Poetry

  • Issue 34,  Poetry

    I Am Joseph, Your Brother by Soraya Qahwaji

    After the book of Genesis and Surah Yusuf

    Do not be angry with yourselves

    for selling me here,

    for it was to preserve life that God sent me ahead of you

    said Joseph to his brothers

    who did not recognize him

    nor were they angry with themselves,

    only hungry, and to tell the truth,

    Joseph is still in the well,

  • Issue 34,  Poetry

    High Holy Period by Sarah Farbiarz

    Before we fasted I soaked

    my first ever period underwear, stains like the scars

    that fade for just that moment (when I press on them);

    cleanliness isn’t permanent and I

    thank God for this, for stains that return,

    for my body’s gunk,

    a few degrees warmer than I am.

    Warmth is not happiness,

    is “exuviated, bereft

    is exercising and hurting

    leaving with full longing,

  • Issue 34,  Poetry

    Chapter Seven by John Grey

    She turns on her radio.

    Blood pours from the speakers.

     

    A man drops out of the sky,

    wearing tweeds and holding an umbrella.

     

    A fire-engine roars down the street.

    A young boy cleaves it in two with an axe.

     

    The trees in the orchard grow apple dumplings.

    A girl beheads her brother with the Stooges on vinyl.

     

    Insanity can only take you so far.

  • Poetry

    Two Poems by Eddie Kim

    Minimax

    On a beach in Okinawa a super typhoon is coming.
    I apply two layers of SPF 50 sport waterproof.
    The coast is ours and the waves mischievous.
    I feign little mind to the literal red flag
    tattering above an empty life guard tower.
    Fear of death is what reminds you, after all,
    about living. My parents paced the decades
    through rain with umbrellas over my brother and me.
    Is there a difference between the things we live for
    and the things we die for?

    I watch my nephew build sandcastles
    close ashore,

  • Poetry,  Translation

    Five poems from “Friends with Everyone” by Gunnar Wærness (translated from the Norwegian by Gabriel Gudding)

    Artwork by Gunnar Wærness

     

    32. (such a friend to everyone / march 23 2015)

    the shadow of the homeland
    is a sea that follows     us in our journey
    it waits for us      beside the rivers
    that resemble blue intestines     spilling out of the folds
    of the map we stole

    now i conjure from this tangle
    of viscera and bowels
    this carcass we once called the world     we chased it with swords
    first in boats     then in books     and at last with this
    one bare hand     that burns     here on your thigh goddess
    which you now ignore as you answer saying     if you want to fuck
    comrade     you have to stop calling me momma

    these are not my words     that are crawling down the edge
    of the map of the world     drawn with crushed cochineal
    soot and blood     on vellum     here     where the seas have grown small
    and the countries have disappeared     while the rivers have risen
    and the coasts have swollen     like hearts and lungs and livers
    all leading straight      to the campsite we came from
    which we modestly called the center

    but you understand the map we stole
    is read best by those who made it
    i held it upside down
    and used the ocean as a lens
    and saw other people out there conjuring
    their own songs     their own books

    the past is like the future out there
    as water is like water     i used to think
    that not everyone
    can write their own histories
    and i sang for the people     in campsmoke
    and griddle grease     for food and shelter

    but here they’ve gone and done it
    written their own history
    with blood and gunpowder
    cock and pussy     here and now then
    the people are a lion’s den     i sang

    which other people enter     from which few return
    and everyone we run across     becomes us     becomes us

    what kind of fucking song is that     the people ask
    i reply     it’s not a song     it’s a vision
    and you’re not supposed     to sing along
    you should just learn it by heart
    and live accordingly

    and they painted me with hot tar
    and rolled me in feathers     you who are such
    a friend with everyone
    you can’t live with us     walt fucking whitman

    so the story began
    by counting all the others
    who were chased from their fields

    there were hardly seventy souls
    on the heels of one they called the prophet
    four lifetimes later     they were six hundred thousand

    and the first to call themselves a people
    a bowlshaped word that can be sailed like a boat
    and shut like a casket

    and opened like a book
    to dwell there means to be
    not only many
    but exactly how many

     

  • Poetry,  Translation

    “Wild Cranes” Four poems by Nirmal Ghosh (translated into Chinese by Liuyu Ivy Chen)

     

    The “Wild Cranes” poetry and calligraphy exhibition featuring works by Nirmal Ghosh, Liuyu Ivy Chen, Zhao Xu, and Tanya Ghosh will be held at the Chinese American Museum, DC from 12 to 19 July 2021.

     

    1.

     

    How long can one gaze into the green hills,

    Between curtains of rain?

    The dribble of water down the gutter

    Measures our minutes on this Earth.

     

    ***

     

    透过雨帘,

    你能凝望青山多久?

    雨水滴入沟槽

    倒数我们在地球上的一分一秒。