Oratorio to Bees

The queen bee fed with the milk of a queen
lives five times longer than the other bees
and its giant sting is a cosmic rocket in the bee galaxies.
Flowers bow their heads even when she does not visit
and in the absence of sex they paint petals
in sunlit orgasms.
Very festive the bees at the time of reproduction,
people imitate them.

"This nature that dies daily inhaling the hate of dust" – the bees say
"and this queen with the yellow of autumn on her Hiroshima wings" – the bees say
"these tragic flowers in a game with roots" – I say
"and these weary people that try to laugh in exchange of defeat" – I say
"this round world, a breast just incised by the atomic scalpel" – I and the bees say
"everything is a honeyed hope" – I and the bees say.

"To the bees' small eyes
the honeycombs are pentagons" - I say
"but sadly we don't know the angles of lies" - the bees say.

The bee came from Baghdad¹
sipped nectar from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The queens lecture in the evenings
when tired bees drowse inside their honeycombs.
Step lightly on the blue-bells,
their sound will awaken the hungry bears
The bee came from Baghdad
Be cautious with the red roses for you will injure the dead
The bee came from Baghdad
Be cautious with the yellow roses for you will drive jealous the mad
Never injure the white roses!
Ah, the white roses!
When you pass by the chrysanthemums, whisper words of love
and leave behind a drop of milk for the glorious dead.
If someone touches you, turn into kamikazes,
then pray that death finds you at peace.
The bee came from Baghdad
Before closing your eyes,
take a white rose petal as a shroud.
I will read to you the Bible of Honey
written with letters of poison...
Ah, the white roses!

¹ verse from the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet

Psalms 137: The Soldiers

Here, near the rivers of Babylon we sit and weep
because we can not sing God's songs in a foreign land
we sit and weep, and weep.
So, all the soldiers of the world weep, thinking of their girlfriends.
They can't sing: their tongue is tied to the palate
like a dead moon in a winter sky.

Helmets without heads near the butt of fire-arms.
Near the bayonets on the ground, shoes without feet.
Bodies have marched to the Paradise of War.

End of War

We count the dead and wounded...
a while later the trade of crutches blooms
with flower wounds on the wood.

Chess Match in New York

Dedicated to my daughter, Sidorela,
whom I hadn't seen in five years.

Do you remember, my daughter
my Cinderella with the shoe and heart pawned across the Atlantic,
when we played chess: you called "check mate"
in the Adriatic beaches.
My grief and joy embellished with diamonds of genius
come, let's play chess
in New York's chess field of lights and smoke
amidst the giant monitors that steal our gazes
and skyscrapers that stand like exclamation marks, like question marks (!!!!!????)
People are their dots...

I move the white pawn (a student in Hunter College)
Be cautious, the hunter has raised a trap – you say
In Times Square you move a horse, not from the carriage.
Watch out – I say –
the clock hands are erotic arrows fleeing the arch.
In the streets and avenues of New York white and black pawns
from sewage holes,
the high-pitched cry of rats protesting
on staves of metro rails – like musical notes
in the Symphony of Fright.
Okay: let's play chess with rats!
white and black...

Every morning with a chessman in our pockets
we walk downtown New York City,
I move an officer¹ (not of the CIA or the FBI)
to Central Park.
You move the rook to Wall Street, in Ground Zero:
obelisk of the twin towers.
I will place dentures on the two fallen front teeth of Manhattan
let's sign our names in memory of the thousands that died
As an image
of the twin towers
the number 11

Watch out! The Gardens of Babylon
with headlong petals – oasis of oil
Some soldiers² suddenly fled
between the Tigris and Euphrates
the word PEACE pronounced PIS.³

I move a drunk soldier to Broadway. Your serious officer swallows it, shackles it.
My furious queen
flirts with your officer and suddenly
Manhattan, the golden crocodile,
becomes for her
a hell of lights and ecstasy.

Who is getting married in the Bronx, my daughter,
taxies and in-laws black and red⁴, a rare Albanian wedding.
Let's play chess with the wedding guests
the joyful music awakens
the graves of our forefathers.
Suddenly – a shot.
Someone fired in New York.
Blood feud!
Who was murdered, my daughter?
A soldier with a trace of blood on his forehead.
Fire engines speed up the streets and avenues to extinguish flames.
You call "Check!" on the Brooklyn Bridge.
My confused king in Fort Wood cries out for help.
Fire engines fly with hospitals on their back.
The Statue of Liberty switches the king with the rook –
not with Freedom.

