Tr Mohamad El Bouayadi, Ayoub el Houssani

Before all the slogans fall

against earth and sky to sedition,

a dream’s compass will lead me

and I’ll run naked in the street

not considering the distortion of wisdom;

I will ride a bicycle

exactly, like in a black and white movie,

and I will wait for the starting gun

to destroy the black box in my head;

Passing through the narrow alley,

a passer-by, stuffed into some rags,

asks about the secret sedition lurking in the world’s brain;

A TV presenter asks about the secret of this act;

With her forced smile,

she asks the passers-by

to condemn their own voices

into a microphone,

also their dead presence;

The silence grows louder,

I am reckless.

A cup is in front of me

shivering with emptiness

and the pub is crowded with customers.

I am here

I renew the dream compass,

I don’t know if I have slept

or fell inadvertently

out of the naval of life;

Whether I slept or fell inadvertently,

perhaps it’s the same.

I fell asleep thinking

about the door becoming fed up with the key,

about the ruler’s speech,

about the country and its people;

I fell asleep thinking

about daydreams – my favorite sport.

Can it suddenly happen?

Or is it an incursion in mobilizing the vacuum?

I fell asleep thinking about my funeral,

yesterday’s funeral,

I fell asleep thinking about the ninth wine cup,

about a road that does not lead to the heart,

about the mud that hates my shoes,

about Brigitte Bardot’ breasts,

about apples in heaven,

about the songs of “Nas El Ghiwane”,

about Edith Piaf,

about my tired thoughts,

about football, slapping the world’s face;

About the humiliation coming to us on a white horse.

I fell asleep thinking about songs,

which rained down with all the bottoms of the world on us,

taking our breath away;

About remorse as it expands into my blood,

about despair as it feeds on rusty moments;

I fell asleep and slept, thinking about the way to me,

until a coma interrupted me,

pierced and riddled me with splinters.

I didn`t sleep yesterday

I was just drunk.

I woke up because of history’s noise.

I beg,

please

open the door,

life is short;

May earth move

under our feet

and an earthquake swallow us up;

Open the door,

life is short;

Airplanes may bomb us.

May airplanes bombard us

from the TV screen;

May an ambulance run over us;

May a cold cell catch us.

Open the door,

may death take us apart;

The grave is a small museum of age,

here, life does not exchange love for love,

desires hang suspended in night.

And when morning light sneaks into the tent of hope

dark passers-by open fire on butterflies.

Open the door,

there is only one poem left,

and I get a poetic blow.

Mohamad Abid is a poet, journalist and film critic, and presenter of the program “Hadith Acinéma / Cinema Talk” on Bayt.com Radio. He has published several poetic works including a poetic audio entitled “Poems” in Madrid in 1995, “The Box of Losses” published by the Moroccan Ministry of Culture in 2005, “En route vers moi” in Spanish, published in Malaga in 2017, and “Pure Humeur” published by Bab Al-Hikma in Tetouan in 2020.