Two poems by Mohamed Ellaghafi (Morocco)
Here Lies Refuge
Mohamed Ellaghafi
The cloud of my eyelid
has dried.
Joy has abandoned me
while I kneel
upon my knees,
ruminating wounds.
Funeral processions
cross through me,
coffin after coffin.
My longings are limbs.
My memories
echoes of faces
once neighboring
my own echoes.
No voice now
argues with my silence,
and no silence
can rival
my scream.
A Slip of Reflection
Mohamed Ellaghafi
Had I not been me,
what would have happened?
Nothing, perhaps,
like some passing mistake
falling as a drop
inside the womb of a cloud.
I was never more
than this crippled mass,
this blind heaviness,
these branches bending
toward my chaos.
Like one carrying
the burden of his own limbs
upon his shoulders,
listening to their pain
while forgetting
they are merely
failed extremities
that never respond
when he cries for help.
*Translated by Hassan Yarti (Spain)*
Swapner Vela Sahitya Patrika (The Raft of Dreams Literary Magazine), Editor: Md Ejaj Ahamed
Swapner Vela Sahitya Patrika (The Raft of Dreams Literary Magazine) is a bilingual print and digital magazine featuring Bengali and English literature. In this blog English literature is published, while a separate blog hosts our Bengali literature. It is edited and published by Md Ejaj Ahamed from Aurangabad, Murshidabad, West Bengal, India.