The Ofi Press Magazine
International Poetry and Literature from Mexico City
Poems by Gjeke Marinaj (Albania/ USA) Published in issue 40 of The Ofi Press
|
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS OF LOVE
Twilight had sensed our need to seek out a hiding-place somewhere, It melted everything down to the color of chocolate, Silently giggled, seeing the red-hot blush on our faces, And chanted a secret prayer for us on its way out.
In nature, naturally, we made love by nature.
In the meadows early we sweated the first dew of the dawn, With the silky tresses of night we wiped the chest of the day, We ripped up the flowering fields like a bolt of tapestry, And found the newest, freshest smile of the Milky Way.
Naturally, by nature, we made love in nature.
Damn! the people who dwell in the wind had all somehow got word; Mercury left the sky and dived suddenly into the sea, The sun put his hands on his hips and stood there to gawk at us, And to the earth’s old muscles revealed this mystery.
By nature we made love in nature, naturally.
Unconcerned for the desperate comets panting up yonder, At once, like a flowery honey-drenched dream, entered the bold New evening, and undid the top two buttons of her black shirt; And for us she hung on her neck the moon washed in gold. |
About the Poet
Dr. Gjekë Marinaj is an Albanian-American poet, writer, translator, literary critic, and founder of the Protonism Theory. He has been the first president of the Society of Albanian-American Writers In his mid-twenties, he published an anti-communist poem called "The Horses" in Drita, a newspaper of the Albanian Writers Union. Warned that his arrest for writing the poem was imminent, Marinaj escaped the authorities by hiking through the mountains overnight and crossing the border from Albania into Yugoslavia. He carried with him only a few books and a blanket to protect him from the barbed wire at the border. From Yugoslavia, Marinaj emigrated to the United States and now an American citizen, he lives with his wife, Dusita, in Texas. Marinaj is the current director of the Mundus Artium Press and the editor of the Mundus Artium: A Journal of International Literature and the Arts. He also teaches English and Communications, including world literature, at Richland College.
He is the author of 16 books including poetry, prose, journalism, translations and literary theory as criticism. His works have been translated and published in more than a dozen languages.
Image: "Milky Way Over Crater Lake" by Joe Parks.