A Poem by the poet Abdallah Gasmi from Tunisia
17 December, 2022
Kolkata, special correspondent.
I will reveal the secret of the galaxies.
—-ABDALLAH GASMI
English translation : Ahmed Gasmi
I will open my heart wide
I’ll open the chest’s windows and locked doors
In the soul, roses never reached their owners
In the soul there are desires that I hid far from passing
In the soul cold dreams I forgot in the cave of days
I will open the night and cages of the caged birds
I will open the night and the bags of dream and deception
I will open everything… I will open false love letters
I will reveal the secret of galaxies that formed millions of years ago
In my bags sleeps a hungry leopard
Sad butterflies flutter in my chest
Under my nails grow wild, thorny weeds
I will awaken that sleeping child inside me and reshape my old face
My face was bright and then darkened,
I was a stranger to my face
A stranger to the paths under my feet
I will restore my voice scattered like thunder on the slopes of the mountains
My voice scattered in the ears of the dead
My voice that walks barefoot in the squares
My voice has no smell or homeland
I was like green lightning in the hills
My shadow walks backwards head back
My shadow tells me I’m a sad man
My sad shadow tells me that things fail me: the song I wrote and then left
The sweetheart who betrays my poems and deserts me
Dreams that sleep next to me and leave me
The roses that reach me turn into white bullets
What if you really love me
I need a lover that shines like a star in the ends of the universe
I need a sweetheart who wears love and poetry.
Sweetheart penetrated to the other side of the moon
A sweetheart that covers my dream every night and takes it away in her depths
If you want me to love you
Embrace me like a bee diving into the depths of chrysanthemums
Implicit to turn sorrows into birds flying over the ocean
If you want me to love you
Wake up the child who creates beautiful pictures in me
I’m stuck in the shooting star net like a sailor lost in the ocean one evening
If you want me to love you, give me pure water
Serve me pistachios and cherries to quench my cravings
Embrace me, I’m like birds that have no place for their nests
Cover me with your words from top to bottom, all the places in my galaxy without love and water
Every part of my body toils, bleeds and dies from the cold
Like the moist air that turns feet black at dawn
I was holding my hand and saying to myself: How did you get away from my childhood?
Before your love I was shivering like a willow in the open
Don’t go too far from the slope you chose
Now stop in my dream and open its windows
Dwell the verses I write, and read the love in my eyes
Love makes me weightless, like a dream made of cloth
Love grows under the skin where a baby eagle lives
Before love, I used to speak the language of poetry
Before love I always used to ice dancing in my veins
I was cutting my feet and saying to myself: Will I remain on the ladder of silence alone?
Your love is like you
It is a mixture of mummified soreness and blue opaqueness
It is a shy fire burning like sand
It’s like dreams slipping through my fingers like water
Before your love I used to speak the language of poetry.
(ABOUT THE POET)
Poet, novelist, critic and translator from Tunisia, works as a professor, holds a master’s degree in modern poetry, and a master’s degree in Islamic philosophy, holds many cultural responsibilities, and is the president of the International Cultural Salon in Tunisia
He published 20 books on poetry, novel, criticism, and theater
He won many international honors
He received many international poetry awards, and was honored in many countries