Bucket-list 2.0

I would haved liked to;
Raise my voice in a praise,
Fulfilling faith or whatever abstract concept,
Imploring long upon a phrase,
Ensuring my existence.
I would have liked to;
Find Myself at the altar of art,
Still as living mortal enjoying its blessings,
Among poets taking apart,
Feeling I am there.
I would have liked to;
Explore my weak body’s limits,
How much its complex structure can take,
Whether it can surpass spirits,
Leaving me not inanimate.
I would have liked to;
Run wildly through continents,
Then, richfully resting and finding my house,
Where I can spend my experience,
Creating something like homes.
I would have liked to;
Walk cozily, dearly hand in hand,
Pairing shoulder by shoulder in our old ages,
Ignoring nature’s last demand,
Having willing for staying.
I would have loved.

Benyamin Bensalah

20.03.2021

The river will run red

Bloodshot eyes from the cries.
Who I am among the lies?
Is it true I’ve been through?
You’re not bad, tells me who?
The one I hurt, where’s my court?
All’s gone blur, but her support.
I’m gone mad – that’s what I said.
I just wish my cries could run red.

Benyamin Bensalah

05.12.2020, 04:20

Regret

I’ve never seen a word such suffocating –
such as regret.
I stuffed my already crowded mind with lies
such as I never feel regret.
I stuffed my ego with lies that I deserved this all,
and all the bad is out of regret.
I went dreamwalking with that chestboard in my chest,
seeing all pain I was used to, but regret.
While the word kept me chasing, just as my chest kept aching
from what I wasn’t able to see that I do regret.
My chest is opening now, with unusual pain that is searing me down,
but I’m somehow happy to hear that I do regret.
All the pain I caused, not just to myself alone, not just to the one I loved,
but for everyone who had to pay for my pain – I regret.
I don’t know how could it be possible now to be a better person from now,
and I really don’t know it like I didn’t know it back from now, but I regret.
This word is here now, that kept me suffocating – crying – waiting for answers in my hiding,
but I am free now; free as a hated criminal who’s not enjailed now, and knows only one word
only one word that he murmurs alone:
I regret.

Bensalah Benyamin

04.12.2020, 04:20 am

Slobber puddle

I was just an innocent snowball full in blanche
that turned into the most awful avalanche;
taking one life after one another,
oh, how I wish that I rather
could have sublimed in my mother,
never bringing disaster to my so dear lover.

Benyamin Bensalah

18.07.2020

Limbo cry: do WE still exist?

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 monster behind 04.26

My mother kept whispering sole conversations,
but it was me not talking to her instead;
my mother kept inside her emotions,
but it was me not making her express;
my mother burst out in crying-shouting,
but it was me who let her problems imbed;
my mother was whom I blamed for many things,
but it was me ruining her and my life instead;
my mother was fighting for me,
and it was me giving up instead;
my mother was the only who cared about me,
and it was me who turned passively careless;
my mother was who gave birth to me,
then it was me who never gave her a fine birthday bless.

In Memoriam of the great date of 04.26.1964.

Benyamin Bensalah

04.26.2020

Check mate

She played on my chessboard without strategy,
never wanted winning just a tragedy,
took my Queen and me with her fallacy
playing her dirty rhapsody:

Crying violins from our world’s violence –
who wouldn’t hear it with heart ?
Outraging piano to hope there is change –
who wouldn’t hear it with heart ?
Sweet harp summoning the peace of a harpy –
who wouldn’t hear it with heart ?

The heart is the weakest point to bait,
even a mastermind would have a checkmate.

Benyamin Bensalah

18.04.2020

A man in shame

How to live as a whole again
after the shame?
How to think with pure heart again
after taking up the blame?
Destroying a pure world’s dignity
was never in my aim.
I don’t know who I am anymore
or to whom I may exclaim.
Thoughts of regret, repent, repair
are like my words, so vain.
I wish I could turn back time again
where I were never given name.

Benyamin Bensalah

13.04.2020

Attila József: YOU WILL GROW OLD

You will grow old and regret it,
that you hurt – what you are proud of today.
The conscience will knock in
and there will be no memory in which it would leave you to flee.

You will have an old dog and it will settle down next to you.
You will rest during the day, taking a nap in a chair,
because at night you will be afraid staying only on you.
Shadows hit the shivering gammer.

The old dog will squeak sometimes,
but there will be silence in the room, all in order;
but someone will be missed from old times
to be there in that lonely silent corner.

Then you will toddle: and if you toddled enough
with your bad legs, you sit down. Above in a golden frame,
there’s your younger picture. You mutter to that stuff:
“I didn’t hug her because I didn’t love her name.”

“What could I have done?”  – you ask
but your toothless mouth can no longer respond;
and you close your eyes by the sun’s cast,
you can’t wait it to be mooned.

Because if you fall asleep, the bed will bounce,
like a young horse to take off the harness.
And fear is wondering, not romance,
in your head: to love, not to love, nevertheless.

You decide in yourself. I’m in pain
that I can’t answer if you ask: is he alive.
Because in me there’s an exhausted pain,
falling asleep as a child, and with that I will also dive.

Benyamin Bensalah

06.04 2020

Translated from the Hungarian poem of Attila József, “Majd megöregszel” (1936).

Ex-Mess

Ex-mess
!!!
Merry jingling
What’s the time?
I must be doing the same crime;
Washing colourful faces with white time-
The result is a timelapse mayhem with a rhyme.
Merry jingling, a sheep is bleating, then it cries
Crimson red hues are spreading over the snowy house;
Why this clueless slaughter? What’s the matter what’s the time?
Is this a gift on the ground? Is it blood under the tree all around?
Is it mine?
Is it mine?
Is it mine?
Living in the past. Poet. Present pains. Feel. But never reveal. Home. Alone.

Benyamin Bensalah

15.05.2018