A B D E L L A T I F   L A Â B I
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TWO POEMS

 

Translated by Gordon Hadfield and Nancy Hadfield

 

 

Fragment 21

 

I'm inside a black dot
little little
big big

My brother the escapee
didn't give me his hand

Maybe he didn't have the key

No fool is perfect

I await illumination

And don't expect it from anyone

If it comes
I'll cut the Gordian knot

If it doesn't
at least I will have haunted the labyrinth
covered its walls
with my writings

Vain or not
that depends

Legible or not
it's not for me to judge

One more talisman
for the naïve or imprudent
who wishes to tempt fate
that devil who follows the trail

My impatience
has taught me patience

Foolishness
inoculated in me the exact science of laughter

I read to forget
and get drunk to be lucid

Love is my religion
as they will later say
after me

I add that it's my opium
and not that of the people
alas

Nothing shocks
to the point of astonishment
except woman

Everything in man
I mean the male
threatens and afflicts me

From the opening cry
of this interminable journey
to the current shouts
I keep
not those who have triumphed
but those who have
failed to enlighten
and lost their way

The film is bad
a defect in editing
a script that does not fulfill its promises
false images
coarse make-up
blaring music covering dialog
actors surviving ridicule
a director inflated with conceit
a machine to make money
and to establish the power
of behind the scenes
assassins

I enrage
without grace or rhetoric
put back till later
the alchemy of the word
the subtle mix of metaphors

 

 

n e x t

 

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