IRSA RUÇI - POEMS

Irsa Ruçi is an Albanian Writer, Speechwriter and Lecturer. She was born in Tirana, Albania, in 1990. Her books of poetry include “Trokas mbi ajër (poems and essays), 2008 and Pështjellim (poetry), 2010. She has been published in anthologies: Antologji, 2007; I kërkoj agimit vesën, 2008; Antologji poetike “Kushtuar dashurisë”, 2014; Antologji poetike “Udha”, 2014; Antologji poetike, 2014; “Malli dhe brenga nga distancat”, 2014; Antologji poetike “Qyteti”, 2014; Poeteca, 2015; and her works has appeared in a number of print and online national and international magazines, including Sling Magazine, Issue 5; Ann Arbor Review, Issue 15; Poeteca Magazine, Issue 35; Aquillrelle Anthology, 2015, Aquillrelle Anthology, 2016, Metaphor Magazine Issue 5, The Commonline Journal, Issue 4/22 etc. And Among many awards, she has received the first prize in poetry, in competition "Anthology 2007", as the best poet in Albania.
​

---

© Irsa Ruçi
 
                                   A lecture for my students
 

​
The first lecture I always give to my students
is to be suspicious for the knowledge
I pretend to transmit,
no one is omnipotent
and nothing can be ever-lasting
we're just bowed learners with long years carried in our back
in life, nothing but traces of steps we take...
 
More than when they recite my gibberish,
I am excited by their finding of new arguments
their bring of different point of views, perceptions freed from frames
because only the best of minds
cannot be deceived.
 
A student should never take for granted
but ought to be yearning by curiosity
and see beyond...even beyond time.
Should turn their rebellion into pealing voice,
otherwise they'll sleep in desks
where cheating is inscribed
waking after some years with useless papers
wandering in dead-end lonely streets.
 
The last lecture I give to my students
is to be cynical to that point
that whoever treads on them, must fear...
Proud and cynical
for the future they bear in their hands
cynical and revolutionary
Don Quixote who fights with books and words.
Convinced that inside the auditoriums a nation is growing!
 
 
 
 
Unconscious dialogue with my conscious
 
 
A: What’s envy beyond daily-life rhetoric
B: Why you ask?
A: Because I saw hungry people who gave me despicable looks
C: Envy happens unconsciously or does it touch upon conscious?
A: Maybe it sickens the soul
B: Don’t ask!
A: In their looks I can see all their envy for everything they miss
C: People were born to die unsaturated
A: I hate the empty hearts
B: Tell me about it!
A: How can a being steal to the time theirself
C:…theirself who stole time ago
B: Ask me about these fools
A: Wholie in the bed of loneliness
C: And poison theirself till complete loss
A: But how can look the others in the eye
When their eyes are blind by selfishness
B: Uselessly you ask
C: What about happiness? In what roads we lost this words?
C: Happiness is not only a fairytale
B: No one cares about the essence
C: Ideas are formed in dead content
A: Mythical irony till absurd
C: Since the time the truth was betrayed
B: Ask your consciousness if it can hear
A: They stole my dreams from me when they lost in vain
C: Oh, death! We can’t even wake up from our sleep
A: We were born in a vice century
C: Oh, how unlucky we are…
A: What all has to do with one-another?
C: Maybe our mind can’t see in darkness
A:…and turn off in logic
C: Anyway, I am afraid anytime I speak with pathos, without tears
A: ‘Cause tears are the spirit’s voice
C: And deaf souls are locked eternally in oblivion…
 
 
 

                                                    Breath
 
 
Another year waits dreams in east
Mornings come with words frozen in air
Echoes of continuity;
Only the heart can turn the cold into breath
Lines fall from the sky, songs are melody
Of growing children in the peaceful world.
 
Trees shriveled by the time,
The time is afraid to walk lost in melancholy
Drunk, idyllic moments
…oh, I can’t run so fast after this deathly winter
Where even the mountains hide behind the fog
Like the flush of a lass hides behind her hands
 
The city is a ship,
Floating in troubled waters
The waves of freedom cuddle the agony,
The birds ruin the whiteness of the sky
To find their way at that sun ray which promises
The heaven to the earth.
 
This evening I am cringing in my solitude
A drop of wine, close to the fireplace,
I hear the wind roaring in the windows
While I enjoy some poems,
Winter is but a fairytale to break the monotony
It is winter only the soul has cold…
 
 
  
                                     A comeback in dreams…
 
Sometime… years before I was poetry-struck
I was protected by the toys from the strangers outside the threshold!
I took care of dolls, sew them bride dresses
And just like myself I fed them with dreams…
 
I would decorate with them the corners of my home
Until my mother’s threatens frightened me
And I collected all by myself before they ended up
In the trash bin
 
Furthermore, I was excited while playing football with the guys
But the quarrels between us became a serious problem
(girls are taught since infancy to act like ladies)
And it wasn’t graceful of me;
In the adult’s meetings my misbehavior
Was getting notorious
For what I would represent one day;
The inheritance of femininity!
 
Meaning, I had to learn how to play with myself
So I gained the ability to play with the lines
I accepted as my co-traveler poetry
Sensitivity, elegance;
I sought the beauty of the heart
And I merged it with my thoughts, my frailty,
My attitude, my personality.
 
Now I have to invent some other games
Because the adults’ games lack fantasy
To find in the a exhausted run of imagination,
Energy for inspiration
Feel myself a leaf in free-fall
(even that to breath freely in this epoch is hard)
 
Between ‘was’ and ‘will be’
Lies as a spider bed
One ‘can have’
 
One is never enough grown as to give up from childhood…
 

                             Dropped by the stars
 
When the night is the emblem, teller of toss brilliant eyes
laughing even as gods, in that forest of dreams
created with mirrors, broken mirrors
like the other times, forgetting in sleepiness
viewed without stopping, unwittingly remained awake ...
 
Oh fairy of these mountains who never sleep, you sing to freedom
through the mountains of chance, dances over
the tired heads of travellers,
as tales are show through weeping, because desperation
are always evidence of telling mischievous mockery
when happiness remains the only force sculpted in the heart
whose we all bow down in a  divine  way, we peaceful sinners
of tomorrow ...
 
To Fall asleep with the thoughts that the stars are sufficient
so young not to allowed your tears shine
while crouched under blankets you pray for the future
the Denial is more intolerant for yourself ...
 
This night is noise-evocative, verses build nests in heaven
With the moon, thoughts are hooked
In the Height that take the shape of a heart...