For a moment life stopped me

as if a strict police officer looking

for violations of civilization codes

with a book in his hand writing

my penalty ticket.

Name and surname

origin and homeland

city, age nationality.

In a blink of an eye she checked

all written sins in a book and

with a painful smile

raised the border gate.

Go on, get on the other side- and

turning her grizzled head back

to the past says: now

set off to unexplored roads

and don’t be afraid of

the dark labyrinths of the world.

False abysses

or frozen scarecrows they are

made of old-fashioned bewitched dough

which just want to scare us.

Inexplicable gray cupolas matching with hell they are

Because the surveillance cameras inside the buildings

memorize our Existence.

I’m going – I said – and I don’t regret it,

But remember – We live in ruins of morals

inherited from our evil ancestors

which you yourself once built.

ARJAN KALLCO ( 1967) is an Albanian poet, prose writer, translator, scholar, journalist, who teaches Italian Language at the high school level and is a Professor in Fan Noli University. He has translated: Italian Proverbs Italian Love poems Short stories of Italian writers in the ’80s The good old man and the beautiful girl (a novel) Sailing on waves (The Anthology of the Italian Contemporary poets). His books of poetry include Bewildered by your Immensit, Real life images, and Flying in time. A member of the Association of Literary Critics in Italy, since 2008  he has been a frequent participant in International Conferences in Albania and abroad, including Korca, Tirana, Thessaloniki, Craiova, Banja Luka, Skopje, Sofia, Tetovo, Ljubljana, Ohrid, and Istanbul.