Though we march together, step after step,Time steals you from me. You glide out softlyFrom memory, like the wording and pepOf an earworm, or healthy oven-free Recipes that we meant and meant to learnBut never did. And so here I stand, leftHolding six eggs and a vulture-shaped urn,Stirred and stirring and not-quite-bereft

‘Relax, my duck does not want to eat you’Flashes a t-shirt unreassuringlyAs a stiletto moves up past my neck.Jammed under the middle-stairs of a twoLayered train, I am left staring vacantlyAt a book with a nest on a bare deck I stand longing for the paper-tigersOf old, roaring the promise of inked flamesTo charm away these travails and rigours…

From wind-nudges we seek sanctuaryLike the tall aspens of song and legend,Like September leaves clinging to the tree,Like ashen shells of broken-eggs-to-be. Wind and Water, Fire and Earth,Build us waiflings a shield and hearth! From gazes that bore flinchlessly without endUpward, coreward into cringing skiesThat to fear-sogged lead baleful glares rend,We flee, crawl to the grey shadows to mend.

Listen, poet, said the cockroach, archingIts wings. I bring a truth for your chalice.The truth of the head I just crawled out from –Hist! You flee! Why are you not listening? I, said the poet, from behind a shoeFlailed uselessly at the sleepless maliceOf the insect, have no truck with truths. ComeNot nigh, o loathsome thing, or I slay you!

Booted figures prone in the snow,Like docile radishes stacked highIn a mud-and-blood puree goRolling into the ditch. We sigh, Vingt ans après. This season,Booted figures prone in the snowGrew the best rose of the region.Again. Those thrown and those who throw, Are now as then of flags that blowTrumpets of death on jagged scars…

I pick up each tomato and slice it through, bringing the knife's keen blade to rest against the soaked hand underneath. I exult in the knowledge that the red juice pouring over my skin is not my own blood. I drive the steel again and again through the yielding pulp, letting it touch my hand at the end, and the deep contentment of finding my skin whole afterwards tastes sweeter than the tomato itself.

In this sweet night of the moon I’m lovingThe darkness secretly suspendedIn stolen light’s revolutions.And as it dances on, I’m wondering,So is it possible to stay squatBarren grey rock, and still be loved? I am being nibbled down to nothingLike a bar of chocolate defendedOnly by good resolutions;And as I disappear I’m wondering,So is there a how-to app for that,To not turn swan, and still be loved?

In our brains the ‘if you want to succeedYou must work hard’ saws and adages they fitLike whip-toting consciences that feedOn the false promises, oft implicit Of a lasting happiness. Not the kindThat may soothe and cheer in an idle hourSpent feeding birds, but a thing you may bindWith chains of gold in a secret tower.

Laugh instead. Yawn wide as a plains riverThen slide off each tear like an elixirSalt four fingers in the freshly poured brineLay them on your head as you say ‘I’m fine’ But know:A prison made of gold and redChases you wherever you go Laugh in dread. Believe the unsaid, unmeantWhispers that say a forlorn dream is worth…

by Hibah Shabkhez

His shoe rolls into a wavering rowThe six worn red balls sprawling on the pitch,Waiting for the old man’s square drives to throwEach one into the net with a skill whichQuavers at fate a full kettle of rage The clouds, grass, birds, planes, flowers are all zoomedOut of eyes bent upon this one fiddle;In the trembling strands of the nylon-cageGlints the stark hurt of a being born doomedTo live laugh love greatly and win little 

The past grinds my nerves like cabbage set against a grater, like Tom turned into a mouse and Jerry into a cat, like sugar on fried eggs. Until yesterday we studied the present, and the one certain thing in this new lenguaje que hablo, aprendo, escribo was this: yo, and only yo may have verbs that end in -o. Él, ella, usted may find other letters to end on, -a and -e and whatnot, but they may not end their verbs in -o; and yo may end verbs no other way.

Something fastens around the story’s neckAnd chokes her back, throws her back on the deck Of fancy’s barque, in the claws of the dreadDemon Censura, who has at his beck And call myriad prisons. Those who fledHe struck down and battered, until one speck Of red remained, to remember the deadAnd enshudder the living. So each fleck Of story trembles for her own burnt headAs we, Fairy, salvage her from the wreck.

I have the list by heart now, and defyThe canniest interviewer to seeA single truth underneath the glib lie.     If there is truth left. The half-broke horse rears and chafes at the bit,Wearing out its wild will in sweat, untilIt cannot move unless the pain makes it.     If there is pain left.

