Special edition diogen haiku

NO 38 
PAGE 254 
The sun started towards the west throwing a spider's web-like mist, rising from the nearby marsh, the  
Milky  way  alike,  over  the  castle.  The  clouds  became  dark  and  uneasy,  bat  like.    The  castle  could 
hardly be seen in the afteroon steam in the East, a dark portal of the evening about to come. 
 
Courageous warriors 
Hidden by the walls 
In the clouds. 
 
We were stopped by our thirst.  Beer – such a nice word. The waiter keeps on circling  
around us with a tray  full of glasses with beer.  In the wedding reception room of the inn there is no-
body but I, Viktor, my escort and the waiter.  The first signs of the evening could be felt in the air and 
with  them  I  had  a  presentiment,  all  the  guests  would  dash  into  the  inn  with  the  first  dusk.    Such  a 
thought was brought to me by the too early lighterd lanterns, the inn being adorned with them as if a 
Xmas tree.  After the literal darkness in the totaliarian system, the Albanians like children are elated  
with the electrical fairy lamps which have been hung in an improvised way everywhere. Once lit at 
night,  they give  some  eastern atmosphere,  almost  the  feeling    a  festival;    they are  foaming  like  the 
good Albanian beer under the name of 'Tirana'. Drinking glass after glass, quenching the thirst of the 
eight hundred kilometers of  travelling, I thought I'd have a problem with my own identification even 
before  entering  Tirana.    The  joy  of  expecting  another  meeting  with  friends,  colleagues  amd  poets, 
drinking the beer became a relaxation and with the next glass, turned into melalacholy. 
 
The whole field 
And the whole river 
In one glass. 
 
Today, Tirana is a real building site, being all dug up. Full of crowds and murmur, as if the  
battle of Skadar's pashas and the local beys  had not ended yet, started at the beginning of the  
19th centruy.  This town, once called Teheran as well, became the capitol of Albania in 1920.                                 
Until the democratic commencement during the nineties, this town had been conquering  all  
its enemies, one after another, in the manner of not making any changes, taking  its time to  
travel through itself, that way not moving from the place. And then on to conquering  
Tirana went its strongest enemy- Tirana itself.  At every point  today boils the traffic,  
commerce and construction.  Peace is not longer the constant,  it isnow dynamics, as if  
trying to surpass its future.  Only the large Skenderbeg's monument watches the Tirana-   
anthill calmly, not letting anybody come too close over his fixed boundary line, set long ago. 
 
Under the town's light 
Calm, on a black horse 
Skenderbeg waiting. 
 
In  the  coffee  shop  'Europa'  in  Tirana,  my  friend  has  been  sitting  by  the  same  table  for  thirty  years 
now, the eminent  Albanian Poet, Xhevahir Spahiu. Until recently the president of the Albanian Asso-
ciation of writers and artists, then Councillor for Culture of the President of the  
Albanian Republic.  So sits Xhevahir thinking about his travels, and being wise, he does not  
have to travel at all. 'I'll ride a cloud' – says he – 'and ride over the mountains'.  He is a man  
without restraint and harness, with appearance of the wind itself..   

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NO 38 
PAGE 255 
He is sitting there, waiting for me and translating his 'river':  'Difficult translation / From clean water'  
I know he is thinking with whom to speak while waiting for me, from which phone?  He waits for me 
but would like to talk even with Hayles' comet.  He reads my Velebit in Albanian, and thinks of  
his Tomorr, the mountain he cannot take his mind off in any single conversation. 
 
 
The mountain roses 
Flowering  now 
In a friend's eyes. 
 
Xhevahir  embraces me and in the rustle of this embrace I hear  Since Adam's time / the  
rivers whisper;/ rustle the honey-bees and the clouds / on the ridge of the mountains.  
Today he spoke about my haiku collection Velebit in the central Albaninan newspaper Shqip. 
He asks me to talk about Velebit, about its fairies,  about Zoranić;  he wonders if the sky  
above Velebit is built from the air or the rocks.  His questions have no patience, not waiting  
for the answers.  From his hands, his eyes and his lips as well exit and enter the questions, and  
beautiful words are born from these waves, like colours from endless space. In his interview he called 
me 'the prince of Croatian haiku'. So, he shows me the interview as a welcoming greeting.  
 
 
Look, the kings 
Know how to be humble 
In friendship. 
 
Another friend arrives, Arian Lika, a well known poet, prosaic, musician and translator, art  
critic and publisher, the editor of Poeteke, a journal published simultaneously in England, France, Al-
bania, Romania and Greece. Arian's face is just like full moonlight in May, tender and calm.  Born in 
Drač, at the seaside, he knows the existence of one sea for life/ and one sky for  death.  As a man from 
the coast he knows nothing is as seen / when youhave everything but a friend to share with him two 
long,  tall  glasses  of  vine.    He  extends    his  right  hand,  holding  a  bottle  of  protected  Drač's  wine 
'Rizling' in his left hand.   
 
 
Outstreched hand 
Dispersing evening mist 
As if the wind. 
 
We started to drink the wine, it tasted so good and it appeared to me I could have drunk the  
 
whole goatskin of it.  After Arian told me about my poems from the collection Tigar to be  
published in the weekly publication Albania very soon, I had even more reasons for a  toast with the 
fine wine.   
He reads to me his reviews concerning my poems.  He says my 'Tigar' continues to live, no  
matter if the theme is one among the most jeopardized animal species, because TMB (Tomislav Mari-
jan  Bilosnić)  enlivens  the  poetical  tiger,  the  poetry  once  started  by  Blake,  Yeats,  Tagore,  Emerson, 
Pound, Borges'.  In fear of the mentioned names I drink another glass.  Arian wonders about the num-
ber of books bearing my name.  Suddenly he tells me, TMB it is your trademark.  I'm, looking at him 
thinking,  how  come  he  arrives  at  a  conclusion  so  long  ago  noticed  by  Tomislav  Ladan  and  Igor 
Mandić.  And later, Alojz Majetić.  Then he returns to the story about the tiger.   

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