FARRAGO

  لا أرض فوق الأرض تحملني No land on this earth carries me فيحملني كلامي So my speech carries me Mahmoud Darwish      I do not speak of olive trees and the smell of gunpowder.   My exile is one of peace, the crash of the Arabian sea. The crescendo of the adhan, the […]

Dappled sunlight trickles through the eucalyptus overstory. The faded bark of a swamp gum crunches underfoot. An afternoon breeze thaws out the wattles, scattering their scent and seed. Lorikeets demand to be heard. Pedestrians wave down passing cars, a mark of solidarity more than anything; “Watch out! There’s an echidna on the road.”   Then […]

After Katie Hale   Our dove has flown for sixty years But she still hasn’t moved a mile Not to talk of reaching her shore In the armpit of our dwelling (We hide our hairy shame)   When peace visited our faces We served him poisoned food It is left for a mother To let […]

sun-sweet green flesh rimming a pink rockpool rosy anemones swirl in glistening sea gardens a coral paradise afloat with life: Juno’s summer lagoon splashing kids lick pink syrup fingers –  the fig tree watches silently. guardian of green worlds on heaped branches high; dusk rustles quiet leaves. 

That sweet lullaby, My first single, my first album, my first concert Emanating from my mother’s chest to the drums of my ear held against her breast A little head floating up and down with her every breath after breath Amidst the weary grating of her aching bones, Against a larynx of desperation, And a […]

I have not fallen from the spine of my mother Because she always grasps me tight to her back Nor did I slip from her arm When she threw me into the sky of freedom To embrace the whispering wind   Because her hand is a swimming pool Where I embrace the warm waters of […]

into cracks spineless time slips fluid jellyfish – caught, only in your feathers’ wide net slung to trap the squirming future. you lend time your skeleton, old catskin croaker pussy willow bud.

A sea monster lurks beneath dirty waves. It rises when I stare at the water for too long. Its body sends a veil of salty spray to the ocean floor and its mouth forms a great black pit when it screams. I imagine myself swimming, floating sinking inside of it, unnoticed. I try to transform […]

People associate cities with alienation. Consumerism. The soul-sucking nine-to-five grind. Cold capitalist sterility and chaotic excess, side by side. Tall towers devoid of character, obscuring the sky with glass and steel. Crowds so suffocatingly thick you lose your sense of self. Glaring lights, loud noises you can’t drown out. Light pollution, sound pollution, air pollution. […]

don’t you hear me Mámá? the boy said. the small, brown woman sits at the table, meets his gaze eyes open, h(ear)ing closed.  instead, she unties her tongue from the roof  where it is kept, letting her mouth  open  onto his expectant ear , loosening the      words              watch them spill out  into still air.    […]