KNOT Magazine
Fall Issue 2022
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.
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