Look, my love,
at this world that is crumbling
around us
within us
Hold my head tightly against your chest
and tell me what you see
Why are you so silent?
Just tell me what you see
The contaminated stars fall
from the tree of knowledge
Will the toxic cloud of ideas
soon overwhelm us?
Tell me what you see
Are the books burning in the public squares
Are they shaving women’s heads before stoning them to death
Are there processions of men in balaclavas
brandishing crosses and scimitars
Why are you so silent, my love,
are we standing on a floating island
or slicing through waves astride a torpedo
Are we alone
or are we chained to our brothers-in-suffering
What day is it
What time is it?
Hold my head tightly against your chest
and if you can
open your belly up and welcome me
into the crucible of your strength
to the spring of all springs
Plunge me into the rock pool of life
and pour seven fistfuls of barley
on my head
while humming that song by Fayrouz
the one you can sing so much better than she can
Why are you crying
Are you worried about the world
or about our love
Is there nothing you can do for me?
So just tell me what you see
What evils are people dying of these days
What is this invisible weapon that is sucking
the unmistakable taste and soul of life
What is this caravan that devours its own camels
and empties its goatskins of water onto the sand
Who is this magician
who has turned war into an act of love?
Why are you so silent
Are you among those who believe that words are so dirty
that one can’t even use them to ask for directions
Do you think there’s nothing left to say
and that my poor little poems
only make a mockery of mockery
Would you prefer I kept my mouth shut
and let you look on as things fall apart
amidst the dignity of your silence?
Hold my head tightly against your chest
and cradle me
My head will become tiny
in the silly cocoon of your hands
The large abscess of ideas will burst
and I will re-become the child of another century
frightened by thunder
who steels himself
reeling off an old alphabet
by the light of a candle
in the forbidden house of Fez
next to a brazier where incense and fenugreek burn
and the evil eye exploded in the alum
Cradle this toddler whom nobody ever cradled
so he can come back to life and in your arms revivify
a drowned, pillaged world
of which nothing remains
except the bitter perfume of innocence
Why are you so silent, my love,
Did I re-awaken the pain you’d stifled
or perhaps the desire to be cradled yourself
The desires of a girl who was born in a different war
who travelled across those seas
to find the sun in her picture books once again
and caress the golden fruit in an orchard
guarded by legionnaires?
You ignored this vain torment of roots
which man loves more than his own voice
and quickly learned to speak the despised tongues
that know how to sow seeds in the lands where blood is spilled
and how to plant where deracination is dogged
All this while pretending to fly
with the loyalty of migratory birds
and this melancholy that sweetly lacerates them
between the nest and the journey
Are you mourning this drowned world
or this crumbling world
Do you weep for children or adults
Can we choose between two kinds of goodbyes
resolve ourselves to farewells
even though the miracle is right here
in our peaceful heartbeats
which play their symphony
wrist against wrist
even if weapons are allowed to speak
instead of poets?
Hold my head tightly against your chest
and tell me what you see
with that careful eye we so patiently trained
in the darkest of darknesses
when we kept track of days by counting them backwards
when the spring devoured sex
when the autumn was a swallow made out of wax
on our pillow
when the summer seared our skin with its red-hot pokers
and the winter granted us a crumb of mercy
When some loving words hurled through the grills
kept us nourished for a whole, interminably long week
When I smiled at the conquest of your smile
and you spilled the tears I refused to spill
When I pulled a pigeon out of my head
so you could perch it proudly on your shoulder
while you lingered in the waiting line
Tell me what you see
with that fleshy, steely eye
that’s so accustomed to the darknesses
the incontrovertible witness
Why are you so silent, my love,
this eye will never be extinguished, will it?
So tell me what you see
Have they started destroying Granada
Are the barbarians at our gates
What are the barbarians like
Do they speak a strange language
Do they really hail from another galaxy
from another temporal dimension
How do they resemble us
What about them is so terrifying?
Tell me what you see
Does the river of images still flow
Has a date been set for the Flood
Fighting’s already broken out around the Ark
What will they do with wounded horses
with children no longer able to walk
Women have picked up weapons in their turn
Is there a lost prophet amidst the hordes?
