Anvil Tongue Presswork: October 2021

Friday, October 1, 2021

Three Poems, Biko Eisen-Martin

cuffed to myself in amerikkka

In a 9 by 5

With 9 men

Who do not like being touched

A killers snarl has turned sad frown

An addicts high has turned on him

The brothers in red feel more Jamaican than Blood

For that I am happy

Craving cigarettes more than freedom

Craving solitude more than family

I smile when we finally become silent

I count 3 times I have been cuffed to a stranger

In new orleans

The police made a 3D NEGRO power point

Plucking us off the sidewalk and pinning us to brick

A human grid selling their power

And trying to not scratch our faces on the wall

As we breathed into brick

You know City shit

Fuck my wrists

Sorry bruh

Maybe if I hold up my arm like this

Yeah thats good, thank you

The man cuffed to my other arm refused to return my gaze

Ashamed of our shame

Stacked , divided and pulled apart

Like a paper cut out of a man

Maybe we are the same man

Maybe it was just me divided

Grabbing our limbs out of the crowd like were the same person

Katrina waters lowering slow

And somehow sliming up our backs

An hour against the wall

And not one of us asked why

New York City

That cloud of smoke aint mine

You lying

Where you hide it

I deny it

Still lined up again

Flayed against the precinct wall

This time I’m cuffed

To my brother

And he got a pig

To call every pig

That passes us prisoners

Yeah you pig

And we

Like kids holding hands before lunch

This station looks like an elementary

Same calendar on the wall

Height marks to my left

How many young men have grown tall in this building

My brothers vehemence is leaving his body

The clock is starting to tic like a weight

I keep my arm straight so he can wipe his tears

I got two cigarettes

Two hours to live

Here

You keep that for later

Share a whole smoke with the condemned

Remember when we were cuffed together

I didn’t know your name

Just that the concrete wouldn’t do your back justice

Knew that crime is subjective in america

But cops and robbers is black and white

So is brotherhood in these nights

Where being alone can cost you your life

Cost you your light

Hey lil brother

I know you sick but if you don’t wake up you gonna choke on your own vomit

You wanna live I promise

Get this man some water

Get this man some help before he dies in our cell

Have they even counted how many of us are in this cell

Hey youngin, this must be your first time in hell

8 years old in frisco

was my first time cuffed to a stranger

I was cuffed to myself

I wasn’t the child they were putting cuffs on

Though I could feel him by my side

It was the other me

My American reflection

But my invisible little wrists couldn’t break free

I was cuffed to me

My body not far from school

Not far from love

So I know I was

I was there

The metal digging

Into my little wrists

My head throbbing

I wanted to cry

Watching my body split

Watching time split

Every minute had a second

Watching the lines blur

Like as if water had beseted the story of my life

And the ink was doubling on the page

Each letter becoming two

One strong and one blurred out the line

I stepped out of the cuffs a blurry vision of myself

Expendable , detachable , a new definition of time

Still trying to find the me that didn’t make it out of those cuffs

But that page is gone

Just ghosts now

Wondering cells

Stacked against history

Still holding my hand

Yes I feel you close

Trying to unspilt me

A million of us

Leaving our shadows to take to the streets

Is this the capitol

Or is this the ghost of a city?

