3 poems by Jeton Kelmendi

Jeton Kelmendi is a poet, player, publicist, translator, publisher, a professor of university and academic. Kelmendi did a PhD in the “Influence of media in EU Political Security Issues”. He is professor at AAB University College. His first book entitled: “The Century of Promises” Shekulli i Premtimeve, was published in 1999.  To date he has published 14 original books, 27 other languages translations of his books, and he has translated 12 books of other authors, making him the most translated Albanian author. He has won several awards. 

Jeton Kelmendi ndinyanduri, mutambi, mushambadziri, muturukiri, mutsikisi wemabhuku, uye mudzidzisi wepamusoro wepaUnivhesiti. Kelmedi akazoita digiri rokupedzisira zvidzidzo zveku Univhesiti re filosofi dokotera rezve «kukosha kwemapepanhau mumubatanidzwa we Yuropu panyaya dzematongerwo nedzekuzvidzivirira». Muzvinafundo wepamusoro pa univhesiti ye AAB ku Belgium. Bhuku rake rokutanga rainzi «Chiuru cheZvivimbiso» mugore rechiuri nemazana mapfumbamwe nemakumi mapfumbamwe anepfumbamwe. Kusvika nhasi uno akatsikisa mabhuku aakanyora gumi nemana, ake akturikirwa kumitaura makumi maviri nenomwe, uye iye akaturikira mabhuku evamwe vanyori gumi nemaviri kureva kuti ndiye munyori akaturikirwa kupfuura vose vekuAlbania. Akawanawo mikombe yakawanda.

HUREMU

Kubudikidza mukuwedza mhuka isina ropa

Matombo egirazi haaonekwi

                    —Frederico Garcia Lorca

 Zvinhu zvisinganzwisisike ndivo vanhu,

Chinhu chose chine mamiriro acho

Mumiro wacho

Chiumbwa chohumunhu,

Nguva namwari wekuumba

Kukosha kwake mukadzi, mupfungwa dzangu

Pasina chaiyo mhando,

Zvinotara miganhu yohuremu

Mazuva achiuya achienda, anopupurira

Kune izvo zvakandiumba,

Zvokushandisa kuti zvivakwa zvitange, izwi

Uye nguva ine rudo

Zvichinzwisisika, musoro wefungidziro

Unoshandisa kuva nomukana kune mipikicha isina muviri,

Isina pokugumira.

Kubva mukuva tisati tasvika

Tichishungurudzika kuumba;

Chimwe pamusoro pechimwe

Kuenzana kuri matiri uye kuchiratidza

Hwaro hudiki pakati,

Manheru anorira uye achikupwanyidzira

Kubva kutafura yokunyorera yako kuuya kuzuva rino

Nzira dzose dzinouya kwandiri.

Kubva pane mujaho wese wohupenyu,

Maitiro okupira emwoyo wako

Pane kuguma pane huremu

Vanoti rudo

Rudo, chiumbwa cheninga dzepfungwa

Iyi nzwimbo irimandiri, iri mauri

Iko zvino, ziva nokudzvinyirirwa kwehwangu huremu

Manheru omusi wegumi nhatu muna Ndira mugore rezviuru zviviri negumi nenhatu, Brussels

MATTER

      Through an amphibian trail

      The crystals are elusive

                    —Frederico Garcia Lorca

Strange things are human creatures,

Everything has its own appearance,

Shape

Being of creation,

Time and God of making.

Her brand, in my thoughts

Without a specific format,

It sets out the parameters of matter.

Days coming and going, testify

For my own makeup,

The material from which creation begins, the word

And time with love.

Understandably, the theme of theories

Practices access to images without forms,

Without dimension.

From the pre-arrival

Suffering to shape it;

One plus one

Equality with us and points.

Narrow between space,

The evening sounds and narrows you.

From your desk to this day

Every path leads to me.

At every pace of life,

Your heart rites

There are epilogues in the matter

They say love.

Love, this craft of the soul

The place is in me, in you.

Now, know with my muttered stuff.

The evening of 30 January 2013, Brussels

VABVAKURE VAVIRI MUVÄXJÖ

Pane vabvakure vaviri muguta

Mukadzi uye murume,

Vamwe vose vanotarisika kusiyana.

