Anatomy of a body I am a devotee to grief. And I fear, nothing weighs more than my country's shadow. I section my body into two parts. Loss; I hold this home the way loss holds an orphaned child. Beneath my neck, I have concealed all the places I have ever found comfort. Darkness; No one understands what I carry except me. Who holds a shattered thing and find beauty? Forgive me, if this poem refuses to sit well in your throat but since inception, nothing in my country has ever sat well with me. Still, I try to unrobe myself. Beyond this picture, I try to grow wings. I try to fold myself in between happiness. Because Maa once said " Light needs darkness to shine".
Short story from Ellie Ness
Forbidden Door It was a large house he brought me to – all marble floors with punkahs on ceilings to cool feet and heads. There was a vineyard between this house and the one next door where my brother-in-law lived and towards the side of the house swinging hammocks had been set up for the extended family to enjoy the cooler evenings when the searing heat abated. We had been given the upstairs rooms of the big house which had been readied in preparation for a western girl coming to live with an Arabic family. There was a modern bathroom with a flushing toilet which I didn’t initially understand was a real luxury in Sharaban, Diyala. In the corridor between the staircase and the upper floor rooms, pickle jars and fruit preserves at various stages of production lay stacked on the floor. Yom, or the “Duck” as the family called her, ran a busy and productive household. The flat roofed verandah could be used for sleeping under the stars when she was too hot or wanted to remember her youth. Amina – her real name – Om Yas, Yom, Duck – she answered to them all. Illiterate, she had married her cousin when they were both very early teenagers which is why, I suppose, they looked a bit similar. She had a black ink tattoo on her face which seemed to be some sort of tribal marking and was bilingual. Turkish was her first language but when Iraq has been created the population from the north had been forced to learn Arabic. She knew a lot about a lot of things and it’s no surprise that all seven of her children went on to be engineers, teachers, a farmer and a vet. Not being allowed to go to school didn’t dim her intelligence. When I first appeared at her door she performed some sort of spell with fiery smoke and water before letting me in the house. She might have known about the world and breeding champion horses and a woman’s lot in society, but a lack of education had meant she retained the superstitions of her village, despite living in a town. Only five of us lived in the house but mealtimes usually catered for between ten to twenty as the other sons would “drop by”, with their families as nobody could cook like the Duck, or so they said. Amina waddled wrapped in her black scarf which covered her hair and shoulders like a mini abaya, sitting down cross-legged on a cushion directing daughters and daughters-in-law to attend to the men and children, lest they should starve. She could get up again with great difficulty doing that downward dog style of pushing herself back into an upright position. The children laughed and played on the periphery of the meal and if they became too audacious one son or another would stand to pick up the boys – always the boys – by their wrists and heels airplane-like for a spin or grab them to throw them upwards towards the ceiling. No child was ever hurt while I was there but it must have come close a few times. The bulk of the house was downstairs. A huge kitchen with multiple stoves and freezers was mostly where I was expected to reside. The Duck tried to teach me how to make various favourites in gigantic quantities. The kitchen led to what in the west would have been called the family lounge. And lounging was definitely what happened here, just not on chairs. Harking back to Bedouin days, cushions littered the ground and people grabbed however many they wanted in order to be comfortable on the smooth, white marble while the overhead punkahs whirred, wafting a gentle breeze around our overly hot bodies. The women, of course, fetched and carried dish after dish, drink after drink from the kitchen to the table cloth laid out without ceremony on the floor. Everyone tore off giant flatbread pieces to make edible spoons, scooping up vegetables and meats to eat their fill. There was a part of the house downstairs that was off limits to me, well I was allowed to clean it when the men were out – lucky me – but it housed a western style toilet and a very formal lounge and dining room. There was a huge marble table with upholstered chairs set off with ornate golden woodwork. There was a collection of plush red velvet and gold throne type chairs to the side of this where presumably, people more important than women and children were brought to. If anyone arrived at the house they would enter by the main door, forbidden to me, and taken to this huge room. If anyone was visiting, the men who normally lounged around being catered to, suddenly became the servers – running through from kitchen to table with gigantic silver platters brimming with delicious food. I presume that business was conducted there, possibly even bribery and corruption because carrier bags of money would be brought through from a backroom to the dining room and nothing would be brought back in exchange. I was reminded of this when reading about UK royals, being given carrier bags of money, to be used for pet projects. Men from the Middle East still seem to do this. Amina must have died by now, as she wasn’t fully fit over thirty years ago when I lived in her house. She was one of the women who publicly gave away all her gold to help the Iraqi war effort. I often wonder, if her end was as peaceful as it deserved to be.
