A window stays open,
With no siren, it invites the wind.
The belated morning
Teaches itself
How to weep and how to laugh.
Kujtim Hajdari (Albania & USA) is an Albanian poet, writer, translator, publisher, literary critic, and promoter. He writes in Albanian, Italian, and, more recently, in English. He now lives in the USA. He is the winner of “International Impact Book Awards” in August, 2024, USA and finalist “AUTHOR OF THE YEAR 2025” in Hollywood, USA, 2025, with his poetry book “Through the Waves of Life.” To date, he has published 18 poetry collections, 3 novellas, 4 novels, and 2 volumes of literary criticism, and has also translated numerous works. He has participated in around 60 national and international competitions, earning numerous awards, including cups, diplomas, and certificates. He has been featured in approximately 300 national and international anthologies in Albanian, Italian, and English. His poetry has been translated and published in more than 25 countries. He is also the publisher of the anthology “All Together” on Amazon, which showcases creators from around the world and has been published in 10 issues to date.
PEACE GROANS
White rooms,
A silence that roars.
A child’s open hand.
A scream that smothers itself.
A gasp, almost a prayer,
The wind beats over wounded walls.
The birds return again
Above the forgotten names,
They place laurels.
A window stays open,
With no siren, it invites the wind.
The belated morning
Teaches itself
How to weep and how to laugh.
In the winds that beat the globe,
Peace stands bride-like, sad.
No horn is heard,
No wreath is seen.
After fear
Has dropped the knife.
Sighs of pain,
Strangling white doves.
***
THESE DAYS OF APRIL
April waited for you in petaled fire,
A harp of rain that tunes the air;
Each bud blooms you, a green desire,
Sun braids and shines your blonde hair.
The lanes scent the odor of lilac wine,
Where bees write lyrics in gold;
Your laughter turns to sap and vine,
And warms my soul from winter’s cold.
The rivers wear a silver gown,
From your sweet voice, blooms lea,
I’m lost, slipping softly down,
In your heart, which intoxicates me.
The clouds are lambs in meadows blue,
Grazing on light and wandering free;
Your eyes are April breaking through,
They bring me back, open all in me.
***
WAR WOUNDS
The sky has lost its blue to smoke and flame,
It flinches from the thunder—struck with lightning’s wounds;
Steel hawk, that circles, seeking only blood’s tame,
It plants its iron into the earth and breaks hearts that lose.
The earth convulses, weeping like a panicked heart at flight,
Its quiet lullabies are swallowed into the dark forevermore;
Children who fall and turn to wails and elegiac blight,
Mothers who wait in pain wipe silent tears across the sore.
The wind combs grass with teeth of bloodied steel,
And finds its toys where roots should have been growing, softly, green;
The earth has lost the sweet perfume of seasonal appeal,
From children’s tears, from mothers’ cries, from broken ribs unclean.
This is what war brings.
***
MEMORIES
Hugs wander on like children lost to pain,
Along the shore we walked, forgotten still,
I hear our voices rocked by waves in pain,
That ache, and cradle love against its will.
When night arrives, silence weighs on the still,
Star-light is trembling, tender in its pain,
Our yesterdays come, go—returning still,
And coldness covers me, a frightened pain.
I follow everywhere your traces still,
Sweet traces that will not let me sleep in pain,
I tell you: this longing, and this hush so still,
Are killing me, and feed on me with pain.
You’re everywhere—a mirage of my pain,
You come and go and vanish, swift and still.
My coffee cup keeps reminding me of your pain,
As if to push me into madness, madness growing still.
***
BEYOND, BEYOND…
Hope was the fire in the whirl of storms,
A light unquenched in the throat of abysses,
The only voice that called me through sunset times,
Beyond, beyond…, somewhere you would arrive.
Time showed itself with vampire fangs
And gnawed at the edges of my name,
“Bind your wounds and walk,” hope urged me,
Beyond, beyond…, a dawn will rise again.
The future murmured in a weak voice,
Beneath the avalanche of wounded, burdened days,
“Let not the bruises of time frighten you,
Life is long, and the world is vast.”
And when victory shone and claimed its crown,
Like a star lit in the spaces of the soul,
Hope whispered and beckoned to me,
Beyond, beyond…, this is only a door.
I searched for a bed for my broken bones,
But hope painfully called to me, “not yet,”
Now the wind carries and waves my joy,
The mirrors of time greet me everywhere.
Beyond, beyond…, it gave direction to my fate.
_________________
