Fahredin Shehu (b. 1972 in Rahovec) graduated from Prishtina University in Oriental Studies. Passionate about calligraphy and poetry, he has participated in multiple literary festivals and events around Europe, such as the Nisan Poetry Festival in Maghar, and the Malta Literary Festival and Workshop. In 2014 he was the Poet Laureate of Gold Medal for Poetry as bridge to Nations.
Shehu is the author of the novel The Honeycomb and the founder for both the International Poetry Festival in Kosovo, and the Fund for Cultural Education and Heritage. He has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for 2018.
The following poems have been translated by himself.
Dragoi
Dragoi was his name until he died after his father’s curiosity
killed him with his bloody eavesdropping
He used to wake up in the morning and listen to
the rooster of faraway Shkodra in Albania
When the rooster finished he used to go to a mother’s recess
and tell her how many evil ones he had killed
with the pole made from hazel wood
Mother old with the map of heaven on her face
used to smile, pamper and roll a few tears so they
might leak into Dragoi’s cheeks
Small wings Dragoi kept hidden beneath his muslin tunic
tailored by his mother Miriai and the sigils of some
grand Archangel were embroidered with the aquamarine silk
bought in Thessaloniki before Austro-Hungarian
Prince Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo
as the days were regrouping in bunches like vine-sticks
mother was collecting the blood colored rose petals
for jam that was a continuous family delight
Father sneaked into the room behind the curtains
of heavy brocade and Dragoi undressed
to have a ritual bath with the salts of seven seas
melted in a bathtub
Father saw in awe the wings of Dragoi – one on the left
another on the right side of his back
The father fainted out of fear, the mother came in after the pain
as harsh as lightning that splits the sky
in her womb knowing about the death
of Dragoi – her one and only miracle
she had brought from seven heavens afar
yet she bore the lump in the back of her scalp
as a mark and as a seal for distant skies
The Crystalline Side of Time
There’s sunlight and your words like thunder split my being
there’s a flashlight in my Soul
perhaps you waited hardly – out of empty stomach to see a smile in his face
there are no tears in a full stomach you shall know this too
and I see the smile of the ignorant as the most ignorant
one can be – I’m the one – who stands as rock and I watch with binoculars
down the lake and the swan couple I see in the pond playing the erotic game
perhaps you recall how we met in a Crystalline side of Time
and you hold now the empty shell echoing my name
the war ended roughly two decades ago and we still Love
as mad as no one can be, in here where the age of smirks rolls its dice and
in a place of serenity we call heart
There
When you gaze up toward the forms of the white clouds
you find my face ablaze by the sun rays
mother or I am not…!?, – wearing the brocade accoutrements
as in the bridal night,
with the hair anointed with lavender oil
with the face like the full Moon
in front of Venetian mirror
as in times when guns were shooting
while nuptials killing each other
over who shall first pass the crossroad
between two cemeteries
one of the Plague and the other of children dead
by Measles
today when I bow down and see my stomach
while the earth is dragging by
I want somehow to sing the song of the Midday
when the Sun vanishes your shadow
and the Bachelors faint
while looking at the barefoot escape of the Fairy with the inflamed
curly crest
spreading the fragrance of Myrrh and Violet all around
as in times when the Moon was adored as God
while Pagans prayed for the rain to fall,
with bells and kelp,
elder leaves and bowing boughs
of the weeping willow folded
tomorrow we shall look straight in the eyes
seeing the lie of each other,
how it leaks like mercury in aged veins
with antimony poisoned while juvenile
and our faces will not blush out of shame
because we folded the darkness in rule
we bind it in a sack woven
in the Loom of the Sun
there where you drink the vine that never makes you drunk
where Love is done as breathtaking
and isn’t nominated as we do
there where the Word is done not uttered instead…
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