Fatiha Morchid
Unspoken
2010 Morocco’s Poetry Prize
Translated from Arabic by
Norddine Zouitni
Published by
*Arab Cultural Center, Beirut/ Casablanca, 2010
Both wounded
On guard against
A long-awaited night
That was shorter than a single pleasure,
Its minutes like a fantasy
Tick quietly
On our fatigue,
While our dream
Promised clamor
Both wounded
When darkness is
Oblivion to light,
And lips
The taste of ash
Dampen
The embers of reproach
In the alley leading up to you
You keep me standing
Like a palm tree
That can’t learn submission
I lift up my branches
To heaven
Toward my depths
How many departures will it take
Before you become what you are more!
Both wounded
While this evening
Lurks in wait
Like a sin
Open unto the sky,
And palms
See no reason
To shake hands with the moon
How many comings will it take
To keep me farther away!
Both wounded
Glasses clink
A failed expectation,
And this heat freezes the senses
In gloating delight
Then, organs fall apart
In boredom
How many falls will it take us
To rise more upright!
A room the color of moaning
Lost its brightness
Where dual loving is no more
Your lust is unable
To repair the story
The lover
I was
Disguises herself
In the bed’s foreignness,
While oozing kohl
Signs the pillow
Between the apex of my anger
And your feigned calm
A tear falls short
Of untying the death-rattle
Hemmed in between us
Hand me
A cigarette
To stifle the falsity of speech,
And a glass
To sink in,
Maybe drowning saves me
From death
On your bare chest
O how I loved
Your bare chest
And how…
It keeps now repelling me
I threw the world
Behind
And rushed to you
Extending bridges
That the cataclysmic distance
Brought down
It wasn’t love
That which we made
It was a sumo party
Joining two bodies
Filled with reproach
Gasps
Cold perspiration
And racing..racing..racing
Without reaching the finish line
The night is in decline
Don’t keep me
A hostage to its tropics
And grant the dying
A death
Worthy of it
You lead me unaware
For a test of the senses
With the heart void
Of all but chagrin,
Fingertips
Gathering their own unrest,
And a night
Appropriate for loss
Was it an attempt
At freedom
From the shackles of the body?
Or a pretext
To tighten the chains?
Or because beds have no memory
You resolved to bury me
In the memory’s bed?
Lovesick I came
To merge into
The spirit of fragrance
The soul faded
Behind
A desire without spirit
No desire
Could extricate
The scent of surmise
All doubts lead to me
So don’t expect
From storms
A sign for god’s wrath
Be a god
With the spectrum
Tearing the sky apart,
And embrace me
In your thoughts
Far away from my past
Or bring me back to it,
A corpse
Seeking rest
How dare you dig out the graves of memories
When I took off the robes of mourning
And came to you
A virgin
Washed clean
Of your predecessors
As love accidents
Necessary
For the lustful part of the journey
All doubts point at me
With my pulse as sole certainty
As we become one
What evidence
Would please your senses
And eliminate potential similarity
Between twins?
For each their own twin
And their share of longing
What evidence
Behind the pulled
Curtains
Would open
The night’s eyes?
Eyes catch sight of things they adore
Though the path of passion is not sure
A child reaches out
We carry him up,
But keeps crying on our breast
So is love
A coward
When exalted
Words,
Shed like the blood of defeat
Find but in dust
A cradle,
While the echo
Is carried on cafe tables
Surrounded by the smoke of gossip
And buried in ashtrays
How far back now
Is the thirst of the sea
When it’s high!
An island was ours
When love was an astrolabe to us,
Maps lines in our palms,
And the wind with our breath competed
For the tearing up of our clothes
How far back now
A candle lit beside
Red toenails
Ripe for kissing lips!
Time and again
The night prostrated itself to us
And the light
Got tired of our abandonment!
How far back now
Is homeland tea
Which tasted of kisses
And all paths led
To a pair of breasts
With the warmth of the desert!
There’s still
One kiss
Seated
On its luminous throne
Deep within
You borrow letters
From among the colors of the soul,
Doesn’t the red quench your lustfulness?
