when we are born thirst makes us cry thirst surges through our arteries when the hormones hit when we start to wither our thirst actually increases for the tongue of touch the dictionary of rain we remember we were once loved it was love that kept us alive ** Then every face was like the…
Since 2010, it has become the Forward’s tradition to highlight five memorable poetry releases of the year — but this year we have six. Among this year’s selections are “Breathturn Into Timestead,” a collection of five final volumes of poetry by Paul Celan, newly translated by Pierre Joris, and three vastly different retrospectives by David…
Don’t yell at me, whisper: try to stop I let him drink from me I let him speed us up to the end to extremes I couldn’t imagine— (these are words that cannot be written) At the 7th Avenue station drained and soiled I forgot what any child knows by heart I couldn’t read the…
Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back 1 Bound on Her Boulders Bound on her boulders a burnt offering in flames trampled by light of the daily sacrifice this teeming city, longing in its walls within walls scattered towers thin outcries grey wind of the olives torn among the hills yearned-for city of wings from her red…
It has to do with seeing. Light. Or dark. It has to do with knowing. Speak and prophesy, darken and move: But what I see is not what I know. What I hear is not what I believe. And now the first light is dark, the morning has not yet lifted the night sky. Chirping….
baby: in bassinet, breathing loud, me: on the couch breasts filling up, heavy with milk toddler’s sweater thrown over his chair, on the floor: toys, a towel, a Ziploc bag on the ottoman: blue-and-white polka-dotted boppy — a nursing pillow on the sofa: baby-wearing wrap outside: the rain, in the dining corner: shades are still…
You are captives of illusion, experts in eluding truth, you party, drink wine, pick anemone in spring. Occasionally you are reminded that life is transient as grass, that death lies in ambush among green meadows. Though the wrath of the suicide bomber is daily at your door, your children bask in your warmth, and this…
Scrawny goats limp on heaps of rubble, the sea — under weights of sorrow. Nowhere to go, she says, escaping the bombs with her wounded child. And the child guarded by ten silent angels who weep.
100% of profits support our journalism