Is this a country

Or is this a land handcuffed to a white supremacy

A blackness conceived by white

And Cuffed to it trying to matter

I think we confuse this country for a ghost we never knew

A handcuffed child who will never be free here

The Death of Jamal Sutherland

Commercial break

Skip add in 5 4 3 2 Skip Add

We cant open the door

He’s refusing to cuff up

Taking an aggressive stance

He’s already said we have to use force on him

Hallelujah

Co captain gray

Judge stating he has to be in front of the judge

Medical on stand by

Hallelujah

Does he still have the spoon in his hand

He still has the spoon in his hand

Hallelujah

You see what’s taking place here

Drop the spoon and come to the door

I’m God’s child

Drop the spoon and come to the door

I’m God’s child

Calm yourself down

(Chemical spray) sssssssssssssssssssss

Do what you gone do

Sssssssssssss Damn you got another one of those

Come to the door so I can get you out of there

Drop the spoon and come to the door

Damn I got it in the eye

Come to the door

Com e to the door

Hey come here

Coughing

Hey turn around

Turn around

Knocking

Turn around

He’s trying to wrap a blanket around his head

Cough

Soon as you come out it’ll get better

Coughing and giggling

What do you want from me

Come to the door

For what

Take that off your head and come to the door

What do you want from ME

What do yall want

Come on cuff up

Drop to your knees

Drop down to your knees

Take that off your head and drop to your knees

Take the blanket off your head

Blessing to me

Blessing from god

Hallelujah

Beeping

Coughing

Drop the blanket come to the door

Coughing

Get down Sutherland

Get down on the grown

Get down sutherland

Get down

(Walkie talkie) smu , smu

(Shot of something fired)

Moans and groans of pain

Get on your stomach

Turn on your stomach

Your gonna get another one

Come to the door

Stay on your stomach

come to the door

Stay on your stomach

Come to the door

I can’t stand up

Keep coming

Keep moving

Stay down and slide

What’s the meaning of this

Turn on your stomach

For what?

Thats as far as I’m turning

Keep turning

Thats as far as I’m turning

Do not resist

I’m not resisting officer

Turn around

Officer

(Taser)Zzzzzzzzzz

AAHHHHHHHHHuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Hey

Aaaaaahahhhhhhhhuuuuuuuuuhhuuuuuuuu

Zzzzzzzzzzz

Stop

Stay down

Shouts

Aaaahahhahahahahahahhahah

Put your hands behind your back

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Aaaahahahahahahahahahahh

Ahahaha

Hands behind your back

Haa

Put your hands behind your back

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Didn’t resist

I didn’t resist

Get that hand

Get the cuffs on him

Coughs

(Walkie talkie) go head, can u give me a talk (Beep)

Give the other hand

Give me the other hand sutherland

Give the other hand

I’m not resisting

Give me your hand

I’m not resisting (with tears )

Give me your hand

I cant breathe

I’m bleeding

Give your hand

You need another pair ,

You got it , yeah , lock it , your good, were good

Slide him out

I can’t breathe

Aha

Lets just slide him out

Stop resisting!

