6813.- MONCEF MEZGHANI

Moncef Mezghani nació en 1954 en Sfax (Túnez). Recibió el Premio Literario de la ciudad de Sfax (Túnez) en 1991, la Medalla Nacional de Mérito Cultural de Túnez en 1992 y el premio de Teatro en el Festival de Néapolis para niños en Túnez 1993. Es director de la Casa de la Poesía en Túnez

COMIENZO DE CONVERSACIÓN

La mujer me llamó

"¿Tú debes ser el Mezghanni?"

Yo ni siquiera me inmuté...

Pero insistió: "¿Que no eres el Moncef?"

Y lo respondió... que era yo...

algunas veces

Dijo:

"De verdad"

Y le conteste, efectivamente,

estaba irritado.

Exclamó:

"¿Así pues eres tú el que escribe poemas?"

Y yo digo:

"Y como sabías

que,

precisamente ahora, no puedo dejarlos madurar?"

Traducción: Teresa Zegarro

Poem by Moncef Mezghani

Translated from Arabic by : Walid Soliman

The goose words

-1-

The poet ’s mother said :

“My son …

God kills poverty  .

I haven ’t got banknotes

To buy ink

And your father

Have left only a goose quill . ”

-2-

With the quill the poet started to write the dearest poetry

And the mother recorded this boiling with the ink of popular memory

Till the day it echoed in the ears of the palace

And the governor issued this order :

“we decided :

to execute poverty

and we decided :

to offer the poet golden pens,

silver inkstands ,

pink notebooks,

and finally a ream of banknotes ”

-3-

The poet became a member in the body of the palace ; his honouring ceremony was held

After the printing of the collection of his poems

The respectable critics endlessly　pushed their spectacles and praised his prophetic vision

Till

A woman stood up at the end of the room

So that all the ears gathered upon her lips ,

And the silence listened

To

The breath of the ceremony participants and it was only interrupted by

The whispering of the poet in the ear of the master of ceremonies :

“would you please move the microphone closer to her lips …

“I know this woman /I  known this woman

” (I recognize the woman’s face from her eyes)

for a long time, but the forgetting is a mute delirium ”

The woman ,standing in front of the microphone , with bare lips from joy screamed :

-4-

“I am the poet ’s mother …

and the poet died ground between the teeth of power

what a  slip

A  curse on prostitution.

With the goose quill

he used to write golden poems

But with the golden pen

He

On

Wrote

The Goose words ” .

Tunis 1989

Nicene  Kossentini (Artist) and Moncef Mezghani (Poet) representing Tunisia in the Art For Humanity “Dialogue Among Civilizations” Print Portfolio 2010.