Brahim (Ibish) Avdyli (Kosova)

Brahim (Ibish) Avdyli

Brahim (Ibish) Avdyli (1960), is a poet pertaining to the generation of the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s of the 2oth century. Born and raised in Morinë of Gjakova Highlands, an area known for its cultural and national traditions, he spent his youth years in two directions: the art of poetry and clandestine movement for the freedom and unification of the Albanian people. Following the completion of Gymnasium “Hajdar Dushi” in Gjakova he began his studies at the Technical Faculty, Architecture, which he did not finish as for economic reasons he moved to Switzerland. He later continued his studies at the Faculty of Philology Department of Albanian Literature and Language.

He has been active since 1979 working hard on the affirmation of the Albanian national issue and with the appearance of the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) in 1998 he was among the first to be on its side in the liberation struggle and its organization. His house at his birthplace in Morina of Gjakova became an important KLA base.

He has published numerous pieces, articles, analyses and other political writings and during 1990-1995 he led the Swiss-based review “Qëndresa”. Folloowing the fall of Morina author’s personal library was burned and many of his handwritings including a play “Precipice”, novels “Bread” and “Mist”, as well as many short stories were lost.

Among the many awards, it is worth mentioning the award of the League of Albanian Writers, Artists and Creators of Germany for the book of lyrical poetry "Arena e pain" as the best book of poetry in the Albanian Diaspora, in Wuppertal, in June 2018.

In addition to publications in the Albanian periodical, he has published nearly 20 works, but is also featured in 28 other works of Albanian and international anthologies. His poetry has been translated into Italian, German, Romanian, English, etc.

Brahim Ibish Avdyli is a member of the Writers' League of Kosovo (LSHK); of Swiss Authors and Authors (AdS); Alternative Scientific Academy (AASH), etc.

Some works of the author are waiting for a donor to be published...


MY SONG

My song – my perplexed life
your fingers got bleeding and you lost ten skins
wandering after the sun with a bag of dreams
with no cries and laments but running constantly
after seagulls flying over gloomy horizons...
Your pathways extend, they go large and never end
less and less it is I – I’ve forgiven you everything
my orphan girl – song, a thirsty blood flower;
what do to with the pain blossoming at each bud
what to do with your  sadness over dry sprouts
what to do with withering flowers – my slain life
when clock-towers shiver amidst seasons’ storms
placeless and homeless we are, eternal wanderers
no end to this Odyssey, nowhere Ithaca
to melt the ice with a smile of anxiety and yearning –
to warm up our hands by the hearth – never abandoned,
to refresh our patience, you – an exhausted voice
from the bottom of hell crying out, on the witches’ lawn…
Let’s  gather the bits of love and a torn out memory
with a half lung we may move towards the future
now we know it by heart why they cursed the mountains
and learnt how to descend to the sea and climb towards the sun
we learnt the way of scripts, passages of words
let us turn on the lanterns of soul beyond the ocean
you are my earth and sky for me – amber and ashes I am to you
cradle of my dreams – my growth you are,
so I whisper to you every night and hold you like a child
my perplexed life, my death – poetry...



GABIGABIIMI MËM

I AND SISYPHUS

I and Sisyphus
from two ends of time
have been measuring centuries
and burden of pain
like eternal punishment
leans heavy on us.

It seems that he
is more lucky
as he comes down to the end
to repeat the game –
any time the rock rolls down

And I –
a poor singer,
take and give a whole life
never moving from the spot
the rock of pain!



SPEECH VAMPIRES

Any time I speak
they tell me to keep silent

any time I keep silent
under their violence
they push me to speak

if I but move
my jaws out of despair
they threaten horribly

I wish to spit them
They scratch my face
And hide away

I try to forget them
but they suddenly appear
filled with rage…

You damned ones,
would the hell make sense
without you in it!



FAKE ORACLES

Poets too are able to flatter,
disseminate deception,
support the Caesar
and praise the tyrants –
in the name of fighting for Freedom!

Poets too know how to be
like all the rest,
driven by money,
international awards, become spokesmen
of a crazy tyrant
on the top of the Throne,

to cover the tragedies
with magic curtains of words,
framing painful dramas
of centuries
as they get bought!!...


People,
never trust
the fake oracles-
artists of the court!



ARGUS’ EYES

Your eyes, Argus
have been swollen by pain-
they ran out of freshness
by the time’s follies.

