HANIBAL ANTE PORTAS
VETERAN PILOTS
Threw a palm land on opened grave
Where were crying at all.
They approached
silently to mortal dinner’s table
Set down
Afflicted a little
Took a sip raki
And did
Jokes.
All their life they had played with death …
I know to everybody:
The grudges
The
deceits
The
modesty
The egoism
The dirtiness
The frenzies
The apathy
The strength
The weakness
The
rushes
The
laughs
The tears
All they had a lover
To whom
They
Told
everything
Gave everything
Everywhere only laughed
And
Never
Betrayed….
Was
That:
The sky
Over
Homeland.
Note – written on a death ceremony
Translated in Hindu from Dr. Harish K Thakur
Associate Professor, RKMV, Shimla, India, 171001
Poet, Critic, Story ëriter,
Researcher
老練な操縦士
VETERAN PILOTS
ぽっかりと空いた墓に投げ出された一握の土地
そこは泣き叫ぶ声ばかりだった
静かに死の夕食のテーブルに来て
座って
少し考え込んで
ラキをすすり
冗談を交わした
死を奏でたのが彼らの人生
みんな分かっている
その敵意
その地獄絵
その内気
その自己主義
そのいやらしさ
その激しさ
その冷淡
その無力
その弱さ
その活力
その笑い
その涙
みんな愛人をもっていた
彼らが
何でも話せる人
何でも与えて
笑いだけが残る所で
そして
決して
裏切ることがなく．．．
それは
故郷の空のこと
死の儀式で書かれた詩
死の儀式で書かれた詩 Note
– ëritten on a death ceremony
ΒΕΤΕΡΑΝΟΙ ΠΙΛΟΤΟΙ
ΒΕΤΕΡΑΝΟΙ
ΠΙΛΟΤΟΙ
Έριξαν
μια χούφτα χώμα στον ανοιχτό τάφο
Εκεί
που όλοι έκλαιγαν
Πλησίασαν
αθόρυβα στο τραπέζι με το μνημόσυνο δείπνο
Κάθισαν
Κάπως λυπημένοι
Πήραν μια γουλιά ρακί
Και
Αστειεύτηκαν.
Σ’ όλη
τους τη ζωή έπαιζαν με το θάνατο…
Γνωρίζω
πολλά για τον καθένα τους:
Τις
έριδες
Τις απάτες
Την μετριοφροσύνη
Τον εγωισμό
Την ατιμία
Τις εντάσεις
Την απάθεια
Τη
δύναμη
Την αδυναμία
Τις βιασύνες
Τα γέλια
Τα
δάκρυα
Όλοι
αυτοί είχαν έναν εραστή
Σε
αυτόν
Έλεγαν
Τα πάντα
Έδιναν τα πάντα
Παντού γελαστός
Και
Ποτέ
Δεν τους πρόδωσε…
Ήταν
Αυτός:
Ο
Ουρανός
Πάνω
Απ’
την Πατρίδα.
translated
by Vassiliki Ergazaki, Athens
PILOTËT E VJETËR
Hodhën nga një grusht dhe në
varrrin e hapur
ku qanin të gjithë.
Iu afruan të heshtur
tavolinës së mortit.
U ulën
Pikëlluan ca
Pinë dhe nga pakëz raki
Dhe bënë shaka.
Kishin luajtur me vdekjen tër
jetën.
Unë ua njoh të gjithëve:
Mëritë,
Djallëzitë,
Modestitë,
Egoizmin,
Pisllëqet,
Furinë,
Plogështinë
Fuqinë
Dobsinë
Të qeshurat
Lotët
Që të gjithë këta
E patën një të dashur
Që i treguan gjithëçka
Që i falën gjithëçka
Që i qeshën gjithëmonë
Që nuk e tradhëtuan kurr...
Hapsirën mbi atdhe.
Shënim – kjo poezi është
shkruar në një ceremoni vdekjeje
Translated from English
to Japan by Poet Kae Morii,
poet, member of International Writers and Artists
Associationn (ËAAC)ËPS, IËA
and GHA. Given birth in Osaka, Japan.
SHKODRA PICTURED WITH
BULLETS
I have a gunbelt filled with empty cartridges
I have collected them in the streets
I have collected them as hens collect worms
I have nothing to write with
In Shkodra you can not find neither paper
Nor fountain pens nor pencils
Only bread
Bread and Serbian „Zastava“ (a
type of Serbian revolver)
Today in Shkodra
With a credit note you can buy just one kilogram of bread.
