Three Poems by Khedidja Chergui

 

Ethereal whispers

 

It rained night long

The wind gave in to hymns

Mist bred warmth

Voices hid away

Kids covered up

Chimneys lit up

Birds into their shields

Urchins into their havens

Each was busy hiding

Waiting in silence.

 

She, full of joy

Spread her wings

In the midst of it all

Like a Jasmine in her full shape

Head upraised, face turned animate.

Softly muttering,

To the awe-inspiring sukoon

I am to whom the heavens shall say:

“Come closer

Mine is a realm like no other

Mine is a realm of fine talks and fairytales

Mine is a land of meadows, of perpetual rhythms

A realm of no broken hearts or unfulfilled promises

Mine is a realm of beauty and mercy

Mine is Eternity.”

 

 

It was but a mirage

 

He

Packed in his despair

Wrapped in his agony

Regret and lack of gist,

Begged her for a smile

For a farewell word

For a promise

For a last moment's touch.

 

She

Cocooned in her private musings

Weighing her choices

Her pros and cons

And her ways out

Repulsing to be picked up while ripe

To be denied voice, shorn of motion

To be squeezed in and out.

 

The song is over,

She said

The bird changed orbit

And the flower chose self-retreat.

It was but a mirage

A hard to walk tightrope

An ill-fathomed painting

Nothing more.

 

The Last Sky

 

On board, at night,

On a threshold into the unknown:

 

This is a death boat,

the man in charge of our destiny

roared high and squawked.

I know, hissed to myself,

I may never return

I may never see the light again.

Throwing a farewell to a mother,

to a crying lover,

to street corners, to mates and shades,

like a bird, wanting a cage no more.

 

Out of sight

Taken by my private musings:

 

The shore turned its face on me

The sea came to be a spoiled child

Its waves turned me into a mystic

Their darkness into a poet

Their rise and tide, into a knight

And their restless mood, into a beggar.

Keeping sanity in the midst of nowhere

Whispering to self and other

Thinking of a dear mother

Quaking like a restless tree

Like an anxious bee.

 

Hold on,

You are almost there:

 

The last sky understood my cracked voice

my shivering soul

my crumbling whole.

Hold on,

the journey isn’t over yet

your battle isn’t won yet.

The faces around me, in red,

Whitish and ashy.

Longing for an end

For a settlement

For safety, for a retrieved sanity.

Clinging to the last sky,

Holding on,

Waiting,

Trembling,

Thoughtless,

Aimless,

Careless,

I became with the last tide,

Which I hardly remember.

 

Our dreams have no audience,

But ruthless folks:

 

Our dreams have learned how to fade away

In street corners,

During Evening chats

Amidst tired elders, and ignorant youngsters

During long wintry nights

During independence merriments

and sports festivities.

They fade every day, every second

With the rise of every new dawn.

Helpless, we are

Waiting for better days.

Khedidja Chergui holds a PhD in world literature. She is a university lecturer trailing her path in academia through writing, publishing, and reviewing articles for many journals and publishing outlets. Though she has published essays and journal papers on a number of themes, she has always loved reading and writing poetry. She wrote poems and read them to herself. She currently resides in Algiers. Khedidja is an epistemophile, a selenophile, and a horse lover.