Photo: Mila Tovar / Unsplash
worldlittoday · Alireza Roshan - Seven Poems from Iran
Seeing you off, I waved
Loneliness
took it as a greeting
*
Amazing
all the breezes
waving in your hair
yet o…
Poetry
Salomé by Juana Romani / Musée d'Orsay / Public Domain How often I saw you and felt surprised to be looking at you. Feeling the temptation to spy on you and the desire to love what I did…
Photo: Glenn Ruben Berg / Unsplash [draw your strength] draw your strength from the lifeless leaf break all bonds until you can tie your fate to the baobab trunk don’t hold within yourself any dr…
East Sands at low tide. Photos provided by Eleni Kefala. worldlittoday · Eleni Kefala - “The Coastal Path” (Greek) for Colin McEwan I heard the news a few days ago we hadn’t spoken in near…
Photos: Shahilla Shariff I The alleys are blind, the streets are worn. Everyone has left, but tea is offered. Bone china cup, we’re together in a room with high ceilings, h…
Photo: Danielle Dolson / Unsplash I could take your words said the air not their meaning though. The light not exactly light not exactly bright s…
Photo: Mozambique Channel by Rod Waddington / Flickr after Goethe’s Divan 1. Find the poet by the channel of Mozambique flown south to taste the air of the first migrants, Al-Khidr’s pro…
Photo: Evie Shaffer / Unsplash An Offering O Leaves, O Flowers! We hold you in our hands as offerings. We stir in you the ruin of winter, the swell of summer. Say a little something, when we tr…
Illustration by Elyas Alavi from the series Waking Dreams Translator’s note: Few voices are more distinctive in the world of contemporary Afghan poetry than Elyas Alavi. The dynamic…
Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy/Unsplash the human soul is a dark place, leviathan. so much that my eyes begrudge the light. I sense the dark upsurge. I can’t find a hole large enough, can’t live on le…
Ruth Loveland, Inferno, 36x36 inches, mixed media on wood, 2017 is the last thing I want you to become as in late in life your lover looks at a picture of the day you met a sudden warmt…
Taha Khalil, Untitled, acrylic on canvas Scapegoat And the knife is in your hand You look just like Abraham, our prophet I’m your old, old Ishmael. Captivity Late at night As if I’m a w…
Kristin Marie Enns-Kavanagh / Flickr Agnes Martin, Eye Hill Rural Municipality No. 382, Saskatchewan The land moves without qualm in billows and degrees of bored…
Photo: Evie Shaffer / Unsplash A Funeral Wash me with warm water and soap made of fresh olive oil anoint me with amber and camphor water with rose geranium and orange blossom water Swaddle me with…
Photo: Analusie Gamboa / Unsplash There were neither plots nor characters, only places. Neighborhoods sliced in half. Terraces and corridors between roofless rooms. Profiles only. Staggered spa…
Winter Sun, 2017, oil on wood panel, by Kay WalkingStick. Courtesy of the artist and June Kelly Gallery Bless this land from the top of its head to the bottom of its feet From the…
They had to remove it and off we went: A transparent image of bones chained together; Half face, three-quarters, full face of the fingers stretched out, fingers without recognizable lines, i…
Temple in Varanasi / Photo by Saurabh Chatterjee / Flickr Spring descends on this city suddenly and when it does a whirl of dust rises from Lehartara or Manduadih and coats the tongue of this a…
Farol de Combate This is how, while darkness drew my profile with its little finger I have learned to see past as Montale saw it, The obscure thoughts of God descending …
Photo: Picker H/Flickr November in Xichang There are cities one won’t see again. – Joseph Brodsky I. Only a bearded smile shows below a conical hat turning men to rice…
Photo: Brian Ainsworth/Flickr Borderland (2) Moored in an estuary of chestnut trees is the main building – a mother ship. The sharp-eyed gaze eventually settles, studying the faça…
Photo: M. Maggs/Pixabay La bona educació L’estiu que complia set anys li van regalar un estoig de fusta amb un llapis i una goma. El llapis, perquè en rosegués la mina fins a tro…
Photo: Simon Q/Flickr A patch of sunlight on the wall thin shadows like worn nets or the snagged stockings of a voracious lover impair that patch. Our shoes tap the marble stairs down-down. T…
PHOTO: Scott Webb/Unsplash * Tulips and their capricious labia, their indecent appeal. The absolute shamelessness of the flowers, but also the sinlessness. The lushness of the earth, as before the…
Lorie Shaull, “Stolperstein” / Flickr The story begins like this. No. It does not. There is no story. Or, they shoveled a load of speed and shuddered toward the coast. Saltpans. Sparse groupings of p…