Especially In August Poem by Ervin Hatibi

At the beach: the sea!
Since we did not have a revolution,
Let's swim full of anger, deeper and deeper,
The farther from land, the closer to heaven,
Sea gulls paid on postcards, estranged from us,
Remain
On our backs,
Or rarely even unpaid remain,
Especially now in August,
We are all a deeply tanned people,
Made of native colonists,
Half nude, wrapped in rags of portentous colours,
We run down the beach, buying up baubles and watches,
We flirt and do crazy things,
Then in the shade we pray prostrated to the sun
And baptize ourselves in the faecal sea water
(the hairy faeces of women like dark-coloured crabs,
Millipede priests, bind us to these pagan rites).
Day after day come trains and wagons filled with young
Internees.
Those who wanted to have a Revolution
Or make some grimace in public,
Beaten by the traffic police all year round,
Their journey ends at the sea.
Here they are brought to chill out, correct their ways.
(a calming full of ardour, full of shouting thighs, motor boots
Of pumice, icy like quotations),
Only the sand is limp, wears you down, reminds us
Of the expulsion
From our homes
Or from the promised land,
But we chose the beach ourselves,
Jews disrobed, in underwear
Under a crematorium sun
Which capital freed from the ozone chains,
We rape one another reciprocally for nothing
As soon as we remove our textile masks, which as I said,
Enclose other humanities beneath.
As soon as summer comes,
The temperatures rise,
Democracy will reign over the abandoned city
Under the weary coups d'état of tourism.

(1994)