YOU ARE A VOICE


​
You are a voice
God made you a voice,
So you have a voice.

You have a testimony
You are a testimony
You are here to testify.

You have a song
You must sing
You are a song,
God gave you a song.

You are a witness
You are here to witness
God is your witness.

This is your track
The diary of your history
Your book of records,
It bears your story.

Write it down
Sing it, make it happen
You are one, so unique
You are that voice,
The world yearns to hear.



                                             STAY PUT

​
When thinking is your prayer
And idleness your job,
When loneliness is your friend
And tears your perfume,
When they sing "go and marry"
Sister, lean on God.

When badluck lingers
And illluck overstays
When disappointments wake
And rumours loom
When hardluck surronds
Sister, seek God.

When your feet slide
And your hands slip
When your faith is wounded
And you can no longer grip
When everything is choking
Sister, hold on, bow not.

When you look like an outcast
And more than outdated
When you look awkward
And timid and backward,
When no one ever understands
Sister, please stay put.

When you see no more
And hear no more,
When you walk no farther
And work no further
When you dream sick
Sister, carry your shoulders.

Remember how far you have gone
Forward ever, backward never,
When you starve for days
And thirst for weeks
When you yawn and yawn
And yearn for years
Please sister, hang in there.

When they sing "go and marry"
As if they share husbands
As if you are not beautiful
As if you were ever wayward
When they conclude you are too old
When they feel you are a burden
When they finally write you off,
When they believe you are possessed,
Sister, stay put, stay put.

When God delays
When He would not come
When He never came
When He is very far
When He fakes an answer
Sister, strengthen your anchor,
Stay put, STAY PUT

                  Two People Under a Green Umbrella
 
​
As they cross the railroad track
In the winter rain,
He holds her hand aloft
While she grips a torn green umbrella,
Meager shelter.
They rush past the fast food wrappers
Pressed flat against the chain link fence.
They step across the parking lot
Of the 7-11,
Struggling toward warmth and light,
On the way to commit armed robbery,
Bare heads bowed against a cold wind.

 
                                Storm Warnings 
 

A glance stirs the fragile violet
Into lilac circles;
A shiver dances
Along the clover warm from the noon sun.
 
A whisper sends gulls
Inland from the sea,
Wheeling toward perches
Along a grassy river.
 
A touch bends
Two willow hands of a palm
Into the green heart
Of fervent prayer.
 
You glance in the wrong direction
Whisper over your shoulder at our party
Touch her hand when passing a drink,
Nudging the rotation of a spiral storm.
 
A caress lifts the spiral
toward a perfect kiss
With heaven’s blue harmony
Above a shuttered, shuddering earth.

 
                                   Heart of Palm
 

When we moved into this house,
We hired landscapers to plant
A row of areca palms in the yard
Then had a housewarming party. 
That was two decades ago.
Embedded into one woodsy shaft
Sits a beer bottle of green glass
Inert against the wooden stalk.
One of our party guests,
Polished off a beer
And smoked a joint
Near the back fence.
Most days, we are green glass,
Trapped in a cage of cut bamboo
Watched by armed guerillas.
Like the bottle, we wait,
Green glass shaded from the sun,
Label buried into the palm,
Blind,
Facing the dark side of the moon.


                          Behind Joe’s Smoke Shop
 

The fat mobsters thaw in the winter sun.
Thighs spread, they sit in a circle
Around the asphalt’s single patch of sunlight,
Munching provolone sandwiches.
The young guy out on probation
who lives in his car,
Opens the hood and slams it,
Opens the trunk,
Rearranges his furniture,
And slams it,
Then finds his place for lunch
Around the patch-of-sunlight campfire.

​                                          Metastasis
 

I am sorry to hear the news. 
I lost it when I heard about hers
and now to hear about yours. 
 
I’m livid at times, peaceful rarely. 
If you prefer, I won't forward emails 
about her until you recover. 
 
