626 entries in Mag: Articles
To a Young Man Who Arrived at the Party Dressed in a Lady’s Fur
When you got to the party, sent by God knows whom—contingency, probably—wearing only a lady’s fur, at the outset closed, though only thrown on, shut but unbuttoned, nothing…...
Very Cheesy and Also Rather Blah
carefully giving it some thought the lines on my palm[1] have deflected for you some now I suppose my dirty beard, my fiendish leg hair will graduate in time that someone of my years should care about…...
At the Supermarket
Red, rosy, and full they cluster in unusual collectivity these kehel-mal, the plantain-bloom under an unfamiliar, coolness-dripping roof trembling for the fingertip touch, pick, and cuddle of ladies…...
Pillow
Both the seller And the buyer Have nothing to offer but themselves In Pyongyang’s marketplace The filters of cigarette butts Provided cotton for this blanket on display “Face-wash for sale!”…...
A Rice Story
1 As harvest season begins, the field slowly reveals its bare body. The thousand-year-old promise is that you reap what you sow. The land of promise stretches out behind the footprints of man. Winds blow.…...
Crocodile
I too have words; I’ll join those already speaking; I’ll gild my verse so it pleases those who’re reading; Untwist these words, for their sense may be misleading. There’s a croc…...
Music in a Baghdad Alley
No matter where you settle or wander That first melody is yours At every arrival and departure Its living face will meet you at the entrance that remains If you walk and the opposing wind is in your face…...
In Saadi Shirazi’s Garden (When He Was a Prisoner)
The river flows. Guides hide in the woods. I am a single day dragging an apocalypse of days. Wounded battalions smelling the burning air through the dried blood on the nose. Because the city of water is…...
A Butterfly in New York
I chased it so often in our Baghdad garden But it would always fly away Today Three decades later In another continent It perched on my shoulder Blue Like the sea’s thoughts Or the tears of a dying…...
Your Body Journeyed Off
Each time I’ve approached it, my personal effects have scattered. The smell of a journey clings to your body. Each time I’ve approached you, I’ve packed my personal effects. Your body…...
from “Rhapsody”
XV The time has come to say good-bye; with farewells comes wind to the vineyard like dark Valpolicella wine in the hand of dark winter dyes: parks, far stations pass by winter platforms, by hills that…...
from “Rage”
From violent dampnesses, from places where the residues of torments and whimpers mesh, comes this arterial grief, this shredded memory. They go insane, even the mothers…...
They Destroyed Our Radios and Televisions
They destroyed our radios and televisions to leave us without images, without those maudlin songs that lulled our past to sleep back when we still believed in trains by the seaside, at the ranch where…...
Autumn Here is Magical and Vast
A bloody shaft of light shone under our door between their compass & the north star so the road passed through our house out toward the estuary. Its stones are our tears which silted in our chests…...
Blackness
We who were killed in all wars. In the Basus war our corpses dangled from the Turks’ gallows In Troy’s war We were behind the walls Blood dried in our veins Those besieging us never went away…...
In the Doorway of My Friend’s House
I stopped in the doorway of my friend’s house And my palm was glued to the doorbell But my finger trembled, too weak to arouse A desire to ring in its wires I wavered. The road to his house had been…...
What Do You Expect, Heart?
What do you expect, heart? What do you want from me? To be like Zeno of Elea, who bit off his own tongue in one bite and spit it out at the tyrant? The good angel bad angel speaks: the bearable…...
from Baudelaire
They won't come at night and torture you in a dim cellar behind bars. Sleep, criminal! There's nobody to ask if you are guilty or not guilty. Your judge is sleeping, your guards are asleep, and…...
Memory of Cranes
A migrating bird has broken its wing against the wire of my father's house. Now it shrieks as if somebody were sawing iron: It's you! It's your fault! In response, the flock turns around. Our…...
A Game
Before noon the sky grew dark and later it fell on the road as black fire. I leaned, picked up the fire, and tossed it from one hand to the other. The fire scorched my right hand, and blackened the left.…...
