Last song

Ana,

take care of me,

please brush my hair by your thin fingers

because for you I’ve created a canticle.

Come on, sponge me down for the last time

and forgive me darling as you forgive the rain

when it overturns the leaves on the ground, unwittingly.

Inside the drawer there is a Music Sheet,

open it to the last page and sing it without sound.

Receive it as a gift,

and then tell me,

if it lacks something to be perfect.

Ana,

an apple is waiting to be peeled. Peel it!

In the vase, the flower is eager for some water. Water it!

White scarf, which isn’t put on for two winters, put it on you!

And now, open the window darling

to enjoy the melody of the forest

as it is getting in the nude this season.

Oh, inside my head there is just silence.

Do you feel the trembling of air?

It’s the breath of God.

Your face is his imagery!

I was lost without you, Ana,

mooncalf as a blind, miserable as a deaf.

Ana,

the dog is whining,

it warns the pilgrimage of the soul.

What is beyond the forest, Ana…?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go to sleep my darling

By Ardita Jatru

 

 

Go to sleep my darling

because I will come near you.

We spent all our life in one bed

and the whole life is wasted.

Debts and sleep.

Go to sleep my darling.

I will come to join your breath

and both to wrap nicely the pipes with sheets

for not feeling cold

because we have nothing else to do.

Perhaps,

God has a fancy for making us birds

or maybe squirrels

in the Second Life.

Who knows!

Let’s see and believe.

Let’s go to sleep, darling,

in our quiet bed.

We won at least something as inheritors,

but we lost our mind.

Who cares?

Everything that we have done we did it with full breathing.

We asked no one

and happen that we owe to everyone.

Good night.

We slept.

There is some other part

to be wasted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Father-land

By Ardita Jatru

 

 

You never invited me to the wedding parties.

You did the wedding parties of too many sons.

You didn’t invite me in your birthday either

and you didn’t think to give me some dessert

because was all taken inside the buckets

and was eaten and bitten by hungry sons

that you keep inside your bosom.

I didn’t complain again.

Nor for the death you never think to call me.

I am the latest one to know

when the face of dead son is covered with soil

and I didn’t complain again.

My Father-land has trouble, I say,

because his sons remained in cross- country roads

and he didn’t  knows yet their children

and the Father-land has a small house

which doesn’t fit in all of us.

Other sons work in remote places

to built a new big house

hoping that one day their wish become true.

The Father- land has headache, I say.

It’s not his fault.

And I always feel to visit him suddenly

in wicked time

when my Father -land is very busy

and doesn’t have time to talk to me.

And didn’t complain again

because an adult justifies his parents

in that day when he realizes

that Father- land wasn’t a god.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I wanted to strangle you 

By Ardita Jatru

 

 

There were times I wanted to strangle you.

That evening, that whore with naked chest

in front of me trying to seduce and having her eyes on you

I wanted to strangle her too,

but I restrained myself,

then I have held to no purpose your fingers

that we have interweaved

and then I looked myself in the mirror

inside of which you have been entered

and in front of it I felt, my God, so frightful.

But I have tried to control myself again.

That night, I was a wolf in bed

and we climaxed in full flower

and then you slept peacefully.

I waited a bit and I lit a cigarette on the balcony

then a second one,

a third …. that beautiful whore

who had her eyes on you, appeared in front of me

and made my blood ran cold

and in that moment I wanted to put my hands in your throat

to strangle you asleep

but the next day we said “Good morning”.

We kissed.

Did you sleep well, my darling?

Peacefully, I said: And you?

And secretly I laugh at myself

how often I wanted to strangle you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

25 *

By Ardita Jatru

 

I left

and by my eyes I measured the way to the sky

because there I had to go

and I went with noise without knowing the path that leads over there.

I walked and I have found myself in front of a church

and I went inside.

There were just me and the priest

and some lit candles for wishes, prayers

and souls of the dead.

I sat in a corner

and saw the dome of the church that was ascending

and getting up until was open, became a celestial hole

and then the rain fell on me and I thought of you.

And I was back again.

I opened the door

and we were unable to say a word

but we were drowned into kisses till to nails΄ hooks

and you held me tight in your chest

then we both cried

and with a voice as were from the bottom of the sea

I said to you: I don’t want to go anymore!

And we were wrapped up by our shell, we closed it up

and we remembered the beautiful things

and the tomorrow weather, we thought, what color would  have had.

 

You have gone silently

You always do your things silently

I am the confusion.

You’ve closed the door slightly behind

and what happened to you then I do not know

but I know about myself, that I was hidden inside of cigarettes΄ smoke

until you came back again.

You appeared at the door as good breaking news

in the midst of mourning.

You had dissipated the smoke by your breath

and the same thing happened again.

We were drowned into kisses,

you held me tight in your chest till to an “oh”

and we dangled on our arms as much as we were exhausted

then we laughed it up with ourselves as it was all a joke

and suddenly you got a serious look

and in a watery look as a delicate baby you said:

I don’t want to go away from you!

 

 

Until one day neither of us had guts to escape.

We changed the lock.

We set the key.

We weren’t young anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dezi

By Ardita Jatru

 

For the first time I got drunk off

of one glass of screw driver at Crystal Café.

It was served to me by Dezi, the buxom waitress

who was talking and hinting jokes with dirty words.

She was marvelous.

You’re not from here; she told me that night,

so I treat you girl with another glass.

I drunk the first glass to the health of my boyfriend,

the second to the health of Dezi,

the third … I got lost.

And ward boys stood on the steps of Crystal Café.

They were, with freak nicknames

Boulevard boys

who lured high school girls

and marvelous Dezi,

who was shaking her hips when walking in and out

with confidence

that the boys will enter in to drink some screw driver.

 

Dezi doesn’t serve over there anymore,

Is neither Crystal Café nor nicknamed boys

who longed for Dezi

(I longed for her too)

But they left some laughs to the stairs

and some inebriation by screw driver.

If you see the buxom waitress in the town

sent to her the greetings from the girl

who wasn’t from that county

(of course she did not remember me)

and say to her,

I intend to make an application to mayor

to put up a statue

dedicated to marvelous Dezi

who served love drinks

talking and hinting jokes with dirty words,

there, on the groundsel

of the former Crystal Café,

with tray in hand,

forever

 

 

 

 

 

Your shoes

By Ardita Jatru

 

You always leave your shoes

on the threshold of the door.

You come and take them off there,

put them on and run away.

So fast are your escapes and returns

with your light shoes on the edge of the door

all emit stars of sand, filled with oxygen.

There are no shoes since last two days

on the threshold of the door.

You took them, put them on and ran away.

Now I have nothing to cry for.

At least you should ran away barefoot.

You took away from me even the shoes.

 

 

 

Translation from Albanian into English by:

Laureta Petoshati