Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Six November-December 2024.
Arab Poets & Writers
Eternal in someone’s tale, poems by Samira Al Bouzidi.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
Eternal in someone’s tale
I do not break, nor do I succumb, nor do I shatter
But I am anxious all the time
I wasted my years jumping between the banks
And in the making of legends
And blind fantasies
I climbed the highest mountain
And dove into the sea of a story that
Only children, madmen, and blue butterflies flying between you and me can read.
I hide a rose in my hair
And I hide my hair in colored fabric
I hide in the end from myself
The whole tale is an escape in escape.
I feel hungry, so I open a book
I digest music at the speed of light
I fast from speech for a time
Sufficient for love or killing.
All stories have an end
Because they were created for this fate
But I condense the matter
And write it from its end
What comes next is just an illusion in the trap of deceptive words
My words are like birds
Colorful and chirping
But their wings are weak
And their cage is large and spacious
And their imagination resembles a dog barking at shadows.
Nothing matters
The countries are falling and people
Tear each other apart
And the dreams, frightened, fly away
And I pour the tea and drink
And I close off, returning without direction.
Once, words used to kill me
Every word is a project of madness
Every meaning is like an unknown book
That only the sorrowful and the heartbroken touch!
But I have freed myself from the illusion
From dragging the letters behind me
Like hungry orphans!
I learned this glorious cruelty
I broke the pens and lifted the board above the mountain of fire
Your time is over, oh poetry
My heart has dried up
And your river that once drowned me
Its banks have fallen into oblivion.
© Samira Al Bouzidi
Samira Al Bouzidi is a Libyan poet. She has published eight poetry collections, and one of her collections has been translated into Italian.
Salwa Gouda is an Egyptian literary translator, critic, and academic at the English Language and Literature Department at Ain-Shams University. She holds a PhD in English literature and criticism. She received her education at Ain-Shams University and California State University in San Bernardino. Furthermore, she has published several academic books, including Lectures in English Poetry and introduction to Modern Literary Criticism, and others. She has also contributed to the translation of “The Arab Encyclopedia for Pioneers,” which includes poets, philosophers, historians, and men of letters, under the supervision of UNESCO. Also, her translated poetry anthology, entitled Dogs Pass Through My Fingers, was published recently through Alien Buddha Press in Arizona, USA. Additionally, her literary translations have been published in various international magazines.