Dar Saïda
Espace Littéraire
Transcription of Some Poems Written by Saïda Menebhi
We walked with our
heads held high, our eyes lost
You spoke of a wonderful world
That would come because we want it.
In this world, you said,
Children will no longer experience misery,
Moms will no longer abandon their babies,
Women will no longer be beaten,
Despised, degraded.
We were walking, again and again
Like crazy and damned,
When we arrived,
Already I was dreaming.
Prison is ugly
You draw it, my child
With black lines
Bars and grids.
You imagine that it is a place without light,
which scares the little ones.
Also, to indicate it
You say it's over there.
And you show with your little finger
A point, a lost corner
That you don't see.
Perhaps the mistress has spoken to you Of hideous prison, Of a reformatory, Where we put the bad guys Who steal the children.
In your little head
A question then arose:
How and why,
I, who am full of love for you
And all the other children,
Am I there?
Because I want tomorrow, the
prison is no longer there ...
The wind of my country
Blows, howls, rumbles
On the damp earth which it sweeps.
He draws figures,
He engraves a past
Mine, yours, that of everyone.
Its noise reminds me of a symphony
The one you whispered in my ear every night
Before, long ago
Today, tonight, tonight.
Only the imprints of life
come to mind.
And the stubborn rain, the stubborn wind,
Come back like every year,
And bring me back to you,
As far as you know.
Remind me again,
that I have a body, that I have a voice,
that I raise as an offering to you.
Fascist, Fascist, A
thousand times fascist.
A million times,
I would repeat it
Until
I am full.
I am an active volcano,
And my lavas,
On all the fascists of Pinochet,
I want to spit them out.
Fascists and fearful,
If you believe you have us
It's more strength than we have.
When you repress us
The wooden door is insufficient.
So put a wall,
it is entirely admissible
Given your nature.
But shame will be on your foreheads
Tomorrow, when we win.
Words escape me
Like a fire
And burn my lips.
Shout, no longer accept,
You who are there
Behind the wooden door.
We will continue to
fight, to refuse,
to the slaughterhouse.
And our heads,
On the blade,
And never, never
In our eyes
Fear, they will see.
The disease of silence will never
reach us.
You, my sisters
Herds of beasts,
That is what you seem.
And me, hands tied,
Throat tied, nausea takes me,
Of all the fascists and their pawns.
Oh, you who do not understand,
I feel tired, My
shoulders bent
By too much suffering,
Deprivation and repression.
But our thoughts and the desire to fight,
Neither the years of prison,
Nor their wooden door
And their claws,
Will not take them from me.
I will die Marxist-Leninist.