Oulaya Drissi El Bouzaidi: Selected poems
The dairy Of an Autumnal Saturday
(…) Autumn’s very cheerful
Along with Salvador Dali (…)
“A first Draft”
(…) I am the high-speed train
Carrying young birds.
The sea’s herd
Renders the sky a dome
While time is an orange o’clock
I can put a grain of water
On a rope
Taking sips of coffee
From a hasty cup
I might come across your corpse
But you can’t see …!
I make winter in the morning
But rainless I stay.
I smoke a cloud in the evening
But in vain, still no rain.
My coat is within the reach
Though no sky is mine…
The begotten of this flood
I am
Still I can’t rain…!!
My steps are not enough
I sometimes find no directions
In my mind
Nor does a tree blossom
In my heart.
As if I sent God to my path
I lock the wall’s gate
With scream.
Shall I proceed milling the wind
Blowing in there?
Should I sow the tobacco of night
Dwelling in my lungs?
I might be a heaven
Whose light I can’t see
I am a tree
Which chose the wrong
Option
Not to recall its birds
In the school’s playground
Deep in me
There’s a little sea
In my eyes it flows
And never does it grow
It secretly slips
Into a boundless ocean
With one dolphin
And a broken trunk of mine
I ascend
Into
Life…
A slight shade
Keeps my head safe
Before it turns to besiege
Weaved with gust.
No one hears me but the garden
Ashamed of its birds…
Some newborn thing
I am bringing back
To an old evening
Fading away
From me…
The ether slaps my cheeks
Not to let me
Remember…
Thus, like always,
I watch the wild wind
Heaving me to rose petals
Like three corpses in haste…
The fishtail flaps
It slightly flaps
To set me free…
I wish I were late for me
Just a single minute away!
If only I had confessed to my decay
Contemplating
The minute…
O little child What is the time? For time was high enough Not to let me be the tree...!!
Translation to English by Youssef Elharrak
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Oulaya Drissi El Bouzaidi is a Moroccan poet and a member of the Union of the Moroccan writers. Among her works are: -" A bar and if the wine reaches it" (2009) Dar Tawhidi Publications. - " A long-winged air" in arabic in 2014 , Dar Tawhidi Publication and in English in 2017, Edilivre Publications and -" Shadows falling upwards" in 2015.
"Roses imitate me to fall" 2018 dar Tawhidi Publications
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