Decrescendo

And so it was,

After light years of chaos

And cacophonous discourse

From the havoc of Hulago

To the handover of Gibraltar

Fireballs engulfed

The sullen sky

From the East the sun rose

And from Mount Sinai light shone

The Great Sahara glittered

In golden glows

And as never before

It grew roses

So gorgeous

The fauna and flora from

Around the Rhine

And the Amazon

Could hardly

Trust their inward eye

And at a moment’s notice

Darkness, anew, all-round

The fire dies down –

And consumes itself

From inside and out.

Ali H. Raddaoui

Voeux équinoxiaux

Au Mont de Gatran,
L’équinoxe de l’automne
Cette princesse des saisons
Écarte la poussière estivale
S’attable sur la cime,
Déguste raisins et agrumes
Regarde les paysans
Éparpiller leurs semences
Prend note des feuilles jaunies
Murmurant leurs adieux
Aux branches des amandiers
Et des agneaux trottants
Les uns derrière les autres
Dans un acte du bout des temps.
Il lui faut un bon laps de temps
Pour muter en son semblable, son frère
L’équinoxe du printemps
Maintenant perché non loin

Sur Djebel Orbata…
Comme des lignes parallèles
Ces deux ne se rencontrent guère
Mais comme par hasard,
deviennent l’un l’autre
Sans le vouloir, sans le savoir,

Sans même le prévoir,

Sans mot dit
Et sans suivi.

Ali H. Raddaoui

LES MOTS MASQUENT LES MOTS

Les mots masquent des mots

Et ces mêmes mots

Se trouvent assombris derrière les mots

Sans le choisir

Les mots dits éclipsent les non-dits

Et les nons dits demeurent mots non-dits

J’usqu’a la fin des mondes

L'é-mo-tion s’abîme

Derrière les mo-tions

Et les mots se purgent de  

Leurs purs sens

Comme c’est tout à fait mau-dit

Que les mots se dispensent de leurs

Mo-tivations et deviennent

Des mots dé-mo-dés

Dans ces mo-des de non-sens.

Ali H. Raddaoui

إلى كل من ربطتني وتربطني به علاقة زملالة أوصداقة أوشراكة أو تتلمذ (في الاتجاهين)، أزف إليكم بشرى افتتاح المعهد النموذجي الخاص _الفوز - بمدينة سيدي بوزيد، الجمهورية التونسية. تفضلوا بمشاهدة الفيديو الترويجي باللغة العربية بداية. مع الشكر سلفا. د. علي الهاشمي رداوي.

MISCARRIAGE

I decided to make for the spring

On top of the Rockies.

I left at dawn.

The Mountain was a blueprint

On a backdrop of umber

Perforated from afar

By the hues of the sun.

At thirty odd miles of walk

I looked up,

There was the peak

At an acute angle of head raising

Chirping, calling, beckoning:

“Come over, O, my little Candid,

I got manna for you,

Unseen by human eye,

And distilled extractions

Brewing for generations.

I got too a crystal cap,

An observatory of the heretofore

And a stream to the hereafter.”

But the net was hurled,

Fog outraced me from aback and around;

I couldn’t see the way forward,

And prosaic voices drew me back.

Ali H. Raddaoui

Eid Ul-Fitri in Sfax, Tunisia

Part of me cozies up into my bedding, beats at primal speed,

Exists, subsists, ruminates, punctuates without a mark

As early morning Eid Ul-Fitri rituals seep into the breeze

Ushering one Season into the next.

Between the thick of darkness and the hour of dawn

Is a moment that escapes the onlooker.

Stepping outside of me

People, total strangers, meet

Exchange greetings and do small talk,

Welcome this stranger into the traditions of town

Explain how local seafarers brought Shermula and Salty Fish dishes

Into the day-to-day parlance of Sfax cuisine.

The other part of me is now high on intercity coach station caffeine

Savors the moment, cogitates it, locates self within it,

Tables its equations and tackles its riddles

Captures it as structure before another episode settles in.

I relish both moments and think it neat

To seize the strands of both ends by the hand

To scaffold my existence

As one side knuckles up into the other.

I feel rooted, having found my bearings on this pedestal,

And being on the cusp of something new.

Ali H. Raddaoui-June 15, 2018

FOREST FIRE

Like sap oozing through the strictures

Of green offshoots to burgeon here and there

Into flower, foliage or Fruit,

Wild fire sweeps through crannies of the jungle

To quench thirst of a richly textured

Soil crying for cleansing every once in a while.

Long before the daises are pushed up

Let there be shuddering and cleansing

For a daisy is a daisy for but half a day

Fire is then a mere footnote

In the dog-eared records

Of some long-gone socio-sylvan historian

Ali H. Raddaoui

THE SHAMAL WIND RUFFLES THE LEAVES

The Shamal Wind ruffles the leaves
Of this one palm tree
Gives it a rest and curls on to the next
And the trees and the shrub
And the grass underneath
All sing to the wind
And the winds swings them
To the rhythm of the song
But the wind when it whirls
Doesn't just swing the trees
The fact is that the grove as a mass
Does some more than submit
To the whims of the Wind
It in turn sways the Wind
and has Him recast His course
Through divers sylvan wafts.
Think of it - They do not sing out at will
Nor does He roam out of will.

I sat through this spring day
Under a Najd palm tree
I sang through the Wind
And the Wind sang through me
And through the Najd palm trees.

Ali H. Raddaoui

IT AIN'T AS COLD AS YOU'VE BEEN TOLD

On the other side of the hedge

It ain’t as cold as you’ve been told

Shrubs chirp

Thrushes hum

Grass grows, comes and goes

Olive groves at this time

lie low with their goods

Ants and antelopes

Tread along with the two-legged

On the sidewalk

Not in a hurry to stockpile

And report

By the hour, every hour

Or clock out of the shop

And go home

Cook an omelet

And eat online

With a chance acquaintance

Whose friendship you transacted

The other evening

On the commute home.

On the other side of the hedge

There is reason to believe

This season will be back

The tide ebbs and flows

Underground water shrinks

And restocks

Regrets to walk back

A memory of time too far gone

To come back.

Altitudes, pyramids

Hierarchies and mountain tops

Recalibrate

And water, untroubled,

Passes beneath the bridge.

Ali H. Raddaoui