Poetry from Mark Young
In Memory of my Brolgas Instead of thinking about poetry today I am indulging my- self with a slomo re- play of the brolgas dancing around a farm dam five kilo- meters north-east of Ridglands. There is a quietness in it. A cold steer Next time you watch a truck- load of cattle being trans- ported to the meatworks, don't think of them as living creatures about to be put to death but observe them im- partially as part of the food web. It is so much more melodic. Déshabillé Because of its cognitive style & incandescent light every tonne of scrap metal you clean up from a public place can work as a wardrobe staple in the same way that a built-in lum- bar support will retool your internal guidance system. conjunction In the slice of sky more or less directly above me is an invisible passenger jet; yet its engines heard so clearly that the sound seems rather to accompany the si- lent hawk coasting on the thermals much lower down.
Poetry from Mesfakus Salahin
Modest Proposals Open your heart and embrace reality Break your cocoon and hold the baked sun Don't suck the last point of dream Don't attack your fate as a doll in a lap Read and read the philosophy of love Make a history of your own. Open your eyes and invent possibility Break the icy land and touch existence Don't forget that life is a question Don't spend moment in vain Enjoy the beauty of struggle Pick up happiness in simplicity. Open your earth with love and hospitality Build your heart with humanity Open your mind with a mirror of satisfaction See the reflection of love and love kiss the crown of happiness in everywhere Paint whatever you like with the colour of life.
Poetry from Mykyta Ryzhykh
*** Under the heels of silence lie the silhouettes of people-leaves. Where do we go grinding buried bones with our huge feet? Air dancing snowflakes. The stone is snow. The stone is water. We are all dancers. Fire in the eyes of a butterfly. A bonfire on which prospects burn. The fire on which dinner is cooked. One day a man left his house for a shop and never came back. *** Nobody was born killed. Only the birds grimaced like tangerine skins. Nobody was born. New Year's magic frozen in the snows of time. *** Five birds sit on a branch of one tree One tree holds five birds How many trees can the earth support? How much paper is burned daily? How many people got burned today? God's assistant pressed the wrong button again *** The flying bird is extinguished The moon is fading in the sky The candle in my heart melted completely Morning begins *** Fear of grass on cold lips Spring sweetness of first kisses *** feast for mother memorial for mom funeral for mom who are we burying? where do we bury? we bury our childhood under a bush at the request of the mother dead mother in the cloud – smiling *** the rebellious spirit in my stomach gurgles and begs for alcohol dog catching snowflakes with tongue christmas all year round easter around the clock *** we exchange skulls with each other like silence our hands itch as if after the crucifixion our genitals itch like a virgin virgin birds above their heads turn into ticks on paper the world is squeezing deeper and deeper into a gas mask *** iron mosquitoes exhaust the body wooden organs rot brain cloud exfoliate a church candle in the chest vomits the fire from which the future will be born *** butterflies in the stomach die silently looking at the fire *** i want the bird to die then the military pilot will not go astray then the nuclear warhead will fly where it needs to shit *** sky composed in advance gnaws earlobes Icarus freaks out like an impotent before sex kisses of air in the weather forecast are not foreseen and the earth from below is hard as if it is not round at all
Poetry from Anna Ferriero
SE FOSSI POESIA Ti farei libera volare e senza più barriere la tua silenziosa melodia ti farei raccontare. Sul bocciolo più bello un raggio di sole ti farei lì posare e come un treno in stazione farei tutti salire per scoprire ed osservare quell’attesa meraviglia. Se fossi una poesia la più bella sceglierei e la rosa d’Inghilterra farei nascere d’inverno. In un libro di paesaggi scattati ad occhi chiusi la tua anima vagante si schiude in libertà IF I WERE POETRY I would set you free to fly and without barriers your silent melody I would let you tell. On the most beautiful bud a ray of sunshine I would make you sit there And like a train in the station I'd get everyone up to discover and observe that expected wonder. If I were a poem I would choose the most beautiful and the rose of England I would give birth in winter. In a book of landscapes taken with eyes closed your wandering soul unfolds in freedom APELIOTE Ti inciderò in eterno nello sguardo del mio verso corteggiandoti in silenzio senza un dopo come petalo irlandese. Ti inciderò in eterno nel fatato firmamento spezzando la tua rosa che Belle richiese in dono. Da Amore generato con Psiche decantato si generò passione che nel cuore dell’inverno, quando il gelo fa il suo ingresso dal colore di cannella, all’orizzonte c’è Urania che rinasce per schiudersi Apeliote dando vita al suo Ponente APELIOTES I will engrave you forever in the look of my verse courting you in silence without an after like irish petal. I will engrave you forever in the fairy firmament breaking your rose which Belle requested as a gift. From Love generated with Psyche decanted passion was born that in the heart of winter, when the frost sets in cinnamon-colored, on the horizon there is Urania who is reborn to hatch Apeliote giving life to its Ponente
Poetry from Ian Copestick
A Promise Earlier today I was taking my dog out for her walk Just across the street from me was two old men. I'm fifty years old. So believe me. If I say that they were old they were old. They were OLD, but they were standing next to a Bentley. Two guys who must have been at least mid- 60's. Wearing shorts, and summer shirts, with at least three buttons undone. It made me feel sick. It made me make a promise to myself.