Metaphor

On My Tongue

Bismillah is my first memory.

 

I became a bird in the Qur’an

at hardly eight years old.

 

I opened the dark green cover

and revealed the slippery

 

two hearts: Arabic

and its English translation.

 

On Saturdays, I learned to repeat

passages in Arabic,

 

to...

Alycia Pirmohamed

voyage, oh voyage!

voyage, oh voyage!

the final fire that ravages the air

unveils the soil on which

we walk aimlessly

and tirelessly

 

the hypocrisy of the strong protects us

from home. I prefer leaves

yellowed by the rain to false

victories

 

so I listen to the wind. It's good to live

where there's...

Etel Adnan
1925-

FROM THE WINDOW OF MY HOME-TOWN HOTEL

On the lee slope of the small coastal mountain

which conceals the sun the first hour after its rising,

in the dry, steep ravines, the live

mist of the heat is seething like dust

left over from an earlier world.

A crow with a swimmer's shoulders works

the air. And a little bird flies up into a

tree and closes its wings, like a...

Sharon Olds
1942 -

Veronica?

What's it like at the centre of the AGO?

Hmm. Imagine being coloured, drawn, and placed

 

in a wooden frame, another hung woman, positioned

just so in the middle of a landscape surrounded by rocks,

 

lakes, mountains, and trees, MacDonald to your right,

Carmichael to your left.  Imagine being forced to look,

 ...

Chantal Gibson

susiya