I thought you should know 
how the doctors say she is doing.
Meanwhile I write about anything 
 
rather than yell about everything.
Some days I go to the basement
and yell when no one is home.
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                 Father the Chameleon
 

Father the chameleon was lime green 
the first day I saw him peering into
my crib smiling and he remained  
 
lime green until kindergarten
when a nun called the house and said
I was disrupting the class and would 
 
he come and have a talk with her.
He remained wildfire red until
the college he paid big money to 
 
expelled me as a senior for sending 
chickens clucking in big crates
to a French professor who gave me 
 
a B instead of an A, thereby killing
my chance for an Ivy League law school.
When I got home and told Father 
 
his face glowed purple as eggplant 
and he began taking huge pills 
day and night, even when a small 
 
law school finally gave me a chance.
The day I passed the bar exam Father 
was whiter than his pills in his coffin.
 
 
 
 
                               A Portrait of Society
 

Red, yellow, brown
work well together in 
a portrait of society.
Add black, no problem.
 
But if we remove the red,
yellow and brown 
and then add white, 
white and black clash.
 
No simple answer but
white and black should talk.
Talking never killed anyone.
Might be worth a try.
 
 
 
 
                           High School in the Fifties
 

In my all-boys school
sixty years ago there were 
two boys who were different.
All four years they walked  
to classes together, books 
clasped to their chests 
the way girls walked home 
carrying theirs.
 
I never saw another
classmate talk to them, 
perhaps because like me 
they didn’t know what to say
or they had nothing to say.
But I never heard anyone
talk about them either.
It was as if they weren’t there.
 
Now 60 years later 
the school sends out 
alumni updates and lists
the two of them as missing 
and asks if anyone might 
know where they are. 
I doubt that anyone does.
We didn’t know where 
they were back then.
 
 
 
 
                  House for Sale in Shady Acres

 
The question isn’t why 
your little world is
suddenly going to hell.
The question is what 
can you do about 
the black couple
 
touring the house
on your block where
the sign just went up
day before yesterday.
The neighbors are calling 
and everyone’s asking 
 
what can be done
before they buy it.
Old Smitty is barely 
cold in the ground
but he can roll over
as often as he wants
because it’s his kids
 
who own the property. 
They live miles away
and want money instead
of the house so why
wouldn’t they sell 
to the first buyer 
 
who meets their price
and can get a loan.
That’s the American way.
Maybe you don’t care if 
the couple moves in
but what can you do 
while flames of anger 
rise around you.
Not a damn thing
 
at the moment because
the neighbors burn
like Agent Orange. 
But if that couple 
buys the house you can 
go over and ring their bell 
at high noon some Sunday,
 
take a pie, shake hands 
and say welcome to 
the neighborhood
and tell them there’s 
no place on Earth 
like Shady Acres,
something they’ll
discover too soon.
 

                   How a poet’s love is written...


​
How is love written when it speaks in angel’s language
in haven’s gardens, where the sun shines first in the eyes
and mornings are a thank you for tomorrows
whom I wait for full of nostalgia, just like the breath you create this world....?

We communicate through silence, there where the light
drips from the sky
and feelings play through the air
with a thought’s breeze rising from the soul!


In which name shall I call the world today
When comparing to the dreams, it is so small
Smaller than a fugitive instant of time going to you
And it leaves me with this dilemma
 
 
How can a poet’s love be written...?
 
© Irsa Ruçi         (Translated by Stela Xega)
 
 
 

 
                                 Advice for women:
                               ‘How to forget a man...’


You can gather all your friends so you can have a ‘I miss you’ coffee
as you see and read what’s inside the cup
you can talk about each single day that you dedicated to love
cursing
hating
and swearing to not overthink
Insisting that a new dress can bring somehow more peace to you
than a past lover;
bragging that the light of your eyes was born
so it can shine between smiles
not between tears!
Women are egoist when it comes to their happiness
they search the sweetness of life
in every breath they take
they always find the source of love
into innocence
A friendly saying;
Sometimes women love with the same forgetting speed...
 
