Poet Ahmad Almallah

Poetry Markaz presents three poems from Ahmad Almallah’s recently-published collection, Border Wisdom, from Winter Editions. In his second book of poems, Almallah seeks a language that captures the afterlives of the mother tongue. This collection blurs the borders between languages, between the living and the dead, between presence and absence.

Ahmad Almallah

ARMS

the law is clear, an eye
for an eye, an ear for an ear:

arms hold hands, hands
hold arms: and the stone

is raised in the air, then
here and here: bones

break in images:
there there, calm yourself

down, and down again:
hunted, now you can

haunt: the shatterings
underneath purple flesh

the blood pulsing from vein to
vein, and the spills that stain

BORDER WISDOM

the world is not as bad as our
neighbors
made it to be that day—
we’ve seen worse days—
and how beautiful
they were, these days living
strife: how we loved everything about
not having to go to school:

I won’t describe the past for you,
I tell you I got held
at borders, I tell you I am
used to it, and what? What is this record
you play over and over: don’t get
used to it, you shouldn’t
it’s sad—I bow in recognition:

and after the long journey
from border to border, wanting
only piece after piece of these walls around me to start
breaking,
what does not getting used to it do for me?

SPRING, AN INTRUDER

the flowers:       almost
done with themselves—
green slowly taking
over, and passing
the usual block, one street
away:
the rust eating
window frames, chairs eating rust
by the door
and the wood
blackening,
mold—

inside is out:
everything we know
every bite we eat
begins
to consume us.