everything dies
the patched-up brain down in the catacombs
dies
dies
the logos of cities
reason dies
crushed under the weight of wrinkles
without any help from one’s hands
the grey brain of gloominess dies
dies
the night when rosary beads are counted
draws near
for the return of dawn
which the sphinxes prophesied
even though the return is impossible
they too have grown old now
exhausted by their alliance
with the wind
right now
I am searching for a new language
for my tribe’s
that isn’t some bastardised creole
hurricanes of argan trees
come to bolster my ranks
a yoke of yellow wasps
around my throat of earth
it’s my dreadful lucidity
grown rusty with memories
which History comes thumping against
now I know the kind of powers I have
the peoples that run through my language
when a night of flames
builds a silence
I write lullabies
by dint of hammer blows
my dreadful lucidity
tuned my voice
to the rhythm of caravans
my dreadful lucidity
sculpted an epoch for me
the size of a desert
right now
I must regurgitate
all the layers of narcotics
and fumes of manure
rational words are as weak as a herbal infusion
I throw out all the books that taught me pride
here I stand
right here
dressed in the fleece of the night
armed with wasps
with that smell of muscles
like a camel’s carcass
that’s ready to leap onto the road
come and see if my breasts
aren’t blooming with curses
if only they left me a few veins
or a few nerves
or even just a finger
so I could re-trace on my parchment
a new theory of cosmic origins
in all the harmoniousness of its
elements
listen to languages collide
inside my mouth
the thirst of births
listen to sweat splash
under my armpits
the flexing of biceps
propelled by my inner wildlife
leapt out of caves
bloodied quill
my head on every wall
the galloping of my breath
spews out planets
in its eruptions
here I am
torrential in my flood
working around bends and corners
the forgotten craters in my incandescence
I Atlas
of diurnal tribes
collecting in my falls and ravines
the impatient foam of a coming tomorrow
ask the vultures what my venom tastes like
the callousness of claws
my prison bars of curses
I am a proclaimer
edifying to insurrection
a kingdom
don’t look for me in your archives
frightened by my denunciations
what I am you will not find in words
instead look for me in your entrails
when fugitive verses
twist your guts
look for me in the urine of fevers
down the malarial alleyways
there
in the mud of cataracts
destroy my outlawed names
stomp on the spells I radiate
but at my call
smash the jars of honey
slash the throats of the black bulls on the thresholds of mosques
feed thousands and thousands of beggars
then I will come
spit in your mouth
burst your tumours
cure you of your ancestral sufferings
still I prefer you
and the straightness of your ploughs
my deep-slumbering brothers
come
cast down
thrown overboard
a stranger to the orbit of planets
between heaven and nothingness
sprung
from whimsy
at the beginning of the word
I know nothing about the laws of gravity
of the mathematics of
revolutions
arab
berber
but most importantly, human
yet one who bears a mark
and a voice
that are unchangeable
come from your tomorrows
gravedigger of ruins
whose burden I won’t carry
the mistakes of the night
but instead
freely make the door knockers clang
so that each threshold
will yield its algorithm
I’m asleep
atop a mountain of salt
an ear listening to the wheel of time
I let my arms grow
to ripen an awakening
I laugh yes I laugh in my dream
look at my eyelids
which caravan-masters inseminate with germs
and my terrifying eye
exacting
like an hourglass