© Irsa Ruçi         (Translated by Stela Xega)
 
 
 
 
 
                                   Advice for men:
                            ‘How to forget a woman’


You can go all night long to visit all the public
houses of this city with your friends
and yet tomorrow morning they’ll find you with
A glass of beer in your hands, or with lipstick stains on your neck
Drunk from the scent of woman
you’ll remember, a little sleepy, the night before
when unintentionally you said her name in another language
Remembering the first word you said between feelings
So senseless, that today i am not even ashamed anymore
but I have this feeling to re-say those feelings
when a breeze that comes from this manly chest takes them away
so they can fly somewhere else

You can lock yourself into your room
So you can search, into the darkness, the secret solitude of your soul
but the melody of rain will remind you
Her smile, spoken with the dialect of her heart.
 
And you’ll want to leave far away, to forget everything,
Until you understand yourself
Just remember that
Even tho’ you get tired
If a woman loves you still
You will never forget her....
 
© Irsa Ruçi         (Translated by Stela Xega)
 

                                         No title...


I wrote so many verses for the human being
and love
the truth
humanity
and still I could not change
egoism
cynicism
the existence of bitching
that made our hearts insensible
and our smiles turned into insolence
So much that I cannot find humans into humans
But just their thirst for greed...


I am tired of idolizing the sweetness of the soul
that bows down to the virtues like life’s angles
with goodness, a little far from haven...
Oh. What a terrible thing for a poet
who translates the world just like a mirror into his verse
when in fact this place is raising hyenas
that take example even from stupidity
And then they brag about ignorance!
 
Please god; give them a little brain
so they cannot extend their shadow on this earth
covered by the madness of the sun!
 
© Irsa Ruçi         (Translated by Stela Xega)
 
 
 
 
                           If you fall in love with a poet...
 

If you want to take life easy
do not fall in love with a poet!
 
They wake up in the morning and search for the sun
to shine inside their soul
at night they breathe wishes
as they count stars
and they see the world as a verse part of his poem
that gets better day by day
searching life forever.
 
They hate questions, are too lazy to answer
they just want to be adored
to that point that they give away love
from all of their heart
a tear is worth an ocean
but the smile... ah, the smile of insane people
is just like the first flower of May.

They do not know how to fake things, they just know and
undress you from very mask, in a silent way
giving you forgiveness
and words
so you can not lie to yourself at least!
 
Do not let calmness and peace lie to you
no-one better than them know what volcanoes burn inside them
as they explode into rebel verses
so they cannot fill the beloved feelings with poison.
 
And if it happens to love a poet
you will want to drown in the sea of love
forget pride, you won’t need it
he will be proud of you enough
and he will idolize you in every verse
so much that you will bow down to the simple things
that reveal how great a poet is...
If it happens to love someone like this
do not think that they are always between the clouds
they just refuse reality
that is why they idolize another universe
built on innocence, grown on wellness
and inherited to build the human being.
 
Do not think that you will discover the romantic side
if you give them a flowery bouquet
you will be a better person if the smell
of those flowers you’ll be giving it
to a child who has not known
the spring of life, yet!
 
If you are sad, do not wait for a poet to wipe your tears
he will collect those tears until the last drop
in his hands
and with these diamonds he will create a colorful picture
until you smile again
shining light from those eyes
 
Even though a poet will never tell you
You will understand that he has the ability
to read even your darkest thoughts
the places you hide in your subconscious
because they will always be guardians of the soul
 
If you fall in love with a poet, you should love life
every day they won’t get tired of showing that
love keeps you alive and you never die.
 
 
© Irsa Ruçi         (Translated by Stela Xega)
 
 

            A Brexit, a brack zit, a brown-yellow Brit shit
 

Britain oh Britain, brash and brazen,
bracting like your borders are brawless and broly,
your broken brontract is bankrupting the branet.
 
Brainless oh brainless Britain!
Brewing brouhaha and baking broughnuts for breakfast.
Bragging of brides of English brescent,
 
brooding and bereft, a broad braxation of brejudice.
Britain takes an owl’s beak and breaks it.
Britain brandishes bratwursts like bayonets.
 
Britain oh Britain, again a bargain of brandy,
broomed under the brothel door, a brush up a dust up,
feel your breasts up, sex text your ex and Brexit.
 
 
 
                                               Zoloft
 

Could I be happy?
A cat in a square of sun
on the hardwood floor.
Could I learn to play guitar again
just for the sake of music
making my body a tuning fork
struck against the light?
 
