Fatiha Morchid

Ayyaa sawaadin tukhfi ya Qawsa Quzah

« What Dark are you Hiding O Rainbow »

 

Poems

Marsam publications, Rabat 2006.

 

Poetry book published in both languages Arabic and French. French translation by Abderrahman Tenkoul. Marsam publications, Rabat, 2006.

(see translated books)

 

Poem from the book:

 

What Dark are you Hiding

 O Rainbow?

 

A bohemian I am

In search of a frame

 

To contain my charms

 

What do I care about

The ugliness of the wall

 

…..

 

How can I infiltrate

My madness

To one who professes

Madness

 

…..

 

He’s got plenty of boredom

To embrace stillness

On the peaks of the shooting star

 

…..

 

He rephrases

Old questions

With a new paintbrush

That doesn’t care about answers

 

…..

 

His silence

Covers me

 

My rhetoric

Strips him naked

…..

 

My lips burn

Whenever he holds a cigarette

Tight between his lips

 

…..

 

Sufficient to me

The red of his tongue

The guy kneeling down

Over my nudity

All quivering

Lost

Among colors

 

…..

 

A single look from him

Shoots forth suddenly

Ploughs the clouds

 

Then sink I

Into my orphanhood

 

…..

 

And a paintbrush

Slain by passion

At the spine

 

Like my bones

 

Can no longer

Stand erect

 

…..

 

I fiercely crave

The conceit in fingers

That gather my fragments

From junk time

Paint my eyelids

With ash memories

And plant nails

Like beauty spots

On the immaculate

 

…..

 

Here’s the sea

In a white shirt

Climbing me

 

In the magnificence of its shyness

At its bottom

I settle down

Like sand

 

What if my ink-like feelings

Disturb

Its clarity

 

…..

 

Nothing

But my meadows

Draw together its dispersal

 

As they turn green

Beneath its water

 

…..

 

With life you gamble

For the a fleeting

 

Moment

 

When you haven’t yet

Left

My breast

…..

 

The jealousy of the paintbrush

Smears me

Black

 

Whenever your eyes

Touch my white

 

…..

 

I caress

Your fatal bending

Over my weariness

 

And life stands up

An elderly

Longing for beginnings

 

…..

 

Painful

Are desires

When lavished

Like a flame

 

On a prisoner

Of ash

 

…..

 

You perpetual

Deserter

 

I engraved you

As faith

In my heart

 

…..

 

Sleep safe

At my feet

 

I am the guard

Of our night

 

…..

 

I dressed in

Scarlet

This morning

 

To tempt

Fate

 

…..

 

I love you this morning

And I each morning

Retrieve my beauty

From your fingers

 

I gather up distances

To journey into you

 

…..

 

You want me a balm

For a wound

Inflicted by another

 

Should I apologize for her sake

 

Or to a wound

Inflicted by another

Hurting in my breast

 

…..

 

Scattered we are

In our rubble

 

Striving to live austerely

 

To endure

Absence

 

…..

 

Don’t apologize

For an error

That led me

To you

 

…..

 

Go on

 

…..

 

I promise

Not to lose the way

Twice to your heart

 

Wherever you turn

My sweat

Leads to you

 

…..

 

I dance

To the rhythm of your pulse

 

Which are my fingers

From yours?

 

…..

 

What did you commend

The blue

That pours over my feet

 

And supplants

Your rashness

 

…..

 

A smart student

You know me

By heart

 

Why do you stutter

Whenever a question

Rises between us?

 

 

…..

 

I ripened

On embers

That carouse with the horizon

 

…..

 

Blow over me

 

Blue

Yielding your destiny

To temptation

 

Diverse

Like seasons

 

Unique

As my breast

When it succumbs

To your palm

 

…..

 

The more inaccessible I am

The more persistent you are

 

When I soften

You fall for another

 

As if your faithfulness

to me

Is a betrayal to yourself

 

…..

 

You besiege me

Like death

 

Whenever a new birth

Surprises you

 

…..

 

My joy in you

Fills me

To aching

 

I fear me

When I fall for an illusion

Of which you are the truth

 

And from you I fear

A truth that dissipates my illusion

…..

 

O Lord

Assist me with particles of clay

For his storm blew me out

 

…..

 

You demolish and build me up

You build me up and demolish me

 

I rise

 

Like an abyss

 

My splendor

In my disarray

 

…..

 

My blood looks like you

As you walk

On my wound

 

Stripped naked

 

Of certainty

 

…..

 

You are now

On the verge of life

 

In me

About to die

…..

 

Like a blind woman

I feel for

The colors of your soul

 

To what estuary

Are you luring me

O stubborn river?

 

Banks are void

But for a boat

That a breakdown retains

 

Reciting its precepts

To the mud

 

…..

 

His embers

In the solitude of creation

Burn none but him

 

…..

 

lying in bed

He asks about a mountain

That passed us by

Shooting

Like a meteorite

 

Don’t break free

From between my ribs

No pulse afterwards

 

…..

 

A child you are

Chasing butterflies

And crying

When their colors

Stain your fingers

 

…..

 

I am all butterflies

If one burns up

Another rises

From your ashes

 

…..

 

Here I am

By the fireplace

A witness

To your burning

 

Here you are

In my entrails

A witness

To my desire

 

…..

 

The day you take off

Madness

To wear

The caution suit

 

I’ll withdraw

Like sweat

From your pores

 

…..

 

Here you are

Teasing space

With your uproaring absence

 

…..

 

What will I do

With Time

After you?

 

…..

 

And What dark

Are you hiding

O rainbow

 

Translated from Arabic by

Norddine Zouitni