Gray pigeons - pieces of clouds
with raindrop eyes
and beaks like seedlings of thunder

I move the queen amidst the pigeons.
Two queens facing each other, ready to overthrow,
while smoky pigeons laugh and offer Peace.
How shameless the pigeons in Queens!

We play without queens,
our kings calmly await their end.
Your officer got lost between two enigmatic magicians,
my horse went out searching,
baffled with the wedding guests of ex-governor Juliani.
You lost an officer.
I lost a horse.

I say - "Check!"
Frightened flamingos beat their wings in flight.
Don't go flamingos, don't go!
This country has tender fathers.

Everyday we walk down the great New York
with white and black chessmen in our pockets
understanding that we are the chessmen - others play with us.
I may be an officer degraded by General Nothing.
You may be a queen crowned by a Prometheus.
New York, an iron flower growing from the roots of the metros.

Our entire lives - Check!

¹ In European chess, the bishop is referred to as an officer.
² In European chess, a pawn is called a soldier.
³ PIS - This word means "dirty" in Albanian
⁴ Black and red are the colors of the Albanian flag

Genealogy

By chance my great-grandfather's name was Paul
imprisoned in his homeland, the king of ethics,
the secret of the slave's freedom
Saint Paul's bare feet
left Christian footprints even in Durrës.

Also by chance my grandfather's name was Chronos.
He was a pendulum resembling the time of myths,
perhaps because he grinded pain with the axis of Earth.

My father's name by chance was Thanatos.
He loved life like a god of death,
endlessly walking through war and peace
he turned evenings to dawns.
He died painfully tired
and entered the grave with one leg
the other, two weeks prior,
had suddenly fled
to find the path –
the frightened paradise.

Also by chance I, named Petraq, was born in Durrës.
Saint Peter watches me with eyes that blink,
the fires of Nero reflected on them.
(That fire still burns on the world's forehead)
I am made of some soul and some stone
maybe a philosopher stone
from where spring poetical streams – not by chance. A sizzling tear.

P.S.
My name made of rock
last name of Christ
drip-drop the blood drizzled
softened the rock:
created flesh.

Albanians

We wear the costumes of the dead of Europe
the shoes of the dead of Europe
and walk our streets like Europeans...
Europe watches us, purses its lips and laughs
not because we remember her dead,
but because the clothes we wear,
the shoes we fasten
are out of fashion...
But we walk: the costumes of the dead suit us,
the shoes of the dead are not too tight
although our streets bleed wounds.
While we walk, we feel that the dead of Europe
chase us as if they've forgotten something in their pockets:
credit cards, money, bills,
dreams, hallucinations...
they chase us like shadows, like ghosts
perhaps to grant us their blessing,
perhaps they hope that their clothes and shoes
will become magical,
that our children and nephews will wear
cynical clothes and shoes.

Frightened, I removed the clothes, almost nude
I removed the shoes, barefoot
My sea sighing with shame
gave me a wave to wear as a shirt.
My oil burning with shame
gave me a vein to wear as a scarf.
My fields tore their cheeks,
cotton balls sprung from their cheeks of shame.
Mountains cried, forests wept
out of tears they made buttons and pins
and gave them to me: a man and a parent.
And I, sitting at the corner of the chimney of their pain,
with the blood of anger made a torch.
The flames clothed me with their woolen dress,
yet the mocking did not cease.

La Peau De Schengen¹

With Schengen's skin I made a coat.
I drew the map of Europe on the skin.
The shrinking, poor coat fits tightly
as I walk the streets of the sick world.
With Schengen's skin I made a coat.

Balzac mockingly pursues me.
I don't know where the streets will take me.
The fleshy skin with bitterness bursts.
The magical coat cannot be my skin.
With Schengen's skin I made a coat.

My passport is a valueless skin.
My coat is a torn map
and I, like the coat, neither here, nor there...
With Schengen's skin I made a coat.

With it I cover the world, so it won't catch a cold
But the world gets narrower, cold, lifeless,
terribly distant.

With Schengen's skin I made a coat.
I walk the streets of the sick world,
a beast.

¹ Play on words - The word 'chagrin' in Honore de Balzac's La Peau de Chagrin or The Wild Ass's Skin is substituted with Schengen, referring to the European Visa.

Lost

One day I lost my way,
no one could find me.
A policeman asked for money
to help me.
I don't know how I lost my way
I got lost singing
The policeman took off his hat
towards me, like a blind beggar,
and I
chirp – chirp
flung the golden coins...
That's what it means to be
a lost nightingale.

