Featured poet - Agron Shele, Albania

1-      The Silent journey

 

Sailing on a boat, through a stormy sea

we distinguish the gaze following us from the shore

frightened of the fate that pushes us toward the wild waves, swollen with blood

down to the perturbed centuries

to the strange roots holding us in stasis

rotating around the satellite that extinguishes in the air

to the moment of abyss that separate life from death

of the lost illusion.

 

Again we wonder, trying to understand

the attempt in half dreams

on the wrinkled waves of tomorrow

under the mane of a horse that runs in a gust of wind,

through the nostrils of air

It is halted by the tether that pulls it

the footprints of the half of gallop are left

on the bank where the seafoam sleeps

and the Circes eyes are dissolute

 

Run, liberated from this rising like a mirage

breath and shape of this hectic darkness

like an everlasting song of this echo that attracts

our sorrow

the finish line

walking with youthful steps

and the grey aging through snowfall.

 

 

2-      Is not enough ...

 

It's raining here,

the sky is always bronze

and the steps knock on the empty road

in thousands of feet,

without the melody of your heels,

of that timber who use to hear

as music

and the view that gave our journey distance,

not those of 100-years loneliness of Garcia

but not even love

in the cholera time (covid)

just a forgotten charm  across the wind

and a journey that began

without goodbye!

 

I'm already used to it

with the sudden losses of the season

who run to unclothe the memory

first from alienated leaves of the green

then to the yellow,

violet and the reddish of Autumn,

but without your eyes

those bright thousands of suns

and hatch a light of life

and never I got learned;

that the next day

would wake up at the doorstep of a world

shinning and whispering of a silent forest.

 

Is not enough the cherry garden

nor the shadows of Moon

at the mirror of trunks of the Neruda's garden,

nor confusions,

nor the Eden that changed the flow of resemblance,

but simply a closeness

an overpass to the crazy world,

where the sad look of a woman

turned into the tear of my pain.

 

 

3-      My Cypress

 

Every time that snow starts falling

I don’t know why I come to you

might be a promise;

the silent exchange of our stories

 

Mine are simpler

there’s no noise, no glory that you can listen to.

yours, I don’t know,

but I see the prints on your skin

and believe too many hands have touched you

they have prayed and asked for more love

met with a bowing of the head and a Namaste

that you hold deep in your soul.

 

Here I am again today

you know, when the snowflakes start I will be here

I see the prints of the running wind as well

not those of the wind’s reindeer, because they are fare away

but just the pain that we feel, you and me

when wildly winds rock the top of the tree

shaking off the snow to your shoulders

to shelter more birds

As for me…I am shaken by silent memory

of people that I unconditionally love

 

My cypress,

there is no end to the odes and songs

that come to me

along with this cold air

which can’t ever strip your green joy

as it murmurs in your branches,

as for me, I do not need more than a greeting when I come

always unspeakably understanding each other

you, still in your world of old love reposing

I, again forgotten on my bench

 

I need to lit a cigarette and see through the smoke,

the reappearance of what is gone

whereas I am stealing your body

and take it with me, to my very last station.

 

 

4-      Conversation with Charles Baudelaire

 

You always came in the same way

sometimes as a ghost

stuck in the grey matter of the brain

other times as a bad flower’s blossom

even as it appears in dark colors

shows the greatness of a painting of a sea

the white sails of a ship that comes and goes away

from the bewildered and confused sight of the eyes

or the lily of the lake shining

on the body of life

body and soul sorrow endeavored

devils and angels

painted centuries ago by masters on the chapels.

 

I am sure that your sight is fixed at these same church

with different appearances

you were crazy about horses’ manes

at the cattle fair

whereas I, get caught amongst the traffic, at the same cross road

at the same cobblestone plaza that look like Cadmus teeth

those letters

what you murmured until the last breath

as the most glorious soul of sorrow

that never got the peace…!

 

Note: Today I was at the same church that Charles Buadelaire used to go and lit a remembrance candle for his soul.

 

 Translated into English by Merita Paparisto

 

Agron Shele was born in October 7th, 1972, in the Village of Leskaj, city of Permet, Albania.  Is the author of the following literary works: “The Steps of Clara” (Novel), “Beyond a grey curtain” (Novel), “Wrong Image” (Novel) , “Innocent Passage” (Poetry), Whiste stones ( poetry) RIME SPARSE -Il suono di due voci poetiche del Mediterraneo (Poesie di Agron Shele e Claudia Piccinno),  La mia Musa (“Libri di-versi in diversi libri” – Italy, 2020); murmure d’ un autre monde (poetry),  “Ese-I and Ese-II) ” .  Mr. Shele is also the coordinator of International Anthologies: “Open Lane- 1,” “Pegasiada , Open Lane- 2 , ATUNIS magazine ( Nr 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 )” and Atunis Galaxy Antholgy 2018, 2019, 2020.  He is  winner of some international literary prizes. Is a member of the Albanian Association of Writers, member of the World Writers Association, in Ohio, United States, Poetas del Mundo, WPS, Unione world Poetry and the President of the International Poetical Galaxy “Atunis”.