Albanian Authors

Fahredin GUNGA

The wave

Burning with desire for the rocks
She breaks like a woman in orgiastic frenzy
And carries in her arms the joy of remoteness,
The mock tale of beauty, and

Born of the womb of the sea
Like the bastard child of unnamed sin
Pregnant with the weight to deceive life, and

Like a thief she snuggles onto the breast of the rocks
Into the rugged embrace of the old warrior, and
She lies and lies, and

Lying is the game of the waves,
- the game of falling and rising,
Of death and of birth, and

She startles at the frigidity of the rocks,
What deception as she makes love with the centuries!...

[Vala, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, and first published in English in An elusive eagle soars, anthology of modern Albanian poetry, London: Forest Books 1993, p. 72]

The porter

Oh, how hard this land is,
How often my heart has been crushed under the saddle!
Oh, how hard this land is!...

Night is fairer than day,
It rocks you to sleep, brings memories.

Sir,
Grant me but one smile,
Like those of my childhood,
And for once don't just look at my back.

[Hamalli, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, and first published in English in An elusive eagle soars, anthology of modern Albanian poetry, London: Forest Books 1993, p. 73]