Vanoita kunge vasiri kufamba,

Zvose zvinotaurwa

Ndizvo zvinonzi navabvi vokure;

Umwe uye nemumwe vakasangana

Muguta

Manheru anouya kunge muridzi wemba uye mushanyi,

Zvinogovana maitiro erombe uye hurukuro dzinokura

Kunakidziswa hakusi kutarisirwa,

Kunzwisa kuri kuuya kune guta iri

Apo hunhu hunonzwisiswa

Vabvi vokure vaviri

Vanoita kunge vasangani kokutanga,

Kwete kunge sezvazviri

Muguta iri rine rudo nevanoyemurwa.

Vokutanga nokupedzisira

Apo vanosangana,

Husiku hwaiva kurara kwevagonesesi,

Umu mune vana vakatorwa

Mumwaka yerudo,

Kudzamara rungano rwose rwapedzwa

Muguta iri

Vokunze vavira vanoroverana

Muhusiku,

Kudzama vazozviona mangwana acho;

Vanorota nevasingarote vanouya

Muchishanu

Muguta iri

Vanoti kune mivara yakawanda

Hupenyu.

Kusanzwisiska, asi ichokwadi

Usiku hweVäxjö

Hwakava hune mwaka mina yerudo

Kune vokunze vaviri ava.

Mbudzi gore rezviuru zviviri nesere, Växjö, Sweden

TWO FOREIGNERS IN VÄXJÖ

There are two foreigners in the city

A lady and a gentlemen,

All others look different.

They are not like walking,

Everything that is spoken is

What two foreigners say;

One and the other met

In the city.

The evening comes as the host and guest,

Exchange rites of pariahs and conversations grow

Ecstasy is not expected,

Understanding is coming to this city

When characters are understood.

Two foreigners

Seems to have met first,

Not as it is

In the city with love legends.

The first and the last

Once met,

That night was the sleep of the intelligentsia,

In which four were overtaken

Seasons of love,

Until the whole story was finished.

In the city

Two aliens crashed

Overnight,

Until they found it tomorrow;

The dreaming and undreaming came to

Friday.

In the city

They say there are many colors

Life.

Strange, but true

The night of Växjö

Has had four seasons of love

For two foreigners.

November 2008, Växjö, Sweden

NDICHADZOKA ZVAKARE MUMAVHESISI

Unoziva mwaka wepfumvudza kubva mumaruva chete…

—Paul Géraldy

Ndichadzoka zvakare kumavhesisi

Kuti ndisangane newe

Sezvo ndakushuva husiku huno,

Kuti ndikude hope nokurota

Uye husiku hutema uhu

Kuti ndive nokuzvidzora,

Uye kuti nditambe mavhesisi zvishoma

Erino detembo

Nokuda kwokudaro

Ndichakuona sei husiku huno

Kana pfungwa dzangu dzave dzega ?

Mazwi maviri

Epamusoro peizwi :

Ndaanzwa achiti,

Izwi remwoyo

Ndiro riri kure uye pedyo nezwi

Rakanyanyoomarara,

Ini ndaida kuti

Kubva munhetembo dzangu

Izwi rakabvamo rikandidaidza

Oooo heeee ooooo.

Ndichange ndiri husiku huno

Izwi

Richasunganidza mutsetse wemazvi.

Kungoti urambe wakanakisisa

Mumavhesisi angu

Mushure mokudaidzira mazwi

Kuriverengazve

Ndichave husiku huno

Verengo yakanakisisa,

Kudzidza kuti mwoyo unoratidzwa sei.

Kutsvenenzvera kunakidza kwemapeji.

Kuti ndingoziva zvakawanda pamusoro pako

Ndichave,

Izvo zvandisingaite husiku huno

Yakanakisisa misoro yenhetembo

Nokuti

Iwe uchagara apo

Apo ichange ichifukatidzwa

Oslo, Noweyi, munaNdiri mugore rezviuru zviviri negumi neimwe

I WILL RETURN INTO THE VERSES

      You know spring only from flowers ...

                                            —Paul Géraldy

I'll go back to the verses

To meet you

Since I missed this night,

To overcome sleep by dreaming

And this dark night.

To be cautious,

And to dance the verses a little

Of this poetry.

Otherwise

How do I see you tonight,

When my mind is alone?

Two words

Regarding the voice:

I heard say,

The voice of the heart

It is the farthest or nearer voice

The most ragged,

I wanted to say.

From my poetry

A voice came out and called me

Oooo heeee oooo.

I'll be tonight

The word

To stitch in the sentence.

Just to keep you beautiful

In my verses

After each punctuation

To read it again.

I will be this night

A beautiful reading,

To learn how the heart is depicted.

Surfing pleasure pages,

Just to know more about you.

I will be,

What I will not do tonight.

