Habib Tengour

1947 / Algeria / Mostaganem

State I

BLACK, such a soul in exile slowly makes its way towards
death. Here's winter. The body of the beggars twists at
a subway opening. It's not this cold that I fear or the stomach's hunger
although a beggar at your threshold, my limbs blue.
It was already my story to live to love you to lose myself
in the dark of my belt.
I put on my mask at the moment of welcome.
The lovers have suffered a passion, have separated.
Do you keep in your memory my beloved this agony unfolded in the rose
spray of morning
the window in the sea does it remain grateful?

GLEAMING the soul at the height of desire
it whirls about in a pure sky
protects itself from envious glances free
It's a summer wearing a blessed harvest offering
How could our hearts have gotten lost in the house?
There was a snake to watch over the threshold to turn away
all strangers. There was such an impatience in our
bodies in love… and the summer that would end in sorrow.
But right now the lovers are singing are dancing
never ceasing to be dazzled in the light.

WHITE the soul who denied itself in its trembled soul
it slides undrunken over the body stretched out half-way
(he says: I was the one who was dead waited for you
in my heart had been your imprint for a long time
she says: my life was empty you didn't fill it)
a trace can be seen so sad that you try
to wipe out in vain you look at your face in the
mirror of the bathroom What are you looking at the beast
laid low… moaning the beast with the great wounded eyes
She says: my heart hurt so much you couldn't do anything,
poor heart that doesn't see its soul bleeding white

DISTURBED but queen my soul directs a cohort of angels
wounded in the heel. It exhorts its limping army to martyrdom
as if it were a matter of going to gather in the traversed
terrains the first spring flowers. It is disturbed at the sight of the blood
sprinkled over the ill-cultivated fields. Soon the
summer will come to burn all up in the plain. The soul has its
refuges high in the mountain (formerly the tribe was smoked in there)
I've survived the massacres but my heart has forgotten the
familiar beating of eyelids, and the torture.
After such a long absence,
The heart no longer tells its exploits.
The night light blinked before going out over
our drifting heads.
The night fell blue in the garden.

BLIND soul has lost its loving heart;
it stumbles in sorrow. Its heart is pained.
It thrashes about like a cock its throat cut on the sidewalk.
It's too pained to say it to everyone.
It is loving on its knees and naked!
In the twilight there are distinct voices of blood.
They are numerous — left behind — to bend the ear or take out a
knife to look for a dog in the clearing of fire.
With the summer all our friends have left.
Such memories…
At the instant of farewell your life turns transparent and so
it can look
at itself without grief.
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