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Live Encounters Arab Poets in Translation August 2023
KM6, poems by Mohamed Miloud Grafi.
KM 6
At the sixth kilometer
The asphalt did not help us
We turned towards a path
Where the soldiers
And the sun of God reside
So she released all her charms
Above the seat
She said: take me now
Take me towards the seventh kilometer
Higher
Where love lives with all his fires
And take that kiss
Take it now
Do you know the meaning of a kiss
Where the soldiers reside?
I may meet you
I envy the tree
As it covers two lovers
And the gulls
As it flies without a license
In the dictionary
And the hand of the ice cream seller
When it stretches coldly
To the phone
I envy the phone
Shivering in her back pocket
I envy the cup
With red lips
And the beds
In hotel rooms
And the mirrors
I envy all perfumes
That carry me to you now
Terrified in the night train
Embedded in a lecture
About poetry and cancer
I will get off at the same station
Wandering
And trembling
Like the phone in your back pocket
I may meet you
Standing
At the ice cream seller.
Delusions
For whom are you plucking now
Jasmine flowers
Under the house?
As your hands are stained with gold
And your bicycle
Is breathless
At the door
And your eyes are sleepy
In front of DiCaprio in the kisses scene
Underwater
And your chest is lifted up
Towards God
Exultant
And your whole night is
A debt to poets
In describing nightmares.
I disappeared
The day they increased in love
Fifty dollars
And two bottles of whiskey
Not because I am empty handed
But to raise the ceiling of my delusions
And prove that I am
Going to a war
Lost without you.
© Mohamed Miloud Grafi
Moroccan poet and novelist residing in France. He has published four collections of poetry and a novel. He is a researcher and professor of contemporary Arabic literature at the University of Lyon, France. He translated many contemporary Arab poets into French.