The medication isn’t working.
The world tears at me
like briars along a wooded path
at night, and the future is a maniac
close behind, his chainsaw
sputtering smoke and noise.
 
Could I learn to be myself?
Turn off the notifications
causing phantom vibrations
in my side. Turn off the addiction
to voices in the ether
shaping the swirling reflection
I find cupped in my hands.
Could I learn to love the silence?
 
These words are the planks
I weave into my splintery raft,
and soon I set sail
across a sea whose other side
has only been seen in dreams.
Don’t follow me.
 
 
 
              A classic literary life in three stanzas
 

When he walked out of the bedroom
in a diaper and his grandfather’s boots,
everyone laughed,
leathers riding past his mid-thigh,
he staggered like some tiny Frankenstein,
so they gave him a bolt of lightning
and told him to change the world.
 
When they pulled those boots off him,
he’d nearly outgrown them,
his crib now a Pequod
listing among the waves,
his lightning now a lifeline,
he wrestled the future like a fisherman,
hook set in the fin of a whale,
trying to put a condom on inside out,
trying to tame the butterflies for pets
that grew inside his chest,
 
his heart sealed tighter than a mason jar
the colors faded from their wings
like that smile between her legs,
where even fairies couldn’t clap back to life,
their still bodies made him a man
so afraid to die
he wrote himself letters,
placed them in wine bottles,
hurled them out the window
into the belly of that whale
he once considered his enemy.
 
 
 
                                    Strawberry moon
 

They couldn’t wash the blood from the moon,
night of the summer solstice,
night of grim-set mouths, hands plunged deep
in silk-lined pockets, restless and rageless.
 
The camera phones lit faces in their windows
wanting to Instagram the memory
they wouldn’t have tomorrow,
full moon dipped in transmission fluid,
globe luxation
of the god damned God.
 
Fifty-two senators awe-shucks-ing
their way to another list of names
fed through America’s lotto machine
of human teeth and brass shell casings
rattling like death’s labored lungs.
 
They’ll show you pictures
of children lost so young,
their parents become living ghosts
of a slide projection reel,
haunting rooms of muted coughs
and anxious feet shuffling
to nowhere and for nothing.
 
Get your Lebron James jerseys,
before the next Powerball drawing,
before the heatwave
to end all heatwaves
burns down the redwoods
and every quiet place worth saving,
before the lightning bugs
sleep forever in the soil
rather than waste their light
on a world that doesn’t want it.
 
This is the slow repetition of surrender
that pulls back the hammer
and places the gun to the temple
just because it can.
 
 
 
 
                  Grand Canyon convenience
                                                                                    ~after Walt Whitman
 
O canyon! Grand Canyon! the daylight slowly fades.
The final notes from a golden horn, ever so softly played.
Plans are drawn, crows are cawin’, the curtain is falling
on a lifetime of erosion, a river’s quiet calling.
                                   It’s death! Cold death!
                                      The heart of a Coke machine!
                                           To fill the land with quarters,
                                                 and give the cliffs gangrene.
 
O canyon! Grand Canyon! preserve your majesty,
in the face of destruction, one must lose their modesty.
They’d see your bosom marred with scarring,
a cancer of coffee beans and souvenir shop parking.
                                      This canyon! Our canyon!
                                            Is more than a Coke machine!
                                                  This land holds time’s thread
                                                         traced through a river’s vein.
 
The bulldozers idle like growling dogs, iron teeth set on edge,
the canyon has no words but wind for its own defense.
They’ll say that beauty, like memory, naturally fades,
they’ll say this life is a sucker waiting to be played.
                                           Stand up! Preserve majesty!
                                                   Defend beauty as if your spleen,
                                                        for when beauty is buried in change
                                                              we give our souls gangrene.
 
 
 
 

                                            Sweatshops
 

Acres of murdered children fill
stores with low-cost plastic scraps,
placating Western mundane moans -
seeking purchase on their shopping gifts.
 
Markets filled with sealed lives
and chicken-item stereotypes, freezing
human sympathy. And check out
the canned protein – it's a metaphor for democracy.
 
