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from the article:

Nenia

In the Guarani language a young Paraguayan girl a sweet lament rehearses, singing, on her harp, like this, in the Guarani language:

“Cry, cry, urutaú, on the branches of the yatay; Paraguay is no more, where I was born, the same as you! Cry, cry, urutaú!

In the sweet city of Lambaré, happy, I lived in my cabin; then comes war, and all its rage leaves nothing standing in the sweet city of Lambaré.

Father, mother, siblings, Ay! All in the world, I have lost; in my broken heart only a savage sorrow; mother, father, siblings, Ay!

Beside a green ubirapitá tree, my love, who fought heroically in the Timbó, is now buried there, beside a green ubirapitá tree.

Ripping my white tipoy skirt I wear as sign of grief, upon that holy ground upon it, forever on my knees, ripping my white tipoy skirt!

They killed him, the cambá people, powerless to make him kneel; he was the last to leave from Curuzú and Humaitá; they killed him, the cambá people.

Oh heavens, why did I not die when, triumphant, my love embraced me, returned from Curupaití? Oh heavens, why, did I not die?

Cry, cry, urutaú, on the branches of the yatay; Paraguay is no more, where I was born, the same as you! Cry, cry, urutaú!”

“Sin Documentos” performed by Los Rodriguez.

source: https://palestineinsight.net/2019/09/21/do-you-sanction-whats-being-done-in-your-names-lahab-assef-al-jundi-2/

biobibliographical note:

Lahab Assef Al-Jundi was born and raised in Damascus, Syria.

After immigrating to the United States, he earned a degree in Electrical Engineering and discovered his passion for writing poetry. He published his first collection, A Long Way, in 1985.

The son of acclaimed Syrian poet Ali Al- Jundi, the younger Al-Jundi writes poetry, mainly in English, that transcends ethnic themes to address issues of universal significance. Both political and personal, his richly evocative poems reveal a refined consciousness, a keen perceptiveness, and a serious engagement with humane concerns.

His poetry has appeared in numerous literary publications and many anthologies including: In These Latitudes, Ten Contemporary Poets, edited by Robert Bonazzi, Inclined to Speak, An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry, edited by Hayan Charara, and Between Heaven and Texas, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye.

taken from: https://issuu.com/humanitiesnd/docs/231149_ostmag_fall14_between2worlds/s/11783461

from the article:

All I Have

I never carried a rifle On my shoulder Or pulled a trigger. All I have Is a flute's melody A brush to paint my dreams, A bottle of ink. All I have Is unshakeable faith And an infinite love For my people in pain.

from the article:

Song of Nezahualpilli [Excerpt]

(Thus perished Huexotzinco)

I am drunk, My heart, drunk: the aurora lifts, the zacuán bird sings, over the fence of shields, over the fence of darts.

Delight in it, you, Tlacahuepan, you, our neighbor, shaved-head. Drink the liquor of florid waters. On the shore of a current of birds, shaved-head.

Quetzal jade and feathers, stoned, destroyed, my great lords, death-drunk, there, in water’s grave, on the shoal, the Mexicas of the Magueyes region.

The eagle screams, the jaguar moans. Oh you, my prince Macuilmalinalli. There, in the province of smoke, in the land of red dirt, rightly, the Mexicas make war.

And I am drunk, I cuexteca My hair, like budding flowers, now shaved Again, and again, drinking flowering drink. Giving away precious florid nectar, Oh, my son, young, strong I grow pale.

Wherever holy waters reach, there, they are enraged and drunk, the Mexicas, with the flowering liquor of the gods. I remember now, the Chichimeca, for this alone, I mourn. For this, I weep. I, Nezahualpilli I remember now, He is only there, Where war’s flowers blossom. I remember him, and I weep.

“Rocío de Todos los Campos” performed by Natalia Lafourcade.

from the article:

Monday Song

You smoke, you fit in the ashtray too

You contemplate, turned off by the fire your home;

And you watch man betraying man eve of another day without morning.

