We have become eagles who glaze over the information peaks from sunrise to sunset trumpeted in all languages, in colors, in plumes of sweetness and vigor masters of the dreamlike airs…
Today we are lions who roar their fury of life or spread out, troubled in the sunlight of their screens, watching the family of the world, waiting for the best and theories in the wind
But who would have believed it? by the glow of virtual campfires for a reconstructed holiday, the shadows of the past took pity and before disappearing, they turned us into griffins.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 50th birthday.
Sheema Kalbasa Persian b. 1972
I wear your perfume on my skin Don’t be unkind Like wild flowers shy under the sun Don’t seek the truth, I tell you none exists Everything has an expiration date Love, life, identity, even abnormality. We are travelers, Some of us just leave the suitcase at home So that our hands won’t suffer the weight of our guilt.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 45th birthday.
Rosa Jamali Persian b. 1977
Facing the airport, all that’s now left in my grasp is a crumpled land that fits in the palm of my hand.
Facing wavering sunbeams— a sun that is angry and mute. All the way from the salt sands of Dasht-e Lut, it came, the dream that forced my fingers’ shift, that set my teeth on edge. A muted breeze, whirlwind spun from sand dunes all the way, even through the back alley.
Are you pasting together the cut-up fragments of my face to make me laugh?
No longer than the palm of the hand, a short leap, exactly the length you had predicted.
A huge grave in which to lay the longest night of the year to sleep.
Sleep has quit our eyelids for other pastures, has dropped its anchor at the shores of garden ponds, has lost the chapped flaking of its lips, poor thing. Are you pasting together the cut-up fragments of my face to make me laugh?
With scissors – snip, snip – they are severing something. The alphabet shavings strewn on the ground, are they the letters that spell our family name?
With every zig-zag, you cage my mother’s breath, her footprints fading in the shifting sands.
Are you pasting together the cut-up fragments of my face to make me laugh? No. A strange land-shape forms. I will not return. I left behind a shoe, one of a pair, for you to put on and follow after me.
We present this work in honor of Moroccan Independence Day.
Tahar Ben Jelloun Moroccan b. 1944
A people undone. Your bread shreds itself ceremonially on mounds of reminiscence under the rain musical prattle. Wait and see a little and-you’ll-see-golden- eggs-in-your-cottage-and-you’ll-see- the-milky-diamonds-of-figs-in-your-stream- of-honey-in-your -well-virgins-in-your- harem-you-will-speak-with-birds-with- reptiles-with-raptors-wait-and-see-your- hovel-become-a-villa-with-a-car- and-daily-driver-and-TV-and-heated- pool-and-telephone-and-telex-in- permanent-touch-with-every- dream-and-illusion. Just wait and see.
In the older photograph my eyes are two frowning pockets, and my chest only housed knots and clauses. I used fast shutter speeds to capture photographs before sadness spilled into the frame. I was never one to track progress, but today I did.
Before taking that selfie, I bent the sun toward my face and poured it into my void like cement filling the cracks of a wall. My troubled teenage years lingered in my throat like a shoplifter in a supermarket aisle.
What a difference 5 years makes, today my skin is no longer a carousel of masks. Praises be to a thick syrup of therapy, a puree of prayer, peelings of coping mechanisms, a cup of my mother’s honeyed voice.
In the second photograph the white space is filled with a safe noise. My shoulders are firm and upward, my eyes are two glowing pebbles. Not even an edit can smudge this moment.
The heavenly battles descend on the soil and death returns to earth: its place of origin. High flashes accompany it; it is the only luxury left to the corpses. Indeed, how did evil change direction! From below, its immediate action would start: from mud, hoofs of animals boots, swamps and it would rise up to the black clouds and the innocent souls. Now the desert, as I imagine it with countless pink shades sand breasts breathing in the desert wind a secret body with its dark oases hidden under impartial spectator of disaster conquered by parachutes. From above downwards now the evolution of bleeding flesh; heaven a past in flames will be forgotten and the good will be thrust in the earth buried deep, very deep in memory.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 70th birthday.
Ayten Mutlu Turkish b. 1952
autumn is here the sun and wine are witnesses and the vine leaves yellowing on branches sharpened knives of light are witnesses to the regrets we’ve gathered from the vineyard of time
let’s go to her today, to time to the red Goddess who covers up our memory with her tulle skirt
we’ve somehow already lost more than we have like a jug of wine we poured out without drinking
there are too many things to forget too few to remember the love whose sky we are leaning on, is witness
come on let’s drink the rest of our lives when descending evening like a break-up song let’s the wine spread within our blood slowly by slowly Like a moment of Vuslat
We present this work in honor of the Turkish holiday, Victory Day.
Lale Müldür Turkish b. 1956
to Ömer
For it is written of them, they will not believe even a voice from out of the grave “I, Lazarus, have come from the dead.” Transfiguration! The Holy Prophets Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Jesus As a race that comes from one another! Those who did not see Elijah in John the Baptist How could they ever see Muhammed, Moses, Jesus, each Holy Prophet, A wretch whose every journey begins from the desert One who suffers, one who is always about to be killed! Pitiful human being! Who does not hear the melodies of forest and light Whose eyes are veiled by arrogance Who mutters delusions of infinity Who builds castles and houses, as though to dwell there to infinity Even the disciples Wanting to build a tabernacle of leaves For Moses, Elijah, and Jesus meeting on the mountaintop They were nothing but uncomprehending servants O those who take themselves seriously! Integrals of arrogance! For it is written, they will not believe even a voice from out of the grave
“I, Lazarus, have come from the dead” And the disciples saw Jesus turn to light His garments transfigure in a weird whiteness. Jezebel’s hatred and Elijah Herodias’ hatred and John The Jews’ hatred and Jesus Prophets! Rough drafts of one another! Melodies of forest and light! Behold a swan, For you, Splitting into particles of light!
We present this work in honor of the 10th anniversary of the poet’s death.
M.Z. Ribalow American 1948 – 2012
It takes so little for the unraveling to commence—a careless gesture, a reassuring phrase never quite uttered, a heedless moment that seemed rhapsodically hopeful but which left resonant repercussions that altered everything. A legacy of scars: emotional ones fade but not away, physical ones blend but don’t tan.
The rap music you give as a birthday gift to your nephew because it’s what he likes, the visit you force yourself to make because your relatives need cheering up, your friend’s neurotic phone call that consumes the night— the recipients are grateful, but none of it ever washes away your secret detritus. Expiation seems a goal, but is a way of life.
It began happening so long ago, in details too nuanced to notice. A slight misstep sprains an ankle that never fully heals; a dropped stitch subtly renders imperfect the entire tapestry. Nothing to be done now but to recover; make The most of what remains, the best of what May be. Though you recall the white whale, Do not pursue him through the oceanic past.
Poets Corner 