Mondole, Bendir, Flute, Guitar Synthesizer:  Fatah Kaci

Keyboards:

Ken Cheetham”The Cheek Man”

Derbouka: 

Henni Hached, Fatah kaci

Vocals:
Ali Akkache, Fatah Kaci

Translations from Tamazight (Berber) to English:

Renée Bornstein, Fatah Kaci & Ali Akkache

Recorded and mixed
by Ken Cheetham.

The Smaller Room Studio, Berkeley, California USA

Thanks to: Fatah and his family, Tahar Boukaroui, Ken Cheetham, Linda  Bogaczyk, Renée Bornstein, Henni Hached, Rabah Seffal, Mokrane Bouakiz, Khaled Bounar, Blanca Madani.

I also wish  a good health and long life to mommy Bogaczyk and Tom.

I am grateful for the Amazigh language, and all those who work to keep it alive, as it gives me this opportunity to write and to make  the first CD of Amazigh  poems.

This CD is dedicated to all Imazighenes (berbers) in the World.

Contact Ali Akkache: Assefru@aol.com

The violence brings us here

This is why we left the country

The violence brings us here

Be sad olive tree

The violence brings us here

The day we slammed the door

 

O my heart you did not enjoy life

And you were blamed

You are like the anvil under hammers

If you miss one the other gets you   

You are just avoiding the days

You do not know where you are going

You lost the taste of honey

You get only the bitter

O body what has happened to you?

You are empty of life

The heart that used to beat

Today, it is being beaten

You are in a temporary situation

The days are racing

You are neither here or there

You harvest only the wind 

You were sacrificed like a pigeon

They still live; you were exterminated 

In you, there is nothing left for me

But my heart has always been yours

I feel all the problems distressing you

Your burdens have become mine,

Weighing me down

As if I carried a heavy load

 

Today I am breaking with you

Since you do not seem to know me

Today I am breaking with you

I have no choice left but to leave

 

Just as a man and a woman leave each other

I cut the ties with you  my land, as a son leaving his parents

Just as brothers sometimes do

Like a tree whose roots are torn from the Earth

 

If I separate from you, it is only today

You yourself have ignored me since long ago

Ever since you were taken, I have lived in you as a stranger

 

They kidnapped you like a bride

But you never reached the house of your groom

Yesterday’s takeovers dilute us today

 

In you, I was born

In you, I played

In you, I fell and got up

In you, I learned to hope, and learned impatience

In you, I learned to love, and learned to hate

 

How full were my eyes

When you prospered

When you were the envy of all

Replete with fine palaces

How empty now my eyes, with only dreams of past glory

You are so vast, but where can I walk in you now, what place is left for me?

What is left in you today

Is hunger and violence

Death is knocking at the door

It has already taken so many

Each day brings more graves to dig

So many, we’ve lost count

 

We live to see the lopping off  heads

Blood is mixed with tears

The only sound is the lamentation of the old

The only sight is the swollen ranks of orphans

Hatred has taken hold of us

How can we shake off the curse?

 

A day will come

When ancestors will rise from their graves

They will stand together

And they will blame you

 

A day will come

When those who have taken you, my land

Will one day face justice

 

A day will come

When the heads that fell

Will face the hands that cut them off

 

A day will come

When the light will overcome the darkness

And shine throughout you, my land

 

A day will come

When from separation we will reunite

 

A day will come

When you will recognize me and I you

 

My land…

 

 

 

Turning around

Like a cat near the fire place

Turning around

Repeating the same word

Turning around

From where they leave, they return

 

Do not cook the bones a second time

Change the story, please.

What’s this turning around?

Stop complaining about yesterday

Now it is today

The day begins. Wake up!

 

You know the word is like money

Spend it where it works

If you have time

Me, I do not have time for those stories

I am more concerned with the return of Unity

I am affected by its inundation

 

 

Vigil of night

The rats kept me company

Vigil of night

There was only darkness

Vigil of night

Just me and a rifle

Vigil of night

People sleep

Vigil of night

Without dinner

Vigil of night

The obligation held me

Vigil of night

My turn came

Vigil of night

Like everyone’s

Vigil of night

Until the rising of the day

Vigil of night

Without knowing why

Why do I watch over the night?

Does the night need vigil?

Why do I take care of the night?

Is the night afraid of the day?

Why do I take care of the night?

Is the night afraid of darkness?

The night comes out of there all-alone

It will leave as it came

The night can extricate itself

With or without me

The night gets used to

The calm and the violence

It knows them

Me, living in the day

The night does not belong to me

Me, fallen into darkness

It was outside my knowledge

Why am I sitting in vigil?

For the night or myself?

---

---

5-DDA LMULUD(Tribute to the writer)

 

I forgot my sickness

You had passed away

My tongue is tied

Since you can no longer speak words

I must remember

The heart of writing beats no more

 

The sun has been turned off

In the middle of the day

Water has been poured on hot coals

Bitter cold has surprised us

The light that shone so much

Has been strangled by darkness

 

Oh! Road of Ain Defla

I will shun driving through you

Oh! Road of Ain Defla

If I were a rock, I would stone you

Oh! Road of Ain Defla

You are the one who broke my heart

 

If you were the true way

You would not have gone out of the way

You would not pierce the water-skin

Water would not have poured out

But since you left us wailing

Remember you cut us from our roots

 

The jackal will howl against you

You will not hear birds sing

Water will flood you

In big streams, they will come pouring

Since you sacrificed Dda Lmulud

The River of Shlef  will surround you

 

