“In Terms of You, Homeland” and other poems by Mohamed Chouchane

A Certain Homeland

And in terms of you, homeland!

***

 

In an Arab homeland,

we lean on the table of our poverty

we sort out our chaos

we sing praises to the dignity of the famished

When a big rat

took a leap, oh my Lord!

it tore our dreams off our skin

and we returned to our exile singing: Long Live Our Homeland!

 

In terms of you, homeland!

***

This homeland

keeps a moon in a faraway sky

throws obstacles

in front of doves

forced to migrate from dry oil wells.

But this very same homeland, Fatima

destroys with a scalpel the catheter

in the heart of a maiden

a maiden

who has just died

longing for her beloved

homeless in that desert of this homeland

 

In terms of you, homeland!

***

Like a teardrop

over sand dunes

under a blistering sky

 

whenever the wind blows

it rubs the edges of the wound

of an industrious track

of footprints stamping

history on the sand

 

The Man …

The man

who gifted me

with a flower and a kiss

under a sky so close

you could touch it

left the wind of his departure and moved on

Since that day I have been watering his flower with a teardrop

of mine, still fresh

and green like his heart.

 

Childhood

Father…

I am your little girl who grew up

in the midst of your holding my hand and me eating your candy

and now my forsaken voice attracts wolves

and cowards from the neighborhood.

Father…

I am all grown up

and no longer am my mother’s little sister

and no longer believe in playing hide and seek

during long winter nights

nor do I believe that my mother protects you with her tender

heart

from the frost of life

from the flame of buried desires.

And I have understood

that I am the daughter of that legitimate heat

combined with that certain frost.

What should I tell you today, Father?

If I came to you

bearing my spilled blood

and that old rag that is my life

after being evacuated from inferior cities?

 

English translation by Pina Piccolo based on the Italian translation from the original Arabic by Sana Darghmouni.

 

 

Mohamed Chouchane, Tunisian poeta born on 23 March 1976. These poems are from his first poetry collection  Haldol or “Drops of delirium” published by the Tunisian press Dyar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cover image courtesy of Veronica Vannini.