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HomePosts Tagged "posts-issue8" (Page 3)

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my father taught me that if you drive patiently enough you will arrive to where it smells differently       the smell of apartments by that sea rust and everything brought to a standstill by the storm here you can even forget the war rice and tahini strange songs on the radio already the first night I went to him without wanting much except his warmth his belly was round with silence and he spoke in a mix of the old language and the new already too far for anyone to reach him and it was both a home and an adventure                                   my father is stung by a medusa he was

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Poetry
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"Three Children Balancing on a Total Barrel" by Abdul Rahman Katanani Boundless, across boundless, wave-driven miles, white clad steel groaned against current. In bitter fifth month fog, I arrived at a different place, but now, they bid me depart.   Lazy wanderer, empty of speech, the village home not near nor in sight. Nothing but a wood house humped up and cold, and wind moans without meaning. The ferry will dock hard, edge me towards heaven. Once aboard that slow boat home, day won’t dawn again for a thousand years. Day won’t dawn again in a thousand years, and of what use were all my careful lies? Those here weeping, who wave farewell, they'll earn their prerequisites

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Poetry, Translations
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An eleven-year-old boy from Aleppo whose eyes hold only things no longer there – a citadel, a moat, safe rooms of shadow, ‘afterwardness’ in his thousand yard stare – years later, decades even, might turn around to see, through the long tunnel of that gaze, a yard, a pond and pine trees that surround, as in a chaharbagh, four branching pathways. Where do memories hide? the pine trees sing. In language of course, the four pathways reply. What if the words be lost? the pine trees sigh. Lost, the echo comes, lost like me in air. Then sing, the pathways answer, sigh and sing for the echo, for nothing, no one, nowhere. "Beirut Blocks

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Poetry
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"Liquid Series Sculpture" by Mona Aghababaee Sa’id bin Ahmad translated from the Arabic by Nicholas Roberts   Oh, you, whose passion gives me breath. You humiliate me.  You leave me mystified, craving, enraptured.  You pledged your passion was no breeze.  But a soft wind swept away your pledge.  Time passed, but you did not become mine.  You consumed me; you stole my breath.  When you clutched the reins of my heart So I will plant myself in the road and harp of wronging I will appeal to the Sultan of passion to torture you And, in the dark of night, I will cry for a curse to ruin you What is the way to

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Poetry, Translations
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"Gentleman at Leisure" by Jason Steel after Gu Cheng   the fish on the counter—the fish wrapped in newspaper—the door to the kitchen—blue— the bird is rapping dee da on the window pane—open the ground to bed the bulbs always tips up— tulips— two lips—swinging dee dee—the weight of the fish dancing back to the air on a string— and your legs stuck out—jerking forth    "Brits Abroad" by Jason Steel

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Poetry
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"0 matter" by Christina Battikha  For Nada, Toni and Rana   We lazed on ottomans above the azure Under blue pallor, gazing Into the gauze that makes discreet The meeting of the sea’s cracked plate And the sky’s bowl, blurring Their embrace, my hostess, risen In the doorway in her billowing dress Sea-goddess green and barred with sky, feeling A memory resurface: “One day last year the water was not Like this, but smooth and whole, a sheet Of sapphire over the sea’s round mouth Stilling its gasp, muffling its stilled sighs— The sea was flat that day, and mute, and out Of its depths the plastic swelled and rose To bobble like balloons and balls along The beachless

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Poetry
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"Floating Hair" by Samia Soubra The ocean didn’t stop moving all night Neither did the woman I lay beside: She too rolled in forceful exhales Snatching space like the mounting tides. The lip of the sea was coming for me And so was the woman I lay beside. Birds of prey circled the surface of her mind, Dying to dive               To scavenge the fruits of her world inside. Like the beach, I fell apart   Eaten alive       By the roaring tides Of the woman I lay beside. She wanted what I could not give. Seaweed insecurity Gripped

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Poetry
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Somewhere in the airspace above the English Channel, Palestinian actor Hadi Al-Shawish is on a flight to his next gig in London when Air Traffic Control announces a new legislation banning citizens of Muslim majority countries from entering the UK. Upon landing, he is met by Immigration Officer Jessminder “Jess” Sidhu and detained in a cell. In order to keep himself occupied, Hadi rehearses his lines for the show. The following scenes take place halfway through the play. An oblique stroke / indicates the point of interruption in overlapping dialogue  SCENE 4 1:00 pm. Jess enters and looks exhausted. Chaos ensues in the

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Drama
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"Sea Change" by Heather Miller Disenchantment lingeredgentle, unobtrusivemeringue on taste budsephemeral, yet more sublimethan wars of unknown battalionsset up to call on death.   When invited, it dwellsin residues of ashen hopescigarette smoke in a boxliquid, smooth, like silvercarving rivers of forgetfulnessin its wake, undivided. It orbits uncharted territorieslike electrons, a nucleusparticles whirring, never collidetimeless, yet eternally gravitatinglike water, sea in motion,a green and blue that never stops. It spreads on cold tileslike maps of the multiversemillennia pile, stretch endlesslya time-lapse pastiche of mute chaos,no raging thoughts or feelings,merely a bitter aftertaste.

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Poetry
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by Samira Negrouche, translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Hacker Man part animal part flower part metal part human The Approximate Man, Tristan Tzara  *Above our heads                          a vertical shadow                                                                           vibratesa shadow that flaps above our headsa clandestine whistlingon the arid plain                            above our overloaded                                                                            heads and while there’s that whistling   that whistling                                                     unanticipatedas our buzzing skullsa cement roof accommodates our moods                        on the makeshift platform                                 the constellation set

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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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