Stop

Ahhha

Shit , thank you , cough ,

Take em up to the chair

Get on that side and sit him up

Hey will you check him

Will you check him

Is alright

He’s not breathing

Hold on

He’s not breathing

For Ma’Kiah

There are some of us who are remembers

The police celebrated Chauvin’s guilty verdict with a gunshot

Left a 15 year old girl dead in the street

Memorializing the act of killing

Pumping blood into the veins of a giant

That stomps from sea to shining sea

The sun never sets on their trigger fingers

The night gives no rest to our children

I don’t need to watch the news

The gunpowder in the air tells the story

The city is named after one of the most gory villains

To give glory to white supremacy

Columbus Ohio they call it

Full circle

Their bullets travel in time

Whiz around the planet

Children falling before they can call their mothers

My little sisters and brothers

It took 400 years from Columbus’s arrival

For the Haitian revolution

To knock imperialist off the land Columbus stood

It better not take 400 years

For us to revolt again

To get these killer police

Of stolen land

Where they murder children and go home to their children

So they can grow old and kill our children again

My little brothers and sisters

I remember the first time I was accosted by the police

I don’t remember the second, tenth or 100th

Can’t tell you how many times I had to force my pride into my stomach

Face dirty on the concrete

Praying I’d make it through another search

Don’t get used to that hurt

Swallowing your words is like swallowing your teeth

Sharpen your mind

Until your bite is strong enough to take back these streets

Its going to take every one of you

To turn history inside out

To alter the trajectory of Columbus’ legacy

To alter the trajectory of San Francisco

No trial will bring back the Ohlone

No poem will bring back MaKiah Bryant

The black Jacobins defeated the French with self love and machetes

Why they feared her with a knife

I see Erzuli Dante dancing in the sky

Teaching spirits how to yield a sword

Before forming in their mothers wombs

All wounds return as warriors

Saints, No longer confused

that christendom will never be christlike

Angels need the living to protect them

To speak their names day and night

Another black future destroyed to keep Columbus white

To celebrate Columbus

And every life

White supremacy will claim to remain on the throne

Leaving piles of bones on our corners

For mothers to sort through

Because not every victim gets a news cycle

Just a noose rifle while their killers parade

Meet me under the plantation

We are sharpening blades

The one Ma’kiah Bryant was holding is around my neck

The one Mario Woods was was holding

I’ll use to carve our names in the cliffs of ocean beach

They will remember the last 3%

Before they try to sweep us under history

Don’t ask me why I am wearing a pigs head on my head like the online wore deer

If you know you know

Either we grow or become bones

1492 has turned into a millennium

But revolutionaries are perennial

And its time for black eyed pees

Its time for another Haitian revolution

With the whole diaspora up to speed

Put some revolutionary news in the air to reads

Until the sun sets on the giant

And our babies can sleep

Born and raised in San Francisco, Biko was immersed in art and radicalism by a single mother who empowered him to use his voice, his body and art to not only overcome struggle, but to uplift others. As a youth Biko performed poetry nationally with Youth Speaks including the Youth Against War conference in Bosnia. At Brown University Biko earned a BA in Africana studies and a Masters in Teaching. After teaching history at Berkeley High and performing locally in the Bay Area, Biko went back to school and earned an MFA at the National Theatre conservatory. Biko has performed Off-Broadway and at the top regional theaters*. Film/TV credits include AMC's "Dietland", Amazon's “Modern Love”, Starz’s “Ghost” and several shorts, including "Buck", which premiered at Sundance 2020.

Three Poems, A. K. Toney

JAZZ ORIGIN SELF

Am a jazz player

Player forward on

Bringing swing back home

Straight ahead zone (twice)

My Jazz was a transference of energy

From spirit hands that rode horse and felt the needles

It was handed like wooden stick and spark from sound of metal

The bell left a timing in me that gave Griot to poetry

It clapped like slaps from palm to tight animal skin

It rang as twangs from ngoni strings singing melody

It swings rapidly as brushes to sock hat from snare wear

We were on wax before vinyl with no origin of difference

It came from keys on saxophone pushing me as horn to high

It came from those traps like nigger boys need to beat things

It came from that cool cigarette between fingers after laying hand on instruments

The testimony was a sermon, that was more than holy

It was a club ceremony of sanctuary

The sanctified gave house and put their hands together praising

They smoke papa loco as itations

They drank libations in honor of the sound

They speak easy in a house of Juke Swing big band quartet

Blues given like communion sloe gin…

Come from a place where they line up at Church

To listen for an Arkestra because they couldn’t hear the piano Saturday night

Came to the crossroads of music when predecessors passed on…

Had to pay homage to Ancestors by playing own rhythms

With the stories of them validating legacy

MOTHER OF BLACK STUDIES

(For Sarah Webster Fabio)

Prof. Fabio,

Miss you and never met you…

How do you become Mother of Black Studies?

How you speak like whisper that make nigga shake out?

Make you never know that word from your tongue…

She tells me,

“You gotta slap back time and find yourself

Steal what you can and use the last little bit of it…

Use your blues jazz soul hip hop be bop classical Africa

To let the people, know where it come from…

Grab your Licking Stick and cook up some wild

On what don’t know about Folkways Records

Jujus/Alchemy of the Blues Juke Joint sounds that

Birthed funkadelic starship chitlin’ circuit street”

Our Betty Davis of Poetry

She became penetration of infiltration

Slipped in real coolie…

Slick and so wet that others couldn’t touch her

And if they did, they got wet and slick

Then she was just there…

Now everybody was real cool…

I Would Be for You Rain…

She became the reign of all these that have forgotten her

Never acknowledged, never known Black World

Or Dialogue Between Two Messengers of Peace

We miss you Griot Fabio and never knew your voodoo

How you kept the souls of Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles,

Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Margaret Walker, and Langston Hughes, inside of yourself…

You gave us Glimpses of retro get down noise pains of words that

Were Timbuktu, Cleopatra, and slaves that overcame

Through rhythms and story and showed us a good time

With that oral timing that drums need from your harmony

Lonely is an Independent, alone is the child that has their own, you are the end that means…

Miss you and never met you

Mother of Black Studies

Ashe. Prof. Fabio. Ashe.

