top of page

Ndue Ukaj 

Translated from Albanian by Peter Tase

 

Utopia

 

 

 

Everything is different, in the horison the Sun is crumbled 

The crumbles remained on the earth’s heart like triumphant arrows.

 

We can’t recognise the colors through the wind caressing the memory

We do not read poetry in the universe of fullishness

Where relations between darkness and light

Appear just like relations between the wall and thought.

 

Behind is played the surprising game, just like before

Birds are falling in the ground, just like in times when hell was written,

Oh God, everything has changed,

At a time when a small fence is darkening our our big eyes.

 

The moon finds a path through nummy hands remaining like arrows towards the sky

And the sun dissolving just like a candle through tired eyes

Who can’t see anything in the blue sky, except a small cloud

A cloud darkening everything 

 

Therefore vision is coiled in space

Just like the wind creating its avalanche

Then many faces appear.

At a night, when everything is different,

Containing inside the borders within your head

When you feet walk through illusions

And sqweeze their bad dreams

For the time that isn’t, for the time that wasn’t

For the time that will not come

For the time that goes with the wind.

Utopia struggling against reality

Her dreams hidding at the corner of secrets

Are swallowed.

 

Beauty is high, between earth and sky

                                         Me and you.

A brain with mixed thoughts,

Is like the great homesickness with rare truths

Hidding below a dense grass, wetted grass.

Beauty is high, between earth and sky

                                         Me and you.

 

Where the truth falls,

Just like tall oak trees from the storm

 

That’s how the path is lost from darkness and gates are invisible

In the sacred city.

 

Time prohibits to reveal the true face

In the great garden, where all fruits, all flowers, are planted, 

Altogether with pain with love.

 

Deserves happyness

Yes, the miracle of happyness.

 

Your glimpse is vigorous,

And your eyes have turned into dry creeks.

 

The beauty is high, between earth and sky

                                                 Me and you.

Oh, how brown is the soil and trees have absorbed the soil’s color.

Except happyness is a tree with juicy fruits

In the garden where a dense grass hides our feet.

 

 

 

Godo is not coming

 

 

 

It is raining, the road from Ireland is impassable

The sea cannot be passed with small steps, on rainy nights

When solitude is overwhelming you enjoy the earthquake cracks of the Earth

When pain has no time even for scientific explanation.

 

Godo is not coming; it is late, infected by the welcoming

Sleeping comfortably, amongst both of our dreams.

He is not coming, neither under the tree of life nor in the theatre of wonders,

Under the sleep of expectation which your time doesn’t understand...our time.

 

You are waiting, like the bride on the abandoned bed,

Dreaming of him with open arms as he brings a sack full of dreams

Extending your hands with softness, as in the beloved hair...relaxes there

And prays to your dreams, intertwined through your tall fingers.

Suddenly a bite freezes your body, your hand flies from the sack.

Wiping your forehead you understand that Godo didn’t come, neither his enigmatic look.

Nonetheless you are not convinced that your dream entered in a sack.

It was tied forever just like Godo’s arrival.

Surprisingly passed on the other side of the furious river of words

as you pass amongst the dreams full of wonders towards the guards of time

That makes the noise of life in the dream of expectation.

Nearby the time guards

Foster the hope that Godo nevertheless will come.

 

Godo is not coming, no...!

You are crying, crying frantically until your tears have made a creek

between your cheeks and your continuous flow of tears.

Where the heart beats are felt like the steps of the unknown

In the gloomy night when grief is around the corner

And even Godo could experience it on his hands and be thrown desperately.

KNOT Magazine Fall Issue 2014

Ndue Ukaj (1977) is Albanian and Swedish writer, publicist and literary critic. He is a member of several literary editorials. He has also been an Editor for the art, culture and society magazine, "Identity" that was published in Pristina.

 

Ukaj is included in several anthologies of poetry, in Albanian, and other languages. He has published five books, including “Godot is not coming”, which won the national award for best book of poetry published in 2010 in Kosovo. He has also won the award for best poems in the International Poetry Festival in Macedonia.

 

Ukaj’s poems and essays are widely published in Kosovo and Albania, as well as in the USA, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Sweden, Finland, Italy and Romania. Ukaj is a regular contributor in major newspapers in Kosovo and electronic magazines and media sources in Albania.

 

Ukaj is a member of the Swedish PEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

bottom of page