Month: February 2017
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Despatches to my Gazan Son
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Justin C McIntosh has given his permission for his photograph above to be used for the cover of a long Turkish poem by Cahit Koytak, now published as a book with an English translation alongside. I am proud to have been one of the translators. The original Turkish poem is called Gazze Risalesi. In English…
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Shavings from The Rainbow
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What is God, after all ? If maggots in a dead dog be but God kissing carrion, what then is not God ? And when the war began it seemed that the poles of the universe were cracking and the whole must go tumbling into the bottomless pit. You feel an agony…
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The Angel Overhead
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In his grief, he asked the angel hanging overhead, his faceless confessor : Why, Lord, do sinners’ ways so grossly prosper ? How can you allow the Lie so fatly to preside ? And the angel answered : I invited you to my feast, my laden tables, my radiant halls, and for my reward,…
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Body Parts
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After death the eye fixes of course. It was just a part – now discontinued. Each pupil has stopped in its own disjointed way, having nothing to look at any more, no one to show. I looked at her, the mother of my children. She could not look back of course and instead just looked…
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Poems for…meeting the “Dangerous Stranger”
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Here below are links to four poems. Each was written in a language spoken by people Mr Trump wants to ban from the United States of America. Please read them. The non-English original texts all have good English translations alongside. Farsi Ebrahimi Persian Khoi Arabic Monzer Masri (Syrian) Somali Samadoon The poems come from a…
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Sad Songs of the Brain
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Three of them. I haven’t yet found a way of actually displaying them as a post here, though it’s easily done on Facebook. But this link takes you to a pdf version : Sad Songs of the Brain Why the paltry brain, the paltry individual ? Why “in here” where the brain is ? Why not…