Poems
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Sort of Sorry
By Lionel FogartySort of sorry tears on drops
Were no eyes?
Sore cries
Walk pass the changed seasons -
It was your mouth
By Lyrikline Collaboration PoetsBy Gonca Ozmen
Translated by Alice Melike Ülgezer and Özlem Özmetin
It was your mouth -
The Radio I Switched Off
By Lyrikline Collaboration PoetsBy Dorothea Rosa Herliany
Translated by Mona Zahra Attamimi.
it’s like this, i’ve laid a cast-iron bed within your chest. -
Listening to Michael Jackson in Tehran
By Ali Alizadehafter Azar Nafisi
Smuggled across the fierce chasm
between us and the US, and then -
Rilke Renditions: II
By Chris EdwardsUnfasten my chain, Madam, I’m going to heave
us damsels into a little Gluck ditty. Now, lately it seems quite clear
from your glance that this Schloss you say you’re taking me to
is … Oh, Bête Noire, you mean -
Wave
By Jill JonesThe traffic begins its wave,
the sky is threaded with exhaust,
the blind man has a ticket, your bag
is heavy today, the traffic is beautiful -
Evening Star
By Ali AlizadehThis happened to me. 1994: She radiated
like a celestial, perusing the pages
to unnerve me. Was I so positive
of money as an imperative? She closed -
Mother says that it’s a memory
By Lyrikline Collaboration PoetsBy Eva Ström
Translated by Maria Freij
Mother says that it’s a memory
and I can have it -
Sinta’s Elegy
By Lyrikline Collaboration PoetsBy Dorothea Rosa Herliany
Translated by Mona Zahra Attamimi.
i, sinta, have retreated from incinerating -
Run away with you? Gladly!
By Lyrikline Collaboration PoetsBy Vera Pavlova
Translated by Jena Woodhouse
Run away with you? Gladly!
Share your shelter and journey? -
The Spider in the Holiday House Motel
By Lyrikline Collaboration PoetsBy José Emilio Pacheco
Translated by Peter Boyle
The spider’s been here. -
Freedom a la Chinoise
By Ouyang YuNowhere is one so free in a country like this
When you open a toilet door, as I did this noon, next to the staff
Canteen, you see a pile of shit, reaching the top of the seat
The one who shat could blame the mechanism for not flushing -
How Do You Write a Magical Poem?
By Lyrikline Collaboration PoetsBy Fadhil Al Azzawi
Translated by Zeina Issa
Nothing is easier than writing
a magical poem -
My Ruined Lyrics
By Jill Jones“You forget whole years, and not necessarily the least important ones.”
—Javier Marías,The Dark Back of Time
1. Hold On -
Mondrian Green
By Fiona HileSitting with your back to the elm-filled window,
laked extract of ripe Buckthorn berries
retro-teaching skipping girl how to skip,
you applaud the absence of Mondrian Green. -
For Damascus
By Lyrikline Collaboration PoetsBy Ghayath Almadhoun
Translated by Zeina Issa
This summer seeping through the fractures
of Damascus is killing me. I creep like rust -
-
The Satisfaction of Speech
By Fiona HileStretched out across the selfish wool table,
I fix on a mood in the high key of you,
twiddle my hi-viz wedding ring
and laugh at the way rhyme and metre -
Your Terrorist
By Ali AlizadehYou call me a barbarian.
I call you master.
You don’t speak my language.
My words -
Midnight
By Lyrikline Collaboration PoetsBy Fadhil Al Azzawi
Translated by Zeina Issa
Obscure screams passed through the door’s key hole. Shadows of soldiers with rifles on an olive coloured
wall. At midnight the guard came, he called out a few names. They shivered with fear. He said “Come”.