The best of poetry’s titles,

Because

You stay over

Just as it is shadowed.

Oslo, Norway, January 2011

Translated into Shona by Tendai Rinos Mwanaka

5 poems by Niladri Mahajan

An award winning bilingual poet, author of Poetry books- "A Diffused Room" and “Aura of Light”, a counselling psychologist, Niladri Mahajan lives in Kolkata, India. His poems are translated into French, Arabic, Bengali, Japanese and Italian. He is also a PhD student in Bioinformatics of Calcutta University. He is trained in Eastern and Western Classical music, is also participated in three group painting and photography exhibitions in recent past, and active as a street photographer, watercolour artist. He loves to do long afternoon walks, scuba diving and gliding.

 

Akahwina mikombe munyori anonyora nomitauro miviri, munyori wemabhuku enhetembo “Imba yakapfapfaidzwa” uye “Uromba hwemwenje”, dokotera anorapa pfungwa, Naladri Mahajan anogara kuguta reKolkota, Indiya. Nhetembo dzake dzakaturikirwa muchiFrench, Arabic, Bengali, Japanese uye Itariana. Mudzidzi wezvidzidzo zvepamusoro pauniversity zvefilosofi dhokotera mune zvokufambisa mashoko mukati memuviri paCulcutta Univhesiti. Akadzidziswa nezvemimhanzi yokumabvazuva neyekumadokero yechinyakare, uye akabatana nevamwe mukushambadzirwa kwezvemifananidzo yokupenda uye mipikicha yekamera munguva yapfuura, uye anowanikwa kazhinji achitora mipikicha munzira dzomudhorobha, uye kupenda. Anofarira

Maple Leaves

This morning light is a winter...

When I am in deep muse,

Spreads the snow

Beneath the deepest nature.

 Mashizha eMepuru

Rujeko rwemangwanani ano mwaka wechando…

Apo ndinenge ndiri mukufunga kwakadzama,

Unopararidzira chando

Kuenda pasi pasi pezvisikwa

You     

My offerings are

Only one word… you!

I murmured it slowly

As a never ending

Burning of an incense stick.

 Iwe

Zvipirwa zvangu ndizvo

Rimwechete izwi… iwe!

Ndakarizevezera zvinyoronyoro

Kunge chisingaperi

Kupiswa kwemuti weInisenzi

What is life?

Simplify all the figures

That’s in front of you.

Are you still angry?

This is not geometry

With a compass

And pencil, I know.

But I reflect you

As long as you are willing

To answer my questions

There.

Chii Chinonzi Hupenyu?

Tsanangura yose miviri

Zviri pamberi pako.

Wakachangogumbuka here?

Iyi haisi dzidziso yemiviri

Ine nhongedzo yenzira

Uye penzura, ndinozviziva.

Asi ndinoratidza iwe

Chete pose pauchange uchida

Kupindura mibvunzo yangu

Ipapo

First Love

An image… melting

Behind the frosty glass.

A steamy landscape.

Death-white. Coloured.

Rudo Rwokutanga

Mufananidzo… urikunyunguduka

Kuseri kwegirazi ravharwa nechando mhute.

Dunhu rine kufashaira

Kufa-kuchena. Rine mivara

My Kind Of Girl

                    

You are worst of everything

And sweet of nothing, any phrase

Defers you, in this habitual way.

Usually, it not fits you at all.

 Mhando Yomusikana Wangu

Wakashata mune zvose

Uye usina paunotapira, chipi chirahwe

Hachikubvumi, mune mukuita uku.

Kazhinji, hachikufiti kana zvacho

 Translation into Shona by Tendai Rinos Mwanaka

Tendai Rinos Mwanaka is a Zimbabwean publisher, editor, translator, mentor, writer, visual artist and musical artist with close to 30 books published, more here: http://www.africanbookscollective.com/authors-editors/tendai-rinos-mwanaka. He writes in English and Shona. His work has appeared in over 400 journals and anthologies from over 30 countries. Work has been translated into Spanish, Serbian, Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish, Hungarian, French and German. 