VIEWS ON THE VIRUS

COVID19 is a stupid teen, believing the world is flat,

Accepting truth being alternative facts, walking around a party,

And then got the nerve to be racist…

Remember in Africa, when wearing a mask

Was worn for ritual and for purpose or ceremony…

Now everyone everyday around the World

Must do that ritual and no one can ever forget the purpose…

Or lest we attend ceremonies via zoom

Since when did vaccination become discrimination?

The number one predator on the food chain doesn’t eat

It just kills…

A nonliving invisible that can’t be seen by the naked eye

Lurking as a parasite moving from host to host

Serving suffering because we wouldn’t listen…

That stupid teen has become a fraternity sorority known as Delta

Excuse me, my bad… Delta+!

A little extra, a little faster, easier contagious

Three-week time limit if you can make it…

My personal vaccination came with

Hand sanitizer, double mask, keep my social distance,

And for Life’s sake! Isolate.

A variant of a variant from a strain to a virus…

It only becomes dangerous when Humans become

The Independent Variable that is introduced…

Hypothesis: Unpredictable and instability

Results of Conclusion: Non-conclusive, due to ignorance, non-subject compliance,

And no supportive evidence to convince variables for immunity herd.

(Yet the facts are substantial and real)

Get your twenty-twenty vision fixed

Receiving a negative test for the virus is the most positive gift…

People stop being Pe-ople-less!

A. K. Toney is a Griot, writer and educator. He currently is a Literacy Coordinator, Artist teacher and owner of Reading Is Poetry. He is currently working on his first book and album chronicling his life as a poet in the Leimert Park Village area in Los Angeles, CA.

Three Poems, Rubino del Sur

September

We have to bypass thought to think

Who’s sleeping in our mind.

Do something warns the empty thought

September overwhelms.

Against these harbingers stands Pentagon,

Millennium and Tribulation one,

in the warehouse of the mind

to reconstruct bete noir.

The kings of Pentagon mass corp

the state of new techniques

To disenfranchise bardo

and entertain the elite.

When new conquerors took control

Of the subclade Scales below

Imperials debated how,

to Incompleteness close.

UN Prisoner Transfer cars

resettled to the east

the Unity State of new techniques

in an animated cargo of beasts.

Guns in the belt, one under the chair,

guns in the fridge and in bête noire

Scientificos would CRISPR you

To Lunch with Baal Peor.

Sheol is bigger from reflux!

Eyes ope’ and ears can hear

In the old warehouse of the mind

the expansion of Sheol.

Days before the Floods we thought

to topple kings of war

before Impossibilities taught

do not be one with the world.

Indian, Irish, German, Black

against the English caught,

Christian between new life and flesh,

Knew it as we walked. That’s all.

Up Headless Mountain

When we look at headless mountain

We see the topknot shows.

Let's ride the mirror to the back of it

For the face is the mask of an eye shown through.

We raise a tongue for the eyes that watch

In the hunt for elk and quartz,

The head remains in disembodied earth.

The face of mountain is a mask

That hunts for ear and eye.

Ichabod Crane has a shoulder there

Where twists the pie bald sky.

Not really Danes, cold mouths devour

a rooster tail stuck to its mouth.

The rock towers ask, "enemy or friend?"

But neither answers in words we understand;

This is what the angel spoke to Joshua and Joshu then.

Another asks, where are you hiding mule deer

Among bone world-flushed xylene pumps,

in a pile of cans or in a stream full of sin?

Oil and gold ask, what is wilderness?

I will tell, wilderness glistens beneath a bear

which opens its mouth. Its tail is a crowd

of bones in subway tubes. Come and capture.

Pierce the nose! This is a bronze

wake-wild worn underside that leaves a trail.

Think the waves are cedar trail?

