Because all the fathers and mothers of my parents,
all the time past,
are earth.
But also language,
words like Spanish, gypsy, black, or immigrant…
Poetry
Photo by Ajeet Mestry on Unsplash The Alarm The television had announced the imminence of an attack. Would it be a bomb? Bacteria? A weapon previously unheard of? Everyone had long known their…
you come and go checking on those figs your eyes scanning the eyelets among branches you leave the slums of the city the rain’s hand-pan roofs above the ruins you come and go checking on those fi…
The audio recording of “Simi” can be found here on the Musuq Illa website. Simi by Olivia Reginaldo Kay simiy ruwasqaykita atipanchu qilla qalluy qulluypaq qillqan Kay s…
Photo © Keiko Onoda A thousand countries in myself – There’s something that precipitates to the very bottom of such a feeling. Is everything just an image, or is this only a wasteland where images…
Photo by Artur Kraft / Unsplash Golden rice stands in sheaves in the freshly cut autumn field. I think of many exhausted mothers and see beautiful, wrinkled faces along the road at dusk. This is…
Photo © by Yousef Khanfar Terrifying, that ringing of the phone then that voice, insistent, sad “Send your aid eastward all your uncles are now refugees” I sighed deeply, ached for them Then I se…
We created the Palestinian Kufiyah to be your symbol of elegance and flames of resistance. We centered it with Net of the Sea, To remind you of staying one united, strong nation.…
The Dome of the Rock in Al-Quds / Photo © by Yousef Khanfar I suffocate in my remorse, for I have betrayed you Against my own will. My apology is overdue. Your wounded eyes mourn tears from the opp…
Lajee Palestinian Dabka Dance Troupe / Photo by Tim Dennell / Flickr I ask the olives to be gentle for they’re weighing the branches down as heavy as the stories Um Muhammad carries on her tired s…
Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash Let me be brief: by the end of this, someone will be cursed & I pray it anyone but Him. Let me start again: the night was beautiful but not romantic. S…
Maher Naji, Christ Has Not Yet Descended from the Cross / Courtesy of the artist Years and years ago, I was small, very small. I was one of the children of the world who were born and thos…
Asma Ghanem / Courtesy of the artist Hunger strike, fortieth day* Your bodies flutter on the ceiling of the room I can see your slow gestures the small bones in the joints of your hands y…
Mohamed Masri / Courtesy of the artist I Write the Land I want to write the land, I want the words to be the land itself. But I’m just a statue the Romans carved and the Arabs forgot. Colonizers…
Motaz Azaiza / Courtesy of the artist My Sixteen-Year-Old Mother What is my eightysomething mother doing under these conditions? She watches the situation behind the glass Once the rain stops, she…
Khair Alah Salim / Courtesy of the artist Scene 1 – Operation Sperm in Womb Think of her As they loosen your chains As they lower you down As the soles of your feet Touch the bloodstained ground…
The nuns teach us Quran, or rather they teach us how to read with fire at the heels of our feet. I behold daybreak, my father lively with god. He is good and so I am good. On Fridays I pop up from…
Imad Abu Shtayyah, Rise Up / Courtesy of the artist Maybe this very morning is suitable for forgetting you and forgetting once and for all your flowers and gardens Maybe this doorstep i…
Samia Halaby, Centers of Attraction / Courtesy of the Artist. Innocent when questioned, quick to take flight when afraid, magnet for the heart approaching like a Nazarene lamb You…
Photo by owtana on Unsplash father inside my coat it is only after i lose my wallet that i find father inside my coat. he is holding a long and slender cigarette between his teeth. dear father inside…
Photo by Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash worldlittoday · “Festival,” by Derek Chung The festival is here we play football by the door Even in a tight space my son can nail a kickoff Skilled at the…
Yielbonzie Johnson, Passages (2020), 16 x 20 in., watercolor/acrylic mix on paper / Courtesy of the Artist after Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool” this no parade for your pleas…
Photograph depicting a railroad track destroyed by fire during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. / Courtesy of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum Every hour or so a train tears in like a trumpet, b…
Courtesy of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum things to teach my son Tulsa, June 1, 1921 how to hold the line at first street. no escape how to tramp backyard gardens how to spot hid…
Crystal Z Campbell, Notes from Black Wall Street (Soft, Receptive, and Absolute), 2019, mixed media on wood, 30 x 20 inches / Courtesy of the artist Can a weed be humble bashful, sensitive,…
October 24, 2023
September 06, 2023
