Poetry
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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,
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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,
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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.
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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, -
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 stolenow 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 mommathese 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 centerbut 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 booksthe 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 shelterbut 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 sangwhich other people enter from which few return
and everyone we run across becomes us becomes uswhat 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 accordinglyand 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 whitmanso the story began
by counting all the others
who were chased from their fieldsthere were hardly seventy souls
on the heels of one they called the prophet
four lifetimes later they were six hundred thousandand the first to call themselves a people
a bowlshaped word that can be sailed like a boat
and shut like a casketand opened like a book
to dwell there means to be
not only many
but exactly how many -
“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。