Make a treaty when you lie down

on a leash for your girls that tongue,

fire it down a row of shields,

Harpoon the head you mountaineers!

strip off its coat, take light as your own.

"Where are you, I am looking."

Rock against fish, consumption against Fox.

Civilization's no ranch or flesh,

but a four wheel shop and not-mine dump to hunt

the Wild Crowd. Behemoth, warm and bored in bed

lassoed saguaros, shot and hung to dry,

Bodies were everywhere in the spirit wild.

Design the crotch? "Never!"

Heavy prairie is a letting go.

Do not leave a footprint

Or pretend the prickly eyes of Saguaro.

There were a hundred versions and not one remains.

That's when Opiomes was formed.

Visions of the Starchitect Hotel is its first real.

We're blaming Coleridge for the Trojan Horse

formed of spit by Poseidon, out of dread locks.

Trojan, like Pegasus, retains the Severed Head.

Pegasus and his brother Chrysalor made with spit

the moment Perseus severed Medusa

arrived at the Denver Neptune cave,

home of the Broncos and Trojan Bats, so there was that.

Pegasus and Mustang Sally these two once one,

so one became two, and myth

might dearly seek the spit of Jonathan Swift.

2nd ed Early Tattooed High Govt Habit Swine Fry Release

Do not believe the United Ants

Had too much sunny aluminum today?

What you see in the mirror grid flower,

Ferret the grid where the woodpeckers hover

but there are big black bumbles too and gold

where the peckers are pecking.

They peck on the knot in your brain,

the Russians, the woodpeckers and dudder physics,

little godlings hatching in the grid,

scalar dynamics too wrong to be soon to be changed.

Destroy the woodpecker nest in the conifer off grid.

A menagerie of woodpeckers and gophers attack the poles

of experimentation and mop up the slabs.

In the 2nd ed release of early tattooed high govt

Grasshopper Grid swine flu fry brain

Trigger gibber code, human tape recorder video,

Freedom of Thought Information mutilation dreams,

nouns and verbs cut off piece by piece,

basis of dissociation beaten MMPI

made him a hyno-program courier.

An NLP toolbox stolen from microwaves,

gravity down magnetic hypothesis,

post, recall, bank to left of right,

sales technique final, news interview tonight.

"How does it feel during the search and misdirection?

Did it rain? Did you not remember the command?

There the beginning electronic dissolution of memory

Was erased, fed back two dimensional tactile kinesthetic.

Navy assassins of any rising politician that got the flu,

With psycho science give the second signal now.

Project One Hundred Thousand codes,

Eureka replaced Mind Control.

Hypno-programmed NLP defense,

Adversity therapy, Eureka pleasure center.

In the war against imagination George Romney, Jack Ruby,

National Security, Dept of Energy, fusion energy,

General Atomics, fusion orbit, spider web satellite tech,

quarantined pygmy speech, red herring each

fake Grey abduction and stun gun amnesia,

Screen scrambles, ritual deficit disorder

As armies scramble MPD military hypno-courier.

Military passified spychiatrists,

Delta Force Waco code trigger verse,

cure phobia in 10 minutes, dissociate and look.

Brain tuner, sound color, monarchist psychocivilized soc,

needles through skull, Parkinson's, magnetic manipulate EMR,

TP, test person, Mendocino Mental.

Janet Reno, Anthony Robbins,

Had a meeting of the mind brainwash,

patsy hypno-programmed of Sirhan rapport.

Elsberg, Nixon, Leary cryptocrat,

presidential model entry to hypnosis.

Ear receivers, ping pong eyes, mad scientist white sound

drum and fire senses ever cease to civ.

All news, every station Crypotech,

Carl Nicholi, NSA stunt, repeal the Act.

Inalienable right, 2nd ed release early tattooed

high govt habit swine fry release the flu.

