I am a Tuareg child.
My blue turban drowns me
in the waves of sadness,
then expels me
like seeds of ivory.
O! great Tin Hinan,
your brave knight
lost his way among...
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People
Raed Al-Jishi
Raed Anis Al-JISHI (poet, translator; Saudi Arabia) has published one novel, seven volumes of poems in Arabic and one, Bleeding Gull: Look, Feel, Fly, in English. Alongside a career as a writer, he teaches high school chemistry in his native city of Qateef. He is a feminist and human rights activist, and works on issues involving children and literacy.
Find Raed's Arabic social media (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook) at rabdaljishi. Below are links to his English accounts.
Author's Gallery:
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Since the night of shooting stars, the night of travail, the call to prayer calms me. Some people chant, “Hale Loya.” It was the last supper and the birth of a certain death. My... media_text
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I cannot recognize myself If I don’t wear me. Faces are deceiving without their masks, like that bleeding white gulf. media_text
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I am gambling in the Beirut night. I need two numbers melded together. I never asked any dice about its color, where it was made, or about its birthday in... media_text
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I stand near me Watching that man Come from the land far away. We have the same lisp In our tongue and in our memory. He went through me, And I didn’t notice He stole... media_text
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Their identikits are a mystery. I couldn’t recognize them by the reflection of the wind Nor by the sensors On my blind stick. They walked by me with sympathy. ... media_text
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Our cotton didn’t take the sun’s side anymore. The wrung-out sweat was not injected inside us as if a shiver of a poem’s smoke. We are the shaved-off sugar top And the... media_text
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The frozen water in my eyes, which was scratched by a cat of time is changing the spring I desire, my vinegary dreams, and the songs that love me into a one-... media_text
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And I see peasants singing along the milky road alongside a bull that didn’t know what a plow looks like. And beggars, desert sharpeners like a flock of cheating... media_text
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They vanished like our palm trees. Ancient open windows and old dreams. The city forgot their names while they held its memory in their soul like a candle ... media_text
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A flower carried carefully by the wind, the verses of the petals are the hymns of the morning. Time dreams about the flowing dew of intonation Like perfume touching her... media_text
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Unlike in Shakespeare’s verse, I felt the summer day. The sun burned my nocturnal wings and the wind tossed me away. My steps on the milky shore, my feathers in the sky ... media_text
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