Albania

Posted on September 13, 2016September 13, 2016 by Oddball Magazine — 2 Comments

Two Poems by Irsa Ruçi

Advice for women:
‘How to forget a man…’

You can gather all your friends so you can have a ‘I miss you’ coffee
as you see and read what’s inside the cup
you can talk about each single day that you dedicated to love
cursing
hating
and swearing to not overthink
Insisting that a new dress can bring somehow more peace to you
than a past lover;
bragging that the light of your eyes was born
so it can shine between smiles
not between tears!
Women are egoist when it comes to their happiness
they search the sweetness of life
in every breath they take
they always find the source of love
into innocence
A friendly saying;
Sometimes women love with the same forgetting speed…

Advice for men:
‘How to forget a woman’

You can go all night long to visit all the public
houses of this city with your friends
and yet tomorrow morning they’ll find you with
A glass of beer in your hands, or with lipstick stains on your neck
Drunk from the scent of woman
you’ll remember, a little sleepy, the night before
when unintentionally you said her name in another language
Remembering the first word you said between feelings
So senseless, that today i am not even ashamed anymore
but I have this feeling to re-say those feelings
when a breeze that comes from this manly chest takes them away
so they can fly somewhere else

You can lock yourself into your room
So you can search, into the darkness, the secret solitude of your soul
but the melody of rain will remind you
Her smile, spoken with the dialect of her heart.

And you’ll want to leave far away, to forget everything,
Until you understand yourself
Just remember that
Even tho’ you get tired
If a woman loves you still
You will never forget her….

Translated by Stela Xega.

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. Among many awards, she has received the first prize in poetry, in competition “Anthology 2007”, as the best poet in Albania.

Edward S. Gault is a poet and fine art photographer. He lives at Mosaic Commons, a co-housing community in Berlin, Ma. He has a wife Karen, and daughter.

Poem by Aida Bode

Indifference

Tell me, what does
the word suicide make you feel?
Does it make your spine shiver,
your knees weak,
your limbs disconnected,
your mind somehow able to see void
and your eyes lost in the idea of end.

Does it become a closed circle
inside your stomach which doesn’t
stop spinning, a hick up without breath,
last bite of life choked in your throat,
a twister without a hill to stumble,
yet clinging to death as
oxygen to flames, dust to water,

But you don’t worry about what it makes
you feel, it’s a fantasy that another lived.
All you have to do is plead innocent.
Your decision to cling despite
who’s scratched, who’s pulled away,
who’s thrown off the line-
blameless, pure, perfect.

Yet, the shivers travel their road
on your spine and don’t care
for your dead conscience.
Life is like that, it reveals itself instinctively,
a weed with purpose exposing
the true plants in a field,
some even call it wilderness,
others call it the judgment day.

Aida Bode is an Albanian writer, poet and translator. She was born in Korca, Albania and has published her earlier writings in the local newspaper of the city. Her recent work has been published in newspapers of the Albanian media, while her poems, “S.O.P.A” and “Fall” have been published by The River Muse and Dr. Hurley’s Snake Oil Cure.

Posted on December 11, 2013November 30, 2014 by Oddball Magazine — 3 Comments

Poem by Lediana Stillo

Smell The Rose

The city in the heart of the Ocean
The garden in the heart of the city
The gardener in the heart of the garden
The roses in the heart of the gardener

Light on

The little rose barely can breathe
Air is as quiet as the weather
play in London, its symphony of existentialism

Two cold eyes watch the little rose uninterested
A fork and a knife kill better any appetite

Light off

A fallen dove, with opened eyes, continue to exhibit
the last dance of roses. Magnified to accept his death.
Because roses grow everywhere.
Because roses kill everywhere
The purity of a little dove

The cold eyes examine it carefully
They do not move their eyelashes
They understand perfectly what it means
Escaping the smell of the roses

They do not help the dove
to close his eyes. They banish him
same as death banished its purity
long time ago.

How could that little dove
searched to possess the space
left from his mirror?

Light out

The little rose in front of a mirror
The mirror in front of the memories
The memories in front of the gardener
The gardener in front of the dreams.

The gardener waters his roses with tears
They are many. He does not remember their names
All he knows is that every morning he will count their shadows
And will water them in his heart.

“I’m tired of watering artificial roses”, he says
The little rose lows her head.
She doesn’t want to be artificial.

Light on

The gardener use e-smoke
He now smells his roses through a respirator
The roses are happy, touched by his soft hands
As canaries will be in their own prison .

Lights off

The little rose gives her last salute to the cold eyes
Happy being abandoned by him, just in time.

first microseconds © Dr. Regina Valluzzi

Lediana Stillo was born on November 25, 1980 in Korca, Albania. In March 2003 she interrupted her studies in the accounting field during her fourth year of College and emigrated to America. She is currently studying at Harvard University and working as a Reconciler Analyst for the State Treasury of Massachusetts. She is the editor of the 2012 anthology Sound of Wind: New American Lyrics. (2012) a project that was initiated by the Writers League of Kosovo. Other collections include Pax Deorum, Sin of Silence, Nymph’s Tears and her recent chapbook Clematis over a silent cathedral. She has been featured in Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo and in New York, where she was a special guest at the recent Albanian Film Festival.

Dr. Regina Valluzzi explores abstract scientific concepts through complex geometric paintings. Many of the subjects of her abstract drawings and paintings are taken from topics in Physics research. Soft Matter Physics and Biological Physics ideas are often seen, arising from her main area of research for many years.