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HomePosts Tagged "posts-issue6" (Page 2)

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The disgusting scent of oily hair fills my nostrils. “Salma, Salma, there’s someone here,” Aisha called out. “Do they look rich?” I asked, instinctively pulling the neck of my shirt down, baring the shoulder that I’d rubbed dirt onto earlier that day. It was evening, and I’d come back early, having made enough money for the day. “No, stop, you can’t ask them for money! They’re guests!” “W-what? Guests?” In the twelve years I’d spent growing up in this forsaken building, never once did we have guests. The water man would come, bringing three big bottles of water every week. Ali told me he got paid

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Fiction
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1. Dreaming in Arabic, flying red clouds hang over the high Chouf village. A young boy dresses early by lamp light, does his morning chores in the cold sun. Leaning heavily into the cedar wind, he lugs firewood into the kitchen to keep the heat going. In this dream his parents live, his sisters have long dark hair they sweep up into heavy braids. Julia, the young one, wears olive wood beads and carries buckets of rainwater to the garden while their mother steams milk with cardamom and sugar for them. In this dream they live to grow up, marry, even have children of their own. In this dream, the boy is not yet a grief stricken survivor

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Poetry
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How presumptuous – this love. Waiting at the edge of my sanity. Confident in its future. Secure in the belief that it will sit so heavily on my chest, forcing my fragmentation whole. And then? I will wade. Limbs placid, neck, head, torso swaying lyrically into this new disposition, inebriated by the sudden rush of respirating silence into insides clogged with thick sap of melancholic thoughts. Hardened into corporeal helplessness. Into the quiet. Into the stillness that lives in the eyes of the other attuned to every tremble of my pupils. He who lives for the upward slope of cheeks, the narrowing of eyes, the gapped smile that exhales a self finally pacified by a benevolent boundedness, an altruistic indenture

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Poetry
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I am soaked in you, Like an old white rag drenched in murky waters. I wring myself, Hoping to watch you drip. Or lend out your musk to warm daylight. But I am saturated. Like an arrogant fruit, I dry myself under burning stars, waiting for you to be swept away, and preserve what is left. But you refuse to disintegrate, Clinging to my skin. --- Perhaps you are soaked in me; I am the water and you are the resin. Perhaps it is me who has to transpire, And leave your accumulation behind. But I am destined to wait for the moonlight; The sun does not dare approach.

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Poetry
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Sewage fills the air even in the early hours of birdsthe donkey’s whipped ass crosses a red lighthow can we blame a slab of land for what it has become?the children grow up too youngtracks of tanks don’t leave their sandand soon, mist rusts their swings  The sea is a ragged studio backgroundsewage fills the stomachs of seagullshow can we blame a flat horizon for what it has become?a city worn on two sidesa rock[et], scissored tunnels, paper ghostsa spoon in a socket, love making in darkening rooms  This is how we can blame this city for what it has

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Poetry
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I Am Cupid’s daughter. Mistake and design begot me. Under the silver sun, I brush away my identity. A few blots here, a few strokes there, And all the men gather round me. The people above, Impeached, Glare down at me, Yet, still I dance And cherish this ineffable circumstance. I spend the nights Swinging between restless arms, Swathed in sordid kisses And garnished with love bites. Beyond this place Of discord and hate, I move my hips And feel the night Gently stroke my face With the long, dark blades of its fingers. I go home, Smelling like a thousand men. My flamboyance Lures natural nonconformists Out of their comfort. I shake their grounds With every coaxing sway, Until I mitigate their pangs Of unjustified guilt. Passersby under the sun Think

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Poetry
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It’s jammed, once again. The iron gate’s lock is get-ting rustier as the days pass. I gather all my strength (what’s left of it) and kick the bottom of the door while pulling the handle towards me. All the while, I am covered with chips of sloughed off white paint that reveal a dark auburn surface. Maintaining pressure on the bottom edge, I push in the key, and turn it around three times before getting the door to open. That worked surprisingly fast today. Alhamdulillah for everything, praise to Allah. All is well. . As I walk through the entré – a

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Fiction
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by Fadwa Suleimane, translated from the arabic by Marilyn Hacker At daybreakA child climbed up out of the rubbleHe looked for his motherHe pushed away the rocks around herHe shook her hard but she didn’t wake upHe called all of his brothers’ and sisters’ namesHe turned back to his mother, and he shoutedI won’t trust you anymore after today, MamaYesterdayYou sang to the dovesThat no one would slit their throats.On his birthdayIn the orphanageHe wrote on the wall with a bird’s feather:I trust my motherShe never learned how grown-ups have funShe never knew how they colored my brothers and sisters,Colored her

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Poetry, Translations
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I would have exhumed you with my fingernails And reclaimed my childhood from your finitude. But nature never mourned you before taking you back This thick blanket of dirt Won’t let me in. There is so little I know of you. I do not know whether the sunlight Can infiltrate your coffin And warm your bones I do not know whether you can stretch in the morning I don’t even know, How many inches of your skin, Are left. It has been around a thousand and ninety five mornings, It only took God three days to Resurrect his son. Note: The title of this poem was borrowed from Sufjan Steven’s eponymous song

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Poetry
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GRAND THEATRO just before reconstruction (1994) • Pierre Maadanjian • Photography Version 3.4 for Two Baritone Narrators and Sound Effects Prelude((I would like to thank Dr Nikolas Kosmatopoulos, Dr. Assaad Kattan and Rima Rantisi.)) In the fall of 2022, a new round of clashes in the outskirts of Beirut erupted between three Lebanese sects. At its margin, Salim Fadel, a 42-year-old seasoned expert in development consulting, pursued his personal interests when the government requested that all of its institutions remain closed until a cease-fire was reached. Salim had been commissioned by both Solidere and the Lebanese government to conduct studies in the framework

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Fiction
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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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