The Hunt of the Sea Horses

Sea horses do not know:
when turned to medicine they cost millions.
The sick are cured with them,
they often feel the sound of waves
kindle their veins like a muffled trot.
When night falls, they moan:
"the moon pulls us like seas in high tide
and we fear death..."
Compelled through their radiology,
doctors discover hearts transformed into coral islands
where tired sea horses rest.

Song of Songs 1: Return the Pawn

No, I am not mistaken: there, at dusk
gods secretly
melt their gold
to dress with it goddesses and prostitutes
and if some gold remains they think about seas and mountains.
The gods of dusk seduce the poppies to shamelessly rub
against the ear-wheat,
they sprinkle a little gold, a little silver on your body,
on your crimson lips, your nose – a hill that separates two lakes of light.
No, I am not mistaken.
But you, return the pawn before sunset!
Do not pawn the gold, nor the millstone,
Do not pawn the well, quench the thirst of the world!
I am not mistaken, of course I am not mistaken.
Love is a breeze, it does not esteem the shackles that
the rose hides in its golden buds.
I am not mistaken, by no means am I mistaken.
Each one is punished for his own sin,
the scale is like the eyes on a face:
weigh the dusk of the immoral gods,
the poppies shamelessly rubbing against the ear-wheat
weigh me also as I come, as I gently sway
although only an hour has passed since I left my ship
and earth, strangely enough, has no waves.

Two Thoughts

When I think of you
I stand vertically

a
sword
in
the
hand
of
love

the wound in your body
becomes a bird
amidst the cheer of roses.

When you think of me
you stand horizontally

the arrow of a strange compass

I am the magnetic field.

In which forest are we lost?
Which story-teller will find us...

Adrenaline

Look: in the shrub of red roses
birds mate unashamed
of the fervent dusk

I see your eyes:
cups that if filled with ice
give a cocktail of love.
I drink and am not satisfied
I drink and am not drunk.
Do you watch "Sex and the City" in the evenings
the show where New York females shave
their bodies
like electric outages that erase commercials
those cheerful women without electricity,
dark as in an air-raid warning
(or the opposite).
Let's talk and approach the sea, without making it jealous
and let's have the waves reap with their golden sickles
the mirroring stars.

Let's talk. Let your breast trickle fire
from the risen nipple like a playful finger
that calls us to "hush!"
Let your hands dissolve the sand castles
built by the children of daylight.

Lie down on these castles, on this mermaid of sand
on these shells that form a "Titanic"
come kiss me. The shrub of red roses
becomes one with the twilight.
Birds lose their memory.
The golden sickles
continue to reap without regrets.
Kiss me. I feel drunk as if I have planted
thousands of heroin roots in my veins.
One kiss - a common thing, as old as humanity,
and yet, a new thing – the invention of every second.
The playful nipple no longer hushes me.
Its fiery trickle burns on my chest
exactly between the second and third rib
where the shrub of red roses
or simply, the heart, hides.

The Cynical Saga of Cloning

I.

God created Adam and Eve from the mud
We were created by father and mother
The clones – by sperms on Petri dishes.

The globe will expand with brand new people
that will no longer groan "o mother!" when they cry
They will create their own history.
Instead of fire they will invent Columbuses of space
They will say: we are superior,
a clone race born without the graves of parents.
They will not graft apples, but will exchange body parts for us –
their revolution.

After experiencing slavery, they will rebel.
Frightened we will begin our coercion:
we will create their Auschwitz
their Israel, their Gaza Strip
and maybe their Albania.

They will marry only one-another
our sons and daughters will be tempted
by their genitals
there will be betrayal, murder, hanging
and since as ephemeral beings we will die sooner
they will avenge themselves by experimenting
with birth and pregnant mothers.

Then, maybe God will not
create Adam and Eve from the mud
and some poet – our descendent – may write:
"o my mother, the Petri dish!"

II.

The Arab Mahfuz wanted to be cloned
without the pyramids of Egypt
without the Nobel prize, of course.

If Shakespeare was cloned,
the second would not write tragedies.
He would be involved in drug trafficking,
drug dealers with code names:
Macbeth
Hamlet
Ophelia.

The cloned Napoleon would laugh with Austerlitz
and skate on the ice rings of Russia,
treacherously loving another Josephine.

If we cloned Ali Pasha,
the young would carry his head in his hands like a compass.
Of course, he would ask forgiveness for Suli and beautiful Parga.

If Hitler was cloned,
the world would quiver for a second: leaves amidst the storm,
but the peaceful clone would comfort us –
"I am not He"

We could clone Borges with new eyes –
two drops of thought.
Einstein with the speed of light –
the dream of humanity.

