NARRATIVE THREADS, PALESTINIAN EMBROIDERY ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Saqi Books, 2025

FLACO JIMENEZ TONIGHT ~

 

    1993

JOHN WIENERS ~

 

Children of the Working Class

to Somes

 

from incarceration, Taunton State Hospital, 1972

 

gaunt, ugly deformed

 

broken from the womb, and horribly shriven

at the labor of their forefathers, if you check back

 

scout around grey before actual time

their sordid brains don’t work right,

pinched men emaciated, piling up railroad ties and highway

ditches

blanched women, swollen and crudely numb

ered before the dark of dawn

 

scuttling by candlelight, one not to touch, that is, a signal panic

thick peasants after the attitude

 

at that time of their century, bleak and centrifugal

they carry about them, tough disciplines of copper Indianheads.

 

there are worse, whom you may never see, non-crucial around the

spoke, these you do, seldom

locked in Taunton State Hospital and other peon work farms

drudge from morning until night, abandoned within destitute

crevices odd clothes

intent on performing some particular task long has been far

removed

there is no hope, they locked-in key’s; housed of course

 

and there fed, poorly

off sooted, plastic dishes, soiled grimy silver knives and forks,

stamped Department of Mental Health spoons

but the unshrinkable duties of any society

produces its ill-kempt, ignorant and sore idiosyncrasies.

 

There has never been a man yet, whom no matter how wise

can explain how a god, so beautiful he can create

the graces of formal gardens, the exquisite twilight sunsets

in splendor of elegant toolsmiths, still can yield the horror of

 

dwarfs, who cannot stand up straight with crushed skulls,

diseases on their legs and feet unshaven faces of men and women,

worn humped backs, deformed necks, hare lips, obese arms

distended rumps, there is not a flame shoots out could ex-

tinguish the torch of any liberty’s state infection.

 

1907, My Mother was born, I am witness t-

o the exasperation of gallant human beings at g-

od, priestly fathers and Her Highness, Holy Mother the Church

persons who felt they were never given a chance, had n-

o luck and were flayed at suffering.

 

They produced children with phobias, manias and depression,

they cared little for their own metier, and kept watch upon

others, some chance to get ahead

 

Yes life was hard for them, much more hard than for any blo

ated millionaire, who still lives on

their hard-earned monies. I feel I shall

have to be punished for writing this,

that the omniscient god is the rich one,

cared little for looks, less for Art,

still kept weekly films close for the

free dishes and scandal hot. Some how

though got cheated in health and upon

hearth. I am one of them. I am witness

not to Whitman’s vision, but instead the

poorhouses, the mad city asylums and re-

life worklines. Yes, I am witness not to

God’s goodness, but his better or less scorn.

 

The First of May, The Commonwealth of State of Massachusetts,

1972

____________________________

John Wieners

Behind the State Capitol:

or Cincinnati Pike

The Song Cave 50th Anniversary Edition, 2025

edited by Raymond Foye with new essays by

Robert Dewhurst & James Dunn

STEWART BRAND NEVER STOPPED ~

 

The New York Times

April 24, 2026

SUZANNE LUPIEN BAKES BREAD IN VERMONT ~

 

   2025

LONG NIGHT STEREOLAB ~

 

NADIA ANJUMAN ~

 