Meanwhile you dyed the wilderness
And crouched like a breast
On lungs
Exhaling in bits
All their sobbing,
When love was a friend
And candles Competed
With the radiance of the body
Don’t steal looks
From behind the curtains
My nudity has the reverence of mausoleums
While you have the clamour of folk festivals,
You make love without memory
Then you repent your sins,
You challenge the neighing of horses
Ignorant of the breed you are riding
Don’t eye me
Like a jailer
Unable to keep watch
Any longer
The more I shake the years
Off my heart
The more they weigh down on my haunches,
My cheeks
Can no longer blush
When you are aroused
Yours are letters
“L” taking on the lead
Assuming the pride of “O”
While “V” elusive
Like the gate to uncertainty
You borrow letters
From among the colors of the soul,
I lent
The dark
To the rainbow
And drowned
In a drop of saliva
Beware!
Ink waters
Run deep
And digging
Is insomnia’s friend
Beware!
Angels
Have vats of sins,
And wolves
Blue confessions
Certainty is yours
But mine is nothingness
Beware!
Ink is a mirage
To one in quest of a homeland
A night
Steals a joy
Rushing ahead to you,
It yawns
Like barren ink
And dozes off in veins
Nothing
Shining through the wall opening
Stands between us
And nothing
Saves for us
The genuineness of our excitement
A dim lamp
Like a painful confession
Provokes
Stray bullets
From the mouth of a woman
Breaking free from my skin
And going about
Released from you
Our feet
Are the trunk of departure
Your whispers
Keep recurring
Secrets breathe
Inside their tomb
A day
That cannot stand light
Leading
The temptation funeral
I open a window
Onto imagination,
The distance contracts
The moment expands
A farewell letter
Penned in spirit
The wind is stronger
Than the sails of the senses
Weaker than the moaning of the flute
Then, travels the horizon
Farther than the desire of water
A seagull
I hold memories of ships
And like a shell
I carry the mystery of salt,
Harbors keep tossing me about
Whenever the glimmer from a lighthouse
Leaks through the artery
I pack my dream
Into mirrors
So that I recognize its features
Amidst the crowd
Then I untie the words
From their pins
Hoping the words carry me high
Where
Feelings embrace meaning
I close my eyes
To behold the gardens of spirit
Hoping the soul
Turn into dew
And the heart
Into the pulsations of a rose
O you! Tampering with me
For your own sport
Roses bloom
Out of passion for questions
They dry
Yet, no questions rise
Desire
Crosses darkness
To the other bank
Eyes open the night
Onto the dawn of the body
Errant is your night
Leave your address
Before you fall asleep
Autumn shakes my forests
Some tiny leaves
Cling to your steps
Slow down
Rustling still has
A song
Butterflies might return
From their burning,
The cricket from its wandering,
And the queen bee
To its throne
While the ant
Teaches us the secret of faithfulness
To love
Learn
To die a little
Farther
We went than love
Where indifference
Sets in
Following the flow
Of your waters
Toward tomorrow
And like the wind
Reinventing the sense of touch
Whenever the tide ebbed
Our eyes fixed into the sand
We danced like desire
At the borders of foam
Quenching our thirst from the spring of time
Like the children of a new dawn
We caressed the laughter of the wind
With lips hardened
From intense kissing
Many times
We lost the way
But to each other,
And longing brought us back
To a tune
Which we nursed
Like an orphan
Many times
We trampled
The monotony of days
With the lightness of a butterfly
And hid
In the shade
Of our future dreams
Coloring
The maps of the body
Thus
As the rainbow
Quit
The waist of the sky
So
You did to my rivers
Once upon a flow
Your thirst has no limits
How much water is needed
To baptize this love!
Days are alike
Moving farther away
Adamant,
Floating in fog
I cross the bridge
In the silence of a pebble
Preserving
Solidly
The story’s pain
You dream
Of chopping a mountain
That cropped up between us
I return to a place
That would not conjure up my past
I converse
With album photos
My life
Colored by you
I stoop
Stumble
Disperse
Break
Consolidate
Rise
Straighten up
I love the reflection
Of my memory
On the face of water
Whenever we took
A step back
I ran ahead of my death
To you
I sow apples
All along the distances
To mature in your absence
We met by chance,
We fell in love by chance,
And this pain
Creeping
Into weary suitcases
On the pavement of our last chance
Is a drop of semen
Fallen by chance
Into the womb of obstinacy
Take me
Take me
To another end
Where coincidences are dates.