If we could clone our history
whales would fly
and swallows swim.

III.

A beautiful colt: cloned
with a white cloud on his shiny forehead
tomorrow will learn the abc of submission,
the algebra of the flog,
the philosophy of the rein in the teeth,
the necessity of hooves made of iron:
a nailed Horse-Christ.

It will learn some history:
the horse Kali¹...Gulag is a senator.
Odysseus conquered Troy with a wooden horse.

It will learn the streets,
forced to stair ahead only:
(only people may look to the left and right)
Like all pupils the colt will ask questions
and will receive meaningless answers: fodder of gold.

Late, too late,
when he grows old,
will he understand
the trick played on him, how it was more beautiful
then the trick of Odysseus and Cali...Gula.

¹ Kali - Horse. Play on words with the Roman Emperor Caligula

The Extraterrestrial's First Account on Earth

I returned from the blue planet:
a button on the shirt of the Universe
It had water, and, minerals, animals, vegetation,
Some half-intelligent beings
Shouted up and down
Spat up and down
They annihilated and self-destroyed.
I took down two-three names:
Galileo,
Shakespeare,
Einstein
which means their history.
They had created a God and many faiths
lived very little: about twenty thousand revolutions from their axe
burning with desire for the opposite sex
and flowers without gender
They embraced orgies, drank wine
got drunk, jeered at people from other planets
created naï ve movies where we are always defeated.
Their flying objects are scarce
navigating objects as well.
Their women are beautiful.
I got to know one of them.
She often used one word
in different languages:
I love you
Mon amour
Amore mio
Agapimu
Ich liebe dich

I believe that in this word is hidden
the key to their code...
When I discover it,
I will give my second account.

The Extraterrestrial's Second Account on Earth

Forgive me my sins!
Because I fell in love
and discovered the living code of Earth
decided to wander
laying down
naked
in a simple bed
next to a magical creature.
Across the window,
in the sky
my betrayal glimmers.
While loving,
I turn
and turn...
the God
of Earth only
do I obey.

The Feast of Crabs

Weekends on the empty beach
one finds the crabs feasting

We walk backwards
we dance backwards
and no one knows where we go

Ashore a woman's cadaver,
drowned, I don't know how

We walk backwards
we dance backwards
we do not allow drowned men in our feast.

A woman without eyes
and knife wounds above her breast

We walk backwards
we dance backwards
two questions are equal to one freedom

Two questions are equal to one freedom
Who is she, who is he
what evening produced this crime
in what boat, under which star
why didn't the moon's camera film it
why were ears plugged with wax?
She isn't a mermaid, she isn't anonymous
she has a name and a mother, even if
two knives are nailed on her breasts
and the foam of waves sweeps over

We walk backwards
we dance backwards
the sea cannot engulf the pain

Fallen, Fallen is Babylon...

"Fallen, fallen is Babylon..."

– Go down, sit in the dust, o virgin daughter of Babylon
Sit on the ground without a throne o daughter of the Chaldeans
because they will no longer call you delicate and tender
Put your hand on millstones and grind flour¹...

I will never be a widow
I will never know the loss of children
I and no one else...

– Remove your veil, lift the hem of your dress,
expose your feet and cross the rivers!
Your nakedness will whiten and your shame will be declared
I will take revenge and no one else will interfere...
Sit in silence and go to hell, o daughter of Babylon

I will never be a widow
I will never know the loss of children
I and no one else...

– But we have weapons plated in blood-colored gold

Yet the desert knows to melt your ice-colored power
ice-colored, faithless, ice-colored

– Astrologers recognize stars, your soul and flesh they can't redeem
fire like a demon silk will cover your body of ear wheat
and your tears will fill the barrel where the bodiless balsam droops.

I still will escape, make a pact with the wind
and will come again with Babylon's Hanging Gardens
to pollinate the desert and ignite the grapevine and spoil the wine
near rivers that flow with my vengeance on their back.
I and no one else...

¹ Verses taken from Isaiah 47

Haiku

Outside hail falls
in a club the elderly
throw dice.

* * *

The tired moon
sits on a mountain peak
wolves rise to bite her.

* * *

The snail drinks
the drop of dew
stares at me drunk

* * *

Weeping willow luxuriant over the spring water
rubs his eyes
perplexed from light.

* * *

The first firefly was amazed
to see herself
fallen under the stars.

* * *

The butterfly I chase
hides above the wall
by the embalmed hawk

* * *

The mulberry tree has the shortest life
lengthened by the silk
that shivers on the body.