You can’t be happy the bees are dyingEven though they sting not in self-defenceLike other insects, but with viciousnessAnd purpose almost human. You commence By glaring at the news, long to eraseThe grinning bee-coloured sun pointed west,That fuel of life that dips its head and says‘Remember me, earthling? Yes, I sting too But you pray for me to go on shining.’

The butterfly yearns to write a guide bookFor caterpillars who scorn her story;The deer whispers his death-dreams to the brookThat sings back of a hunter's creeping glee In unheeded gurglings. The spider weavesHer webs on the autumn-brittled branches,Vowing with her craft to keep the gilt leavesAlive to catch the dew. The sun staunches The wounds of the greying lemon-tree.

My blanket looks like an angry elephant, judging me for too much feed-scrolling. On the tiles in the wall, two faces form and unform: a cavalier with a pencil-moustache, his mouth open in shock, and an old lady looking upon me in amused consternation. They are identical in all the tiles, fading in and out in sync, a gallery of each kind of face like a snap chat filter or a card from a photomaton.

Debris of diamond, dust of crushed stoneIcicle rainbow all yellow and red,It tastes of the blank devastated peaceOf the board-corner erased, the wasp deadThe stubborn jam-jar opened all alone. The split cane-straw its self strikes to embedIn folded slush that chills to the bone,Sloughs off into a longing smile the creaseIn echo and hope of childhood's best throne…

I am a wanderess. I roam. I treadPaths paved with danger and with draining guilt,With soil kneaded into mud by tears shedNot in pain but in rage. Over the spilt Milk that would have been smilingly offeredIn a whole pitcher to a wanderer.Over the jeers, the cold scorn discoveredIn a lorn would-be-wanderess sister. I am a wanderess.

The warm tide rises,Rinsing the sands with foam, like soapPromising to wash out the hope-Ore glinting in the rocks.      The foam capsizes,And squirming feet learn: the cold seaHas sent more of its gnarled debrisTo hunt skin without socks.      The wind surprisesItself, lends fresh love to the toesWorming their way through seashell-foes,And cold flint stumbling blocks.

In our shining steel sides they seeTheir faces lengthen and flatten,Their eyes bulge and shrink monstrously,Until they are nearly unselfed. Tossed into the sizzling air, weSnap together with a whirring,A wild glistening, that sets freeThe lambent shadows of the bulbs

Echoes don't just repeat what you say lastThey slash it, like a knife chopping up cakeInto slices. Like wind snatching the pastAnd future hope of the fading flower To be missed. To be longed for a little,By those who walk in the dawn and in strayMinutes snatched from existence. Time's fiddlePlays the same mocking notes for the exile…

Grey patches for a giant quilt  Scatter across the blue,Waiting for us. But we are built  To look on-, not sky-, ward,Nor at feet on the bridge music  Is building from drizzle. Disdained, the grey drifters grow sick  With rage, and so tormentThe green. In pendulous beauty,  Droplets cling for dear lifeTo the leaves, who defy duty  To sing instead of love: Of tethering, hobbling, crippling  Love that rots like disease.

If mangoes and melons and baby sisters have odes of their own, apples deserve a poem. So do apricots, bananas, and younger brothers, those very special extensions of you that are not quite you and never quite yours. They deserve words, those poemable slices of freshly-baked bread snuck out and gobbled whole that tug at the ends of the consciousness and dance tauntingly just outside the reach of the pen.

Home, snail-mail me my ghost in card-backed brownPaper, with your name scrawled on the back. FrownAt termite-tunnels and spider-spun webs,Pry me loose from their sands as time's tide ebbs;     Home, snail-mail me my ghost. Send me old pain, sepia-soaked, to crownThe numbness of exile. These blank walls drownAll my forced mirth. Send our old laughter's dregs,

I am hunting for the poison appleThe river swallowed. It dropped from her hand,Buried itself in the mud, and spread, spread,Spread, until the water all foamed with rage.Look, the bridge lurches. Ire is the stapleFood pouring into the veins of my land,Lacing with poison the once-golden threadThat turned a labyrinth into a cage.

