Selections

Karima Nadir
Seven poems from a forthcoming collection

ON THE THRESHOLD OF SOMETHING ELSE

Sidewalks white as dining tables . . .
wherein I see the shadow of a solitude
catch on fire, screaming,
O Creator of everything and nothing,
shall my story end with a full-stop
as on all those radiant mornings?
I hear the darkness weep . . .
an orphan bloom
a parti-coloured cup of wine
and a snap of hard crust.
Misery’s an illusion, nothing more,
like a woman’s smile
after a night
with no one.
Death disappears
into a bitter nothingness.
Are we, I wonder, hunting out hope amid the staggering tiredness?
The gates of the sun don’t open
and waking’s sickness
stays poisoned by a fogged window.
A rock prances to the chimes of a Mass
delayed . . .
Vacant eyes command the game
and no one tries to shift the tower.
A child climbs to the attic of
the ancient mill
dreaming of chancing on the origin of evil,
led on by the torn words
of a sage that never was.
I feel devotion towards what they hide from me.
One day I wondered:
Is the secret a greater shock, or truth?
Evening will fall without warning,
will compel us to confessions
of sins
committed out of shyness.



AIN DIAB

Corniche Ain Diab
A seagull glides and vanishes behind the lighthouse
cars drawn up in line like a carnelian necklace round
a street-girl’s throat.
Between MacDonald’s, Cinema Megarama, and Chez Zaki’s
crowd mutually averse human brands,
the Samedi soir daily repeated:
the one with the bovine chest
quivers and bridles
and atop her mountainous breasts, clouds of fag smoke,
sweat, blended with Parisian scents
knocked off in Casa Negra’s backstage workshops*
and a hundred dirhams down for manhood whetted, double quick,
in the urinals
and on back seats of cars.
That one, who weeps over her lover
to the strains of the Joundoul song,
I invite her for a beer
and she says she’s a French teacher.
We listen to Abdel Wahab, and I join her in the weeping
whose cause I do not know.
Morning sears the nightclubs’ bats
and they sleep standing on Corniche Ain Diab
emancipated from morning’s values,
from traffic lights,
from pissing in the bowl.
They prick holes in the sky,
they, who sleep standing,
as I watch on with mannish eye
fearful of approaching.



* The film Casanegra is by Moroccan filmmaker Noureddine Lakhmari




NEAR THE HASSAN II MOSQUE

I’m overcome by the desire to cast myself into the sea,
me,
who wets my filth with tears and snot
when I cry.
The sea’s not a woman
spitting her desire
against the rocky shores and dreams;
the sea’s the refuge of stars
cavilling at the constant roll and pitch of the High Places.
come, rebel wave,
stop wavering on the horizon’s brink
Come, let’s score the earth
with claws of discontent.
Let’s take ourselves away to darker ends:
so many the eunuchs I have fancied, studs . . .
Teenagers, instincts aquiver
behind cotton stained with piss and brine,
are cast forward into the deep,
and on the shore
the prayer call’s stirred with applause.
I compare myself to the sea,
its sharp breeze slips to my breast
as I cram within myself corsair hungers, adventurers’ corpses.



L’HEURE, C’EST L’HEURE

The thoughts drag me ragged as I catch them,
O Constant traveller,
constantly looking my way.
the sharp kids have abandoned the Metro station for other lives,
and like the Jewish Quarter’s self-estrangement, its Jews scattered to the Earth’s four corners,
I don’t recognize my own features.
I walked and walked,
puffed smoke like a steam train
and now here I stand, rooted in the main road,
relinquishing thought
and work
and worship.
I’ve a date with myself
I must turn up on time
I was always saying, “L’heure, c’est l’heure.”



TO CHARLES BUKOWSKI

The phone rings,
an unfamiliar number:
Hello?
And from the farther shore: Hello! Bukowski here.
Charles?
You’re coming for a tour of our winter
of our third-class bars
and the brothels of Agadir Alley
where the comrades stand in line with ancient proletarian sex workers.
I’m waiting for you, Charles,
waiting for your Bluebird.
Don’t forget your bird, Charles.
I shall provide sugar lumps aplenty
for your broad-toothed horses.
We’ll hitch them to the columns of your verse
and take off to the Tote’s nags
in the bars the French soldiers left behind.
We’ll divvy up disgust between us
late at night
smash empty bottles
and write poetry at three a.m.
On the Twin Centre’s roof
then scream,
standing on our heads.
There are plenty of places where we can flee
from questions
and the day.
I know your preference is for the Cadillac,
with lots of paper tissues,
but I’ve got nothing but a motorbike
and a sled;
we could rent a jet ski
and leave all shores behind.
I’m a fille du port
and you’re Milord*,
I’ll take your arm in mine
and an oar to be on the safe side,
for time’s a sign that changes the taller the buildings grow.
I own no other bed,
I sleep on blankets,
books I burn one by one
for warmth.
That grab you, Charles?


* “Milord” is the song of Georges Moustaki made famous by Edith Piaf



ERNESTO THE ARGENTINIAN

I open the email to find new pictures
sent by Ernesto
the towering Argentinian
I met at the social forum in Rabat
with distant faces,
and we downed glasses of booze and muddled thoughts
on globalization,
rising empires,
makes of computers,
Osama Bin Laden,
banging pot-lids in the street as protest,
and death to the Tango’s beat,
the songs of Sheikh Imam
and Carlos Puebla.
The Argentinian and I, we shared
the cup
after the others had squandered, in a night, the rations of the days that remained
of our Forum Sociale.
The glasses shattered in their hands,
the wine flowed
and they licked it up like vampires.
We forayed deep into the Latin Archipelago,
read Salvador Allende mixed in with Muzaffar al-Nawab
We abused sons of whores
and apologised to their mothers,
spoke of the brothels of the Communist Party in Italy and Fiat’s union,
Comrade Gramsci,
and the existence of God. 



MOONLIGHT SONATA

Sing to me
till the walls turn water,
O my love, stretched out amidst the clouds,
like a doused wick.
There’s beautiful men,
good women,
there’s me,
and: what is there?
The shore swims in its stillness,
gnaws its nails –
like my father – worried.
The wings of night and blossoming stars
steal violent kisses
whose spittle wets the dreamers.
Shall I persist in death awhile?
No one has visited the Paradise of whose undying serving boys they tell.



Translated by Robin Moger

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