It wasn’t easy to see the world
by changing color
a dozen times a day
like a chameleon,

it wasn’t easy to see
demons revered like deities
and deities tearing down their lungs
in order to prove
their sanctity,

it wasn’t easy
to swallow all the junk
being sold for gold
between the two irises

and measure
the dioptry of grace
dissipation of the century
without daring to bring out
the truth -


Argus,
Your eyes were killed by ugliness
in an untimely time!



TRACES OF THE WORD

1. (Controlled)

Listening what I speak
Listening what they speak-

I see myself everyday in the mirror.



1. (Mirror)

If it weren’t for you - poetry,
Everything would be shining

of shamelessness!



2. (Controlled)

I writhe,
dying for man

and no man stretches his hand!


3. (Consolation)

The only consolation
to the seabird is

the line following it!



BEOYND ACHERON

My entire life resembles punishment –
joy passes before my eyes and I never reach it,
life goes by my face and I don’t taste it,
truth lingers in front and does not know me,
the world lives on and does not see,
luck comes behind my back but I can’t catch it…

My entire life looks like hell,
although deities did not it make it so
it was they who gave me my heart’s dough,
demons stole treacherously one day
and took me tied up beyond the Acheron…

they left me forever at a whirlpool of sea-
I was neither drowned nor saved;
they left me alone on a mountain top-
I screamed endlessly no one ever heard;
they sealed me off in a cave of stone-
there is fire here but I constantly shiver

in a living exile, like this, in hell-
soul full of life and only darkness to tell!



NOTHING IS OUT OF THE RULES

All that happens to me occurs because I am not diabolical
and diablerie has swathed both visible and invisible;

everything that happens to me occurs when I act honorably
as dishonesty has captivated the spaces of the day
through which one may not cross carrying a rose in his hand;

everything that happens to me occurs as I protect the truth
as truth has become a flash-eating dinosaur
endangering man – to be or not to be that is the question;

everything that happens to me occurs with premeditation
and is part of an evil-sunk structure…

so, nothing is out of the rules, my son,
neither is the deluge that will come one day, certainly!



A MONODRAMA SOLILOQUY

I constantly stare at the stretched surface
far beyond – over the mountain mountains-

under the grey mist of an autumn day
an entire world of staggering disappointments.

On the other bank the birds fly off tiredly
over the lake’s unvarying glares,
as if my soul is carried with them-

the cape of hope is never to be seen,
it is autumn, an end, a pain…

Oh, what a grave death stretches over the surface
and the entire age pours over in autumnal colors,

through the arrows of my breath
air seems to crack in silence
throwing to the waves the veil of sadness!

Rorchach, October 1993



A VIEW THROUGH WHICH I PASS

As I pass by
concrete blocks -
they weigh their weight upon me
only to get me into the game.

Shop showcases
spit at me and swear
for my torn out shoes
and clothes I put on every day.

The pavement moves
trying to get me down
not to stamp over its back
despite the anxieties of the day…

A stranger and lost
amidst the whisper of streets
that never greet me
turning their head aside
so not to see me-

Here, this is the daily view
Through which I pass!



HECTOR’S MONOLOGUE
BEFORE DYING

1.

When they brought in
The Wooden Horse

don’t open the gates
I said worried
our own destruction
is hiding in it.

The blind rose
leave Troy, they said.

Don’t become the cause
of more blood
being spilled over the walls,

while the holy peace
is knocking on the gate!


2.

I went out alone
to kill Achilles

amidst those beasts
howling dreadfully
at the foundations
of freedom

and I saw
in my last minutes
how deception was burning
the towers of Troy!


3.

O God,
not even my wounds
nor the dragging over rocks
made me feel more
ashamed

than the cursing
that through our own hands
was entering the castle!
 


ATH THAT I
WON’T ACCEPT

No death will I accept
no death which is not a fall
to the altar of the word,
to the altar of freedom-

no death over flowers,
nor death over the silk!...

the worst of deaths
this daily death,
half living and half dead,

between the carrion that bites
and the word dying in your lips!...



HOW CAN ONE STEP
INTO THE NEW CENTURY

One can’t step in
with Don Quixote language
or Sancho’s Rosinante

one may not get in
with a Trojan horse
and his ominous whining.

The new century
is no arena where gladiators are killed
to please Satan!...

In its trajectory
one may enter with a crystal heart
and Sun descending
on the palm of the hand,

one enters vertically
with civic courage
to stand up to the truth!

P.S.:

These poems were translated into English by Avni Spahiu,
ish Ambassador and Rep. of Kosovo in the US.