Daintily wrought leaf or finger-scrolled text,It rustles with the weight of memory:Sacred calligraphy on skins and bones,Words passed down from one full heart to the next.Beneath each line fidgets a translation,Failed echo, neither prose nor poetry,Lining, like a fall of scented pine-cones,The floors of careful enunciation. Stumbling readers come yearning to announceTheir allegiance, asking of the knit lines…

Long ago, I vowed to unstitch world-clichés;Now I know them for a comic ruse. Cars burn, fists fly, and dustbins lie upturnedIn both my worlds, East and West of the lineNo one quite knows how to draw or define,Except perhaps by the taste of chip-sauce.It’s all mayo versus ketchup: we tossIn the same strange things to be burned…

Kaplumbağalar tekrar geliyorlar. You wriggle your toes in memory of the sand as you watch them pour out of the sea and spread upon a shore huddled into a pane of glass, these hunched mestful creatures whose dwindling the voice-over laments. Kaplumbağalar tekrar geliyorlar, one last time, believing the earth to be fair and free, entrusting it their children, and you wince, you writhe, you cry out a warning; but you only startle the crow on the windowsill that is amusing itself by staring at you while it waits for its murder.

  Life at its worstIs just balloons swelling upwards and out  Until they burst   Like the brick houseOf the third little pig, choking without  Its chimney mouse   Like rustling treesNibbled by the axe and longing to clout  Men with the breeze

One by one, like rain-drops on wood they fallFrom her delicate hands, with soft, steadyClicks, three times thirty-three beads held in thrallEach to a murmured prayer, each readyTo join the shield-wall she builds her childrenWith her scarcely-moving lips and her smile,    Her gift that lingers In another world, as gleaming beads fleeMy stumbling feet. Your hands gather and line…

Sleep, my friend. Hope and mattresses were onceMade of the same slim frost-hued thing.And shall be again. Plucked from a dead birdOr fastened on to give it wing, It has empire over the acid snowsOf despair. Powers forgotten,Like feather-beds and mother-earth that growsUs its children in the open And not in brick-balconied flower-pots.Sleep, and let dreams teach it to soar,

It had been a long year.The gulf-shards gnawed brainbones to drainLife from this heart born drear. The blood of bricks seeping from its ceilingSeemed flicked-up ketchup to its forlorn guile;Cracking like stoned glass, it thudded, keeningFor mercy, mercy, mercy, all the while;Trimmed woe off its rims as a pollen beeTrawling weariness like a concierge’s key.

We wait. We wait a little longer. We begin to fidget and peer at the tracks. We wait … At long last we hear the familiar rattle of the train.“Oh, thank God!” exclaims the mother beside me holding a little blonde girl by the arm.“Alhamdulillah!” echoes the mother behind her pushing a baby-stroller, and the little blonde girl blinks dazedly as her mother begins to scream.

Tomorrow, we know, we may loseOur bits of choked words, and so chooseTo croak our truths before the meshOf language fleeing poésie’s thresh Closes upon us, enforcingDecrees of silence, endorsingFalsehoods for bread, forged afreshOf language fleeing poésie’s thresh Like regret, thin as mist, that tellsYawning children of tolling bellsAnd horns blown in vain, of crèches…

We seek things worth doing well and badly:Like ambered-starlight-wrestling with the sea;   Poems in foreign  Tongues : oui ? non ? that peut-être  Will rule the world in Verbing unsuspecting nouns in phone-texts,Uttering quips untrammelled by contexts. Things pink fairy armadillos would beProud to dust-coat their shells for. Treasures we   Hunt without soiling  Their translucent armour-laced  Chests; like the coiling And swift uncoiling of the Cobra KingWho learnt from feckless Man to sway and sing.

From a life of humdrum grins and grimacesSpring myriad jingling Songs of NothingForth on sunsets of an odd loveliness,Orange pink and blue, with glass-stretched faces.Under the moon wreathed by drapes in a slingI gurgle songs. A shallow, garbled mess: Vain flutterings of a comfort-shelled soul,Trifling verses of yakhni-steeped pulao.Not grand feeling born of hard-won battle,

A whorl of branches swaying in perfect graceSteered by the wind, crushed by the weight of the snow,Smiles at me. Like an antlered deer it will goPrancing on, that perfect tree, learning to face     Itself until the next spring. They sit shivering in the glass-and-steel shed,The children of the men who raised me just soThey could erase me.

My scribbles are ruled by dread of a treeFear of blooms only dawn can stem – Blue the daisies glimmer on moonlit nightsAnd make us forget the day’s soft beauties:These flowers, standing in the fieldSo demurely in the sun’s rays,Swear at its moon-mirror to yieldLeaves and petals stolen by days Scouring each face for the bad side,

The barks of seagulls and dogs egged us on as we stood beside the passerelle named for Senghor, two desis connected by an almost-common origin gulping French fries out of the same cone in an unspoken competition verging on the grim. We had met perhaps twice in our one shared class and would not have called ourselves friends, or even real acquaintances.