Fatmir Terziu is an Albanian writer, lecturer, researcher, director, art, and literature critic. He has worked for several years in the field of education in several institutions of Albania and in the UK. He has published in the past articles in the entire Albanian press and has been a journalist of the newspaper “RD”, editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper “Free Speech” and Director of Television “Dardan”. Continuing his further education, he studied at High Melton College, South Thames College for English and for HNC, the UK National High Certificate in Media Production. Graduated (Level A) in Communication Media at London South Bank University (2004). He further studied (BA) at London South Bank University, at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities for Digital Film and Video Production (2004-2007). The author holds a master’s degree (MA) in Media, Culture and Politics from Roehampton University in the UK and a Ph.D. in Media, Culture, and Politics from London South Bank University, where he also pursued postdoctoral studies. He was decorated by the President of the Republic of Albania with the title “Grand Master”. He has published several books in all genres, as well as several studies in bilingualism, which have been nominated for National Literary Awards in 2012 and are included in the Book Curriculum approved by the relevant Ministry. He is the Director of the media company “Albanian Info Ltd” in the United Kingdom, a company registered under UK law, which always keeps him up to date with the current situation among Albanians, in the country where he lives and works as and, in the homeland, and beyond. In this new issue of our magazine, Terziu appears with two selections of his poems.

CEREMONIAL RAGS

In their eyes I saw the confusion and loneliness of the World
both were compasses detached from the catwalk of the time
while the secret was freed from the impatience to know
the other side behind the mask,
in their eyes I had frozen too. All
were there, with the new-fashioned cough,
they no longer knew each other,
they made love differently;
on cold screens they locked lips.
In their eyes was also a ticking watch.
Ticking, to their rage, with almost motionless hands
the numbers eroded like moths
the watchface vague like drowsiness. It took a long
time and loneliness to touch beyond touch,
bodies marked in a notebook
towards death.
In such a notebook their eyes
painted only numbers in each city,
likely making room in the heart of time
drops that fed the waves,
and when I saw the emptiness of my heart,
it’s enough, is what I said,
it terrified me what I saw.
From their eyes, to mine, there were hundreds of hurdles
inside the tired eyelashes the day did not dawn,
the roots swayed on the pendant like a sea wave.
Even when night flew beyond them,
Inside, the eyes were written with fire,
and the fire was extinguished without words
from long ago:
maybe history is a mistake, utterances of a poet.
Was humanity a mistake? God asks.
Ceremonial rags were coloured beyond the eyes
no noise went beyond words
the mask is corrupt.
How can it be believed more than a belt around the ribs?
Humanity is a mistake? Re-asked God.
I have come to fix things well
tired of selecting used words
since the tattering of this weather.
When the words were missing, the borrowed stars reappeared
but it was expensive;
how could the entire fatal night be covered
from mind-silk fabrics of ceremonial rags?
To soften my eyes, I had to imitate horses,
their reigns and their look,
and to sit cross-legged as uninvited
to unbalance the cold lip
within this wordless curiosity
that eats the rags of time.
This is the truth:
I await you under the eyes. If you don’t read me,
may God read my secret gasps.
If it isn’t mistakenly found that humanity was a mistake,
by correcting these masks on faces,
at least let there be no more grief;
nothing more is needed than freedom and love.
These are the eyes, here are both,
maybe because I say we are needed by time,
in such eyes I wiped the confusion and loneliness of the World.