Why are you so silent, my love,
You force me to imagine
what I’ve never wanted to imagine
even if it meant scooping out my own eyes
How could I have believed that one day I would have to take on
the crow’s accursed job
or even the swan’s sombre role
An artisan’s son, I am now an artisan,
a weaver of hope
a keeper of the fireplace until it crumbles to ashes
a shepherd without a shepherd’s crook
which I raise against the wolf-dog
An artisan’s son, I am now an artisan,
who keeps only a single eye fixed on rainbows
to avoid confusing the colours
placing my trust in their names
picking them up one by one
and placing them inside my mother’s copper pot
like all the other rare spices
destined for human pleasures
destined for a meal that only becomes lawful
when the poor bless and honour it
How could I have known
that the dream that led me to believe in humankind
would become a nightmare
that the heroes of my youth
would cut down the tree of my song
that the books where I met my doppelgängers
would turn yellow at the bottom of my shelves
that my roving, devoted to the encounter,
would leave me without a glass of water
or a piece of bread, left on the side of the road
by Whoever keeps watch over those who wander?
How could I have believed
in the mirage of such a beautiful road
in the chains of such a crazy horizon
in worms residing inside such beautiful fruit
Where can one thus find the flaw?
Why are you so silent, my love,
do you wish to fan the flames of words in me
make me blurt out pompous predictions, heresies
to remake with words what man
restore meaning to what has allied itself against meaning
bring the cogs and gears that have swallowed my body with a cry
leaving me nothing but the semblance of a voice
Yet who speaks within me
Is it you, or my eye,
or even my words which are in mourning
Go, therefore, word
relieve me
spin me into delirium
restore to my tongue its forgotten languages
its ancient beliefs
the restless hornets of its words
its jungles and its cool-headed reducers
Slip me from the noose of reason
Take my wolfskin and sheepskin
my fossilised inkwell, my pencils
the funerary bread on which I swore an oath
Take this pilgrim’s staff
that thought it could lead a blind man
Take the last cigarette and throw away the packet
Go, my words
relieve me
spin me into delirium
be vigorous, abrasive, irritating
Rise up and overflow
Stand on your head
Wash the words dragged through the mud
and all those putrid mouths
Become a wave that swells
and inexplicably leaps out of the sea
along with all the fish who reject the destiny of water
Ensure another magma forms in you
and ensure it promises us an obstinate genesis
with neither heaven nor hell
as slow as the caress that stokes the flames of desire
Go, word,
my loyal words
Now I speak
with my whole body
with all my failures
Defeated, I refuse to give up
I’m going to open a building site in my memory
and light torches with the light of my martyrs’ eyes
and use their hands to beat on drums
We’re going to dance the dance
of suns that stole
butchered bulls from us
and threw them into our prison cells
where sacred dancers were imprisoned for the crime of dancing
O, words
Leave no organ fallow
water them with a youthful, pregnant juice
Dance with me
Dance with us
Whether there are ruins or no ruins
chaos or paradise
Whether God is dead or alive
Dance with everything
I come to you
poor and naked as I should
with a fistful of salt in my mouth
my nails long and blackened
walking on glowing coals
in a cloud of sandalwood smoke and fuming entrails
flying the black-and-yellow flag of crazed women
the priestesses of holes in the earth
I come to you
O mother and father
to join the procession and wear the robe
to link my faith to the rope of your faith
I’ve brought a billygoat and coloured candles from Salé
three sugar loaves
and a bundle of mint from Meknès
O, make room for me
so I can dance
and my blood can spurt onto the pavement
to show the path to the sanctuary
where no Imam can hide
This sanctuary which even you have forgotten
There where rebels escape human laws
and can live like free men
O, my words
dance with me
dance with us
I entrust this body to you in its healthy trance
its benign and malign tumours
these talismans encrusted in the skin
to instil the patience of stone
and make one’s fate less voracious
I entrust you with
this procession which hesitates between frenzy and submission
I entrust you with
these drums, rattles
and seductive violins
I entrust you with
kettles and pitchers
the cauldron, the fire and its servants
the virgin and the spirits who dwell in her
her polyphonic cry of false pregnancy
her blinding breasts
her hips which slice through the night like a winged ship
O, my unpredictable mistress
I entrust you with
the floodgates of the night
so that you can spring them open
at the appointed hour
without giving in
to the abductors of the dawn
O my words
where have I come from if not from you
and where am I going?
