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 father inside…
Poetry
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 at the…
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 longing for…
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 domes like…
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 moana la…
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 across every…
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 woman on pow…
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, tectonic…
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 circulat…
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 your hair yet o…
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 what I did…
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 yourself any dr…
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 in near…
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 a room with high ceilings, h…
Photo: Danielle Dolson / Unsplash I could take your words said the air not their meaning though. The light not exactly light not exactly bright s…
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, Al-Khidr’s pro…
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 we tremble…
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 dynamic…
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 live on le…
Ruth Loveland, Inferno, 36x36 inches, mixed media on wood, 2017 is the last thing I want you to become as in late in life your lover looks at a picture of the day you met a sudden warmt…
Taha Khalil, Untitled, acrylic on canvas Scapegoat And the knife is in your hand You look just like Abraham, our prophet I’m your old, old Ishmael. Captivity Late at night As if I’m a w…
Kristin Marie Enns-Kavanagh / Flickr Agnes Martin, Eye Hill Rural Municipality No. 382, Saskatchewan The land moves without qualm in billows and degrees of bored…
Photo: Evie Shaffer / Unsplash A Funeral Wash me with warm water and soap made of fresh olive oil anoint me with amber and camphor water with rose geranium and orange blossom water Swaddle me with…
Photo: Analusie Gamboa / Unsplash There were neither plots nor characters, only places. Neighborhoods sliced in half. Terraces and corridors between roofless rooms. Profiles only. Staggered spa…
Winter Sun, 2017, oil on wood panel, by Kay WalkingStick. Courtesy of the artist and June Kelly Gallery Bless this land from the top of its head to the bottom of its feet From the…