Yesterday I picked up the cries of cats and children – Poems by Samira Albouzedi

1

I’m just a girl from Tripoli

Naive and sometimes wicked

I let half of my friends burn in my memory

Every day I write, this is my only knowledge

I approach volcanoes

And in my writing I make brothers out of enemies

I make them toast and die without a fight

I have left behind heavy times

And I build my personal time

I don’t care how many eyes catch my mistakes

Nor how many dogs bark at my lazy caravan

I am a girl from Tripoli

My desires are as simple as the roof of my house

I wait for the war to end

So I can sit in a bar with my beloved

So my little ones can grow in a garden instead of in fear

So i can write my novel, Maymouna the Libyan.

 

2

I hold the world by its one testicle

I engrave a tattoo on its broken leg

I tell it you are a wounded horse that must die

With a coup de grace so as not to bring pain to anyone

I stuff its mouth with old newspapers to muffle its screams

You know how everyone likes to cry out

They cry out in pain, happiness, suffering and pleasure

Yesterday I picked up the cries of cats and children

And those of ants in the center of the earth

I put them in a bottle

And let it fall to the ground

The world thus became mute

and since that day it stammers and perks up its ear, pretending

to hear us.

 

Samira Albouzedi,  born in 1969 in Tripoli (Libya,) has been writing poetry and publishing since 1994. She has published in national newspapers and magazines and in those of the Arab world, has participated in many poetry meetings in Libya and abroad, her work  has been analyzed in several papers. She has participated in many festivals and conferences including the Sète festival in France, and has been panelist in conferences in Tunisia and Morocco. Her works include : under air raids, the door of the dream , the world awakens in a fright.