(The betrayal, the one hand washing the other

as both spite the face)

“Coatepeque,” performed by Ricardo Cabrera Martínez.

from the article:

Survivors

We are alive this morning And are still here We cried a lot All night For those who wept and those who were killed But we are certain that hope is harder than despair We are alive Our sadness cannot be seen in the mirror Our names have lost two syllables And the souls of those who dreamt they were among us Three nights ago Are standing there waiting for us At the edge of the wind By the mountain top This is our thousandth night after a thousand After it will come a thousand and one nights The garden flew to the rooftop and the rooftop flew onto the neighbourhood's playground And the neighbourhood and the playground spread their ashes to ashes The envoys passed by and asked the killed and the killer Is it doomsday? Has the wolf made peace with the lamb at last? The sun is passing The moon is late The survival paths are filled with rubble and the mud of shame We will emerge fewer from every war We will emerge fewer from every peace From every freedom, prison, school From every dream Every road leads to us Every road leads to them And every winter and wheat field and plane We are alive this morning And are still here We cried a lot All night For those who wept and those who were killed But we are certain that hope is harder than despair And every time a candle fades We light up

okay ... denk mal an kinderkrippe, kita & hort: bawü kriegt nichts geschissen – alles teuer, zudem oft auch noch betrieben von sos kinderfick aka der kirche

gönne dir 1 blick nach meck-pomm: kinderkrippe, kindergarten & hort sind dort gratis > hinweis: das war nicht das werk der grünen, die dieser tage immer mehr machen auf gebräunt

from the article:

Cuba Unites Us

Cuba unites us on soil so foreign, For Cuban daybreak our love longs: Cuba is your heart, Cuba is my sky, In your book, my word, is what Cuba is.

“Guantanamera,” performed by Celia Cruz.

another great work by ahmad ghanim, not poetry: https://reclamationmagazine.com/2021/08/03/erased-perspectives-of-an-arab-american-family/

from the article:

The Night the Election Robs Palestinians is Afternoon in America

no, this isn’t about the 2016 election that I may or may not have taken part of —but that’s a story for another time— This is Bibi runs against Gantz: boy can’t take a loss, so we’ll do a re-election is what the running headlines should have read.

I want to run and find a way for the future to smother me with the hug of a mother reunited with her children at the border, and tell me, “These borders are in your head. You’ve made this whole story up. It’s okay. Here’s some medicine that’ll set your mind straight.”

But here we are.

I’m not at the polls for this one, even if I wanted to— even if the 4.75 million Palestinians wanted to. We are not at the polls, so where’s this democracy we hear of?

Here we are.

Bibi promised that if he is given more power than he has, he’ll annex (read: steal) the Jordan Valley. He showed us a map. Not much, eh? Tell that to the person who’s been watching the settlement fence get closer to her grandmother’s home, waiting for the day she receives an eviction notice in a language she can recognize but not read.

Here I am.

The night the election robs us is the afternoon for me in America. I’m sitting at my desk, calculating time for a colleague’s two-week notice, so we can throw her a party, and I’m writing this because I want to tell my colleagues that sometimes, I feel guilty for celebrating because sometimes —today is one of those times— my friends back home aren’t able to throw a goodbye party to their arrested/murdered/exiled colleague. It was last minute. And sometimes, I wonder if my home, the home I have conflicted feelings about sometimes, will land on a map one day, bartered and bargained for, in a language I never bothered to learn. I only learned the language of maps. Would that be the day my colleagues understand that my land is stolen, or would they tell me America is my second home, that I’m not really homeless?

from the article:

“Song, song of grief…”

Song, song of grief. What evil enemy reigns, Who annihilates us, who subjugates? Not one alone reigns over all, yet overall alone we’ll die But let it not be permanent Our misfortune. On their own Our tears flow

Like the rain, the reign. Must it be like this?

from the article:

Cardboard Dragons I

The afternoon is blue like his face. The day unceremoniously strips itself from the walls and the sun’s fever makes the building’s bones crack the only shelter (his only coat) is the noise and the hope of never waking.