Ali Znaidi
(Tunisia)
The Museum of the Cotton Club
‘Spanish tinge’ for dessert because the clientele’s ears
must listen to the rhythms of the tango-congo.—An expansion
within variants of the right seasoning
sub-Saharan African memories & the habanera rhythms
trigging the crowds to survey the terrains of their ontology
versus the existence of ………. ( silence) (pause)
such jolly designs of rhythmical footsteps & hand clapping—
syncopated waves lapping their cotton-filled ears
more of guilt feeling or mirth amid the orchestrated
patterns
they misinterpret the sounds but prefer their version,
their vision
of cotton rhythmical ruminations
cotton contemplation this whiteness a syllabus of
a mid-summer night
mosquitoes licking the sweaty wounded ebony skins
fissures spring dreams evasion
in the plantation fields the moon loses its glitter
to glittering bodies
beads of sweat tiny moons strumming the slaves’ pain
w/ sharp silver scythes
sorrowful moans & this hidden harmonica elaborates
on a broken grammar tones of a shattered psyche
rhythms of freedom still lingering
moon blues
pain, could as well be the moon
an algorithm unto itself, sad rhythm
the algorithm releases saddened moments
of injury
there’s so much the rhythm can exorcise
jolly beats amplified—an exercise into distorted semantics
the saxophone is full of the prints of your scarred fingers
the memory invents its own repertoire
{a silver sad moon repertoire}
followed by broken rhythms
algorithms absorbed until the moon begins to shed tears
outside
torrential rain begins to drop in the form
of viral dejected tears
of a hurt moon
A Brief Historiography of Jazz
The situation composes a rhythm, replacing the imposed fait accompli.
Scathing pains are transformed into marvelous airs.
Rhythmical metamorphoses wipe the symbolic soots from the memory
of the slaves.
The beats are assigned to remove the painful glands.
When fire starts to burn, bodies become whipped under the name
of affluent economy.
In the forgotten territories, the moon springs forth neurotic light,
leaving the grass w/ out leaves.
Slaves’ pains are encrypted into dejection, but dejection is a fountain
of bluesy megrims.
The Songs of the Moon
All this music is not enough.
All this jazz is not enough.
Poetry is not just a musical instrument.
Poetry is a hand zipping silence closed,
& every word rises like an angel’s voice,
& every word rises like a demon’s voice.
{Whatever!}
This world is not created for silence.
This world moves on
according to a theory of sound & fury.
Listen to violins!
They are tearing up the curtains of silence.
Guess who’s coming to dinner?
Lilith with a lute.
Sappho with a lyre.
Plato with a drum.
Langston Hughes with a harmonica.
Guided by the songs of the moon
everyone comes with a musical instrument,
& melodies on the lips.
Everyone throws away a handful of ashes into
the eyes of silence to make it scream.
Everyone wants to hear more music.
Everyone wants to hear more sounds
even those screams of silence.
The Birth of a Song
moon fragments
partial eclipses fondling the psyche
conceal
strawberry-shaped lips thus
closed
at the apex of these partially somber night’s
elongated rhythms
surviving beats: a song was born
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Bio:
Ali Znaidi (b.1977) lives in Redeyef, Tunisia. He is the author of several chapbooks, including Experimental Ruminations (Fowlpox Press, 2012), Moon’s Cloth Embroidered with Poems (Origami Poems Project, 2012), Bye, Donna Summer! (Fowlpox Press, 2014), and Taste of the Edge (Kind of a Hurricane Press, 2014). He also authored a book of fiction titled Green Cemetery (Moment Publications, 2014) which is in fact the first Tunisian flash fiction collection originally written & published in the English language. You can see more of his work on his blog at : aliznaidi.blogspot.com.