Mukul Kesavan Freedom should have come in fifty-seven,a century after eighteen-fifty-seventwo centuries after Plassey’s fifty-seven,(which made our history rhyme with five and seven).But freedom came before its time,four and seven didn’t rhyme,the witching hour’s midnight chime,rang in twins before their time,conjoined twins before their time,in nineteen-forty-seven. Radcliffe carved the join and there was blood,that was… Read More Another Country
A Voice Against Oblivion: Zeina Azzam’s poem at Nakba commemoration ‘They’re really sweet, they don’t look Palestinian.’ GAZA casualties, live statistics (17,492 children killed so far) The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People convened a commemorative Panel Discussion “1948-2024: The Ongoing Palestinian Nakba” on 17 May 2024 in the… Read More “Write my name on my leg, Mama”
Running On Empty Lookin’ out at the road rushin’ under my wheelsLookin’ back at the years gone by like so many summer fieldsIn ’65 I was seventeen and runnin’ up 101I don’t know where I’m runnin’ now, I’m just runnin’ on runnin’ on empty(Runnin’ on) runnin’ blind(Runnin’ on) runnin’ into the sunBut I’m runnin’ behind… Read More Jackson Browne: Running On Empty (1977)
NB: May 15 is the eighteenth anniversary of my father’s passage into eternity. He died in the Research and Referral Military Hospital in Delhi on this day in 2007; and was given a military funeral at the Army cremation grounds. Scores of his old students, many of them senior military and service officers were present… Read More Street Cafe
Castles in the Sky: by A Flock of Seagulls I used to want to touch the sunBut it can’t be done, you can’t touch the sunI used to want to walk on the moonWhat a fool, I can not walk on the moon WhoaJust building castles in the skyWhoaYou never know until you try You… Read More Castles in the Sky
Robert S. Leventhal Lou Salomé was undoubtedly one of the most intelligent and articulate women of her era. Her own writing, especially her essays on sexuality and erotism, have value not merely in their historical reflection of the era in which they were written, but in their own right as documents of radical femininity in the… Read More Nietzsche and Lou Andreas-Salomé: Chronicle of a Relationship 1882
Sam Himself: La Paz I’ll ride into town on an old truck from JapanAcross a dead dust desert where the heat rots everythingThrough a cold sweat jungle where the leaves whisper the nameOf the first place I’ll lastI’m never gonna leave again When I go to La Paz to dieFor a while I’ll scale any… Read More La Paz
Song by U2 The sea wants to kiss the golden shoreThe sunlight warms your skinAll the beauty that’s been lost before wants to find us again I can’t fight you any more, it’s you I’m fighting forThe sea throws rock together but time leaves us polished stones We can’t fall any further ifWe can’t feel… Read More Ordinary Love
By Francisca Marques and Elizabeth Wells Mosab Abu Toha’s voice is smooth and melodic when he recites his poetry from his new home in New York. But when the Palestinian poet describes the people and the moments that inspired his writing, it turns raw with emotion. “We are breathing on the outside, but inside, we are… Read More ‘This is what it means to be from Gaza’: Poet captures people’s stories of life, love and loss
The above is the title of a prose poem in French by Victor Segalen (1878 – 1919) The English translation is followed by the original French (1922), below. The prose poem is cited by Simon Leys in an essay called The Chinese Attitude Towards The Past; in his book; The Hall of Uselessness. I am… Read More To the ten thousand years / Aux dix mille années
After the truth-shower 