I'm just a pocket poet.
Like biting into lemon over and over again,
Life squeezes fun out of my face:
Although my hand feels the round apple,
My eyes can see the rich peach,
The rapture of thousands of sweet colors …
But when I reach for them,
Take to my mouth the manna of Eden:
Bitter tastes try to let me know
That you’re in a very bad place,
This is not your world …
Benyamin Bensalah
16.07.2018
Translated from my Hungarian poem, “Mindig citrom”.
All my once lover of mine!
All the broken worlds I left behind…
Are all cleared with this simple rhyme:
All villains are victims;
I don’t mind.
All murderers were murdered a kind,
Not literally maybe, but in their mind…
The cruel circumstances behind,
The helplessness of a preprogrammed mind,
And when they cried for justice,
The world replied: I don’t mind.
All villains are victims;
We’ve been destroyed under grind…
Like torturing a child
To turn into a torturer of the same kind –
Crying: why would I mind?!
Been accused for having lied?
Building a world and ruining it from inside?
Do you think this is what I strived?
Where were y’all to stop me, stop the child…
You know what… I don’t mind!
I’m remaining proud to wear the destiny of mine;
Since my childhood ages the pains abide –
It’s the world that made me such of a kind…
I’m the villain of my own life,
If there’s casualties, as a victim, I don’t mind.
Benyamin Bensalah
29.07.2020
You know there’s no forgiveness
so, it’s vain to turn to sadness.
Be what you meant to be: a man.
After you, there still grows grass.
The sin will not get lighter,
so, it’s vain if you water.
That you are an evidence to this,
thank what you could acquire.
Don’t blame, don’t swear
don’t be a jerk to yourself
don’t worship and don’t seduce
don’t join the army unaware.
Stay worthless,
don’t look at the secrets.
And with humanity,
since you are a man, don’t be reckless.
Remember you growled
and in vain you implored.
You have become a false witness
at your own record.
You called Father being fallen,
man if you found none in heaven.
And you found grown bad spots
in your psychoanalytic canon.
You believed in easy talking,
in friends been just acting
and see, never, never anyone
said that you were worthy.
They cheated, they loved me so
you cheated and you can’t love also.
Now, grab the loaded gun
and squeeze it to your empty torso.
Or throw away all the principles
and still hope for faithful love-riddles,
since like a dog you would believe
in anyone who’d see you still love-able.
Benyamin Bensalah
08.07.2020
Translated from the Hungarian poem of Attila József, “Tudod hogy nincs bocsánat”(1937).
Might is far away from me;
I might have sent it away from me
by sending the Almighty away from me,
but firstly, He sent away all good I might be.
Benyamin Bensalah
28.08.2018
We loved each other, I did more than any –
You let me push you away, so did many –
Why couldn’t you do a lil fight for me?
We are not friends; I don’t have any –
You push me away, so do many –
Why can you return then to me?
We will forget, I will not do any –
You already did, so did many –
Why you let it happen to me?
Benyamin Bensalah
22.05.2020
The destiny – whether one’s ready to
die on it or die for it –
has never been else than a given decision,
been our ever nature to screen it,
cast it, and act on it until we own our last deadend reality.
(The die has been cast. – Julius Caesar)
Benyamin Bensalah
20.05.2020
Once, I told you I wished we were free to our will
to be together as I do want it still –
without made up social contracts as religions;
what does love do with ruling nations?
Meeting you was fate of coincidences, that
we were sharing in life the same debt
from our parents and ancestors, the curse
that we cannot be good, only worse.
I’ve almost accepted the curse as my nature
when I met your highly pure feature
to learn, and go, not to giving up to learn,
but our demons led to give up to earn.
Breaking under hardship, seduction and pride,
concepts of dignity, the weak human mind –
I don’t know what could push us away so far;
but both of us stopped fighting who we are.
“If we met in a bar”, “if I could turn back time”,
“returning seven years old, would I do the same crime?” –
such questions pop up with no sense of reality
because we have but pictures, then we see through our cavity.
We believed it’s over – even if I didn’t and don’t wish so,
call it martyrdom, dignity – I don’t think so;
we just gave up on reality that we both adored;
and now we are living hell for it with no reward at all.
How much suffering, a mortal soul could bear
until recognizing that forgiveness is our divine elixir;
forgiving for giving up on us, forgetting the pain –
just like a wicked god-story; repent or suffer in vain.
Benyamin Bensalah
11.05.2020
The abyss is too huge between you and me,
even if you managed to undress me.
I tried for a while to be the one for you,
even if sometimes it seemed untrue.
You think too easily and so you sense
your complex actions are fencing common sense.
For my emotions, a thousand thoughts wouldn’t be enough,
my actions are so few, I don’t tell to prevent the laugh.
The abyss is breaking, I’m waving from its side,
I really loved you, if I look inside.
My love is eternal, it will stay with you forever
but wee need to accept, this break won’t cease ever.
Many times, the break up hurts, as it will do now,
but there’s been worse than this, and will be better somehow.
We weren’t for each other the one
but then it will come, that person will come.
I’m thanking you every single minute,
I will not forget you, I promise. Salute!
Benyamin Bensalah
03.04.2020
Translated from my Hungarian poem, “Szakad a szakadék” (2008)
What a dread dream I had as a child
to be once one of the dead poets
seeing no remedial meaning in life
as I’ve been followed up with bad omens.
Now, as grown up, I couldn’t be more childish
to think I could change those bad omens
trying to bring the never had happiness to others’ life,
only luring them to mourn one of the dead poets.
The sadness doesn’t come from my failure,
neither from that I’m alone,
but rather that I’m seeing those lives’ remedy
in my absence; as I was the bad omen after all.
Benyamin Bensalah
03.04.2020
This is the end.
But the end started at the creation
of the first deoxyribonucleic acid,
of the first cellular life,
of the first material’s
formation.
This is the end.
The end was here from the beginning
at the enactment of beginning,
at the start of all existence,
at the emptiness
in the void.
This is the end.
The end of my deoxyribonucleic acids
of formed cellular creation,
of temporary learning,
of existence
begins.
Benyamin Bensalah
30.03.2020
Benyapoesy 