„Where are you going?! Turn back!
The curfew begins at eight o’clock
But you really should turn back, its better to turn back
Why? Its midday! Can’t you see?
Everyone is locked inside their homes
Turn back!“
„Let me be, please, I’m begging you
Leave me alone, I’m repeating, can you hear my plea?
I have frightening strengths that could break chains
No one in this World could stop me from seeing my Shkodra
Seeing how she looks without her laughter, without her poets, her
singers
I’ve come from far away to see my Shkodra
I’ve come to kiss her.“
I’m angry and I’m weeping
I’m weeping aloud without shame
I’m weeping for my Shkodra
Where its forbidden to laugh after midday.
How astonishing…its so much as if
I’m unconsciously standing in front of this tile from my home
Now I’m holding this tile to my chest on which in reality
I’ve written with one of my cartridges
Which I feel has rotted as my bitten nails carve into
This tile from my home
Which saw me being pampered
Which saw me as I grew into adulthood
Which observed me
Admiring in silence the hairs in my secret body places…
I’m happy…Happy, because I have another cartridge left.
Who are you? Pleading for me to
come inside
Afraid of any stray bullets?
Are you…Are you my mother?
Oh Mother dear, the bullets have nothing to do with me
If I were afraid of the bullets
I should not have come to be in the midst of them from afar
Just to see my Shkodra
And you, my mother.
Let me be, Mother,
I’m writing with this empty cartridge on the tile which was placed
On the occasion of your Wedding
Maybe this cartridge killed somebody
And now it is writing
How beautifully it is writing…
On the tile from your wedding
Do you remember Ma? When you
For the first time crossed over this threshold
And you were dressed only in white
The merry wedding ghost
Put this tile to remember for ever
This special day? Now
See how wonderfully this empty cartridge is writing and how
My hand is moving like an earthquake.
„Shall I come with you?“
„No Mum…turn back
Go to the kitchen and prepare me some bread and cheese
And don’t forget – a very big onion, and
Afterwards a cup of tea
I’ll not be late, but if
I’m late
Take this key and
Keep it to your chest, You
Should open my suitcase which I brought last night from Tirana, I
Left this suitcase by our book case
Just above your wedding boy where you
Used to keep my poems long ago when
I used to fall asleep as I wrote them and you used
To be afraid that others
Would tease me and my poems
On nights I used to read them, and you
Used to guard them like the panther guards her kittens.
There, Mother I
Have locked inside something white.
I
Have locked inside
My Shroud.“
I’ve now finished my second cartridge.
I have strolled around the skies and seas, but if
It is decided that I die today, please
Ask me, it is quite normal to ask a person about to die for
His final request. I
Would like…Suddenly this cold to turn to Summer, and
To observe my Shkodra full of beachgoers, and me
Swimming on my back in the Banu (a
river in Shkodra)
Below willows and willows
Below Shkodra’s citadel, full of eagles and seagulls, and
…My G-d
Take my heart, You
My G-d, If
You exist anywhere, come and
Take me but
In Paradise, please
Let me rest somewhere near Shkenderbeg.
Oh…So many shootings over the streets of Shkodra
Somebody is killed by a stray bullet, but
A wounded person is shot with 4 bullets
In hospital, on the operating table whilst Doctors are
Sewing his wounds.
Astonishingly this Spring
Neither the Linden flower nor the Magnolia has flowered
Nor the Mimosa this year and nobody has remembered that
Spring is the season of love.
Last night
Especially last night there
Have been
Awful gunshots, terrible gunshots…
I’m walking like a somnambulist through the streets of Shkodra
Strolling around the empty veins of my birth city
It seems that i pain the criminals
And suddenly, in their hearts, seeing me almost crazy
Clemency awakes, some such delicate feelings of
Clemency can be found in the criminals‘ hearts who
In these moments
Have decided not to shoot me and I
Don’t know why?
Oh my brothers – criminals, You are free
To shoot me. Kill me my brothers,
we
Are of the same blood and you
Should be sure in your hearts that nobody will revenge my death
I’m disarmed and I’m giving my honest word that I will not
Give my last breath
Cursing.
Still no one is shooting at me.
Tomorrow in Shkodra
A multi national troop force will come
Full of males.
This Spring people have only artificial flowers in their homes.
Very few flowers have bloomed this April or
At least I haven’t noticed them
In fact I haven’t seen a single flower anywhere.
Mother, I can’t bear to see Shkodra
Without people without joking but
Full of gun shots coming from who knows where.
