Anna
1
“Now I know how faces disappear,
how terror nests under eyelids,” wrote Anna,
Anna Akhmatova.
Can you understand such suffering?
While I read her, I lie stiff on the bed.
She, Anna, has…
Poetry
Photo by Pop & Zebra on Unsplash In your white vest and blue flip-flops, you wandered about in the fierce sun, a can of black paint in your hand. We read your family history on lamp-posts: your…
Andrew Wyeth, Cranberries (1966), Collotype, 45.7 x 30.5 cm When I pushed the door there was no one in the room. In the background, an open window and a disquieting afternoon light falli…
Wassily Kandinsky, Composition #218 (Two Ovals) (1919), Oil on Canvas, 107 × 89 cm, Saint Petersburg, The Russian Museum I glimpsed the oases of childhood with gingerbread houses and matryos…
Workshop of Rembrandt van Rijn, Young Woman at an Open Half-Door (1645), oil on canvas, 102.5 x 85.1 cm, Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago / CC0 Public…
Ghislaine Lejard, l’ombre (2020), 6.5 x 7.5 cm, torn paper glued on cardboard / Reproduced by permission of the artist I tame shadows each day I descend further into their world and they d…
“I Have Nothing but Exhaustion the Size of a Forest” after Sirkka Turkka I have nothing but exhaustion the size of my daughter’s pupils, when she brings her face close to my mouth, ex…
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash The Bread of Letters I Who will blame the trees when they loose their leaves? who will accuse the sea of abandoning shells on the sand? I, mothe…
A detail from Merikokeb Berhanu’s (Ethiopia/US) Untitled LII (2020), acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 in. / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art When floods rose, the tree branches thinned, carrying nothin…
Merikokeb Berhanu (Ethiopia/US), Untitled LII (2020), acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 in. / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art From the watchtower, you utter the suburbs I grow up in, ripe for the benef…
A detail from Daniela Yohannes (UK/Guadeloupe), Black Oil (2019), Acrylic on Linen, 116 X 89 cm / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art We pause at the edge of the river listen to its rhythms languid…
Photo by Terry Kearney / Flickr There should have been roses . . . Instead, I clutched red and white carnations my aunt bought from a street vendor outside the courthouse. I should have…
Daniela Yohannes (UK/Guadeloupe), Black Oil (2019), Acrylic on Linen, 116 X 89 CM / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art What we do not say to each other bites speech into ultimatums a guillotine ch…
A detail from Dereje Demissie (Ethiopia), Psychscape (2009) In Krio, there is a word with Atlantic Ocean spray still swirling in its gut: Freeborn. I heard this word often after dinner was…
Dereje Demissie (Ethiopia), Psychscape (2009) On my mind daily with the insistence of a metronome is that thin granular layer, rich humus, spare humility, black earth daily lifted and blow…
Detail from Girma Berta (ETHIOPIA), Moving Shadows XI (2016), digital archival print, 40 x 40 cm / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art after Inji Efflatoun Sarah Hegazi Malak al-Kashef …
Girma Berta, Moving Shadows XI (2016), digital archival print, 40 x 40 cm / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art after “A Walk through Intimacy,” by Theresah Ankomah Under the auspices of the…
Daniela Yohannes (UK/Guadeloupe), Subterranean (2019), acrylic on linen, 116 x 89 cm / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art there are flowers you can’t touch outside someone’s house at night, a mothe…
Merikokeb Berhanu (Ethiopia/US), Untitled XLVII (2020), acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 in. / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art You always serve coitus with a side of cheese silkworms squirming in the…
Dereje Demissie (Ethiopia), Psychscape (2009) This poem is written in response to a news story in Spotlight (South Africa), headlined as follows: “What the Charlotte Maxeke fire…
Ch’ol embroidered shirts / Photo by Diana Laura Montejo I Am the Alphabet They say, grass born in the forest, my body holds the freshness of mountains. I have absorbed the garden’s blossoming, my…
Don’t just aim the telescope at the night sky’s swarming to discover one more planet. Turn it also toward the earth, toward the bottom of the sea, see the fish in between the rocks, a flicker of…
Poetry is not solace, it is not a song of joy and of sadness, it is not a haven in the mouth of a blind man, it is not a museum. Poetry is not an almanac of meanings on t…
Photo by Nathan Bang on Unsplash I brought mum and dad an old quilt – It’s nice, only it came out of the wash with funny splodges on it. They can stick it on the sofa bed out at the allotment. “We…
Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash On the hilltop A woman said to me This fruit is called kam Kam I take the word as it comes I write it in my memory Like the three letters in the word…
December 12, 2023
October 24, 2023
