Category: War

  • “Lady Jesus” and other poems by Arathy Asok

    They ask me questions I will not answer They have come to ask of me, Many answers they sought. They did not look at my breasts, Or between my legs. It was my eyes, And inside my head they probed. They put out their hands And broke open my skull; They looked in to see…

  • “Voices from Auschwitz” by Fiona Pitt-Kethley

    “Voices from Auschwitz” by Fiona Pitt-Kethley

    Voices from Auschwitz I Suitcases “Brown leather, nothing but the best,” he said, his family lived well. This sturdy case had been to Biarritz and back again. Its partner travelled with his son and wife, to Switzerland, stuffed full of jewels and clothes. They made it, just. My master stayed too long. That extra day…

  • “Dreams of a Happy Ending” by Farideh Hassanzadeh

    Dreams of a Happy Ending I throw my nightmare into your arms with all my shaking and sweat, but you stick your hand into my heart to pluck my boobs. I throw my fear of losing words into a book, but you throw your shirt on the clouded pages to let me know “It is…

  • ‘The House That Don Built’ by Kevin Higgins

    ‘The House That Don Built’ by Kevin Higgins

    “The sky is high / We shit on earth / We look up the sky / The earth gives birth / To our future”                                                              …

  • Alexander Cigale’s translation of Anna Akhmatova’s “Requiem”on Project Muse

    Alexander Cigale’s translation of Anna Akhmatova’s “Requiem”on Project Muse

      Alexander Cigale has retranslated Anna Akhmatova’s “Requiem” for Project Muse. I have been following the translation process for a while and I thought to add links here for readers of Akhmatova, including Cigale’s translations of Anna Akhmatova’s Minatures and a link to “Epilogue” from Requiem, Via Moving Poems EDIT: Alex Cigale has shared a…

  • An Excerpt from “Delicate” at MarsPoetica (HiRISE), Single Poems

    Delicate A sea snail, most precious egg, as if it had touched the ruby feather of a bluebird. A most precious thing, bird-egg-shattered, dust in my pores.   This excerpt from “Delicate” is © Christine-Elizabeth Murray. When we widen the lens, the bigger picture can be divorced from the reality that we think we may have…

  • ‘Tread Softly’ and other poems by Michael J Whelan

    DELIVERANCE In the orphanage a child cowers from cursing men outside. She wants to climb back into her dead mother’s womb and hide inside its warm, soft, un-edged safety, where no explanation is needed or reason to hide under splintered staircases or run the gauntlet to basement bomb shelters, existing minute to minute with strangers…

  • ‘Haft Seen’ and other poetry by Shakila Azizzada

    ‘Haft Seen’ and other poetry by Shakila Azizzada

    Once Upon A Time in memory of Leila Sarahat Roshani   Granny used to say always keep your magic sack tucked inside your ribcage.   Don’t say the sun’s worn out, don’t say it’s gone astray. Say, I’m coming back.   May the White Demon protect and watch over you. Oh, daughter of the dawn,…

  • Transverse threads; two women poets and Homer

    The weft of  Margaret Atwood‘s The Penelopiad is contained in and revealed through the chorus voiced by the twelve maids  hung by Telemachus (on Odysseus’ orders) just after the men returned from their manly adventures. Margaret Atwood runs the chorus line throughout her Penelopiad, the executed maids sing their songs at ten intervals in the book. I was…

  • ‘In The Hug of Arms’; An anthology by Mariela Baeva

    Thanks to Mariela Baeva for her legacy project In The Hug Of Arms , an anthology of writing dedicated to the child victims of conflict. I am honoured to be a part of this work with a poem that was initially published in a group called Two Songs of War and a Lyric, by the…