By Mag Gabbert
A teacher once said chaos touches everyone, so that became my refrain.
Did we want to lose all we had…
Did we want to lose all we had…
Explore Poems: Ghazal
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- By Hari AlluriWhere are you now? Must we say farewell tonight? So many of us wonder.
God sobs in my arms, a wounded gazelle tonight. They stay for wonder.
Up in a pot of rice, up from a human zoo. Twisting, sleeping heads of... - By Dorianne LauxI can’t remember the first time I saw it, seems it was
always there, even with me in the womb, the moon.
It must have been night, above the ocean, making a path
on the waves, gilded invitation, the parchment moon.
Or the day... - By Danni QuintosSomeone yelled, That dog gonna end up in a pot of rice!
at Margaret Cho & she tells the story in her stand-up, as a joke.
When I waited tables, someone’s dad ordered flied lice.
Someone’s brother made a dog-meat-in-the-eggrolls joke.
In 1904, they... - By Rebecca FoustIt’s the same house, same rugs, same wallpaper, and bedroom repeating;
same dresser; same rocker. Same window and frame, repeating.
Same birds at the pane, same pots and pans, and—on the alarm clock,
the wall clock, the phone clock—the same time, repeating
each hour’s... - By Edil Hassanit is dark here & still you have al nur at your neck when fajr does not come
my body is the color of mourning / not dua or dawah / so I say let the day come
my body is fajr... - By Zeina Hashem BeckThe herons were no longer safe in the sky. They flew with prayer,
then fell to us. We hid them from the cats. What to do with prayer?
Decades after the civil war, we enter the sniper’s hole, sew
the sandbags, read words... - By Willie PerdomoWe used to say,
That’s my heart right there.
As if to say,
Don’t mess with her right there.
As if, don’t even play,
That’s a part of me right there.
In other words, okay okay,
That’s the start of me right there.
As if, come that day,
That’s... - By Tarfia FaizullahLice? My aunt once drew a comb through my hair steady;
she wouldn’t let what feeds on blood eat my inner tree.
Where now is the word for such intimacy? I know it still,
but all I see are jungles burnt of our... - By Jalal al-Din RumiTranslated By Brad Gooch & Maryam MortazWhere did the handsome beloved go?
I wonder, where did that tall, shapely cypress tree go?
He spread his light among us like a candle.
Where did he go? So strange, where did he go without me?
All day long my heart trembles like... - By Angel NafisKnow what the almost-gone dandelion knows. Piece by piece
The body prayers home. Its whole head a veil, a wind-blown bride.
When all the mothers gone, frame the portraits. Wood spoon over
Boiling pot, test the milk on your own wrist. You soil,... - By Yusef KomunyakaaSomebody go & ask Biggie to orate
what's going down in the streets.
No, an attitude is not a suicide note
written on walls around the streets.
Twitter stays lockstep in the frontal lobe
as we hope for a bypass beyond the streets,
but only each... - By Jamila Woodsbeverly be the only south side you don’t fit in
everybody in your neighborhood color of white hen
brown bag tupperware lunch don’t fill you
after school cross the street, count quarters with white friends
you love 25¢ zebra cakes mom would... - By Patricia SmithGotta love us brown girls, munching on fat, swinging blue hips,
decked out in shells and splashes, Lawdie, bringing them woo hips.
As the jukebox teases, watch my sistas throat the heartbreak,
inhaling bassline, cracking backbone and singing thru... - By Agha Shahid AliI’ll do what I must if I’m bold in real time.
A refugee, I’ll be paroled in real time.
Cool evidence clawed off like shirts of hell-fire?
A former existence untold in real time ...
The one you would choose: Were you led then... - By Kyle DarganName one revolution whose inception was unlike a fist.
Factions disparate, then tucked together—coiled like a fist.
Foreign policies are symbol languages—idiomatic, cryptic.
In America, nothing says "We desire peace" like a fist.
The heart is a one-man rave in the body's industrial district.
Blooddrunk... - By Anthony MadridIt is with words as it is with people: Actual beauty is rare.
We call things beautiful, not as such, but because of what they mean.
Because we commonly attribute beauty to whatever does us a favor,
We are reduced to puzzled despair... - By Luisa A. IgloriaAnd the high winds bore down, and the sky
built up that grey wall: derecho.
The taverns by the sea closed their shutters,
and the stands selling battered fries, derecho.
On the boardwalk, pieces of salt-water taffy, half-
eaten funnel cakes oozing grease and cream:... - By Kazim AliWith thick strokes of ink the sky fills with rain.
Pretending to run for cover but secretly praying for more rain.
Over the echo of the water, I hear a voice saying my name.
No one in the city moves under the quick... - By Marilyn ChinI.
I hate, I love, I don’t know how
I’m biracial, I’m torn in two
Tonight, he will lock me in fear
In the metal detector of love
Rapeflowers, rapeseeds, rapiers
A soldier’s wry offerings
He will press his tongue
Into my neighing throat
I can speak three dialects...