Ninety nine

My problems weight 85 kilograms,
their age reached 29 years so far,
they circulate in synopses;
they are measurable.

I’ve got 99 problems if we say,
and the world isn’t among,
the world is living;
I am dead.

The world is living at its place,
I am lost inside me,
the world is fine;
I am not.

Ninety nine problems I say,
they are all measurable,
still non-existent;
imaginary.

My problems weight boundlessly,
they are horribly immesurable,
reality broke in my synopses;
unimaginable.

Benyamin Bensalah

16.05.2021

Encore

The Past been a nightmare to wake from,
sometimes eating up the present,
being unable to tell whether it has an end;
the Future been the past’s mirror image,
warning signs or either sirens’ songs,
nothing that possibly cannot go wrong;
I was likely anchored, cornered to Present,
more like pulling the chains than living,
but this was already much from a dead being.

I walked every step with a blind resignation,
a person died and revived in me,
like someone stealing life and trying to flee;
the anchors I tried to undress so hard
kept undressing me slowly,
and here I am standing like nothing can control me;
the anchors I were fighting, life, have gone,
it feels no more grief, no more agony,
I’ve reached freedom through fatal cavity.

There’s no past I could face anymore,
none of me waits me in the future,
but here I am where I could have been sooner;
losing the pain through losing life,
I am free with a huge cavity,
and I am as ready to live as to face mortality;
I feel eager, no more than any,
just to live a bit more,
imagining there’s an anchor that makes me stay more.

Benyamin Bensalah

10.05.2021

A night for drinks and drinks for every night

Tonight is one of the nights –
I’m not open to hear wrongs or rights
about anything what’s going on,
but I could expect respect that I still carry on.

Some drinks are down on my throat,
some ethanol is pumpin through my mind,
some lines are too cloudy that I wrote,
but I’m still not acting like I do mind.

It’s still me, and I do like you –
why can’t you do the same though?
With infinite conditions, there’s none;
none matters, but it does when we’re gone.

Harvest the moments of the others,
you may get more care from them than from mothers
because every ape have problems,
but very few ones wait you at the bottoms.

I might write about things very deep,
but it’s still floating on the very surface;
you can freely call me a creep,
but I really mean every word that I can face.

I feel terrible every day;
you can compare it to some fuck’d up weeks
where you try every ways,
but things go like it’s been Greeks.

I lived the seven hells and heavens,
I lived with peace and almost all the weapons;
I know it when it never ends well,
and I know when you don’t even know what to tell.

But the drinks help me at some nights;
let me, this psycho just writes;
killing feelings that were unbearable,
wearing them sober even if unwearable.

Like the coat of solitude,
like the pants of tight social restricts;
I wore every way that’s rude,
but I’m still living – one of the addicts.

Like a dragonfly that lives only a day,
I live every day just as my last;
somtimes hunter – sometimes prey, it’s never gray;
I will end all like this night: in a colorful blast.

Benyamin Bensalah

01.04.2021

Pocket sonnet

Pockets. What a goddamn godsend is it to possess!
The temporary holding of everything
that stacks the more and has the less –
all the things sent to abandoning,
all the things spent no how just as a waste,
all the things meant to be lost,
all the things temporarily displaced
pass-cross by while being tossed.
There’s no more meaning in the holder either,
so just keep your hands in those pockets
just as it has been done by the wicked creator
of the things possessed as maquettes.
   What else the hands in the pockets would signify
   than being and being ready to die?

Benyamin Bensalah

14.01.2021

Riceology

Boiling rice may be a bogey;
We are cooking, stirring, working on it,
Then, we get a gluing paste for our fatigue.

But boiling rice is a simple act;
Only if you’re following a couple fact,
My scientific, tricky receipt step by step.

Firstly, you measure the rice;
Take a mug once and twice and thrice,
So you see, it’s science, not a play of dice.

Then, the water is coming,
And here is my first trick coming;
How many times you must be mugging?

An ordinary cooker,
Would take double water,
Pouring six mugs of fresh blunder.

But me! The chef Benyamin,
I choose to put three and a half in,
Letting the rice to swim, not sinking.

But above all of this,
Here are my other magic tricks;
Frying the rice for five mins or six.

After it got golden brown,
I pour hot water on it muggly owned,
Then, I leave the rice under a cover to boil.

After lil lodge-podgy,
We can check our moody foodie;
And it was the first lesson of riceology.

Benyamin Bensalah

09.10.2017

Ey, ey, ey…

For a woman in the eighties,
The most important thing the peace is.
But how to reach it with a dozen of nieces,
Daily breaking my peacemaker into pieces…

This is why I was frankly relieved,
When I got a house-offer suddenly received.
I called the agent and in 10 days I achieved
To live in a peaceful village – leastwise I believed.

Nathless, my peace was brief;
My groove turned quickly into grief:
Even if the village was devoid of mischief,
My neighborhood had a noisy Muslim chief.

The noisy chief had a noisy mate,
Tho, not only one, but a brigade of eight.
For peace, I decided to wait wait and wait,
But then, I rushed out angry and veiled:

“Hey, you weird!
Ya’ll there, geared with beard!”
Hearing me, they packly neared,
But not for a moment I was feared.

“Y’all! The sheikh and the eight!
Don’t you sense what time is eit?!
It’s eight! And I am out here veiled,
Cuz my neighbors like horses neighled.”

My quick siege cooled down their vein.
“I implore pardon, we will hold the rein.
For God’s sake, forgive us if you would deign.”
And then, they never broke again my peaceful reign.

Yey, yey, yey!

Benyamin Bensalah

21.08.2017

Woe-woe, happiness! Go!

Woe, happiness! It’s too much. Go!
Oh happiness, I aim you with quarel!
Oh, delight and joy! Please, go away!
Cease the condemned amusement!
Now!
Cease the pressing pleasure!
Do!
Cease them all, before I die.
Please…

Hear my voice, chocked by laughter.
Look, my smile is tearing my face!
Look at my crow’s-foot from joy.
Look at my eyes crying in joy.
My joyful life I enjoy!
You are killing me.
Leave me alone!

I’m tired to get rid of you, happiness.
Curse on all your jiggles and giggles!
Curse on your constant presence!
Curse on you and woe!
I am playing knowing you not, rather.
Who are you happiness?
I don’t know.

Benyamin Bensalah

12.06.2017

Noted indifference

Darkblue sky. The Venus’s bright.
The moon’s somewhere. Stars are there.
I’m alone. As I’ve grown.
I’ve no goal. I play no role.
The stars are dying. But still brighting.
I’m not crying. But I can’t wait dying.
This night. This life is meaningless.
Just a primate. With extra stress.
Under the nude sky. With extra dress.
This moment. Small-time torment.

Benyamin Bensalah

24.07.2020