‘Relax, my duck does not want to eat you’Flashes a t-shirt unreassuringlyAs a stiletto moves up past my neck.Jammed under the middle-stairs of a twoLayered train, I am left staring vacantlyAt a book with a nest on a bare deck I stand longing for the paper-tigersOf old, roaring the promise of inked flamesTo charm away these travails and rigours…

From wind-nudges we seek sanctuaryLike the tall aspens of song and legend,Like September leaves clinging to the tree,Like ashen shells of broken-eggs-to-be. Wind and Water, Fire and Earth,Build us waiflings a shield and hearth! From gazes that bore flinchlessly without endUpward, coreward into cringing skiesThat to fear-sogged lead baleful glares rend,We flee, crawl to the grey shadows to mend.

Listen, poet, said the cockroach, archingIts wings. I bring a truth for your chalice.The truth of the head I just crawled out from –Hist! You flee! Why are you not listening? I, said the poet, from behind a shoeFlailed uselessly at the sleepless maliceOf the insect, have no truck with truths. ComeNot nigh, o loathsome thing, or I slay you!

Booted figures prone in the snow,Like docile radishes stacked highIn a mud-and-blood puree goRolling into the ditch. We sigh, Vingt ans après. This season,Booted figures prone in the snowGrew the best rose of the region.Again. Those thrown and those who throw, Are now as then of flags that blowTrumpets of death on jagged scars…

I pick up each tomato and slice it through, bringing the knife's keen blade to rest against the soaked hand underneath. I exult in the knowledge that the red juice pouring over my skin is not my own blood. I drive the steel again and again through the yielding pulp, letting it touch my hand at the end, and the deep contentment of finding my skin whole afterwards tastes sweeter than the tomato itself.

In this sweet night of the moon I’m lovingThe darkness secretly suspendedIn stolen light’s revolutions.And as it dances on, I’m wondering,So is it possible to stay squatBarren grey rock, and still be loved? I am being nibbled down to nothingLike a bar of chocolate defendedOnly by good resolutions;And as I disappear I’m wondering,So is there a how-to app for that,To not turn swan, and still be loved?

In our brains the ‘if you want to succeedYou must work hard’ saws and adages they fitLike whip-toting consciences that feedOn the false promises, oft implicit Of a lasting happiness. Not the kindThat may soothe and cheer in an idle hourSpent feeding birds, but a thing you may bindWith chains of gold in a secret tower.

Laugh instead. Yawn wide as a plains riverThen slide off each tear like an elixirSalt four fingers in the freshly poured brineLay them on your head as you say ‘I’m fine’ But know:A prison made of gold and redChases you wherever you go Laugh in dread. Believe the unsaid, unmeantWhispers that say a forlorn dream is worth…

by Hibah Shabkhez

His shoe rolls into a wavering rowThe six worn red balls sprawling on the pitch,Waiting for the old man’s square drives to throwEach one into the net with a skill whichQuavers at fate a full kettle of rage The clouds, grass, birds, planes, flowers are all zoomedOut of eyes bent upon this one fiddle;In the trembling strands of the nylon-cageGlints the stark hurt of a being born doomedTo live laugh love greatly and win little 

The past grinds my nerves like cabbage set against a grater, like Tom turned into a mouse and Jerry into a cat, like sugar on fried eggs. Until yesterday we studied the present, and the one certain thing in this new lenguaje que hablo, aprendo, escribo was this: yo, and only yo may have verbs that end in -o. Él, ella, usted may find other letters to end on, -a and -e and whatnot, but they may not end their verbs in -o; and yo may end verbs no other way.

Something fastens around the story’s neckAnd chokes her back, throws her back on the deck Of fancy’s barque, in the claws of the dreadDemon Censura, who has at his beck And call myriad prisons. Those who fledHe struck down and battered, until one speck Of red remained, to remember the deadAnd enshudder the living. So each fleck Of story trembles for her own burnt headAs we, Fairy, salvage her from the wreck.

I have the list by heart now, and defyThe canniest interviewer to seeA single truth underneath the glib lie.     If there is truth left. The half-broke horse rears and chafes at the bit,Wearing out its wild will in sweat, untilIt cannot move unless the pain makes it.     If there is pain left.

You can’t be happy the bees are dyingEven though they sting not in self-defenceLike other insects, but with viciousnessAnd purpose almost human. You commence By glaring at the news, long to eraseThe grinning bee-coloured sun pointed west,That fuel of life that dips its head and says‘Remember me, earthling? Yes, I sting too But you pray for me to go on shining.’

The butterfly yearns to write a guide bookFor caterpillars who scorn her story;The deer whispers his death-dreams to the brookThat sings back of a hunter's creeping glee In unheeded gurglings. The spider weavesHer webs on the autumn-brittled branches,Vowing with her craft to keep the gilt leavesAlive to catch the dew. The sun staunches The wounds of the greying lemon-tree.

My blanket looks like an angry elephant, judging me for too much feed-scrolling. On the tiles in the wall, two faces form and unform: a cavalier with a pencil-moustache, his mouth open in shock, and an old lady looking upon me in amused consternation. They are identical in all the tiles, fading in and out in sync, a gallery of each kind of face like a snap chat filter or a card from a photomaton.