Bios Diallo [Mauritania]

 

XI
 
Faced with your silence and insults
the immigrant plunges
into the watery graveyard
and listens to the voice of the village, which says
                hug the alley behind you
                go to the line
                and where the bark of your roots ends
                           live    
 
(Translated by Patrick Williamson) 
(from “La Saigne” (The Bleeding), Ed Le Manteau & la Lyre. Obsidiane, 2021)
 
 
XVIII
 
Mama, look up
look how your son’s hands
dance
his fingers have grown
write these lines for you
at the end of the shiver
we contemplate the amber that covers her son
and the star cries
Mama, the fire was under your watchful eye
the axe to avoid, the trueness of your hands
the forbidden river, your pointed words
the well at risk, your warning
                                                     amulet
 
 
(Translated by Patrick Williamson) 
(from “La Saigne” (The Bleeding), Ed. Le Manteau & la Lyre. Obsidiane, 2021)
 
 
XXIV
 
Tendrils in Timbuktu
 
Daughter of several centuries
soul of historic roofs
twin of the highest thoughts
you who sheltered human daring
brooded Saints, proffered disputed knowledge
here you are under the black
shroud
through so much intolerance 
 
My hand skips a page
 
For the poem is a weaving of words
mute text, the machete that straps your walls will say
 
But this text, I swear
will be a sword
of words tearing the pagne of humiliation
 
I stammer over your name, Timbuktu
tendril of time
hurdle of honour of Saints
that no stain will darken
 
Timbuktu
my voice breathes the sobs
of your children
under the moon’s black foliage
 
The Saints of your tombs
and their pilgrims
will never be humiliated
 
The sacred books, built in faith
epigraphs of divine writings
of pure hands and sincere wills
have never borne blood
 
Timbuktu
dishonour the sound that grows in the desert
heal the pared flesh
 paint your lacerated mausoleums with a new finger
             in the sculpture of the tree
             tattered copper
this is the sculpture created by this poem
 
For your earth, manly navel of time
shake your head
              arch of infinite reserves
on your erectile fibre
arms will arise
in the midst of your confessions
To pull you from the steaming night
 
Timbuktu
bloodied lands
in the bays of your groves
I watch your women, breasts sweating
backs covered in spots
of shame
of contempt
 
No rhyme for the poem of their dark circles
                    for their life doesn’t rhyme anymore
they flaunt restored breasts
                    men's nails, severed arms
they pray on the rock, braids in the detritus
 
Timbuktu, your city’s exposed termite mounds
                      thrones for the fennec fox
                      identity thief
                      he pisses on the stretch marks of a mute soil
 
My poem stutters
                     doubts the religious snot
                     and gloomy wrinkles of deceived sages
 
The drool that never blessed
                     never fulfilled
                     never birthed memories
cannot be the Minaret of the wise
                     let the brats go away
                     my pen at their heels
 
(Translated by Patrick Williamson) 
(from “La Saigne” (The Bleeding), Ed. Le Manteau & la Lyre. Obsidiane, 2021)
 
 
XXXII
 
They’re here
these men and women
sculpting
love
colourless and race-free
            in the shade of the beech
            their hand on the flag, their mark
 
(Translated by Patrick Williamson) 
(from “La Saigne” (The Bleeding), Ed. Le Manteau & la Lyre. Obsidiane, 2021)
 
 
 
Author’s Bionote :
 
*Bios Diallo, was born in Sélibaby, in the south of Mauritania. He is a journalist, poet and writer, an advisor in charge of the Arts at the Mauritanian Ministry of Culture and the director of the literary festival “Traversées Mauritanides”. He has worked in France for “Jeune Afrique”, “L' Autre Afrique” and “Afrique Magazine” (AM). His publications include “De la naissance au mariage chez les Peuls de Mauritanie” (Karthala, 2004), a novel, “Une Vie de Sébile” (L' Harmattan, 2010) and poetry collections: “Les Pleurs de l'arc-en-ciel” (L'Harmattan, 2002), “Les Os de la Terre” (L' Harmattan, 2009) and “La Saigne” (Ed. Le Manteau & la Lyre. Obsidiane, 2021). During the Malian crisis of 2013, he participated in the collection “Voix hautes pour Tombouctou” with “Vrilles à Tombouctou”, a cry of indignation for the besieged city.