“Vets Stream into Standing Rock.” Photo: Joe Brusky/Flickr
for Zhooniyah Ogitchida, with gratitude
He walked to the frontline in his Army combat shirt.On it, his sergeant badge, name tape, U…
Poetry
Anila Quayyum Agha, Alahambra Nights (2016), acrylic and halogen bulb, 30” x 27” x 30” / Courtesy of the artist Qasida of the Bridge of Teacups The soul cleaves into two somewhere along the…
Photo: Tanya Hart Go Thee And the way you gathered up your excess soulbefore it spilled to the floor.At the end of the Hebrew-Yiddish-English poetry readingand you went to eat shawarma. T…
Photo: Andreas Manessinger/Flickr Old friend, when we meet, we will meetas two shelves of wings and many harsh years, as one imagination that won’t exchange toasts:there’s no one to stomp the grapes…
Photo: Susanna Hsing Rhythm Lucretius’s atomic rain falls graduallyabove daily congestion, wetting my earlobes with noise.I’ve swallowed the good parts of several dropssleepy dissonance. On one side,…
Gaza City. Photo: Getty / AFP photo / Mahmud Hams History moves darkly and we are small, soft things. –…
Photo: Claude Valette Evolution I was once a Paleolithic painter, a sensual hunterplundering the earth, living from hand to mouth.I painted at the cave’s corner, concerned only w…
Photo by Zsolt Andrasi/Flickr Glints of the tram. The nondescript housesdream numb underwater dreams. Faces aretransparent bubbles popping off from the windowswhere water used to break through. The p…
Photo by Todd Slagter/Flickr A Bridge Behind us a sea-cliff, landfall, ahead the wind,tar-smoke, the sea, a carrick.We sway on a bridge between themabove a great shattering. We have leftthe verge,…
Photo: US Army IMCOM Body For Hassan Rabeh, young dancer displaced from Syria, who killed himself by jumping from a seventh-floor balcony in Beirut, Wednesday, June 22, 2016 & perhaps yo…
Photo: Train Photos/Flickr A Swap At the market bus stopI’m waiting with a man in ragged clothes,unshaven, his hair greasy,swinging his hand holding a big plastic bagwith “The Big Shopper” written o…
Photo by Kai C. Schwarzer/Flickr On recent nights בַּלֵּילוֹת הָאַחֲרוֹנִיםאֲנִי מְחַפֶּשֶׂת אֶת הַבַּיִת שֶׁלִּינָעָה אַחֲרָיו בִּשְׁבִילֵי הַיְקוּםאַרְבָּעִים שְׁנוֹת מִדְבָּרמְגַשֶּׁשֶׁת בְּיָד…
Open book on a bed. Photo by Steve Petrucelli 9:40 a.m. / Venipuncture The way they step on one another’s heelsuntil a spindle-legged woman with dyedhair trips in the queue, and all sticktheir nec…
Fragments of an Inexistent Whole Inspired by Alison Knowles’s “A House of Dust” 1. Syllables sieved through floating gates, Metal clack of printer Mortal rendition, Fortran…
Photo: visitmelbourne.com dusk, Summerland Beach, Phillip Island here they come rush of learners jerky gear shifts and no idea about cruise control it’s a wonder the…
Illustration: Amina Rizwan after Tarfia Faizullah Here, by this tide of waste thatribbons black across empty fields, parched grass a girl gnawsand fills…
A collage of two images by Alex Majoli, created by Daria Birang. Courtesy of Cherry Trees Gallery (Megève, France). To honor Mabanckou on the occasion of his visit to the University of O…
A stream in Pico de Orizaba, Veracruz. Photo by Anwar Vazquez/Flickr xxxviii Then they landed in large pastures, light aircraftsof gringo registrationfrom which som…
Photo by Julian Böck/Unsplash (Heavy Water #74: going down) i. the version of my father’s brother’s drowning i was raised on and preferis the one in which his frien…![Kathy Vargas (b. 1950, San Antonio), Oración: Valentine’s Day / Day of the Dead [Hand], ca. 1989–90, gelatin silver print with hand-coloring, 24x20 in.](/sites/worldliteraturetoday.org/files/styles/blog_thumbnail/public/kathyvargas-25_2.jpg?itok=tMVMaNHY)
Kathy Vargas (b. 1950, San Antonio), Oración: Valentine’s Day / Day of the Dead [Hand], ca. 1989–90, gelatin silver print with hand-coloring, 24x20 in. You must know, Lord, who was…
The instrument did not choose this ceremony.My mother offered me five strings, nounswithout a grammar.I left my mother’s emptiness, to embrace my own.Whose darkness sits in the north,if no one can sin…
Photo by Jordan Whitt/Unsplash U k’a’ajsaj a tuukul Kin k’áatiktuntimbáe’Bix a máan a ta’ak a wichtu bo’oy táanxel t’aanilKa’ a wa’al ma’atan a na’atik u t’aan Yum Iik’. A yuume’tu yu’ubaj a tsikba…![Kathy Vargas (b. 1950, San Antonio), Oración: Valentine’s Day / Day of the Dead [Rib Cage], ca. 1989–90, gelatin silver print with hand-coloring, 24x20 in. Vargas writes, “This series began as a remembrance of friends who recently died of AIDS.”](/sites/worldliteraturetoday.org/files/styles/blog_thumbnail/public/kathyvargas-22_2.jpg?itok=xhiVpW9v)
Kathy Vargas (b. 1950, San Antonio), Oración: Valentine’s Day / Day of the Dead [Rib Cage], ca. 1989–90, gelatin silver print with hand-coloring, 24x20 in. Vargas writes, “This seri…
i There is no possible house any longer.If there ever wasa first one mentioned,she is now in ruins and does not await returns,or transient guests still confusedwho arrive weary to scrutinize the dust…
Photo by Paula Goodale Thistles and Gods Thistles and gods all withered in the sunLike the blanched remains of temples,Long and slender skeletons,Irrevocable examplesOf the burden of being immortal…
December 12, 2023
October 24, 2023
