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South African
by Michael Cope
South African girls are more scantily clad,
Scantily clad;
Scantily clad;
South African girls are more scantily clad.
It may be the heat
Or it may be a fad
But they're out in the street
With skirt at mid-thigh
They're completely complete
On their shiny-shaved legs which are perfectly clean
They've just stepped out
Of a girls' magazine
With pimple-free skin
And deodorized pad
South African girls are more scantily clad.
South African men are more lightly attired,
Lightly attired;
Lightly attired;
South African men are more lightly attired...
Safari-suit trousers
Stretched tight on the bum
(Triangle of chest,
Small flash of tum.)
Hairy legs stretching from flank down to shin
South African men are all hair and skin.
Which begins to explain
(With a wink and a grin)
Why South African men are so highly desired:
South African Men are more lightly attired.
South African girls means girls that are white.
Got that all right?
Girls that are white.
Which means girls that are rich.
(A statistical cert
That that whispering skirt
Is fresh off the peg
Or else ironed by the maid.)
And although each limb
Is so finely displayed
South African girls are often afraid;
But they know that not thinking
Will make it all right...
South African girls means girls that are white.
South African men crack their voices like whips
Voices like whips
(There's a sneer on their lips)
South African men crack their voices like whips.
Authority's bluster
So wholly endears
These men to themselves
That it smothers the fears
That slither like serpents
Through the rooms of the lives
Of South African men and their manicured wives.
But when, in bright daylight
Complacency slips
Their hands creep down to the guns on their hips.
South African men crack their voices like whips.
They pounced at dawn
by Ismaciil Mire
Honestly, my wife, not one of my forefathers
Nor I have ever once traded with money.
Our ancestors always had camels,
And I got my share from the camel raids.
Only once I ventured where my father never went.
I loaded the camels; it took four nights to reach the village.
The minute I got to the gate of Burco with my goods,
The brokers pounced as if they knew I was coming.
As dawn broke, the sheepsellers set upon us.
Godless men gathered against us.
I was struck dumb when they prodded the sheep.
'It's worth this much', 'No it isn't', they haggled bluntly.
Their squabbling distressed me.
I trusted the man with the squint but he cheated me.
They tried to placate me with less than four shillings,
While I watched the hands that swindled me.
As for the sheep you're all asking about, they are now with men
Who deserve to be strung up on thorns by their heels.
All I was left with was rags and a stick.
Some men know more about money than me. Ask them!
Translated from the Somali by Martin Orwin
Two
by Toon Tellegen
Two people.
One is nice, the other is nicer.
One fishes up the truth,
the other fishes up the truth and wrings it out.
One hides, the other hides and is unfindable.
One falls, the other falls and gets up again and falls again.
One clings to the other,
the other clings to the one and scratches him, bites him,
takes him by the throat, doesn't let go.
One thinks of his beloved,
the other thinks of his beloved and of the world
and of the congruity of things and of St. Augustine
and of fires blazing high.
One is alone,
but as alone as the other
only a dog can be, in a kennel, pining away.
Translated from the Dutch by Judith Wilkinson
The Familiar Back of Your Hand
by Charlotte Fairley
The familiar back of your hand
blots beer from your mouth,
but does not disguise the message
a big chunk of change wasted.
Your medallion eyes
chase a blonde at the bar
while the smoky jukebox tunes out
a lament for country love.
My wet glass
prints Olympic rings on the table,
and I think of champions.
Drink till you love me.
When You Are Away
by Vincent E. Monroe
Morning rain makes mud.
Red, yellow, white tulips laugh.
The dog wags her eyes.
Future Statesman
by Vincent E. Monroe
Nervous child, plain, dull
Plays games with bugs and green toads.
Blue bears wait for him.
A Poppy
by Peter Howard
We went into a village where violets had just broken
out.
Snipers were exchanging samphire,
and there were scenes of carnation everywhere.
I saw someone running with a bunch of live geraniums.
Suddenly there was a burst of chrysanthemum,
and honeysuckle crackled along the hedgerows.
Children were covered in crocus and bluebells;
there were old men waving ancient ivy.
Those unable to arm themselves with daffodils
made do with tulips, cyclamen, anything they could lay their hands on.
Then we heard that a buttercup had landed on the hospital.
We rushed to the scene: patients were emerging, dahlia and lilac,
some with periwinkle or lesser celandine.
It was jasmine. All I could think was "Is there no myrtle?
When will common hawthorn prevail?"
But there was nothing we could do but willow and broom.
By the end of the day there were hundreds lying on makeshift beds of
roses.
Lamium,
Pyracantha, Euphorbia gorgonis,
Viola tricolor, Aconitum napellus,
Amaranthus caudatus,
Yucca aloifolia, Yucca gloriosa,
Salix babylonica,
Artemisia.*
And afterwards the generals awarded themselves petals.
