Photo by Nathan Bang on Unsplash
I brought mum and dad an old quilt –
It’s nice, only it came out of the wash with funny splodges on it.
They can stick it on the sofa bed out at the allotme…
Poetry
Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash On the hilltop A woman said to me This fruit is called kam Kam I take the word as it comes I write it in my memory Like the three letters in th…
Photo by Marcel Ardivan on Unsplash I propose, my love, to be for you the surface to be but body for your eyes to be but rhythm for your tongue and information for your net. – Myriam…
The children see trees bending bending and then they are broken coconutless frondless. The children see roofs in various states of disarray metal sheets lifting eaves pulled away. There’s Takaro’s h…
Last Tuesday I wasn’t enough of a poet to note how the falling rain would split the sky It doused the fires in my heart till its casing cracked It hammered the pyramids of my mind and washed…
Because all the fathers and mothers of my parents, all the time past, are earth. But also language, words like Spanish, gypsy…
Photo by Ajeet Mestry on Unsplash The Alarm The television had announced the imminence of an attack. Would it be a bomb? Bacteria? A weapon previously unheard of? Everyo…
you come and go checking on those figs your eyes scanning the eyelets among branches you leave the slums of the city the rain’s hand-pan roofs above the ruins you come and go checking on those f…
The audio recording of “Simi” can be found here on the Musuq Illa website. Simi by Olivia Reginaldo Kay simiy ruwasqaykita atipanchu qilla qalluy qulluypaq qillqan K…
Photo © Keiko Onoda A thousand countries in myself – There’s something that precipitates to the very bottom of such a feeling. Is everything just an image, or is this only a wasteland wher…
Photo by Artur Kraft / Unsplash Golden rice stands in sheaves in the freshly cut autumn field. I think of many exhausted mothers and see beautiful, wrinkled faces along the road at dusk.…
Photo © by Yousef Khanfar Terrifying, that ringing of the phone then that voice, insistent, sad “Send your aid eastward all your uncles are now refugees” I sighed deeply, ached for them…
We created the Palestinian Kufiyah to be your symbol of elegance and flames of resistance. We centered it with Net of the Sea, To remind you of staying one united, strong nation…
The Dome of the Rock in Al-Quds / Photo © by Yousef Khanfar I suffocate in my remorse, for I have betrayed youAgainst my own will. My apology is overdue.Your wounded eyes mourn tears from the oppre…
Lajee Palestinian Dabka Dance Troupe / Photo by Tim Dennell / Flickr I ask the olives to be gentle for they’re weighing the branches down as heavy as the stories Um Muhammad carries on her…
Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash Let me be brief: by the end of this, someone will be cursed & I pray it anyone but Him. Let me start again:…
Maher Naji, Christ Has Not Yet Descended from the Cross / Courtesy of the artist Years and years ago, I was small, very small. I was one of the children of the world who were born…
Asma Ghanem / Courtesy of the artist Hunger strike, fortieth day* Your bodies flutter on the ceiling of the room I can see your slow gestures the small bones in the joints of you…
Mohamed Masri / Courtesy of the artist I Write the Land I want to write the land, I want the words to be the land itself. But I’m just a statue the Romans carved and the Arabs forgot. C…
Motaz Azaiza / Courtesy of the artist My Sixteen-Year-Old Mother What is my eightysomething mother doing under these conditions? She watches the situation behind the glass Once the rain st…
Khair Alah Salim / Courtesy of the artist Scene 1 – Operation Sperm in Womb Think of her As they loosen your chains As they lower you down As the soles of your feet Touch the bloodstaine…
The nuns teach us Quran, or rather they teach us how to read with fire at the heels of our feet. I behold daybreak, my father lively with god. He is good and so I am good. On Fridays I pop up fr…
Imad Abu Shtayyah, Rise Up / Courtesy of the artist Maybe this very morning is suitable for forgetting you and forgetting once and for all your flowers and gardens Maybe this doo…
Samia Halaby, Centers of Attraction / Courtesy of the Artist. Innocent when questioned, quick to take flight when afraid, magnet for the heart approachin…
Photo by owtana on Unsplash father inside my coat it is only after i lose my wallet that i find father inside my coat. he is holding a long and slender cigarette between his teeth. dear fath…
