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Home2021 (Page 7)

April 2021

"Liminal Access II" by Farah Azrak Almond blossoms reaching in the night asrudder to your boat filled with ghazals. Beyondthis damask fog of winter, patterned withtenderness on both sides, there are archersaiming for the refrain in your heart. Youcarry in your pocket a citadelof verses, arsenal of tulips, youcarry a candle that will not last thehour but melt into a pool that will stayhot for a century, clotted in desire. 

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Poetry
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"No Turning Back" by Maya Alameddine The trunk of Mama's car is dark, darker than everything, like the only blind spot under the sun. Around it is noise. A school bus clogging the capillary of streets starts a honk hysteria. Three quick whips on a donkey's back and a crazed clop-clop. Angry men come out of cars to start a word war. A boy in a tuk tuk tsk-tsks then snakes through. A siren rattles the jam on the three-lane ahead. The trunk though, the trunk is dead-quiet. I imagine if I come closer, it would suck me

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Fiction
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My ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) leaves me in two completely opposite worlds. I travel between these two worlds on a daily basis due to my-very strong-medication. This is my travel journey. I am ashamed to share my pencils, all of them are bitten. It's the only way for me to focus. Without my meds, my mind struggles to focus on a single idea. Reading long texts is hard. I am lost in waves of letters.I am lost, therefore I am.  Thinking about everything except what I should be thinking about. Especially the ice cream that I will give myself as a

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Comics
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"Dances with Flowers" by Jana Khoury Night city skylinein the elevated blue blurof concrete pots Stored, engorgedwith succulence,in empty space, like atoms Like peopleand ceramic goatspoised stillon impossible mountains Like strips of southern blotsblotching the chromatic etherpolychrome black Last night of the old citynew things risingslowly like stars Small things dyingon a windowsillplants in beer bottles, hope Lights out in towers 2 and 3Someone burning the midnighttungsten filamentlooking up at redeyes Leave me alonein precarious refugein suicidal silhouettesweet succulent The promise wasyou take care of meand I take care of you Power cuts and no starsNo moon

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Poetry
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"Give Me Your Guts" by Omid Shekari I was sitting with my family when the floor of our apartment rocked back and forth. The emergency physician in me had drilled this moment time and again since moving from Baltimore to Beirut eleven years ago, to a city re-built on the ruins of many seismic tragedies. Before I could direct my daughters away from the windows, a loud rumble followed by a deafening explosion blasted through the glass panes, sparing only the one behind us.  For a moment, we all stood frozen there in our living room, absorbing the damage

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Non-Fiction
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Photograph by Lujain Jo The sun in Abu Dhabi returns to her pink bed behind the sea;in the background, a song plays: "Gypsy, I'll always be."Above me, the night crops the sky as I stroll the city's Cornicheand recall Oslo's blue sunset, rising behind its wooden pier.How in Vienna the sun retreats behind the Danube;while in London it floats like a ship sailing against the Thames.I remember Sevilla and its orange sunset, the "Great River" in the middle,dividing two cities; one for sunrise and one for sunset.And how many cities does a sunset divide like a river

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Poetry
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"Woods" by Yusra Scott By Haifa Abu Al-Nadi, translated from the Arabic by Madeline Edwards. Umm Muhammad's black abaya speaks of night. Her glittering cigarette lighters kindle the threads embroidered across her plump breasts. Full of breath, her fat chest contains all the noise and memories of old sensuous nights. Her strangled, numbered breaths rattle out, lingering only briefly before translating themselves into three stubborn coughs which pepper the lighters and cigarette cartons displayed in front of her with a mist from her curled lips. Her wheezing falls silent when she sees me passing by, so I wave to

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Fiction, Translations
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By Qubad Jalil-Zada, translated from the Kurdish Sorani by Halo Fariq and Hannah Fox. 1. The cool breeze of autumn is coming but instead of covering herself, the forest is undressing.   کزەی پایز بەڕێوەیە دارستان لەبری خۆی داپۆشێت، خۆی ڕوت دەکاتەوە.       2. In the city, the wind covers her neck and breasts with the clothes on the line.   لە شار، ڕەشەبا سنگ و مەمکی خۆی بە جلی سەر تەنافەکان دادەپۆشێت.       3. While bathing by the riverbank, the moon hangs her silver lingerie on the branches of the breeze.   لە قەراخ ڕووبارێک خۆی دەشوات. دەرپێ زیوینەکەی بە لقی شنەوە هەڵواسیوە _مانگ

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Poetry, Translations
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About Us
Rusted Radishes: Beirut Literary and Art Journal was founded in the English Department of the American University of Beirut in 2012 with the intention of creating a space for both emerging and established writers who have a connection to Lebanon.
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