(* Deadnettle, Firethorn, Gorgon's head, Heartsease,
Helmet flower, Love-lies-bleeding, Spanish bayonet, Spanish dagger,
Weeping willow, Wormwood)
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Enmity
by Peter Howard
Two clumps of daffodils stood glowering
Like rival gangs, boots superglued, across
The lawn and hurled mute insults. Each stem strained;
Each trumpet thrust a V-sign of contempt.
For two whole weeks their futile hatred grew.
Then some collapsed, as if a stomach punch
Had crippled them. The paler lot still stood,
Were crumpled, battered, but victorious,
Were not magnanimous. In old age, spite
Was concentrated. Senile vitriol
Spewed from their pursed and toothless mouths: the cries
Of raving genocidal partisans.
I cut their heads off, and they looked surprised,
Affronted, while the others watched and jeered.
Ameritosterone
by Gregory G. Graham
We are Americans,
thick and through and throughout
and we are FAT.
The Mice of Thrice, minus one
sometimes we even disgust ourselves.
Fecaphelia and urinary tract infection
i'm burning trees and forests and birds.
The television has told me to wear a wig,
and so i wear a wig.
the television has told me my originality is unoriginal
and so i'm unoriginal, and worthless and solid.
What is the definition of coy?
"Sarcastically hoity toity... almost."
i can think of no more meaning to anything
or anything more to say
and i've never been happier...
but that's no way to end anything,
and this has been entirely pointless.
On Retrospect, Tooth Decay, and Cancer Removal
by Gregory G. Graham
She was fucking me all along,
not the other way around.
She was leading me on and lying,
not the other way around,
or at least I was doing it consciously.
Her insecurity was biologically sound
and sexually transmitted.
She expected too much
and hid behind a mask of strength
and stubborn belligerance mistaken as pride.
She chewed at the beams supporting my smile
until it collapsed and exposed my rotten teeth.
She was the sugar that rotted them,
oh so sweet and insectfully attractive.
Today was a painful day
remniscent of her touch
and smell
and kiss
and hair
and skin
and breasts and breath
and embrace
and everything I'll never stop missing about her.
But it's the pain you have to go through to stop the inevitable infestation.
The scalpal cuts the skin and cuts the tissues and membranes,
but it's all a means to an end.
There'd be more pain in the long run without this current
in the here and now.
Runon sentences are becoming more than I can bear.
Illiteracy is running rampant.
This country is my mouth and these people are my teeth.
And at the core is cancer,
and the terrorists missed.
Fruit of the Flower
by Countee Cullen
My father is a quiet man
With sober, steady ways;
For simile, a folded fan;
His nights are like his days.
My mother's life is puritan,
No hint of cavalier,
A pool so calm you're sure it can
Have little depth to fear.
And yet my father's eyes can boast
How full his life has been;
There haunts them yet the languid ghost
Of some still sacred sin.
And though my mother chants of God,
And of the mystic river,
I've seen a bit of checkered sod
Set all her flesh aquiver.
Why should he deem it pure mischance
A son of his is fain
To do a naked tribal dance
Each time he hears the rain?
Why should she think it devil's art
That all my songs should be
Of love and lovers, broken heart,
And wild sweet agony?
Who plants a seed begets a bud,
Extract of that same root;
Why marvel at the hectic blood
That flushes this wild fruit?
Identity Card
by Mahmoud Darwish
Put it on record.
I am an Arab
And the number of my card is fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the ninth is due after summer.
What's there to be angry about?
Put it on record.
I am an Arab
Working with comrades of toil in a quarry.
I have eight children
For them I wrest the loaf of bread,
The clothes and exercise books
From the rocks
And beg for no alms at your door,
Lower not myself at your doorstep.
What's there to be angry about?
Put it on record.
I am an Arab.
I am a name without a title,
Patient in a country where everything
Lives in a whirlpool of anger.
My roots
Took hold before the birth of time
Before the burgeoning of the ages,
Before cypress and olive trees,
Before the proliferation of weeds.
My father is from the family of the plough
Not from highborn nobles.
And my grandfather was a peasant
Without line or geneaology.
My house is a watchman's hut
Made of sticks and reeds.
Does my status satisfy you?
I am a name without a surname.
Put it on record.
I am an Arab.
Color of hair: jet black.
Color of eyes: brown.
My distinguishing features:
On my head the 'iqal cords over a keffiyeh
Scratching him who touches it.
My address:
I'm from a village, remote, forgotten,
Its streets without name
And all its men in the fields and quarry.
What's there to be angry about?
Put it on record.
I am an Arab.
You stole my forefathers' vineyards
And land I used to till,
I and all my children,
And you left us and all my grandchildren
Nothing but these rocks.
Will your government be taking them too
As is being said?
So!
Put it on record at the top of page one:
I don't hate people,
I trespass on no one's property.
And yet, if I were to become hungry
I shall eat the flesh of my usurper.
Beware, beware of my hunger
And of my anger!
Translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies
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