In Vain

I don't want to open my mouth, what can I sing

I am despised these days — so what if I sing or not

What can I say of honey when it tastes like poison on my tongue

I curse the brutal fist that smashed my mouth

There is no one in the world I can rely on

So what if I cry, I laugh, I die, I linger

Alone in this corner with only defeat and regret

I was born in vain — my tongue is sealed shut

I know it is spring, my heart, a time of celebration

But I am a clipped wing, I can't fly

Though I have been silent for some time, I remember the song

I pull the words from my heart in an endless whisper

Celebrate that day when I will break from this miserable cage

and emerge, drunkenly singing

I am not that weak willow tree that trembles in the wind

I am an Afghan girl, and so I howl

Dalvae 1378 / Taurus 1999

Bent

I want to guide my poems upright

but the reach of the city's ceilings

                                is low and arched

There isn't even a crack

                            to push through

So, prudently, poems

have fallen asleep

hunched over

There is no vigilant hand

to break through

                            these domes

No one will ever see

                            the limits of their thoughts

Here you live bent

and you die bent

Sunbala 1382 / Virgo 2003

Prison

In this house of silence

there is no one left — the heart gets used to its song

The smell of smoke drifts from her burnt garden

where her grand cypresses wait for the earthquake

that will bring their heads to earth

How tragic that her beginning has come to an end

Anyone who has feathers and the strength

flees in an instant — she spreads her wings

and shoots from this nameless place like a bullet

The rare thrill of her flight is satisfying

She who doesn't find the strength to fly

suffers, prone. in a corner of ruins

Where did the friend who told her stories go?

In this house of silence

hopes die from waiting

saplings die even in spring

In every face you see

a person, broken, fed up with the tedium of days

Even the sunrise is solemn with its dark fate

You have to escape

from this cursed house of silence

to a city of far and invisible horizons

where there is the clamor of life

If you have no wings

go on foot

If you have no legs, leap into the dark

You must plunge into the sea

You must ask the wind

On any path that can sway away from this prison

you have to escape

you have to escape

Dalvae 1379 / Aquarius 2001

___________________

NADIA ANJUMAN

Smoke Drifts 

translated from Persian by Diana Arterian, Marina Omar

World Poetry, 2025

WOODEN SHJIPS VOL. 1 ~

 

TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES (DANIEL ELLSBERG) ~

 

R E A D   M E

   Bloomsbury 2026

THE STORY OF IRAN'S WOMEN-LED UPRISING ~

 

R EA D   M E

         Pantheon Books, 2025

NEW POETRY FROM PALESTINE ~

HAMID ASHOUR

Displaced Dog . . . Homeless Human

One night, a dog entered my house with a group of people who were fleeing the

bombing.  All left the next morning except the nameless dog.  As if he had lived

his whole life in his house and memorized its interior, he escaped the bedroom

for the backyard and the backyard for the roof in rhythm with the surrounding

raids.  He sat n the safest spot in the house before bombs startled him.  He

stayed with me from the beginning of the invasion.  We shared fear, barking,

shrapnel, and canned meat.  We shared the same fate, though I am not his

owner.  We went out sprinting and leaping nimbly among the shells, carrying

nothing but the housekey — barefoot, bare-hearted, our minds bare.  We made a

tent from old rags, reeds, and palm fronds.  We shared it like friends.  When one

of us slept to dream of return, the other guarded the dream and the road.

Gaza, 2024

NASSER RABAH

Nothing Kills Me, Nothing

I die slowly, oh Yiannis Ritsos,

Even slower, oh Nazim Hikmet.

From ancient times, the prisoners pass by asking, Do you remember?

Then I know who I am.

Empty prison, the dead pass by, waving to me.

I invite them into my museum of memory

Yet nothing kills me, nothing.

I die slowly, oh Federico Garcia Lorca,

Even slower, oh Muthaffar al-Nawab.

The timber contemplates itself in the extinguished fireplace.

A toothless ld man starts to sing, but his words jumble.

Daily, a street loses a door, a window.

Airplanes pass by overhead.

Yet nothing kills me, nothing.

I die slowly, oh Nasser Rabah,

Even slower, oh Pablo Neruda.

Two million messiahs ascend to God, barefoot and naked,

Holding out empty cooking pots, perturbing Rome's sleep.

They toss their children's names into the sky,

Until it is raining down song

On me, the keystone, touchstone, taproot of this place.

Yet nothing kills me, nothing.

Gaza 2024 

______________________________________

You Must Live

New Poetry From Palestine

translated & edited by

Tayseer Abu Odeh & Sherah Bloor

Copper Canyon Press, 2025

LUDOVICO EINAUDI TONIGHT ~

 

2022

DAVE MASON ~

 

D A V E   M A S O N

NIGHTMARE OF THE EMBRYOS, (MARIELLA MEHR) ~

 

R E A D   M E

New Directions, 2026