Photo: Kordula Vahle/Pixabay*
Granaries as long
and winding as
the shores from
which we look
at the lit ocean, behind
us the fertile land, rivers
coming to this sea, silt
behind us thousands …
Poetry
Photo: Foto-Rabe/Pixabay Guide to Bharatanatyam Your smile, shredded into silver shards across panes of mirrors lining studio walls.Tuck your sari, tight. Open your eyes, wide. You learn…
Photo: Claus Grünstäudl/Unsplash Maybe it will be like the end of a yearwhen you find yourself alone in a deserted roomlike a statue at the end of a public garden pathfaced with bare autumn after the…
In the Presence of the Simurg, by Ashur Etwebi How Can You Recognize a Blue Morning? How can you recognize a blue morning?The sea to his right, the desert to his left. What voices does the m…
Photo: Ria Alfana/Unsplash A Conversation from Far, Far Away * No linedear friendconnects here, where I am,with where you are.Isn’t it strange that I’m talking to you? The question you handed meh…
A garden surrounds the memorial to Celia Sánchez in Cuba. Photo: Clara Sanchiz/Flickr But there we were a small contingentwaiting for Her.A nun showed up first,of course,this being hundreds of years…
Pampas grass on the Han River. Photo: dnlspnk/Flickr Wild Geese At the northern edge of the Han RiverI saw field-cannons marchdown the snowdrifts of the valley. Wild geese flew low.I woke to see mys…
Photo: Momoko Morita/Pixabay The Earth Shall Remain I’m surethe earth shall remain,if not elsewhere,it shall remain in my bones;as a wood louse lives in the trunk of a tree,as a weevil lives in a see…
Photo: Lizzie/Unsplash Nag-aagaw-dilim Filipino idiom meaning twilight (literally, snatching darkness) Hold the flashlight and I’ll raise my hands, make these shapes for you to gu…
Photo: Pixabay / David Peterson A Sound Flag: United States of America by Eric Ellingsen Author’s note: The flag is part of Poetry Jazz: Wax…
Photo: Pixabay / Kaserei Friends and Enemies by Cia Rinne (stockhausen’s childhood) the french were our enemiesand the e…
Photo: Pixabay / Kaz የጸጥታ ወግ በጸጥታ መኃል…. አርምሞ ለሰማ ጸጥታ ወግ አለው…. ሚኒሊክ እንዳለውአሁን እኔና አንተ… አሁን አንተና እኔ ካወራው ሁላ የትኛው ተወዶ… የትኛው ተጠላ ?፤ይሄ…
Bradley Phillips, Leontyne Price (1963), oil on canvas, 127.6 x 92.1 cm, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Ms. Sayre Sheldon, npg.si.edu Weather Event: Leontyne Pri…
Jaz Graf, Between What Was, 2018, toned cyanotype and serigraphy on paper, 25 x 33 in. [Listen to the poem in the original Creole] And the musicians played tunes of madness …
Photo: Hans Braxmeier/Pixabay Blue Soca Fugue He thought it would be a good idea to invite Andie.I’ve always loved men who swim in the ink of their ideas.I loved that brown suit of skin he wore.The…
Shipping containers in Barcelona, Spain. Photo: Rubén Bagüés/Unsplash Merchant Ships And then they are fleetswakes,excessesof ships in the night. Among swells of mistset looseby the mouth of the abys…
Photo: Hans Benn/Pixabay Delirica II You speak (while walking) psalmsof flame,a luminous design ofchamber music.The forbidden fruit in your traintempts warriors and far-flung mariners.You speak the m…
Photo: Matt Artz * so many deadtheir eyeballs are filling this vessel gravevesselgravevesselthe earth is a slow fire re: counting the dead: I have a strategy in placeI HAVE A STRATEGY IN PLACE * l…
Photo: Momoko Morita/Pixabay Suitability The typhoon has arrived.Wind force 12.It is merciful. From this city,it has taken only one person away,the one with unkempt hair.The one who wanders all day a…
Photo: Andrew Magill/Flickr The Blind Thread If only I were the rubbing of shoulders in crowded places,the sympathetic applause,the neck that turns to change the view and move a life.If only I were t…
A detail of a painting by Salim Barakat Translator’s note: Salim Barakat’s language is intimidatingly dense and complex, flaunting a vast and daunting vocabulary. His texts possess…
Ismail Khayat, A Girl, 2015, Sulaimani, 40 x 27, acrylic paint and colored pencils on paper You in Me On the shore of the warm seaI standMy heels kiss your shoresI lift my dress to my knees…-
Photo: Ismail Khayat, A Girl, 2015, Sulaimani, 40 x 27, acrylic paint and colored pencils on paper. Answer After Halabja* suffocated,I wrote a long complaint to GodBefore…
Ismail Khayat, Sleeping, 2013, Sulaimani, 33 x 33, pencil on paper. Soccer I see Kurdistan as a soccer field, independence as a ball, plump with air. From the beginning of our existence, run…
Still from Still Tomorrow (2016), dir. Jian Fan, produced by Youku Tudou, Inc. Crossing Half of China to Sleep with You To sleep with you or to be slept, what’s the difference if there’s any…