Now I’ve got nothing left except this hair
to bring me from one precipice to the next
and rejoin some friendly star
that stubbornly shines through the desolation of the sky
rise through the circles of an incoherent inferno
where some thought I would enjoy myself
Now I’ve got nothing except this kingdom
which is the size of a hand-span
where I don’t even have a right to a tent
and where I can’t even hear a name
without hurting
there where no suture can stitch the wound shut
Must I call you my homeland
to console me or to wreak my vengeance
or must I also let you be
free to rule over roots, heresies, love
forever rebellious?
a force to be reckoned with
you alone can banish me
when no other tyrant can exile me
You alone can saddle my horse
or choose the bridle and stirrup
and lead it down frightening paths
where you enjoy yourself by making me read like a neophyte
through sand, pebbles and cold trails
You alone, o jealous woman,
can’t condone either weaknesses or infidelity
And now you toss me aside like a soiled tissue
into this chaos
And now you assign me
the end of the world
and task me with sifting through the ruins
to discover the black or white stone
the missing seed
the ring of wood
or the organ left unclaimed
by one missing link or another
that will adjust to the soul
when the era
of another adventurous life begins
I comply
and I search
I synchronise my disorder to the world’s disorder
I write so as not to lose myself, so as not to fall
I write while looking feverishly at my watch
the trajectory of the sun
the shadow cast on the wall
I search through the polluted sand
right to the tip of the round wood
the slightest burst of white stone
so I can go argue with them over that famous seed
I dig into my arteries
to find some organ
which school never taught me existed
By the way, answer me this
how can one find a black stone in the dark?
I write, regardless of whether I have nothing or everything
the vitality of despair
and God knows this is so vast
I work as hard as a poor stonemason
whom fate has tasked with building the palaces of the rich
as hard as a miner who digs into the belly of the earth
to avenge his sterility
which he doubtlessly reproaches his wife for
I write like other people pray
or atone for their sins
and I accept the Mystery
Sometimes I even experience the same joys they do
the same marvels
but I often think they ignore
the torments that give my prayers
the touches of truth that defy faith
I write
when you write to me
O word
and I add details that elude you
when I submit your words to the ordeal
awaken in them the memory that predates you
When I stop treating them like slaves
and I caress them with a sense of dignity
When I fix a date for our amorous rendezvous
and show up early to savour the ecstasy of expectation
When I invite them after the obligatory drink
to a meal where we eat with our fingers
from the same plate
When I demand nothing of them
except our duty
to our sovereign freedom
I write out of compassion
holding out my beggar’s bowl
and who cares if all I collect is a bunch of spit
O Word
look at how you’ve hardened me
I’ve become your anvil
The hammers of the world can strike down
but I will not shirk
I’ll wait until they tire themselves out
to prepare myself for the world to come
Which will have its own hammers, no doubt!
Did I get any sleep my love
What did I say about the things I thought I saw
Where did this hair
I tied around my tongue come from
Why am I all stiff?
My feet are swollen
My head feels like all the heavy water spilled out
But now I’m suddenly peaceful
ready to see and listen
to slip out of your embrace
and to appear before the Scales
to weigh my soul
and whatever the palms of my hands have owned
and deposit the few feathers left on my wings
the embroidered handkerchief I forgot in my pocket
My body will be naked except for our wedding band
Neither angels nor demons will take that away from me
I will fight tooth and nail to keep it
with the rage of an invalid
I will defend it
and like in the old stories
I will spin it around my finger
when the jailer thinks he’s cut off all exits
There will be thunder and great tower of smoke
a tremor, and a partridge will make an unexpected flight
And the miracle will be there
our heartbeats will pulse along peacefully
and play their symphony
wrist against wrist
while we float
atop the span of our island
with a new inventory of words
a little drinking water
some fruit
knowing that our little skiff belongs to this world
which is crumbling around us
within us
Our skiff is of this world
which is even more lost than we are
Our skiff is of this world
dumbfounded
because it’s either too young or too old
to understand
that a little ring
can perform a miracle