Poems

Rakela Zoga (Albania)

Rakela Yzeiri (Zoga) was born in the city of Korça, Albania. The passion for literature was early, but she would reach artistic maturity after higher studies at the “Language – Literature” Faculty, where she presented herself and affirmed her name in the most popular publications of the time, in the most important periodicals of the country; “Zëri i Rinisë” (Voice of the Youth), “Drita” (Light), “Nëntori” (November), and others. After that, her literary creativity was published in many newspapers, literary magazines and several anthologies in Albania, Kosovo, Greece, Italy, etc. These publications established her creative personality and wider recognition in the field of letters.
Rakela is a special voice, a poet of lyricism and exaltation, and as such she travels through verse, in the inexhaustible muse and colors that touch the soul. She lives with poetry, meets silence and dreams, merges with words and all this to experience true art and leave an indelible mark in Albanian literature.
She has published the poetic volumes:
Let’s remain friends
Come tonight
Swan in the fog
Wake up on an autumn day
He currently lives and works in Greece.


Maybe one day…

I tell you never woo me again,
No time for sadness to embrace..
I soothed my heart with much pain,
Forgot that Fall an’ body in grace..

Never again try with caresses,
For I can’t laugh, joy’s left apart,
My lips, that time gave you sweet kisses,
Now they are hostage to a cold heart…

My eyes are turning almost blind
Their power of sight taken away..
Although my sight now declined..
Much light I find from a Sun’s ray..

I ask you now: Away from me..
Maybe one day I’ll be safe and sound..
Deep in my heart I’ll seek and see,
But also in nameless stalagmites.



Night of Glass

With a look of glass, you came at night,
On that piece of glass I broke, alas
Slowly over me, your gaze would glide,
You gathered me gently in your arms.

I searched eagerly for you through tears,
My brew grew cold and my lips dried.
I forgot you were huddled in the glass.
As I rested my face close like a child.

‘Twas the magic game of crazy distance,
I wished it were true, just as it seems,
A body, dressed in a glassy appearance,
definitely kills all the sacred dreams.

Translation from Albanian into English by Alfred Kola