To Nelson Mandela - Djibril Zakaria Sall

All is dark around me 

My ideas are gagged 

And the world works backward 

God! I am alone on the balcony of Life 

And the entrance of Hell flowered with screams of 

crackling sparks, the smell of flesh 

rhythmic dance of SATAN liberated 

Satan crowned by mage Satan. 

... BACCHUS is of the féte 

Today the eau-de-vie will flow 

from wells of injustice and trampled honor 

to the dregs of the barrel of oblivion 

then... the unconscious will erect its ramparts: 

—Come it’s the arch in profound misery 

The mother strangles her child and bathes herself in his blood 

—The child decapitates his father and stones his mother and from 

the other side incest unravels in sin 

God! I am alone on the balcony of life 

and no longer recognize myself...

Here furtive looks intersect 

crushed like a shadow on the potency of the dream 

Mimicry willed in the glaze of extroversion 

facing the pedestal of evil incarnate 

The hopes shed their leaves the expectations stiffen 

the truths are killed the lies cried at the auction

in the plastered and pernicious mourning of the castrated word 

All have lost their tongues all have lost their eyes: 

We must cross our arms listen and wait 

till the curtains of calico fall on the glacial Silence 

of choked bitterness and of senile pleasures; 

Come! Come! it’s the banquet of the fear of the hunger 

of the terror: 

The gravedigger the hangman the cemetery keeper 

are in the front seats—dressed in crimson 

“Here only the candidates of black death are admitted,

of death accidentally provoked, hazy, and made-up” 

God! I am alone on the balcony of life 

and no longer recognize this bloody world, useless and caustic

My hope strung on a rotting thread 

inhales a mortal perfume 

and from time to time I revolt 

Facing Eternity a woman of the night in ruptured flowers 

scatters in the night birthing an odor of poison 

and of aborted death 

My future is not rose 

That of others is morose. 

It’s total confusion and evil is king. 

Cruel fate! 

I no longer dare to guard—my shadow hunts me 

It is there lying in wait, merging with itself 

scraping the walls, ears on the lookout. 

But I’ll no longer speak even to myself. 

And it is there that my silence is violated: 

“You once thought of suicide” 

And it’s the trial, the waltz of lawyers.

Five years of prison for having thought of suicide 

Inquisition! 

Now I must descend into the dark jail 

Good-bye, Sun! 

Good-bye, moon! 

Good-bye, everyone! 

Five years of prison! It’s death before my time 

It’s death in slow motion 

Ah let me write my will 

And why in fact?—As I have nothing to bequeath 

But if... one truth—the nontruncated truth 

It will triumph one day in the blood spurting from everywhere 

And from my hole of exile I will laugh 

and my laughter will make the earth tremble like thunder 

and the gaping crevices will engulf lies 

and vendors of mended promises

I’ve done nothing—I’ve said it and yelled it high 

They could only listen to the absurd voice of vengeance.

They assassinate innocence on the negative path of blind force.

No remission of sorrow

no amnesty

no grace

Nor tears

Nor sighs

Nor prayers

Soften their heart of stone

They are made of marble and their consciousness of granite 

God! I am alone on the balcony of life.

and no longer recognize this inhuman world.

When will the bell of all this toll? 

I don’t know— 

But on that day the truth will triumph 

and all will know that red is the blood of the negro 

and that red is the blood of others.

---

Djibril Zakaria Sall (born 1939) Mauritania

Translated by Sylvia Gorelick & Miles Joris-Peyrafitte

Source: Poems for the Millennium, Vol 4, edited by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour, University of California Press, 2012