Extract from A DARK ENERGY(Novel)

Chapter 14


             The next eight days he kept inside waiting for Lillian to return. The next eight or so days he stayed inside, did the maths, tapping the numbers into an emotional calculator, trying to reach for some formulaic conclusions. It was eight days and nights in which nights screamed upwind the way stars lose their valid phantoms. He survived on a meagre diet of horizon off the windows, asking for the sky, hodden grey some days, to unravel morning, to set free the imprisoned sun, to strike bargains with the sun. The sky, grey-pinked some other days, in the arc of a glow; and some other days, chain-link grey- were like broken promises marrying pain and deep sighs. He passed himself several times as he was herding out to go back, going up to go down, going from home just to get to home. He was a forgotten road coming from nowhere.
             At least he still had the clock on the walls to tell him it was bed time.
             In those eight days, he survived by attrition, emptying out his heart and laying it bare on the table as he dealt with too much psychic traffic. His mind became a rain-fed river, a broken barometer, an industrial diamond lost in the cargo.  
            Maybe, he should have left for another place or even go abroad, forgetting or remembering who he was or who Lillian was to him but he stayed home. Yet, he knew, he couldn't stay inside forever, a guardian of rooms, the purpose of his existence! No! There were no guides for him, none at all home. All his enquiries were coming back unanswered. He discovered that she wasn't coming back. He had to trust anything else, but a new day. It was tomorrow which was like today that was coming back every morning and that tomorrow was uncovering the emptiness, the fear of aloneness, of life and life waning.
             That tomorrow's world was squatting snarling, teeth bared in savage hiss of blood and conflict, waking him back everyday to the reality of his life behind those concrete walls. Only for him to rudely discover that he was always alone. Everywhere he looked, on everything: dark, dark, dark… until another morning had its say.
            He discovered he had been turning into a malevolently distorted zombie, parleying with God in those frigid rooms, full of hatred. Maybe he had been like that since the day he saw Lillian lying behind that small bush in the park?  He discovered that this desire, this grief, this anger, this pain that he had been holding onto in its own heat had now turned into spite. When we desire anger, pain and grief as love and that when such slight hope of finding that love faded, then nothing would remain. When we hand tie these barbs of grief into soft strands in our hearts we will as well be twisting these strands tightly until our hearts were bleeding. We would strangely admire our handwork at that, unable to understand, or express our loneliness.
             Grief, guilty, in that spot that was so raw and open, that felt like the skin was coming off, weighed heavy on him like an eternity ring of habit settling on a good address, a wife, children, home and dusted down acquaintances.
            He had to come back to some kind of reality. How about starting by opening up her shopping bag? Don remembered Lillian had promised him something for the past Christmas holiday.
             He went to find her handbag in the drawers. It was there tucked clean from the blood. Someone had cleaned off Lillian's blood. He opened it with bathed breathe. In her bag were a few of Lillian's own things that helped him search through a winter long of memories, discarding endless nothing-like-her-things and a bran-new gold watch. It was her special gift to him. The one she had gone to buy him when she was murdered by Bones. He couldn't help visualising seeing Lillian presenting it to him with that serene infectious smile. He knew she wanted to enjoy the wonder that would come across his face as he opened that gift.
              Now, her image in his mind had a scowl against time looting the seasons. Then below the bag was this card. It was one of her own and not like those colourful ones but simple, like her; infringed with purplish red roses. Very simple roses and inside the card were these few words
            "I always will be yours" Just those five words and nothing else! Her pen running dry, that was her last method and now he missed her stroking a pen. Always being mine; what had become of that promise? Maybe Browning was correct when he caused these words.                                                  
                                   
"Nay blame grief that’s fickle
Time that proves a traitor.
Chance, chance, all that purpose warps.
Death who spares to thrust the sickle,
Laid love low, through flower which later,
Shroud the corpse! "
 
            Maybe, he felt, he had to blame grief, maybe time, maybe death, maybe God, maybe himself…
            MAN: Him, Himself, Don, maybe the human condition, the condition of humans, conditioned to failure.  Maybe he had to disagree with Browning.
            He had come to believe in things always being the same and never expected things to change and he himself, being alone again. That one day, he could be facing all these things alone, all thorns and thistles of life, all alone, and of course, he couldn't have thought of anything being different... and that's expectation in us. Now, he was feeling the pain and anger and who wouldn't have had given that they had lost their loved ones. For the first time in his life he felt how painful it was to miss to be missed. He also felt how painful and foolish it can be to surrender hopes of ever getting closer to the names and shapes that one has depended on to live.
            Suffering is contractive, unintelligible, maddening, strange…
            Since his anger had been arrested for the past eight days it now reared its ugly head up in fury, backward crested within him. The storm within him was fiercer yet soaring, swelling and roaring like a released cauldron's swirl. It was a frenzied beast. Every resistance within him was swept into an instant void. He felt beset, besieged, deadlocked, sandwiched in grief, anger and guilty. All these were surging eddies and cesspools of resistance emptying into madness, into a madness that no longer was containable. These dark energies were exerting an enormous force in his universe, bringing back the forgotten past of twenty four years ago, jazzing up the anger all the more. There was only one missing mass to make it complete. Dare we call this missing mass, spiritual? But, who is to say Eve's apple wasn't a nettle seed, an aloe seed, or even lemon?

