Sunday, 3 September 2023

Six Poems by Dr. Anissa Sboui

 



 

Of Rebirth and Mother Earth

 

Like an oak he stands

Ploughing the soil

Even with wounded hands

He endured the toil

Leaving furrows

Watering the Earth

With blood

Plowing acres of trees

Deeper and deeper

Engrossed he is

With no turmoil

 

 Suddenly drops of rain he does sense

 What can he do but dance

  Let’s dance alone, let’s dance

  Dancing in the rain

  Alleviates the pain

 

  Where are my Shawnees?

  Oh Maneto! I am resurrected

  The Earth is fertile

   Begetting no discrimination

Here bees, birds, pawpaws

Do celebrate with me

We are singing “Oh Mother Earth, emblem of Rebirth”

The invader Columbus has to flee

White rapist is running away

White racist is decamping in the night

Here we belong

Here more than one seed to sow

Grow plants grow

You, white racist!

Be ashamed of your atrocities

you encroached on our rights

you are the disposessed

Here we are singing

                “Oh Mother Earth, emblem of Rebirth”


 

to breathe, or not to breathe


To breathe or not to breathe

That's the answer

When the sun layers

Infringe my slumber,

Allah, I turn to,

With solemn heart,

Secular brain thoughts,

Apolitical chamber

His grace, I do remember

Eyes open,

Hands stretched,

Legs straightened, not like cucumber

To breathe or not to breathe

That's the answer

When the sun layers

Tickle my makeup-free face

In the heart of windy September

I crawl into the silky bed

Made of tender timber

Touch the bone of my North African race

Jolt forward

At the view of the chaste sky,

Neat breeze,

Potent scent of amber

Amidst a crazy,

Deadly world

My lingering trauma,

My transient insomnia,

Not yet fixed by that psychiatric plumber,

To the question of possible trace

Of surpassing doomed December,

To breathe or not to breathe

That's the answer ...

 


Pregnant with Paper

 

They always tell her

To give birth to a child,

They always urge her

To bear a child,

Release it back into the wild,

And tame the spouse’s wobbling

Over the secret guild.

One question arises:

“Is it her body?

It is yes,

yes,

yes.”

The body has a paper

A pen is there

With blue ink to conquer the virgin womb

To carry the pale mail parcel

 

By the belly bomb

Pregnant she is with paper

Scrambled letters she arranges,

Wavy lines she straightens

With word comb

Needs not a male infant in her life

Needs not to instill feminine norms

Then Man imposes His

Pretending His primacy over the bees

Until that woman is riven with strife.

Wants not months to await the delivery day

Her words know no boundaries, no fixed bay

They are flowing around the globe

Wherever she goes,

Forever Pregnant

As begetting lies in the writer’s penned probe

 

 

the drowning youth

 

Before sunrise, the little Maha[1]

Woke up, fully zestful

As usual, there was nothing to taste

No slice of tabouna

The gritty dough

Kneaded by paste

Nothing to eat

Not even a seat

Not able, her face, to clean

As she’s daily seen

Not able, the hands, to wipe

No force to fetch water

Her mom used to

Fix that crooked pipe

She eventually found

The villagers’ rumours running around.

The innocent gossip

 

 Spread there:

“The pipe was blocked

And the water cannot drain…”

What a dovish rumour

Just not like theirs!

 

She pulled her feet

Her world of words, to meet

The little escapist

Rushed, with a devastating dream

With a floody grin

The well-trodden road to life

Was as white as the cream

She never tasted as a teen,

How come she’d endured

Though she was twelve, not nineteen.

 

The avid dreamer was,

Singing the National hymn,

She endeavoured to be an MP

               Poverty

She aspired to beat

Now she needed that seat

To beat and beat

With these muddy feet

Her heart was wet,

She could bet

It was the unwelcomed guest …

The song flowed over and over

Her soft voice sank,

Stopping the wheel of time

Of Souk El Arba

Whose mayor

Mr. Harba

Catnapped in a hammock

Swiping the little girl’s pipe dream…


[1] A Tunisian Student Maha Gadhgadhi was swept away by a flood on November 12th, 2019, at Ouled Mofda in Fernana, Jendouba.

 


Slavery


This is how slavery began

The day dealers sold her

On board “The Phillis” she rested

Shackled for months

In Stone forts

To be transported

To what they called

The New Land…

 

Along the journey, she was puzzled

On her own

 

No kin, no brighter skin

But bitterness of being thrown

In a mysterious world

Full of enigmas and cryptic clues

But agony of being thrown

In the arms of the unknown

With a broken shin

 

Pale with fear

What a dreadful atmosphere!

Heart thumping, fingers shivering

Head nodding

Look! Darkness marries loss

Once the Atlantic Masters did cross

 

With smothered voice

Jesus! Hear me, I beg thou

Release this flock of sheep

Squeezed we are thus

Awaken us from sleep

Zipporah, free us

So must Jethro

Where to go?

Imprisoned, enslaved mercilessly

I have been squeamish

About history of servitude

Utter subjugation, forced labour

Due time to abolish

We are Christians too

Brothers, siblings and even neighbour…

 


Arab Lives Matter

 

What puzzles me today


At the age of the pandemic

Is the spread of dangerous minds

And contagious policies

Infected

Defected

Not well perfected,

Step back the West’s frame

To mourn the Arab lands

To champion the kibbutzim

Behind the crooked scene,

Confirmed cases, subjected to

Celebrate ready meals,

Impulsive plans of crazy clans

With tons of champagne cups

Sweeping across the deal craft

Arabs have crossed the globe,



But,

Like a dear vulnerable deer,

Surrounded by famished

Destitute,

Cruel,

Wild Wolves,

Can’t wage

War on

Acres of

Areas …

The tale is told

The secret is unfold

Of bronze, not gold

Forever within the Normalization Deal mold

Disqualified Libyanon, Palesyem[2]

An amalgamated bouquet of treason

Has announced how our territories

Are being cheaply sold.


[1] I joined the names of five politically unstable Arab countries: Libya, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Yemen.



 



Dr. Anissa Sboui - A University teacher and poet from Sousse, Tunisia.

The writer of Transcend (2018), Rebirth (2019) and Number One (2020), The Co-Avid Breath (2021), Hurricane (2022) and Halcyon and Screaming Earth (2023)Three short-stories, entitled “Alone”, “Coincidence” and “The Moody Bookworm”

Her poems featured in Writing in a Woman’s Voice, The Writers’ Club, Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal, Dumpster Fire Press, Medusa’s Kitchen, The 2020 Annual by the Elizabeth River Writers, Valiant Scribe, and Literary Heist, Setu Bilingual Journal, Potato Soup Journal.

 



 

 

 

 



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