Moroccan Poets

The Grapes of the Desert’s Thirst

We present this work in honor of the Moroccan holiday, Revolution Day.

Abdallah Zrika
Moroccan
b. 1953

 

1.

Some travelers measure the earth
with a patch of text

some philosophers go to
a carpenter to lathe a question

some poets head to a tailor
to escape the rips widening within them

As for me, I run towards the rubble of emptiness or a heap
of shade in order to erase what is.

2.

There is no grave that can contain
the flavor of death pouring forth from the wooden bed

no grave that can gather what is left of words
sticking to the lips of a dead body

no room that can absorb the cold solitude
of a paper from which a poem has turned away

3.

The narrator doesn’t walk in the funeral procession
but listens only to what is said at the dinner for the dead
and collects what falls from the crumbs of words.

4.

I didn’t understand then
how the head can be in the horizon
and the leg in the grave

or how the gate of a graveyard can lead
to the courtyard of a poem

5.

In the end
I felt the desert’s thirst
for the grapes of Dionysus

and the cries of the ruins for
the dying embers

and the sadness of gazelles for
the silence of poets

6.

Instead of fleeing the blackness in my chest
towards the white of the paper

I threw myself in a field of yellow daisies
and fell asleep.

Translation by Deborah Kapchan

Every Day’s Subsistence

We present this work in honor of the Moroccan holiday, Allegiance Day.

Abdelkarim Tabbal
Moroccan
b. 1931

 

A cloud
Floating over my house
Loaded with jasmine
Gives me one
And goes away
In the rest of the sky

And a bird
Perches on the wall
fetching a letter from my lady to me
Gives me joy
And flies away
To the rest of the mountains

And a visitor knocking at my door
Shakes me out of my dream
Gives me feathers
And a voice of whiteness
And gets lost
In the rest of the day.

Face Us in Mercy

We present this work in honor of Tisha B’Av.

Freha Bat Avraham
Moroccan
d. 1756

 

Face us in mercy
Because of unblemished Abraham’s merit.
Be merciful to us from the heavenly heights,
O God my redeemer,
Who at morning time hears my voice.

Reward your treasured people with mercy,
For they are Your people and Your inheritance.
Hurry, gather your community
To the mountains of my homeland.

Especial One, exalted and unseen,
Rescue Your son like the silent lamb,
Rebuild your sanctuary structures,
And give support to my cause.

Have compassion and be kind to us
And bring us up to Zion,
And raise up your Temple for us,
My rock and my rescuer.

Attend, my God, to my plea,
Lord who favors my song,
God who is my shield and my apportioned
Lot and guardian of my fate.

Joseph’s daughter pleads,
She asks of you all that is good,
Quickly may she take possession of her land
From the Ishmaelites

My father, in Your great mercy
Hasten along Your people’s savior
And act for the sake of Your own name,
Every sin of mine forgive.

My Creator, have mercy on my unique soul,
My Rock, strengthen my community.
Bring me up to the land I treasure
and I will offer my burnt incense.

Among many I praise Him.
May he raise His banner among our tents.
Make Your kindness toward us be abundant.
And may this, my voice, be received with favor.

Absurd

Bouchra Yassine
Moroccan
b. 1966

 

Soon…
Very soon, my friend…
We will discover that all the optimists
Are insane more than any absurdity.
In your dreams… just as in every morning…
You arrange your dreams
Like precious furniture devices;
A bramble vase here…
A velvet, dull sofa there…
Some fingers missing around.
Oh, Farida!
Did you have to take the flowers out of the window?
Sprinkle the salt all over the place?
This heart cannot anymore grumble…
The basil in my mother’s garden just withered.
Outside the bells toll…
For another last Last Supper.
You arrange your dreams… Again
Here… There. Again
It is the wandering spirit
Since the blooming of first spring flowers

The Fragrance of Violets

Fatima Zahra Bennis
Moroccan
b. 1973

 

The violets that cover me
I anticipated their bleeding from time immemorial
But kept back what my blindness saw
So that I can breathe
I was in need of more wounds
To be worthy of this radiance
I was in need of more rambling
To realize
That only dreaming can pluck me out
Only the clouds can light me up.

I don’t remember when and how
I became crazy for these violets
I by chance saw myself joyful in their empty spaces
Feeding on their delights
In a wine-scented wedding of passion
Where I didn’t need a white dress
Since I was sheathed in the dewy morning
which led me to a hanging night
As if we had always been together
But suddenly parted because of a sin we didn’t commit
Then met again on the edge of a runaway life.
Yah!! many a branch dances in my body!
Many a madman’s language I master!
Many a bird inhabits my throat!
Whenever the tiny violet leaves whisper to me
My strings resonate!

Translation by Norddine Zouitni

Pictures on the Walls

We present this work in honor of the Moroccan holiday, Green March Day.

Ikram Abdi
Moroccan
21st century

 

You washed from the colors of the rainbow
You stare woefully in the strangeness of your face
Bored of the daily that ambushes you
But there you go
And the broken steps of time
you ascend
To inhabit the cities of your suspended strangeness
To rest on a cold soil

The torn flag

We present this work in honor of the Moroccan holiday, Revolution Day.

Ahmed Barakat
Moroccan
1960 – 1994

 

Long live the general
Down with the general

The voices
were the same voices that were of old

Distributing their pain of longing
On reed grown in the wind

These loud voices
Are they her voices?

Long live the general
Down with the general

Is this the female inhabiting the holy lands
The owner of the old territory
And the guardian of jars full of names?
And the flag tattooed with the surprised blood
Is it her flag?

Blood is the only wanderer in the whole land
From desert to desert
And from the desert to the firmaments of Arabic

Long live the general
Down with the general

The wandering blood
Is the same blood left on the padlocks
Since very long
And on the keys
Hanging
In the void

And the door
Which is heavy
Like a corpse

Long live the general
Down with the general

Let the birds lay their eggs
In the mouth of the cannon

Translation by Norddine Zoutini