When the woodland everywhere is despoiled of its green honours, make straight for the deep forest, mounted on the snow-white housing of your steed. The snipe is an easy and agreeable prey. You will find it no larger in body than Venus’ doves. It feeds close to the edge of embankments, by the wash of the water, hunting tiny worms, its favourite fare. But its pursuit thereof is rather with keen-scented nose than with the eyes, in which its sense is rather dull, too big for the body though they be. With the point of the beak driven into the ground it drags out the little worms which needs must follow, therewith rewarding an appetite cheap to satisfy.
We present this work in honor of the Tunisian holiday, Republic Day.
Salah Garmadi Tunisian 1933 – 1982
Should I one day die among you
but will I ever die
do not recite over my corpse verses from the Koran but leave that to those whose business it is do not promise me two acres of Paradise
for I was happy on one acre of land
do not partake of the traditional couscous on the third day of my death it was in fact my favorite dish do not scatter bits of fig on my grave
for little birds of the sky to peck at human beings are more in need of them don’t stop cats urinating on my grave it was their habit to piss on my doorstep every Thursday and it never made the earth shake do not come to visit me twice a year at the cemetery I have absolutely nothing with which to welcome you do not swear by the pace of my soul that you are telling the truth even when lying your truths and your lies are of no interest to me and the peace of my soul is none of your business do not pronounce on the day of my funeral the ritual phrase: “in death he preceded us but one day we shall meet again” this type of race is not my favorite sport should I one day die among you but will I ever die
put me on the highest point of your land and envy me for my untouchability
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus Tunisian c. 160 – c. 220
From a little scorpion the land emits great evil. As many poisons, as many types, as much ruin, as many species, as much pain, as many colors. Nicander writes about it and depicts it well.
Yet of all things, the movement of its tail (the so-called coda, which ex – tends from behind the body and strikes) inflicts the most pain. So this is the scorpion: its chain of knots, from a thin, poisonous vein, rising up in an arc of rage, and drawing at its height a barbed spear like the war-plan of a catapult.
For this reason the war machine with retracted spears is also called a scorpion. Its sting is also an open vein, and it volleys venom into the wound as it pierces. It’s well-known the dangerous season is summer. In the south and southwest winds, this ferocity is at work. In terms of remedies, natural things appear most effective; so too magic works; there’s a cure by knife and potion. Some, who hope to swiftly avoid pain, drink an immunization, but sex keeps it from working, and then immediately you’re at risk again.
We present this work in honor of the Tunisian holiday, Martyrs’ Day.
Ines Abassi Tunisian b. 1982
Time: Circles intertwine to form one circle: Its fulcrum is your betrayal. The rays of lies stretch like a diameter of blunders. In mathematics there is something called ‘adjacency’— a no man’s land zone: We are not inside it, nor outside of it. We sometimes meet in it or at the edge of the circle/the memory. Thus, we belong to all possibilities. When meeting, the circle vehemently revolves to return into a mere dot in the void
We present this work in honor of Tunisian Independence Day.
Shams Nadir Tunisian b. 1940
A mask left me stranded at the beginnings of the world and my delible ashes for a long while swirled in the depths of Punic Tophets. And my powerless breath wore itself out, for a long time at the pediments of Roman glory. O my lifeblood, my Numidian vigor. There has always been roaming, always the wind, And the exultation of sands as vain armies of crystal. And the damp shelter of hillside caves in the steppes of exile. And bare tufts, always there, in the hollow of a summer brought forth. Always, always, the tenacious, fragile dream of a riverbank where to land is to be reborn naked, reconciled, and living at the pace of swaying palm trees.
Blossius Aemilius Dracontius Tunisian c. 455 – c. 505
Suddenly Cypris and her dove-drawn chariot descended from the quarter where the fiery night wheels its constellations over southern shores. Her purple doves wore bridles woven out of flowers, a red rose linked the gently undulating traces, the birds’ beautiful yoke was lilies mixed with roses. She flicked a purple whip to keep the team on course. She steered the wing beats; she controlled the feathered oars.