            Twenty four years before, his home, now miles away in the eastern highlands where he was born, and the heart heavy as lead; he was all alone on this lonesome road. Walking, as if walking in the hard rain, the hard raindrops beating the road just as loud as young lovers kissing, he now had nowhere else to go. His parents: Long dead parents, their souls fished out, their legs buckled and spent, were buried under the dirt. Twenty four years before, the parents he loved had died.
             Maybe it could have been fair had he gone to bed with them that night. He couldn't be facing all this alone! He knew of a fate worse than death that couldn't allow him to die with his parents getting involved in his destiny. It was a fate that would wake up on the doorstep of death. The smack of that competent fate had a lot to show him. That fate wanted him to face everything in this world alone. Maybe that's why he refused to share bed with his parents that night.
             That's why, all of a sudden, he wanted to own his own place and slept in that kitchen where he always feared being alone in at night. Yet that night, he wanted to be alone, to be at his own, to grow up, breaking out of his parents' clutches at the treacle age of six. That's what he did. He seemed to have grown up, however, as he opened his eyes to see, everybody was dead, but only him. They had died and left him alone in such a terrifying world. He had to grope around, sometimes holding onto small ledges, never bigger ones for that matter! He couldn't help holding onto them and one of them was the orphanage. In between, he had come to believe that it would always be there.
             Small ledge that it was, four years it was, the ledge all of a sudden vanished. Leaving him in total darkness, in the middle of nowhere with nothing to hold onto; always falling this way that way, swirling. The dark beginnings of a terrifyingly awesome dream, in Harare, after the orphanage, the road had been a lonesome one, but still peopled. The road was as much inhabited as was his mind, and all of which resembled the other when they could act kindly towards the other. He did hold onto that road of aloneness for far too long.
             He couldn't move a step and if ever he did move it appeared as if he hadn't taken such a step. He was still there where he was when he woke up suddenly in that night. He couldn't breathe in the heat, in the smoke that enclosed him, in that smoky trance-like dream. Visionary though, not so far away; the smoke seemed to lighten. He had started to move toward that point. He had been moving and choking from the smoke when it started hotting up all the more. Then, flames started erupting from all around him, circling him in. The heat was too unbearable and breathing was of the suffocating and choking kind. When he had been thinking he was passing out, suddenly he woke up. Surprising though, it was so hot and smoky! He could hear faint cries emanating from his parents' hut so he went out to find out…
            What he saw and felt that day: he just felt something in his chest giving way like a hand releasing a pigeon into air. His gut seemed like it was sinking, like an echo after a fall. It was his Mom and Dad, being held in their moaning by the fire's chilling breath. Radiant gas was steaming like a jet of vision out through the doorway. Through this small doorway, he observed the process of dissolving into ash, his parents covered in flames and gas of smoke.
             The smoke rose and rose with surcease. He could also hear the burning in the form of a low bass-note, and the almost noticeable smell of the flesh burning, the meat frying, roasting, strong in his nose. A little later, he could see the wing-like flames billowing, a lava of flames out of the margins of their bodies. Then their disintegrated skeletons, what's left of them: were two burned bodies now unrecognisable that had survived temperatures of above five hundred degrees Celsius.
             Hip joints, four pairs of forceps, a femur, an ulna, a scapula, a patella, pebbles of metatarsals, pebbles of metatarsals, the skulls glowing in the heat of the burning. Those skulls, still recognisably human's skulls, were still burning to a jaundiced yellow-blue, an aura between lilac and or cornflower. These bestial pieces that couldn't fill a plastic bag, tortured by their passion and love of each other! And then the two plastics lying on the grounds, both of bits and pieces of his parents' leftovers, salvaged from the fire, now arranged perfectly in an impossible syncopation.
              The silence between them was a wet blanket. It was as if the end of life was really about shedding one's identity along with the physical form that holds it. The memory of it all! He had came to hate any kind of burning, even lights in a room he slept in had to be put out before he could go to sleep. It represented to him, uncannily steady flames separated from smoke. He would wake up in the middle of the night, his heart thudding violently, if he leaves the lights on.