Anila Dahriu Poetry | Popular Albanian poet

Anila Dahriu

I LET YOU GO FREE, MY LOVE

I let you go free, my love,

free because I loved you so much,

like the waves of the sea in the warm summer,

like the breeze of a blue morning.

Like a night adorned with stars in a gilded sky,

I would wish so, the wisdom of my soul,

a sailing boat on invisible horizons,

a seagull... a seagull,

where its wings resemble the beats of my heart.

I love you green, like the color of hope,

I love you like embers, crimson roses in my garden,

always spring in my eyes,

I let you go free because I loved you so much!

MY BONES

I gnaw at my bones every day,

there isn’t a scrap of flesh on my body.

Perhaps I feed my soul with the enticing dust

of ghostly bars.

I shrink before a serpent-like labyrinth,

like an imaginary forest.

Even the oxygen has turned into smoke,

there isn't a single leaf with a green soul.

It's a jungle, like an unstable season,

where I vomit my bitterness.

Shifting horizons without borders,

without words, and torn letters,

amidst a soul fallen at the edge of a boundless world.

I gnaw at my bones,

without blood or ties to time,

where rain and fierce winds, my Robinson ship,

drive it away from an island -

I no longer wish to call out to God

for help to heal my soul.

SCREAM!

White swan, beauty amidst the icy lake,

innocence finds no salvation!

Her wings are trapped among the blades of cold,

dark blood flows through the bed of the night.

Rivers clear under the stars,

illuminating the pain that flickers,

devotees push time away through memories,

its wild color, leaves drift in a grave,

the eye wanders, golden-hued, a sigh of longing,

beneath the blue navel of the roof,

poisonous arrows in an unborn cell.

White swan, blood-eyed, soul-broken,

and imprisoned,

the weight of time, the confusion of years,

amidst the rays of the universe,

you remain a scream in an agony of innocence.

WHERE ARE WE?

In what verse has the soul come to rest?

In what skin is love hiding?

The plundering of the heart sails through endless seas,

how near and far the universe is!

Autumn has long departed,

leaves left the soul's traces on lonely benches.

Spring has arrived,

the sweet whim of love,

buds embracing the sun, quenching the tear of longing!

What skin are we wearing today?

Yesterday stole our tears,

tomorrow will not delay in knocking!

What skin are we seeking from life, I wonder?!

Where are we?! Where are we traveling?!

In what distant place of time?

Among the stars, we conquer sleepless nights!

Maybe we are petals where we touch the dream!

Maybe a verse traveling in the open sky,

to touch the soul of the butterfly!

UNDER THE SHELTER OF THE CALABRIAN OASIS

Last night was Thursday

when I walked down the street, a black cat meowed,

holding a poor mouse in its sharp teeth.

Eyes like the devil's ominous horseshoe,

a spark of ferocity scratching the unprotected

curtains of houses

freshly painted with lime.

Black clouds came and went,

climbing up the coarse sky,

beneath the dry earth, they unleashed the bitterness

of their boredom.

They say Tuesday carries misfortune,

weighing down the bridge of sadness,

hidden behind the folds of lips twisted by a stroke.

The priest, strangely enough, on this day walks out

with the basket of poverty, chasing the misty cat,

gathering the crumbs left from the backs

now stripped bare,

pressing the cross against his chest with fingers stained

by the cream of a young widow.

Yes, last night was Thursday,

I, sullen, watched

the women sitting in courtyards blossoming

from the newly arrived May, near the villas.

Even the meows of passing cats grew louder,

punishing everyone who walked by.

I glanced at the scratch left on my car,

the cat with the dead mouse in its teeth,

threatening me through the car mirror beside me.

I touch the silence as it advises me, "shhh,"

swallowing the venom of this place,

so decorated by fate on a Thursday evening,

that mistakenly fell upon my door.

SPECTRE...

A mass of skeletal thoughts,

a spectre grapples

among souls

thirsty for shadows

naked grey time, fury

awakens the cry of suffering...

suspended,

life gazes at itself.

Dedicated to Kosovo, 1998.

