Venice masks

Saturday 3 September 2016

Four times azure and five - Habib Tengour

Sand stone or mineral ultramarine blue
memory attaches to its rays
frail trace of a camp
to cross our lives set out in a mirror
just as hachures fade to grey
and the sky is colour sterile

The trip, you cannot tell us about it
this ash taste when words merge
nor the burst of joy when landing

I stared and stared at the line
stubbornly searching for a bearing

Pale at the time of reckoning your book on the stall
visibly unsettled
no longer a question of flight

The spectre is mute
it will not reveal its secret before cock-crow
the anguish that roams at night is not fatal
even though fear haunts the stars

In the bedroom, dawn sprinkles its gold sequins
and azure drinks from your lips

Habib Tengour (born 1947) Algeria
Translated by Patrick Williamson with Yann Lovelock
Source: Peony Moon

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