Parts of the tongue

A predilection for stone fruit
sees a trail of peach
and plum stones in his shadow
You had traced him down
this discreet path to where
his casual touch
was six light insect
feet on your forearm

In the magazine you read about
the ten sexiest women
for April; they all live
in suburbs beginning with W
and wear impossible shoes

You hunt for modern equivalents
of One hundred ways with mince
and watch his hand become
refined under its wedding ring,
the fingers longer and nails less bitten

He coaxes your shoulders straight,
uncurling them with firm hands

but you were merely bent over
with laughter
Now your tongue forks into four:
one part for being good-natured
one for lamentation
the third part of irony
and the last for an imaginary language

You move to a newly-invented
suburb beginning with X
where you will use the four parts
of the tongue with equilibrium

Why Am I Strong?

We present this work in honor of the 100th anniversary of the poet’s death.

You will say that it is false. It is not right. I descend
To the depths of my soul every time I hesitate…
Every time a tear or a scream
Betrays my anguish – when I feel myself fainting…
And all astonishment, all love, I confess,
The threshold of this blessed country
I cross : – The parties of infinity await me!
The horror of life, dazzled, I forget!
It’s just that there are valleys, skies, heights inside,
That the gaze of the world does not tarnish, the tender
Moon, flowers, dear creatures,
And it sounds in every bush, in every cave,
The symphony of eternal passion!…
– And behold- make me strong again for the fight.

No One Knows My Name

When I walked
down the road,
I’d hear Aunt Sue’s voice,
“How you doing, dear heart?”
Or “There goes me sunshine girl!”
Uncle Joe would call from his cart.

Here in the big city,
thousands pass me by.
No sweet voices like rain
sprinkle me with care.
No one knows or calls my name.

Back Stroke

We present this work in honor of the Canadian holiday, National Aboriginal Day.

my soul sank
deep into the blood
of this land
I extended a hand
looking for help
sinking fast back
into history
time traveling
through layers
to the core

an innocent beginning

swam in the sweat
of my ancestors
back stroked
my way
to safety
a time
of strength
without racism
and floated there

basking in liquid love

skin love
Indian love
so true
so real
shaking your belief
in anything
less

Meet My Father

We present this work in honor of Father’s Day.

Meet my father, who refuses food –
pecks at it like a bird or not at all –
the beard disguising his thin cheeks.
This, for a man whose appetite was legend,
hoovering up the scraps his daughters couldn’t eat.

The dustbin man, we joked.
And here he is, trailing his fork
through food we’ve laboured to make soft,
delicious, sweet. Too salty, or too tough,
it tastes of nothing, makes him choke,
he keeps insisting, stubbornly.
In truth, the logic’s clear. His very life
is bitter and the spice it lacks is hope.
He wants to stop. Why do we keep on
spooning dust and ashes down his throat?

Friday Night Live

We present this work in honor of the Nigerian holiday, Democracy Day.

Our dreams are hindsights
travelling to the people under the earth
journeying down the cities
filling the centuries with sons
so fat they can’t pass the needle’s eye

Only the ointment keeps faith
in the hands of a daughter
preparing you for burial
the unleavened bread
calls forth mourners

And prostitutes eating bread
with hallowed hands.
Henna mingles with hungers
at the eleventh hour when
rejected pebbles fall like death
sentences on brown earth

This wine sets my eyes on edge
to stilled waters on barren hillsides
this wine red in the cup
the scarlet thread
the broken donkey
Linen breeches dyed in crimson.

The air is rich in prophecies and revolutions
within the olive tree
a copulation is a flame
burning the bush full of grass windows
the light shimmers upon the waters

Light is a quiver of arrows
Light is an earthquake
Light is a stormy wind
Light is a great cry
electric on bones and skulls

The bones are diving for flesh
The shrouds are dying in the stars
There is light in our loins.

Housewife

We present this work in honor of the 40th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Halide Nusret Zorlutuna
Turkish
1901 – 1984

When you step over the doorstone, your heart is refreshed
Neither a stain on the stony ground, nor a trace on the wood
This very charming little home smells of soap, winter and summer
Its tablecloths are snow white, its curtains are snow white.

From every corner an elegant feminine taste is shining
In everything there is the eye-straining work and labour of a woman
A delicate young woman is the mistress of this home
Like a shy river, her voice is purling in the heart

Her eyes are dreamy, soft, deep
“Home” is a temple to her, “love of family” is her religion!
She never lacks babies around her
While one of them jumps, the other crawls

Her entire life belongs to the children, to the home
Her thin face resembles a three-night moon
Whatever your position or age is
Wouldn’t you bow your head in front of this woman?

Translation by Fatma Fulya Tepe

Bacteria

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 40th birthday.

Sometimes I wonder if bacteria pray.
Swim along their host and wonder where they came from.
Thank the body where they live for the warmth they call home.
Mourn the death of their loved ones when their time is up or when the medicine works or when their host dies.
I wonder if the bad bacteria make war with the good, if they can tell the difference.
If there are battles for areas of skin, for food.
If the famine of cleanliness wipes out entire colonies.
If they wonder where sanitizer comes from.
See immunity as evolution.
Rejoice in tolerance for antibiotics, claim death of weaker varieties as natural selection.
I wonder if bacteria come in race, have hierarchy, call the stronger ones leader,follow them blindly
Can see outside the body, know we are aware of their presence, feel guilty when we medicate and obliterate them.
Preach that we know which ones we punish, \try to change the ones they blame.
I wonder if they call us God. Their big world a dot, a crevice, a membrane.
We are giant and powerful and almighty
I wonder if they know we are smaller than so much else. Fallible.
Just as fragile as they are, just as mortal.
That we call the space we live on earth, universe.
That we are born, and die, and damage and fight and love and prey and kill and cleanse.
That we are small beings in huge spaces.
That we get wiped out with famine and disease.
That we do not know where we came from.
That we also are so small, on a bigger being, in a big space.
I wonder if they know we pray.

Stirling Ranges

We present this work in honor of Western Australia Day.

Driving into the cut-out mountains
their steepness pushes them closer
as if the tops of much younger ranges crowded together.
We peer past each other’s heads and shoulders
as blue thresholds open to reveal
desiccated sides and ridges
weathered tors just high enough
to impede winter clouds.
We can hardly believe these sun-blasted screes
are those elusive slopes ahead
layered gates behind.
Stop. Get out of the car
wind through stunted trees
water where there is none
and up against as close as a tango
the mountain’s shattered stone the smell of stone
the sound of stone.
Their age is their beauty.
It attracts like iron.

When It’s Dark

In honor of Republic Day, we present this work by one of Italy’s greatest war poets.

We went out around midnight into the deserted Milan
streets, orso Italia, with Anna Maria Ortese
and Massimo Leli
and Guido Ballo and I don’t know who else,
and I held the tender hand
of a little girl whose black curls
and big eyes I remember but not her name,
and all of a sudden she said in a loud voice:
“It’s dark. When it’s dark, we must be quiet.”

Well then, I thought, we must be quiet all the time.

Translation by Margaret Spiegelman

Poets Corner

Celebrating a world of written and spoken verse

Female Poets