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ALISA VELAJ - POEMS

4/15/2016

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Alisa Velaj (born 1982, Vlorë, Albania) is an Abanian poet whose work has appeared in a number of print and online international magazines, including Blue Lyra Review, One title reviews, The Cannon’s Mouth (UK),The missing slate (UK), The Midnight Diner (USA), Poetica (USA), Time of Singing (USA), Canto (USA), Enhance (USA), Ann Arbor Review (USA)The French Literary Review (UK), SpeedPoets (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia), LUMMOX Poetry Anthology 3 (USA), Erbacce (UK), FourW twenty-five Anthology (Booranga Writers' Centre, Australia), Poetry Super Highway (USA) and Knot Magazine (USA). She has also works in forthcoming issues of Poetica, Otter, The Journal, Reunion: The Dallas Review (USA), The Brighter Light Poetry Anthology (USA), Phenomenal Literature (New Delhi, India), The Atherton Review (USA) and in theAnthology by Mago Books. Alisa Velaj has been shortlisted for the annual international erbacce-press poetry award in June 2014. She was also shortlisted for the Aquillrelle Publishing Contest 3 in January 2015. 



                                  The Man’s Flood

 
That day was another threshold
A stranger stole from him his mother’s lap and his sister’s affectionate eyes
Blind with sadness he stood as before a lifeless thing
When at midnight his love’s shelter appeared in front of him
He was in the grip of the man’s flood…
 


                                        Threshold
                                              To Mario
 
The child builds a house inside the house
A small hut of bed pillows
A little lamp lights the tiny shelter
The child reads about midgets with his mouth open
And feels happy to have a tiny house like theirs
Whereas Cinderella sings songs
And prepares sweets for the child and his friends coming from the fairytale
Outside a stormy rain falls the last leaves of trees
And the wind howls like a crazy bitch with no reason at all
Sometimes his mother sings to deceive the stormy rain
With melodies sweeter than all the songs
Ever heard going on between Scylla and Charybdis
Tonight Odysseus will certainly invent an Ithaca in Orpheus’ arms
Sleepy though…
 
 
                               Five Views of Mists
 
1
The blind sees
With the eyes of mists
2
Even trees hide their greenery
In mists
3
The sun buried in mists
Looks like a pale moon
And the river’s memory is
The bluish green oblivion of pearls
4
Cities and mists write
The chronicles of the sun’s solitude
5
Mists even without solitude inside
Count almost nothing…
 
 
 
                                 Waiting for the Winter
 
Waiting for the winter
I feel the breath of the lands that have caught cold
Just because of thinking that cold weather will soon launch the assault
Just because of thinking that frost is on its way to them
The anxiety of leaves saddens me as well
(My loves rustle with anxiety)
But why should loves and lands blame us
For their making haste to reach solitude
Holding torches in their hands?
Why should our vague memory that fails to remember
When the first sunset hit it
Throw blame on us
 


                               Curiosity Under A Naked Moon

 
Naked songs
Under a naked moon
My curiosity defeats paleness
And tries to keep quiet as long as possible
Look at the boreal nights for a short while, darling
Something worthier than nothingness
Must necessarily be hiding
Beyond my curiosity and the lethargic mornings
The frightened sparrows of your breath
Are the first accords of the guitar lost
Somewhere under the snow or amidst the moon’s bones
No one knows
Where other accords and other solitudes
Come from or go to
Come into being, die again, and live three other lives, honey
Just to bring curiosity back to life for a short while…
 


                                           She


She is calmer than her songs
She falls asleep watching the twisted veins of trees
She is luckier than night and darkness
Blood capillaries will set fire to her moon
And night and darkness will run on all fours fearing her and her moon.
 

​
Translated from Albanian language into English by Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj.
These poems are included in Velaj’s poetry book “A Gospel of Light” published by Aquillrellle.

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    An interesting site to check out: 
    poetrypacific.blogspot.ca
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