Don’t worry

about me

Sometimes I want them to happen

These things

Differently

For example, a heavy fog fell on me,

And a border was easily
Crossed —

To pass there first of all
Where a few months ago
I saw a girl

With curly hair,

Only saw her —

And to dream later on, while
Falling in love.

At the end

It is war and we don’t
know the future

Every day fighting with death
These stories that
Someone or whomever
Fell for freedom,

Or other news,

Such as the enemy
Was destroyed,
These are daily routines.

Perhaps

To share with someone
That he desires love
During war time,

Someone will think you are stupid
But even in the fiercest fights
A soldier will never stop thinking about love

I have seen it in myself.

In war time

God knows

How the end will come,

Perhaps

No time has space for love —

Time tolls,

But what if everyone planted

Death

Who would harvest

Love?

A poet thinks
that the greatest loves

Are born in war time.

Perhaps,

Perhaps — exceeding the imagination

Of a bible story,

Or

Even the most illustrated stories

Of Lorca and Hemingway.

Simply

Love is another war,

It’s an infinite war

Longer than any other,

Even the longest war.

But weapons are

Something else:

Heart, Soul and Sex.

I came for myself

And went

Right to the center of the stage.

There is war.

You are looking at it, day by day

Life is becoming more and more boring:
This is how it started
My mind confused me

And with happiness we were ready
For a little more love.

Is this a dream or anti-dream;

Not sure

If someone would ask me

Today —

But, surprisingly,

It happened.

99 times, and I have been able to die

99 times.

Without war,

How can love begin ?

It cannot be imagined.

There is love, and there is war.

Late night

The moon forgets

To come outside,

A soldier returns, departs

For other front lines;

When there is love during war time

War continues…

Ah soldier, O soldier!

November 1999, sometime during the Kosovo War.

 

Born in the city of Peja, Kosovo, JETON KELMENDI is a poet, player, publicist, translator, publisher, university professor, academic, and active member of the European Academy of Science and Arts in Salzburg Austria.