Tomorrow
The helmets will pass below the railings full of beautiful girls
Very poor, very hungry.
Mother, now I’m late and
Your tea is cold and
Maybe you have taken out my shroud.
Its for me, Mother, this shroud, You
Should go on to live another hundred years
Yes…yes…Another hundred years to show
For your handsome son – your son whose
Last will before his death was to swim on his back down the Buna
Below the citadel, below the weeping willows that stroke like violins.
You should explain to everyone
That this poor poet, your son, has gone to Paradise
And rests in a place somewhere near Skenderbeg
In Eternity
And is thinking, my son
Only for Shkodra
And only enjoying a certain kind of music
The clanging of the sword.
1997, Tirana, Albania
From David Halley, Crystal Club 01.11.1999
SHKODRA PICTURED IN BULLETS
This weekend I had the pleasure to meet
an Albanian author and poet…and as I waited for a friend to get out of a
meeting, he struck up a conversation, asking me about myself, where I was from,
my profession, what I was doing in Albania, and what had brought me to the
region. As our conversation drifted from one topic to another, I was amazed to
discover how well read, well spoken, and well thought was this simple man from
Shkodra ( a city in northern Albania)
Riza was delighted to hear about my plan
for starting a drop in center for homeless youth in Albania, and quickly
offered to assist our NGO in any capacity that he could. He went on to tell me
about a few authors he knew who wrote children’s books, and assured me that
they too would be interested in getting involved in one capacity or another. He
gave me the contact information for five or six of them, and told me that he would
be happy to provide me with more if our NGO needed them.
As the hour slipped by I once again
heard the tale of the horrible events of 1997. How the financial pyramid scheme
some crafty businessmen set up a few years before had finally fallen apart like
a house of cards, taking with it the central government, all vestiges of
authority and stability that had existed in Albania since the end of communist
state, and completely plundered while the police stood idly by with their backs
turned it sends chills down my spine. People say that for the next few days
bullets rained from the sky and the injuries and deaths that occurred were far
too numerous to count.
Braving the chaos, Riza left his home in
Tirana and travelled noth to Shkodra to visit his mother and bear witness to
the chaos occurring in his home town. Once there he felt compelled to venture
out –of-doors and see with his own eyes how his birth place had been
transformed from a quiet , gentle town into something out of Dante’s Infermo.
Ignoring the pleas of his mother, he left the safety of her home and walked the
streets. With tears in his eyes and sadness in his heart the likes of which he
had never before known he saw firsthand just how far into madness his people
had descended.
The emotions that stirred within him,
impossible to bear, compelled him to write of this experience. But there was no
paper, pens or pencils with which to pour out the pain that presses against his
soul. So Riza collected spent cartridges
from the streets and sidewalks, took them back to his mother ‘s home, and upon
pieces of tile he found there he spent the night scratching and scraping a
poem, a poem that contained all the pain snd suffering that a man who had witnessed
his momeland’s transformation into insanity could bear.
Riza presented me with a translated copy
of poem he wrote on that dreadful night. It is a poem filled with such
beautiful sadness and despair that is impossible to read without bringing me to
tears. It is also something that I will treasure for the rest of my life.
The time I spend with Riza Lahi was
probably one of the most inspiring hours that I have had since arriving in
Albania. The stories and emotions he shared with me warmed my heart and
reminded me that there are still beautiful people left in this world. If I can
only learn to keep my level of cynicism down and my eyes open I will
occasionally see past the filth, drek, garbage , and selfishness that humanity
seems to be drowning in, and find the gems hidden there
----------------
Hats off
to your creative talent..
Your best at defining pain, agony, loneliness, and the
suppressed wishes,
Your piece, “Shkodra pictured on bullets” is a
diamond for my journal. Hope
our relation will endure in
future.
Warm regards
Dr. Harish K Thakur - Poet, Critic, Story writer, Researcher. Shimla -India.
---------------
Riza,
I read your poem “Shkodra pictured in
bullets” earlier and it made me cry.. I finished it and had to get up for a while
and take fresh air.. that poem went deep inside my soul..
Later I came back and read the rest.. I was
happy in a way, to see that was long time ago..but still hurts......
You were able to paint with words the
pain surrounding you....you made mi vizualize it all.. how terrible...
My friend.. what a poem you wrote!!!
a narrative poem that tells a sad story...
I'm honored you shared it with me.
Thanks you
Marily
Marily A. Reyes (MAR) (Litt. Dr.)
Executive Director/President
The Cove/Rincón International, USA