Rubino served time in the Pentonville Prison but was a model inmate so was released to continue his career in dentistry. His offenses were less known in the States and he is now in Antarctica at McMurdo. A citizen of three nations, born Argentine, made a British citizen through the British Penal Citizenship program at the model Pentonville, he served for various offenses in youth but which resulted in his admission to the practice. He continued his education at York and Sussex in jaw formation and hybrid and synthetic speech. After serving at Eau Claire Mayo, Denai, and Fukushima Prefecture he became a U.S. citizen by corporate contract, his third passport, and trained and disembarked to his present location where he combines all the above and he is taking courses in glacierology.

Three Poems, Onfwan Fouad (Translated by Dr. Yousef Hanna)

Caffeine time!

•

Coffee is drunk leisurely

Don't race the time,

If the cup of the moment cools down

Listen

to chatter of meaning.

•

Coffee

Sows caffeine

In the streets of thought,

Mind out the sidewalk

Flooding with grass.

•

Coffee

Leaking birds of sorrow,

long soaring

Into sky of the fourth eye.

•

Coffee

Combs the hair of anger,

Pulls up the scream

Lengthens the plait of heart.

•

Coffee

Is a naughty girl,

Breaks the jars of speech

At the seclusion door.

•

Coffee

Nostalgic foam

In the jug of absence.

•

Coffee

A hand of solace

Extending to you from beneath the shroud.

•

Coffee

Bridle of embers

Pulls the time horse.

•

Coffee

An old turtle

Anticipates the moon.

•

Coffee

A black word

Written in blank

Notebooks of worry.

•

Coffee is a soap of lethargy

Rubbing the nerve of valium with a dry laugh,

Somewhat similar to

dead cat.

كافيين الوقت!

•

القهوة تُشرب على مهل

لا تسابق الوقت،

إن برد فنجان اللّحظة

استمع

لثرثرة المعنى.

•

القهوة

تبذر الكافيين

في شوارع التفكير،

احذر الرصيف

الفائض بالعشب.

•

القهوة

تسرب طيور الحزن،

تحلق طويلا

في سماء العين الرابعة.

•

القهوة

تمشط شعر الغضب،

تشد الصرخة

تطيل ضفيرة القلب.

•

القهوة

طفلة شقية،

تكسر جرار القول

عند باب العزلة.

•

القهوة

رغوة حنين

في إبريق الغياب.

•

القهوة

يد عزاء

تمتد إليك من تحت الكفن.

•

القهوة

لجام جمر

يشد حصان الوقت.

•

القهوة

سلحفاة عجوز

تستبق القمر.

•

القهوة

كلمة سوداء

تُكتب في بياض دفاتر القلق.

•

القهوة صابونة الخمول

تُدلّك عصب الڤاليوم بضحكةٍ يابسة،

تشبه إلى حدٍّ ما

قطة ميتة.

مورفيـن الهمسـ

Paris mosquito

Mosquito in an open resort

Under the magnificent sun of Van Gogh

Sterilizing its needles of amino acids

Sewage pipes

drain Darwin's and Marx's Lectures into the Academy of Metaphysics

The flowing numbers through time faucets

are pouring into a sand basin

wherefrom fish of the desert have been extinct,

were caught by alive nets.

Paris mosquito,

embalmed,

begging for attention

She refused to snatch her wings

or install them outside the frame

In anticipation of a new task

I took out silver tweezers

And pulled out her eyes

Then I found out they were two blood jewels

The carved shell on the mirror

turned upside down

The earth exploded with sandy blossoms

The legendary bird entrusted with the clouds squeezing

Stirs the air inside his cavity

Red ants are been camping when the light is refracted,

smuggling genes into invisible eggs

Mosquito carry up over it

The dust of secret

To spread the cough sub form of ash pollen

The first emergence egg still

hatches at feet

of the forgotten tree.

