After midnight

[Cupke_pe_Korce]

Speak no more; I beseech you,
for only silence speaks truly to the heart.
Wasn’t words that failed us
again and again? and our reason
ruthlessly feeding upon our flesh;
its silver claws never tired of clenching,
reaching deep within us
sizing that elusive something?
And yet, it still remains unknown,
how deep is deep.
Oh, speak no more!
Many things were said—true, false, sad
but nothing truly.
So, don’t speak.
The sky is painted purple;
Life has had its days
and night walks in,
unfurling her blue veil
over the region where
memories dwell.
Speak no more, and don’t try to understand
how mute words devour my brain
digging a hole in it—a black hole
which, swirling around,
absorbs,
sustains.
Never again
shall the light escape from it!
So, speak no more; only listen
to what silence has to say:
Faith in humanity cannot be restored
by empty prayers.
Faith is earned!
So, one last stretch dear,
one last voiceless stretch.

[Cupke_pe_Korce]

Overcast skies are giving way. A leaf trembles in the breeze. A bird squatters amongst the branches. A roar rises from the depths of horizon, blowing, changing. On the other side, ivy has stretched its multiple arms around the world which, suffocating in lush greenness, now sighs a few vapors of relief, while a million little stars cascade down the window like the bouquet of the bride when she walks down the isle. One uncurls its body and feels the warmth: the temple is lit; the flame burns high. As if by some mysterious force, ever lengthening, ever sharpening, the doors fling open—a river of gold dashes out, flooding the heart of that ephemeral and indefinable thing which is often seen swinging its slender body over the abyss. Perishable! It’s all perishable, except the footsteps upon the path of fear—fear that changes, fear that sustains, and which can only be induced by the velvet touch of otherworldliness.
I said I will forget but I lied.

[Cupke_pe_Korce]

Do you remember the day I took you to the airport? British Airways had made and unexpected landing and a multitude of people kept darting through the two sided door which flung open every two seconds. You said you had never seen so many people before, all rushing to reach some destination, all carrying with them black suitcases, dragging them, and dragging. And the lady with green eyes; remember how the little girl let go off her hand and burst forth in all vigor once she caught sight of the man in the bowler hat? She run gracefully (you were still holding the iron bars when you felt the blood rushing, the veins swelling, the heart beating at her springy footsteps—an arrow of pain went through your whole being each time her pink shoes touched the marble floor. You held the iron bars tighter, tighter, when in a blink of an eye, her youthful body let go off its natural balance and blundered) She fell. She lay there helplessly, her hair tangled, her limbs spread out; she lay there motionless. It seemed like the entire universe held its breath for a few seconds and then recovered at a sudden cry, a childish one, like the one life screams when it beholds the sun for the first time. The man in the bowler hat made haste and, bending down, he stretched his clumsy arms and picked her up. He held her tightly as he led her away and the scene was over. You could still hear her crying in the hallway; her voice becoming fainter, dying away and slowly dying…
Sometimes, it is by a childish blunder we realize that some part of us will always be waiting at some airport, while some other is always carrying through—life!—the black suitcase, stuffed with the least important and most necessary things, which we long to get rid off upon arrival.

[Cupke_pe_Korce]

The boat was moving, slowly but surely, turning its enormous deck eastward. The city lights drew back at the same pace, their flickering existence becoming weaker and weaker, until the eye could only see a bluish-yellowish crown encircling what once was the skyline. A pleasant wind was hugging the flag which seemed too excited to resist the flutter of passion, while the stars disappeared from the view as they do when the storm is approaching. Now the boat had picked up speed. The sail was gentle; the sky was dark. There, there, at a distance, the journey had reached the triple point: darkness, sky and sea—all fused together, inseparably together, all coexisting at a point where time and space have lost their attributes—the point of no return. She stared at this miraculous event with the frenzy of a madwoman and closed her eyes to better hear the roaming wind. The earth was spinning counterclockwise, faster, faster; the days, months, years, kept falling across the sky like burning meteorites which dissolve just before they hit the ground. “Nothing, nothing will ever be the same!”—she heard. She knew that voice (for years it kept dashing in her brain) and she wanted to scream—a scream that for years remained imprisoned within her—“How could it possibly when it never was?!”— and she wanted to smash that screen where the most ruthless of plays was performing, into a million little pieces, turn it to dust…—but she said nothing; she did nothing. Untroubled by the waters that rose and fell the boat kept descending, down, down, in the eternal darkness.
God is a comedian, they say. Then, why like tragedy???