We present this work in honor of the Tunisian holiday, Revolution Day.
Najet Adouani Tunisian b. 1956
I only wish I had wings Wings like those of the angels so that I can fly over seas and rivers, Hills and deserts… I ask my soul to borrow me her flames, I need that only for a short while, I want to walk in that glow for me. I wish to have powerful wings, Stronger than the wings of birds, I need wings as vast as infinite space… wings as vast as history. Yes, I wish I had wings of clay and of fire, purple and gold, silver and tin, iron and diamonds, wings heavy and light. I wish to had wings which hold me over the universe; everywhere I can be a loaf of bread in the hand Of a starved infant… A handkerchief wipes of the tears of a bereaved of child. A smile breaks night’s fear, A hymn of a lost Bedouin Entertains a peace’s caravan.
It might end, this night, with a translucent fog covering the tops of the cypresses, like last night. Or it might end with a pale morning, crowned with a laurel wreath of terror and with an urge to run away, like the morning of that one summer night. Where does the road home start from? From the last house that I escaped from? Or from the last hurriedly booked hotel room?
I remember clearly: his hand was around my neck. The cloudy look in his eyes. The moon was alone outside, with no poems to praise its illusory beauty. I remember, at the same time, the delicate light flowing into the room through the open windows. We were in our room. We were together and his hand was around my neck, on that night and the other nights like it throughout the years, his hand pressing on my soul.
The road winds through the trees. There are scattered farms on each side of the road, and I see ducks and other farm animals here and there. When my heart starts to pound at the heights, I close my eyes. I remember my eyes clouding over from the pain. The scene in front of me is extravagantly beautiful. My eyes drink in the greenery at every bend, until I forget the hands that choked me one summer night. I feel dizzy from the extravagant beauty of the road as it ascends toward Bouisse, and I forget.
They say that children with iron deficiency will peel the lead paint off the walls and eat it. What about souls with love deficiency? They feed on the bark of trees—every single one, the trees on the road as well as the forest trees. Souls that are hungry for love touch trees, get close to them and embrace them. I did this every time, in every trip I took after becoming free of him, and from his hand and the frying pan. Every time I stopped the rental car and get out to embrace the trees.
A life can completely change between one night and another.
Tonight, it is Christmas night and time is passing lightly, carrying the smell of warm mulled wine, fragrant with cinnamon and lemon slices. Lovers, regardless of their different colors and ages, are decorating the night. Lovers, children, old people, women with their short skirts and transparent black stockings. Santa Claus hanging on the walls, in a pose that gives the impression that he is about to ascend toward windows to sneak inside the houses to pass out his presents. Celebrations are everywhere and the night is dancing with its light, like a carol I can’t quite place. The night is heavy with Arabic words in the back streets of Toulouse and the big Algerian flag that is flapping high from the balcony of one of the apartments.
Things happen, in the night stained with light.
“It was my favorite frying pan.”
I repeated this sentence in front of the judge, in front of the people in the courthouse. And a few months earlier I had repeated to the policeman at the police station and a few hours before that, that night, I repeated it to my neighbor Lamia when I fled to her house.
“It was my favorite frying pan—it never sticks.”
I repeated the same sentence for days while looking through my tears to the dented frying pan. I held on to it, clung to it with a shaky hand, with a heavy head and a bruised and scratched up body. I carried it as a guilty verdict, I carried it as an accusation, as a life buoy.
