To Be A Poet Poem by Sami Gjoka

You asked me what I do.

Lost in oceans, deep and blue, of your soft and sweet eyes
I felt, coming from my longs, through the valley of my mouth,
A long, slow breeze of sighs, sounding like a brushing noise
And then through my parted lips, both we heard my timid voice
I am a poet that spreads glory,
Longing
And that hurts of course.

I am a lonely, naked bat
My wings at dark I spread,
Hitting rocks of scary canyons.

Among sloppy, narrow, roads
I move slowly away
Even though I might be blind
Like our sole and only prophet
Who left Bible-like behind
The Odysseys and the Iliad

No one has heard of me
Even though I scream at dark
Almost every single night.

If for my whereabout(s)
You are seriously curious
From a cliff I’m falling down
While writing here my songs
And due to be read aloud
To your home, I fly and come.
I am here and I am there
I am really everywhere
And yet, no where I am.

Nowhere to be found.

What must I be, what?
Of course no, not an angel
And I am short of being devil
Neither can I have a heart
Of a human fit for life
If I torture myself writing.

As if this world is dying
For the sounds of my verses
This world that until now never even heard my name,
Only songs come from the bottom
Of my chest and through my mouth
Like the song of tiny birds, that fills forests in the wild
Where not a single ear to hear them will be around.

And this further saddens me
Facing such a reality,
While landing to this ground
Where I do not exist
And from where I took exile.

I can’t be what I’m not
I will never be the moaning
That follows kisses till the morning
I can’t be the breeze of touching
Wet skin that parts below

I no longer am myself
I am fingers of my hand
At the touching of my flesh
Longing eternally for her...
That could never, never come
Because she is never born
Sparkling, pure, and spotless brilliant.
And therefore I keep on writing.

I might just be making noise
To some ancient distant lands—
Ancient chariot with wheels
Stuck in mud and cut by age.

I am a humongous remorse
All in ambers, all in flames.

If you have opened the door
And in doubt you stand there
Never come toward my road.
We, the poets are the ghosts
We are cursed, troubled souls
Even graves and cemeteries
Can’t hold us and keep us down
We wonder in the search
Of the muse that’s loose, around.

Therefore maybe think twice
Before opening the door
If the muse is meant to come
She is beast that uproars
She is claw of the eagle
She is color of the crow
You will rise in the horizon
But with not your might and power.

I am rock above the tides
Tides that leap and leak my feet.

My soul taken by a crow
Lifted so high and dropped so low
To be drowned so deep.

Poets float above the ocean,
Oceans of their own despair
Below tides of their misfortune
Short of breath they fight for air
If by choice, I would not have chosen
Such a struggle, such a pain!