MY THOUGHT

My thought drips blood ,My thought is cryingThe thoughtThe memories have become a heavy burdenI m bathing in the red Sea of the absurd ,Heavy like a bullet the thought is d ripping,Dead black thoughts, fatigues tied withWith mortifications, the feelings are twisted,The bad flowers of remembrance seem like yellowsoldiers,When my thought is crying, when it drips blood.

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PRISHTINA

Like ants the people the roadsThroughout the capital,An ant my worldA hole in the rug the shapeless lifeLost into the maps linesOf my geography step on painThe yesterday s barrels spitBuzzing of uniforms in the streets;My history emerges in outpouring of memories,Displaying the tongue to the peacekeepers gunners,A negro has embraced an Albanian blonde.

Kadare takes Sena from the Nile s breastHands the White Drini to the Nile...,I walkEverydayIn the same dusty roads,Everyday the same sidewalks,A morning s macchiato wakes up at Edi,Italian lunch at the martyrs parkWith the polished shoes dust of competition,The bicycle s wheel before our noses,Taxi vans before our feet invite usTo sit in crowds full of pins, there is no placeThe voice of a poor singer bites the ears,This is my postwar world .Microscope in the prime-town,

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Man is not sure whether to laugh or to cry,The doors of the national theatre remain openThe actors wait for the tragedy to happenOr the comedy to enter violently...The unperformed pieces of dramas come out of thetheatre,Becket sits on the blade of his absurdAnd waits for nothing....

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THE POETRY

A heavy stone,In the edifice of the wordsLike bullets

Light like featherThat fliesEasily,

A heavy and lightWordSimultaneously,

A dreamThat narratesThe reality,

A song thatHas its melody;

A symphony

Very clear,Rather incomprehensible,A magic,

A flying feelingA free bird

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In the sky of metaphor,

A turbulent waveIn the sea of meaningsOcean.

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MY WAYS

I have assembled all my waysIn my separation around me,As if around a table we have sat,

My ways and I...,I speak; I ask them, they ask meAbout my great path:Wonder, here will they lead me to?

(In parenthesisI have putThe ways of my life).

Cross legged we are sittingI and my ways,We d iscuss to feed itAnd we laugh and cry togetherLike children,Around the table of fateGrief or expectation...,

I have assembled all my ways,Like pigeons in one hand,I ask them, they ask me,About my untaken wayFor the prime way.

(Varberg February, 2006)

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CONTENTS

Efforts of pigeons forced to leave .................................... 4carried in a wide scope of poetics .................................... 4

I.THE SOUL S ALPHABET .......................................... 13THE YEARS WITHOUT YOU .......................................14THE MEMORIES .............................................................. 15CLEANING........................................................................16THEATRIC PLAY .............................................................17PRELUDE OF FORGETFULNESS ................................. 18TROY ..................................................................................19WHEN WE MAKE LOVE ............................................... 20IN YOUR EYES .................................................................21THE GEOGRAPHY OF ABSENCE ................................22WHEN YOU BREAK HEARTS ......................................23LIGHTING OF STANZA .................................................24EURYDICE.........................................................................25SOUL S ALPHABET ......................................................... 26ABSENCE...........................................................................28TO FALL ............................................................................ 29

II. COME BACK MY PIGEONS .................................. 31YEARNING S EMIGRATION ......................................... 33THE CUCCOO S BIRDS................................................... 34COME BACK MY PIGEONS ..........................................35WHEN I TRAVEL THROUGH THE HEART ..............38SHAKESPEREAN SONET OF ENDOF THE CENTURY .......................................................... 39REREADING IN ANTIQUITY ........................................40

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DEATH IN SLEEP ............................................................41

III. LYRICS WITH BLOOD ........................................... 43THE TAIL OF EUROPE IS BURNING ..........................45BLOOD S SYMPHONY ................................................... 46THE BAD COUGH AGAIN.............................................48DANCE UPON MY GRAVE ...........................................49THE FALLEN ...................................................................51RAÇAK...............................................................................52CHILDREN OF FLAME ..................................................54THE HEADLESS TOWN .................................................55

IV.DISTRUBED NIRVANA ..........................................57MOUTH OF THE WORLD ............................................. 59JUDGEMENT S DAY........................................................ 60PARADOX .........................................................................61DEATH OF THE WORD .................................................62JUDAH S KISS ................................................................... 63BLOOD IN MY THOUGHT ............................................64PRISHTINA .......................................................................65THE POETRY.................................................................... 67MY WAYS .......................................................................... 69