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, wid…
Poetry
In the Presence of the Simurg, by Ashur EtwebiHow 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 morni…
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 mehas…
Pampas grass on the Han River. Photo: dnlspnk/FlickrWild GeeseAt the northern edge of the Han RiverI saw field-cannons marchdown the snowdrifts of the valley.Wild geese flew low.I woke to see myself…
Photo: Momoko Morita/PixabayThe Earth Shall RemainI’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 seed,t…
Photo: Lizzie/Unsplash Nag-aagaw-dilim Filipino idiom meaning twilight (literally, snatching darkness) Hold the flashlight and I’ll raise my hands, make these…
Shipping containers in Barcelona, Spain. Photo: Rubén Bagüés/UnsplashMerchant ShipsAnd then they are fleetswakes,excessesof ships in the night.Among swells of mistset looseby the mouth of the abyss,a…
Photo: Hans Benn/PixabayDelirica IIYou speak (while walking) psalmsof flame,a luminous design ofchamber music.The forbidden fruit in your traintempts warriors and far-flung mariners.You speak the musi…
Photo: Matt Artz *so many deadtheir eyeballs are filling this vesselgravevesselgravevesselthe earth is a slow firere: counting the dead:I have a strategy in placeI HAVE A STRATEGY IN PLACE *longi…
Photo: Momoko Morita/PixabaySuitabilityThe 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 along…
Photo: Andrew Magill/FlickrThe Blind ThreadIf 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 the…
Still from Still Tomorrow (2016), dir. Jian Fan, produced by Youku Tudou, Inc.Crossing Half of China to Sleep with YouTo sleep with you or to be slept, what’s the difference if there’s any?Tw…
Photo: Public Domain Pictures/PixabayEmpty TrainsThe mornings departand arrive without you.Empty trains.Your spirit flashes now and thenon the hem of a sky foundering in light.Sentences fog the steep…
The cemetery as seen en route to Landes, Canappeville, Eure, France. Photo by Chantal Bizzini Author’s note: With this somewhat old-fashioned title, I actually intended to talk about the…
for Bud¡Sí, es azul, tiene que ser azul!– José GorostizaI can’t free myself from my boredomalways completing circlesswallowing myselflike the serpentswallows its tail.I’m sc…
photo: Jason Trbovich/flickrPoetry was created to solve family problemsLet me just say:this is why poetry was createdto solve family problems when neededand sometimes to wash the dishes and polish the…
Piburger Lake, Austria. Paul Gilmore/UnsplashTo an ordinary manWho couldn’t care lessAbout disasters befalling him,To some modest happinessThat this man finds in a bar in wintertimeWithout a fight,To…
photo: palon youth/unsplashWe Learned to Pronounce Brooklyn in the Movieswe learned to pronounce brooklyn in the moviesto undress in the backseats of carsto await chance with a roll of the dicewe lear…
Photo: Meriç Dağlı/UnsplashNomenclatures IIThose which we are givenin the brink of sorrow,or joy – or both;those marked on our foreheadsthe curse of a generation,or more,marked on our abdomensbirthmar…
photo: chezbeate/pixabayOur dream paths crossand come to nothingburied in heretic fogImpenetrable silenceburns in your eyesEven speakingyou st…
photo : randi wardThe first time I saw Aleksandur Kristiansen in personWas at the dance hall in the Tórshavn TheatreAt the time I was convinced that poets were some sort of demigodsThat maybe they too…
photo: nathalie jolie/unsplashTwo Small PomegranatesIf you want a garden to grow lookinside a pomegranate look long look deepat the core there’s a school and a blue girlthey’re a gard…
photo: hayley maddenThe Aunt vanished one autumn. Left the house,the children, the Uncle with his twitching beard.If I wanted her, I searched in photographs:the Aunt, sublime in a Pucci wedding…
photo: pixabayDastgahA wandering musician from afararrives on foot, dusty with the journey,and quietly performs while strollingthe strange city, steps lightly alonethrough crowded baz…
above Liu Xia prepared her goodbye for her husband, Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo (1955–2017), in a poem and a series of photographs titled The Lonely Planets (courtesy of the…