Caesura - I. Poem by Habib Tengour

If he comes to interrogate a half-burned trace,
he does so impelled by an atavism or rather
a jealously guarded technique.
He has woven the poem in secrecy.
Months of retreat in the desert,
at the mercy of the winds,
so as to conform to the tradition.
Chaffing and the whip.
The echo's harshness initiates into tonal ruptures.
Remoteness dilutes the blood.
That's when the rhythm's fragility
is discovered together with
a sudden fear of obscurity.
He'll say nothing about the shiver
in the hearing or the strangeness
of the visions. Sound images jostle…

He stands upright to evoke the dwelling.

The circumstance is banal in contrast to the words that describe it.

A complete rhetorical staging in order to evacuate the mutism of the ashes.