 
                                             Faith
 
Faith-herds – hopeful in misery –
dwell in their blank ecologies
befitting of worlds of tyranny.
These flocks writhe, wool
hitched, knotted and
matting, over their
eyes - drowning
views deeper
in falsity
while loyally they bow in deceit
to creeds that have crept down
the ruts of history – dirty
endurance intact
because thought adheres
lazily to carnage
created by thought.
 

                                    Passing
 
From a bough beneath my window whistles
incentive rope – noose in tow:
a cure for life-incepted hassles –
passing on my extant blows.
 
Death's urge is tossed in every carcass
at inception through to life's decease.
I'm a hung journey bleached in darkness
till the break gasp of my necks release.


                                            Magic
 
The assembled assumptions
governing what she was
slipped
as she waved a concentrated whisper -
in a silence peculiar, thoughtless.
She stared
madly
wishing the hat from his head at distance.
              
                                                                           It fell.
 
 
 

                                   IRREGULARITIES

​
The end had begun
And the beginning had ended
The flowers now planted man
And watered him.
 
The sun now shone in the night
And the moon in the day
With the stars
Competing to be the brightest.
 
The lions became preys
To the doves
And lizards predators
To the alligators.
 
Wall clocks now move anti-clockwise
And the earth changes position
To stay side by side with the sun.
 
The end may not end
And the beginning may never begin.

only blue
deliver blue
I am delivered blue
blue in the night
under the water
blue
 
blue in the night
I am blue
it's blue
the night

​

I am blue
deliver me away
deliver me away from blue
now in blue.
 
blue river blue reward
blue city and blue chord
tight fragrant and afraid
blue river and blue chord
blue city oer my heart
 
chant my name


​

Blue my regard for you
after we're arrived
after we make camp
after the fire is out
after the dawn is come
blue my regard for you
in the season's end
 
when the lights go out
 
Blue my regard for you
no one else
 
 
Blue my regard for you
After camp
After rain
After fury, fire and visits
The world.
 
Blue rain
and mountains
over my shoulder
 
I am a blue mountain over my shoulder
running
I'm running with you
 
Under fire

​

I am blue
No one else is blue
I am blue
 
It's blue.
 
I am blue
It's blue.
 
Now you are blue.
We are blue.
 
This is blue.
 
Down:
 
The lightning and the deep
All I remember of you
in your dark eyes


​

Blue my regard for you
After the rain
The day is coming.
Furious and alone.
 
I'm blue in the city
In my loneliness
And in my waiting.
 
I am waiting for the city to wake up.
But it is asleep.
 
I am blue
My city is blue.
 
These lights color us
bright
 
lightning


​

​red is the end
the gloaming red end
rises over the fire
burning us
 
burning us black fire
storming us black fire and music in rain
 
all black fire  rain and music storms us in the dark
death and the still air rises over the dead trees and dark
 
all the dark water rises over the plains
in the dark
 
churning
 
I am blue inside the dark,
waiting

                                    Billy                                                    
                                                                                     for Billy Watson
 
 
                                  Billy always enjoyed my poetry.
                                  "Your stuff makes me laugh,
                                  he would say."
                                                                               
                                  So when Billy’s English assignment
                                  was to read a poem to the class,
                                  he chose my poem “Roast Beef”--
               
                                  “Cold roast beef on a Sunday afternoon
                                   smells like a fart
                                   In the summertime.”
 
                                   Billy never did
                                   make good grades.
 
 

                                          Treasures
                        
                                                                
                My 9 year-old self
                pedals a fire engine red
                Schwinn, Topps bubblegum cards
                sputtering in the spokes;
 
                clothes-pinned images
                of Maris & Mantle, Aaron & Mays;
                all my favorites clattering madly
                streaking down R.E.A. hill.
 
                Had I cataloged these
                straight from the wrapper,
                sheathed in clear plastic sleeves
                I’d be counting
                my Ben Franklins.
 
                Instead, I’m flipping through coupons
                pushing a rickety old shopping cart
                click clacking down aisle five,
                grinning like a 9 year-old.