FOR YOU MY MOTHER

Why are you so far from me
with the darkness you linked the scent of the soul?
You saddened me
the paths sowed only tears
to live eternally with the angels
there, where even the morning glow is hidden
the playful moon faded
the stars like lightning left
the sun a skeleton spectrum was transformed
Mother, oh, my dear
why did fate leave me
and your smile
like a precious treasure
slipped into a distant ocean
you, I don't know that you tore my soul
the days enter me lonely
together with the echo of your sweet voice
your absence, shatters my dreams
away on the paths of fate.

FOR YOU LOVE

On my eyelashes the longing for you settled
lips were moistened with the tears of the sky
how much I loved you, I don't know,
I know, that I have always sought you
love!


I will seek
until the longing dissolves into the earth
with my bones, which tremble, to your sky
please, don't forget my sigh
embroidered on the corner of the scarf
wet with tears over the years.


On the pages of the book I will write this longing
to live in a great soul

love is not death
it is only fire!


Let's say, just once, that you are waiting for me
and, my soul rises high in the sky
like a bird in flight towards the nest of love
spreading the wings of happiness.


Later...later...I will beg you
let me die, only in your arms!
How much I have loved you, I don't know
I know, that...I have always sought your
Love.

wherever, you are, and wherever, you go

Biography 

Anila Dahriu was born on May 25, 1970, in Vlora, Albania. Shortly after graduating from the Industrial Institute, she enrolled in the Faculty of Letters, but had to abandon her studies due to the chaos, nearly akin to a civil war, that erupted in her country in 1997. She left her homeland in March 1997, married an Italian citizen, and from 1997 to 2009, she lived in Prato (Tuscany). She moved to Calabria in 2010. She has published five volumes of poetry in Albanian, including: "Porta e vetes" (1996), "Lërmë të vij me ty" (2011), "Mos më lëndoni ndjenjën" (2011), "Dridhërim zane" (2012), and "Drejt së panjohurës" (2012).

In Italian, she published "Ndër brinjët e mëkatit" (Between the Ribs of Sin) in 2013, with the Albanian text alongside. She received the "Roberto Farina" award in Roseto Spulico, Calabria (June 2014), the "Terre Lontane" award in Spezzano Albanese, Calabria (December 2014), and the "Don Luigi Di Liegro" award in Rome (2015).

In 2016, she published a poetry book titled "Ne jemi mësuar të mendojmë" (We Are Used to Thinking) with LEPISMA Publishing, based in Rome. In 2017, she reissued "FRA LE COSTELE DEL PECCATO" (Between the Ribs of Sin), published by Consenso Publishing, in Rossano-Corigliano.

She has received various awards in the city of Cosenza (Calabria) for her works "Ndër brinjët e mëkatit" (Between the Ribs of Sin) and "Ne jemi mësuar të mendojmë" (We Are Used to Thinking). In 2018, her work was translated into Romanian. She was invited to the international poetry festival "MIHAI EMINESCU" in Craiova, Romania, where she was honored with a participation medallion on June 17, 2018.

In 2019, the International Writers’ Association "Bondani," based in Brussels and Pristina, awarded her the International DARDANICA Prize for her original and authentic writing. In 2020, she was honored with the "ARBËRIA" prize in Cosenza. In 2021, she received another recognition from the "Bondani International Writers’ Association" for high standards in Albanian literature. On December 18, 2021, she was honored by the "Italian Academy of Art in the World" in Lecce (Italy) with the highest award for poetry and literature, "CESIRA DORIA FERRARI."

She currently lives and works in Mirto Crosia, Calabria, where she writes and translates works of various Italian and Albanian poets and writers known in Italy and around the world. She has contributed to many anthologies, both locally, within the Albanian diaspora, and internationally. She has collaborated with several local and national newspapers in Italy, including La Voce in Corigliano-Rossano (Calabria), EDILET in Rome, ARTI QË MË PËLQEN in Calabria (directed by artist Giuseppina Groccia), and the newspapers Fjala e Lirë (UK), Nacionale, and Mapo, based in Tirana, Albania. She also collaborates with ADA Publishing, based in Tirana, and BOGDANI Publishing in Kosovo.