بعوضة باريس

البعوض في منتجع مفتوح

تحت شمس ڤـان گوغ العظيمة

يُعقّم إبره من الأحماض الأمينية

أنابيب الصرف الصحي

تلقي بمحاضرات داروين وماركس في مجمّع الميتافيزيقا

الأرقام المتدفقة من صنابير الوقت

تسيل في حوض رملي

انقرضت منه أسماك الصحراء

كانت قد اصطادتها شِباك حيّة

بعوضة باريس

المحنطة

تستجدي الانتباه

رفضت انتزاع جناحيها

أو تثبيتهما خارج الإطار

تحسبًا لمهمّة جديدة

أخرجتُ ملاقط فضيّة

وانتزعتُ عينيها

ثم اكتشفتُ أنهما جوهرتان من دم

الهيكل المنحوت على المرآة

كان بوضعٍ مقلوب

تفجرّت الأرض بزهر رملي

الطائر الأسطوري الموكّل بعصر السحاب

يقلّب الهواء داخل جوفه

النمل الأحمر يتعسكر عند انكسار الضوء

يهرّب الجينات في بيوض لا مرئية

البعوض يحمل فوق فوقه

غبار السرّ

لنشر السعال على هيئة طلع الرماد

ما تزال بيضة النشأة الأولى

تفقس عند قدم

الشجرة المنسية.

عنفوان فؤاد/ الجزائر

(An accident near the head hole)

Bad things happen early in the morning

Other good ones come corrosively.

Well - as usual - I'll start with the bad,

I opened the window this day and found the nest upside down

To my surprise, I heard a cat meow

I looked inside and found the cat on the bed

Amusing himself with the remains of feathers stuck in his claws...

As for the good ones,

I never have a cat

My only cat died three days ago.

Another worse than good news;

is that I am in a dream.

The worst ever is

That I don't sleep.

- Bad margin -

While I am writing this text

A bird feather falls from my mouth

Manipulated by a weary breeze

Suddenly, an invisible being's meow sounded.

- Fuzzy margin -

There is no window in my inky place

I'm just a cellar

Devouring beings that see me.

عنفوان فؤاد

((حادث بالقربِ من حفرة الرّأس ))

تحدث الأمور السيّئة في الصّباح الباكر

وأخرى جيّدة تأتي بشكل متآكل.

حسنًا – حسب العادة – سأبدأ بالسّيئة،

فتحتُ النّافذة على هذا النّهار وجدتُ العشّ مقلوبًا

وسط الدّهشة، سمعتُ مواء قط

نظرتُ إلى الدّاخل وجدتُ القطّ فوق السّرير

يتَسَلَّى ببقايا ريش علق بمخالبه…

أمّا

الجيدة، فإني لا أملك قطًا

قطّي الوحيد مات منذ ثلاثة أيام.

خبر آخر أسوأ من الجيّد؛

هو أنني داخل حلم.

الأسوأ على الإطلاق

كوني لا أنام.

– هامش سيء –

وأنا أكتب هذا النصّ

ريشة عصفور تسقطُ من فمي

تتلاعب بها نسمة مرهقة

فجأة، صوت مواء لكائن غير مرئي.

هامش غامض،

لا نافذة في مكاني الحِبْرِي

فأنا مجرد قبو

يلتهم الكائنات التي تراني.

Onfwan Fouad is an Algerian poetess, translator, story writer and artist from Aures, the east of Algeria. She was a lawyer for seven years as she was a university instructor for many years. Her first published poetry book in 2017 « Godot's eating his fingers» was issued in Cairo by Dar "Hona"' ELLES. As she had issued many electronics books some of them: 1 _ « I See Him, He Doesn't See Me», 2 _ « With No Boredom, My Soul Wears Me». 3 _ « Let Me Burn Death ». 4 _ « Tomorrow, You Are Mine ». 5 _ «Among Hearts' Tombs ». 6 _ « I've Debted Sadness a Message ». Her texted works were translated to French, English, Spanish, Italian, German, Romanian, Kurdish and Amazighian. She has contributed in Haiku Anthology, and she is the first feminine who wrote Hippon in The Arab World. As she contributed in another Hiaku Anthology issued by Moment Britain. She is one of Surrealism pioneers in The Middle East and North of Africa.

Yousef Hanna, a Palestinian from the Upper Galilee who lives in Nazareth, is a doctor in Internal Medicine and has been practicing his profession for 37 years. Six years ago, he began translating poetry and literary texts from English and Romanian language into Arabic and vice versa, and is active in the translation room of the Surrealist group in North Africa and the Middle East.