The writer of this poem has felt forlorn over her country’s floundering democracy for nearly a year, ever since Kaïs Saïed installed himself as President.
Farah Abdessamad
Temptation, hesitation, limitation — fences
Punch, barcha, hit, hit
Harder until I scream
Polyphonic bliss, your song of home, tune of envy and
Waiting
Waiting
Sit, watch a pink vomit of crimson and milk
I run
to a yes
to a no
Linger, sick sharpness
Heavy star, delusionary rides of lunar folly
Limbo in that flag. Pressed sky; I’m awake wallah
Full, noss, and
empty
Dignity!
Red clouds, waves — conspiring into this big splash of nothing
Nothing!
Time, time, and time again slipping
Clock tower of Tunis, ring, ring
Minutes, hours, decades of collective despair
I run
they catch me
Fathers, sing, sing
Restless, angry, I stand at a graveyard of cyanic pity
Cards of magic, a curse of plenty shuffling
A last dance of our headless mass
To the streets!
Our beautiful bodies, to the streets
Stuck in a court of reveries
Nothing left but to pick up the pieces of dignity
Deflagrated, skinny, eat, eat.