The day I kissed him for the first time on the beach, secretly behind the rock of lovers, I didn’t know that I would choose him out of all men to be my husband. I also didn’t know that he would beat me whenever I said no to him. I didn’t know that the word “no” sends him into an insane rage. And I didn’t know that my favorite frying pan would become his weapon. That night when I shook the hungry bird of desire off of me and dared to tell him no, my life flipped upside down. In the beginning, he strangled me and tried to pin me on the bed under him. I don’t know how I kicked him and slipped away from him. I frantically gasped for air. I don’t know why I ran to the kitchen. We stood there almost naked. Looking at each other silently. I looked with my eyes for something, anything, and when I saw the bread knife he had already beaten me to the frying pan. The blows that hit my head reverberated like the blows of a sledge hammer. The darkness of the night covered me as I surrendered and let my body collapse on the kitchen floor. A thousand stars exploded in a supernova inside my head before I passed out.
When I chose him, like when I was choosing the frying pan, I didn’t know that I was kissing the beast that would break me like a wild horse. The frog didn’t become a prince but I became a porcupine shorn of its quills, unable to defend itself.
When I woke up later that night I couldn’t believe that I was still alive. I also couldn’t believe that he was able to just go to sleep after what happened. I rushed to my neighbor Lamia. I left my son with her. The blood running from my nose was hot and I could barely stand up from the headache. But still I left the house and went to the police station. I didn’t take anything with me but my body and the frying pan that he hit me with. The frying pan became an extension of my right hand. It was like a strange new organ that I added to my body, to help me balance as I dragged myself inside the police station vestibule.
The policeman groaned and asked me: Who’s the son of a bitch that did this to you?
My father arrived, his face the color of an unripe mango, neither green nor yellow. My brother joined us. In the police station, they all wanted to take the frying pan out of my hand. The policeman, my father, my brother. But I didn’t let them, I held onto it tight. I know I looked crazy, I saw how they all looked at me when I grabbed a glass of water with my left hand and drank it without letting go of the frying pan.
Things happen, in the night stained with light. I felt his hands around my neck, strangling me. It was a brief, strange moment, in the moonlight stealing in from the open window. The child had sneaked early in the night to sleep between us, that hot night in August. Desire was hovering above us like a hungry bird. Desire was like a necessity, like a need that we had to satisfy: like for food, water and sleep. In the beginning I used the presence of the child between us in the bed as an excuse. I wondered to myself whether I really wanted that. I tried to avoid the matter entirely by using the child as an excuse. But he carried him gently making sure not to wake him up and put him in his bed in the next room. The bed is ours, he whispered with a hoarse voice. “But I don’t feel right, he might wake up at any moment.” He didn’t answer me. He barely kissed me when he lifted my dress touching the dew of my sweaty legs. I didn’t close my eyes as I usually do, but I looked at him instead. I wasn’t able to see the expression on his face. I realized that I didn’t want to satisfy the desire of the blind bird. I didn’t want this anymore. In the beginning I hesitated but when he succeeded in unzipping my dress I pushed him and said “no.” He got close to me but I pushed him and stood; I backed up until I felt the cool of the wall against my back.
“No—no, I don’t want you,” I said. The “no” came out shakily so I said again in a confident voice, “I don’t want you.” I felt his hand pressing more around my neck and I could hardly breathe. It occurred to me to knee him between his legs.
Things happen, in the night stained with light. Today I am free. I left him the child and I left. I am free of the darkness of pain, of the hammer of pain, of the frying pan.
But still I remember my swollen head and the blue bruises on my body. I remember the dented frying pan.
This is me.. I thought of a people that says, Yes & No. I adjusted what I had thought of because – simply – I adjusted what I had thought of. I thought of a people that says, Yes to No. I thought of the number of victims, orphans, widows, and thieves. I thought of letters fleeting from the texts. I thought of a people leaving its land with its women and men, camels and dogs. I thought of that orphan – the government – It was solely importing clapping from a concert of a soprano that is singing to the gazelle, to justice, and to the Christ. I thought of an eloquent silence. Life has gone as it has gone. Life has gone in rushing & in vain. I’d read a poem to Al-Asha al Kabir in the bar when wine ran out and the cock and the crow of the city cried in its night: “– O, folks! There is no tomorrow – after now – over there.”
Poets Corner 