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Three Poems from Gaza
"I pace this room alone, / fingertips brushing the wall, / memorizing each mark, each echo." ...
Three New Poems by Maysara Salah El-Din
"Once, I became / A cloud / To gain / Flight experience / And twice / I became / A brick / To gain / Experience in falling." ...
Five Poems by May Ziadeh
"sometimes my soul is wild, / an egret flying far / beyond the ocean’s edge, // and sometimes I curl up, / tender as an anemone when touched, / as salty and as damp." ...
Two New Poems by Marah Muhammad Al-Khatib
"Alone / on a balcony with no air / I suffocate, grow intoxicated / Coffee cups multiply / stained with lipstick, overflowing with disappointment / taking me to a fresh bout of insomnia / and thoughts, buried before they could ever see the light." ...
‘The South, The Last Day’: A Poem for Amal Khalil
The South, The Last Day To Amal Khalil By Abbas Beydoun Translated by Yasmine Khayyat The South could be the last land, The last testament, perhaps the last sip The last lira, the last medicine, the last day. From its word We can fashion a lament, a wreath, or even a prayer. We can name it after ancient trees Or turn it into a message, a museum Even a dish, a dessert The South We could not place it at the center Nor raise its mountains That remained mere hills Nor make its borders impregnable Nor sell it as history or legend It came from a single memory Eternity needed no more than that An eternity fulfilled in a day ...
Rasha Omran: ‘I Want to Smile’
"I want to step out on my balcony and hang my laughter out on the clothesline, so that passersby can catch hold of it, scale the wall to the fourth floor, and laugh with me." ...
