Live Encounters Arab Women Poets & Writers June 2026
Killing Time, poems Samira Al Bouzidi.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
Killing Time
Life
can bear anything
golden contradictions, quick separations, virtual betrayals,
killing time, killing the lover.
Its scent is prose-like,
like a modernist, deconstructive text
the smell of a rain-soaked tree,
burning wood,
blind beetles searching for immortality inside the earth,
a shiny label, overwhelming greenery, a beautiful body,
a flower table, a forest of illusions,
horses running among us,
wasted ink, the sound of tearing paper,
e-books that die easily,
poems that love to undress late at night,
a tear that fills the ocean until it overflows with strange compositions.
So, You Won’t Walk Away
I love reading poetry
while sitting down.
My hair is trapped inside my scarf
so it won’t fly far from its roots.
My feet are tied beneath me
so they won’t think of running or falling.
Poetry intoxicates me.
Sitting like a tree with drooping branches,
I listen to my own secret rustling.
Sitting, I recite words
the way mystics and madmen recite them.
I break the poem’s bones
so it won’t walk away
and leave me alone
here, under your staring eyes,
your preconceived ideas,
your baffled interpretations.
Sitting-this is always my way,
while my soul flies far away.
It’s there, above the mountains,
with the oppressed, the poor,
and the wayfarers.
My soul has always been a wayfarer
yearning for birds
and those with torn spirits.
I don’t like podiums or the pretense of oration.
I like being simple
like a quick, painless bullet.
Or hazy like fog that reaches out a hand
but can’t see it.
I abandoned poetry,
but it didn’t leave me alone.
It sniffs my trail like a loyal dog,
guarding me from collapse,
guarding my wits from escape.
I dismissed it; it tugged my sleeve.
I fought it; it pinned me down.
I slapped it; it embraced me and wept:
“Who will you leave me for?”
Sitting on the ground
I am closer to her soul here.
Sometimes I put my ear to the earth
to hear her heart.
Yes,
the earth has a beating heart.
While human hearts have stopped.
I don’t know.
I look at my country
and smell the scent of ruin and erasure.
That’s why I always sit
waiting for you.
Shirts of the Wind
We’ve lost life, my friends,
but imagination remains
an immortal demon kicking the earth.
We write as if God poured ink into our hearts
and thoughts into the shirts of the wind.
Every poet has a shirt:
whoever wears it,
whirls away
and never returns.
Oh, our world
in the end we leave you hanging by a thin thread
between life and illusion,
because death is the only truth.
We are the wardens of your fantasy.
We’ve read your giant letters carefully
valleys and rivers overflowed.
We got lost on your path.
We are the door and the key,
the dirty light, the wise shadows, the pure metals.
We are your dimensions and your blind vision,
your postponed children.
In the end, we will remain a long sigh
suspended between heaven and earth…
Mistakes
At night I inspect my mistakes
and return them to the right.
They must flourish and grow
like a small, beautiful tumor that leads to ruin,
like a blind day, a night kicking in the dark.
That’s how I keep my soul from rotting in stagnation
or weakening.
That’s how I know:
mistake is knowledge,
knowledge is existence,
and existence must be luminous.
How would I discover straightness if I never stumbled?
How would I see clearly if I never went blind?
There are many roads,
and the lantern is almost withering.
The thugs in our lives
spoiled it so much
that we grew up cautious
before walking, before shaking hands,
before even thinking of leaving your house.
© Samira Al Bouzidi
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.
Samira Al Bouzidi is a Libyan poet. She has published eight poetry collections, and one of her collections has been translated into Italian.