Painting by Lydia Rubio, “That sea at night is a sea of fragility”
The sky over tonight’s sea is a mirror of glittering fireflies. Writing expands, attentive to t…
Poetry
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.…
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 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…
Photo by Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash worldlittoday · “Festival,” by Derek Chung The festival is here we play football by the door Even in a tight space my son can nail a kickoff Skilled a…
Photo by K. Mitch Hodge / Unsplash Fingertips Can you feel how the tips of my fingers vibrate in a scream? I am a simple woman of autumn, flesh tanned from the end of summer leaves me lo…
Photo by Sean Thomas / Unsplash return oh, that fish could swim through my garden again! Stately as whale sharks, speckled pacifists, or goldfish freed from small glass do…
What is the reason for your visit, Embera Wera?1 You’ve walked fourteen hours through the muddy night, you’ve crossed an entire mountain range to see me, even knowing the demon mo…
Ebony and ivory / Photo by Blondinrikard Fröberg / Flickr for Lida Berberian I remember when I couldn’t read music; The pile of unfamiliar books lay listless; my hands glided acro…
Photo: Giancarlo Revolledo / Unsplash Limbo One day I placed a rock on top of your name and I said to myself: I’ll go singing all the way home. And I sang like a wild wom…
Photo by Paul Gilmore / Unsplash The Clock of the Long Now will operate knowing it will lose the correct time, exposed as it will be to imprecise temperatures, stellar and solar alignments, t…
Photo: jamesjustin / Flickr Open House: Riverside Fujimi Town #103, two rooms with wooden flooring and a small finished basement. A ninety-eight-square-foot basement with no windows, no…
Photo: Mila Tovar / Unsplash worldlittoday · Alireza Roshan - Seven Poems from Iran Seeing you off, I waved Loneliness took it as a greeting * Amazing all the breezes waving in…
Salomé by Juana Romani / Musée d'Orsay / Public Domain How often I saw you and felt surprised to be looking at you. Feeling the temptation to spy on you and the desire to love wh…
Photo: Glenn Ruben Berg / Unsplash [draw your strength] draw your strength from the lifeless leaf break all bonds until you can tie your fate to the baobab trunk don’t hold within y…
East Sands at low tide. Photos provided by Eleni Kefala. worldlittoday · Eleni Kefala - “The Coastal Path” (Greek) for Colin McEwan I heard the news a few days ago we hadn’t spoken…
Photos: Shahilla Shariff I The alleys are blind, the streets are worn. Everyone has left, but tea is offered. Bone china cup, we’re together in…
Photo: Danielle Dolson / Unsplash I could take your words said the air …
Photo: Mozambique Channel by Rod Waddington / Flickr after Goethe’s Divan 1. Find the poet by the channel of Mozambique flown south to taste the air of the first migrants,…
Photo: Evie Shaffer / Unsplash An Offering O Leaves, O Flowers! We hold you in our hands as offerings. We stir in you the ruin of winter, the swell of summer. Say a little something, when…
Illustration by Elyas Alavi from the series Waking Dreams Translator’s note: Few voices are more distinctive in the world of contemporary Afghan poetry than Elyas Alavi. The…
Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy/Unsplash the human soul is a dark place, leviathan. so much that my eyes begrudge the light. I sense the dark upsurge. I can’t find a hole large enough, can’t…