My Grandfather Was a Terrorist by Mosab Abu Toha

My Grandfather Was a Terrorist

 

My grandfather was a terrorist—

He tended to his field,

watered the roses in the courtyard,

smoked cigarettes with grandmother

on the yellow beach, lying there

like a prayer rug.

 

My grandfather was a terrorist—

He picked oranges and lemons,

went fishing with brothers until noon,

sang a comforting song en route

to the farrier’s with his piebald horse.

 

My grandfather was a terrorist—

He made a cup of tea with milk,

sat on his verdant land, as soft as silk.

 

My grandfather was a terrorist—

He departed his house, leaving it for the coming guests,

left some water on the table, his best,

lest the guests die of thirst after their conquest.

 

My grandfather was a terrorist—

He walked to the closest safe town,

empty as the sullen sky,

vacant as a deserted tent,

dark as a starless night.

 

My grandfather was a terrorist—

My grandfather was a man,

a breadwinner for ten,

whose luxury was to have a tent,

with a blue UN flag set on the rusting pole,

on the beach next to a cemetery.

 

600 days in the genocide by Omar Sakr

600 days in the genocide

The hour is late as I usher my sons to bed.

My family is watching a game called State

Of Origin where men from all over the world 

Claim tribal heritage to land not their own.

I can't stop thinking of Ward, who survived 

And of Shaaban al-Dalou, who did not.

My babies, strangers to hardship, whimper

In the dark as if they, too, can feel the heat

Licking at their hands and feet. When we

Dream, scientists say we enter paralysis:

A safety mechanism to keep us from rolling

Into the campfire, or off a cliff. Some of us

are blessed with broken mechanisms,

Some of us walk even in our sleep.

I watch, God forgive me not, I keep watch

When I should be running towards the blaze.

Your Name by Silvina Ocampo

Your Name

No one can pronounce your name.

I alone know the perfect inflection.

They lack the tenderness in which it flows

and the sweetness in the consonants.

They don't know how to distinguish the color

of the exact musical note.

That's why each day I respond

by inventing a name:

blue, bird, breeze, light.

Common words

that can be said simply

even without knowing you, without loving you.

(Translated by Jason Weiss)

The Triumph of the Infinite by Mark Strand

The Triumph of the Infinite

I got up in the night and went to the end of the hall. Over the door in large letters it said, “This is the next life. Please come in.” I opened the door. Across the room a bearded man in a pale green suit turned to me and said, “Better get ready, we’re taking the long way.” “Now I’ll wake up,” I thought, but I was wrong. We began our journey over golden tundra and patches of ice. Then there was nothing for miles around, and all I could hear was my heart pumping and pumping so hard I thought I would die all over again. 

Fox by Alice Oswald

Fox

 

I heard a cough

as if a thief was there

outside my sleep

a sharp intake of air

 

a fox in her fox-fur

stepping across

the grass in her black gloves

barked at my house

 

just so abrupt and odd

the way she went

hungrily asking

in the heart's thick accent

 

in such serious sleepless

trespass she came

a woman with a man's voice

but no name

 

as if to say: it's midnight

and my life

is laid beneath my children

like gold leaf

The Goddess Who Created This Passing World by Alice Notley

The Goddess Who Created This Passing World

The Goddess who created this passing world

Said Let there be lightbulbs & liquefaction

Life spilled out onto the street, colors whirled

Cars & the variously shod feet were born

And the past & future & I born too

Light as airmail paper away she flew

To Annapurna or Mt. McKinley

Or both but instantly

Clarified, composed, forever was I

Meant by her to recognize a painting

As beautiful or a movie stunning

And to adore the finitude of words

And understand as surfaces my dreams

Know the eye the organ of affection

And depths to be inflections

Of her voice & wrist & smile

Children of Light by Robert Lowell

Children of Light

 

Our fathers wrung their bread from stocks and stones

And fenced their gardens with the Redmen's bones;

Embarking from the Nether Land of Holland,

Pilgrims unhouseled by Geneva's night,

They planted here the Serpent's seeds of light;

And here the pivoting searchlights probe to shock

The riotous glass houses built on rock,

And candles gutter by an empty altar,

And light is where the landless blood of Cain

Is burning, burning the unburied grain.