Even though he was taken away

The writing he left is like a fountain

With its waters, we take baths

So that our learning will be pure

Our minds will have no handicap

Grains will recognize the waste

 

On February 28

Passion surrounded the Djurdjura mountains

Young and old were present

At the funeral of Dda Lmulud

At the grave, sadness was present

Even if he left Tamazight still crawling

That day, there was anger in the air

In us it was boiling

 

That day, all roads

Were leading people to At-Yenni

Some by car, some by foot

At Tawrirt, they all met

At Tizi, shops were all closed

Sadness had overtaken the city

 

We did not bury his body

We have planted his treasure

Its roots have spread generously

To hold strongly the Land of Tamazgha

So that no mudslide will threaten us

We live through him, he lives through us

 

I swear by Si Muhand

Who swore to break but not bend

I swear by Chikh Muhand

Who sculpted words like a torch

That the language for which you fought

Will be written………. and written

 

The Drop of water

Became many drops

That made a full stream

 

Streams go to the river

If the river catches you, you drown

Me, I am inside the river

 

I am inside the river

I swim, I swim

With which hand do I start to swim?

 

I fell into the river

With which hand do I fight?

It happened to me like a flood

Who was taken by the inundation?

When the winter was bad

 

Why did that drop of water fall?

 

 

It fell

When the heavens were full

It fell

When the heavens were broken

I fell down in the water

I believed in the water, and from that belief

 

I suffer in my heart

From the clean water

I went to the dear ones

I could not see my face inside the water

Today they are in trouble

They troubled our waters

 

I used to believe the water was a friend

But it is just a story

He who believes in water

Knows nothing

I was betrayed by the water

Do you know that?

I was like water inside water

But not anymore

 

From the drop of water

We find ourselves in flood

Flood does not forgive you

Nor does the river

 

All of us, we could drown in the river

If we eat ourselves

All of us, we could drown in the river

If we do not assist those others in danger

He, who thinks it is game, tries to cross the river

A drop of water can awaken us

A drop of water can trouble our dreams

A drop of water can become a flood

The inundation does not forgive us

Today is the beginning of the year

Welcome to the Yennayer

The Kabyle woman is meeting her children

She will cook couscous and vegetables

 

Today is the beginning of the year

Welcome to Yennayer

I hope the year will be great

We will really study Tamazight

 

I wish we had Yennayer every day

So we can remember our roots

I wish Yennayer were all day and night

In order to contemplate our culture

I wish Yennayer were like a pillar

Which could save Tamazgha from the worst 

 

Please Uncle Yennayer

Do not treat us like the old women

We want peace

Create friendship from dispute

Otherwise it will be our loss

We will get the worse part

 

 

We will sacrifice a chicken for you

Because the brothers are fighting

We will start the cooking

The couscous will be like snow

Unity will come home

It will wake up the fools.

Shining and exploding

Somebody took east; another took west

It happened to us like this insect

Appearing only on sunny days

 

The separation is excruciating 

Like the bird who has his throat cut

The separation weighs on us

Like a heavy burden

The separation is anguish

Like a closed tomb

Shining and exploding

Since the past, we were hanging in midair

It was as if we were a ball

Thrown from one hand to another.

 

We exiled ourselves from the country

Now they can find themselves

Somebody died. Another exiled

This is how the fighters like it 

But us, we invest in poetry

This is the only thing we have

Shining and exploding

We were stricken in our hearts

Because we did not make the right decision.

Our unity has exploded

 

Shining and exploding

Somebody took east, one to the west

Shining and exploding

Going your own way

Shining and exploding

Complain all you want

Shining and exploding

We were strangled with our own hands

Oh purple fig

Because of you I am a wanted man

Oh purple fig

Because of you

There is a price on my head

The village has become angry

 

As soon as your fruit appears

The prohibition is imposed

No one may eat of you

 

The villagers are against me

The law, I have violated

They proclaim their sentence

I must leave

 
Like Adam, driven out of Heaven

And forced to descend to the Earth

Because of the apple he has eaten

 

There are those who impose the prohibition

But it does not apply to them

Never mind, everyone overlooks it

El Hadj merely caressed one of you

Me, I did not kill anyone

I only ate one of you

Why is it that they can partake of you figs

But not I?

 

This is not a piece of fiction.

This is a true story.

I lit a candle

In the middle of the night

It blew out

It became only dripping wax

The darkness of night

Fell like a blanket

 

The night is long

The candle blows out

The night is long

The light has left

The night is long

Without measure

 

I looked for light

In the middle of the darkness

I looked for light

Day and night

I looked for light

More than one year

 

I looked for it

In the middle of the day

I looked for it

Under the moon

I looked for it

Where it should be

 

I followed my eyes

The cracks between doors

Maybe the light

Is coming out

I followed my eyes

The cracks between doors

Maybe the light

Will break open the doors

I followed my eyes

The cracks between doors

Where is the light?

I turn around it

 

The light did not arrive

The door is still closed

I waited so long

No more hope

I am pale

Living with emptiness

 

Why is there no light?

Somebody still has it

Why is there no light?

Somebody still holds it

Why is there no light?

Somebody extinguished it

 

The darkness brings fear

It brings the unknown

The darkness brings fear

No one knows for how long

The darkness brings fear

No one knows where it goes

 

How could we find light?

If we do not have it

How could we find light?

If we look on it with darkness

How could we find light?

If we do not awaken the day

 

Who lives in comfort like this?

Only the mouse who likes darkness

How did you shape up?

The light left a day

 

Where is your hardness?

The sun is gone for more than a year now

I will not come with you

I am looking for light

I will not come with you

The darkness is outside the border