Habib Tengour

1947 / Algeria / Mostaganem

Shales Of Tahmad 2

window feast
inclines the gaze

she says: tear me away

liberates a night
goes out

enamored

Porte d'Aix
family smell
the bus passes
love stuck to the window

season of exile

regulated entry
austere sense
a craziness

state police troopers...

there are dark passions
a chant that transpires
the people come and go

as the storm nears
are we

of an arrogance
to walk a scarlet semblance
legacy
with sequences of sands

to support a capital punishment
in the profusion
slowly
day goes astray

an Arab veiled in locusts
urges on his mare struts
about and hums
begs for applause

he his kin know the toll
two dinars a head the Occident

I recognize him
she says strip him

of all his goods keep only a ram
offer it to the one who no longer waits

Djaziya commanded the men
knew how to handle the epigram
she from a high linage and expert
was going to submit

...
and Dhiyâb the hilalian marries Djaziya

It is only a story
to lull a fever
words like a vault
consigned with sadness
to nothing our traces
the salt in the cinders
in ecstasy

Place, a blade's indecision
against the grain awakening

our giddiness a screen
was it a need to parade

iridescent, with abrasive points
gashes sulfur the trace

in its crack blue from freezing
at the hour when winter cards the park

the bird asks to drink at night
your blood cracks like bark

Lotus as tattoo
opulence of haymaking times
there crushed by insolence

this memory shakes you up
you say inadvertently
let them guess

invariably you slide into invective
friable shell — rendez-vous of insects
you heart goes away

late lightnesses

murderous clay
night kneads then rejects
contour in suspension

Showers
the dream pulls back
the charms no longer work metal
alone
slices
corruption
knacker 's work... CENSORSHIP

night takes a hold of the course
a hand forgets the loved one's dictation
panic

dawn mechanically scalds the gaze
opens the scared crystal
heady facets

shines a solid pain
so much

at the point of dawn
the promises went by

passion interior of a wall
consumed in the instant
gaping

dare break
throw yourself at my sweat
let your fears regale themselves on my flesh
I reserve you an exile in my equipage

departure
to wish to die

dew

a bracelet gone astray
enthralls you

in the hip swaying day
idol

with surprise worn off
the obol dazzles the corpse

cheap junk aggresses the sidewalks
fired clay shatters

laud this ordeal
far from the sunset's wrinkles

the coffee smoking gold
zinc mornings

train of saucers
shroud

red than ochre than smokey
in the silence of a set up
happy
the town is drying up

summer encloses
lesion here
fusion of alum — sortilege

to see again the refused threshold
to understand

in the turmoil
one despairs
the bodies sway
din
a memory still

the heatwave's rust overwhelms
stealthily
this celebrated speech
performer of cements dead

(a dog licked the moon
in the middle of mute ruins)

where are you night revelers
there
you dive into
sleep
a rupture to be transmitted
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