Philip Terman: Two Poems
our daughter
rubbing softly and deeply,
her knowing hands breathing
into the pain their love
Nasser Rabah: We Are Not Iron
We are not iron, O God, so that we can be melted down every year. We are not copper or lead that they fire among the armies and leave behind after the end of the war as mere ammunition and ashes.
Philip Terman: Too Much Already
Among the ruins, Nasser, dark in the shadows, hands gesturing in all directions. He speaks in a measured Arabic to the backdrop of rifles and bombs.
Philip Terman: Meeting the Swami
“Throw your karma in my basket,” it said.
Sahar Rabah: May the Language Do You Justice
Walking barefoot on the thorns
Of your nightmares
Nasser Rabah: On the Birthday of the War
When I return from the war, if I do,
don’t look into my eyes,
do not see what I saw.
Valerie Bacharach: Night, Descending
Night explodes in fractures of shining glass.
Sidewalks hold storefront fragments,
deadly crystals glitter,
almost beautiful with still-red blood.
Angele Ellis: Dances of Death | In Tango Below a Narrow Ceiling, an experimental young Syrian poet makes his book-length debut in English
What would happen in this vast dagger
If America stopped eating human flesh
For three days?
Riad Saleh Hussein: Like a Star in the Sky, Like a Buck in the Jungle
Here is a rock and two eyes
Here is a moon, there is a goose
And still there are more things I could not see
Philip Terman: On the Way to Get Chicken Wings We Listen to a Podcast About a Somalian Struggling to Come to America
Most of the others have turned themselves in.
But Abdi is in the basement with his brother.
Riad Saleh Hussein: from Destruction of Blood Circulation
But love letters become time bombs…
Where should I begin?
You said: start from the alphabet’s massacre!
Michael Simms: Here are the most popular Vox Populi posts of 2019
In 2019 Vox Populi published 751 posts, usually two per day, resulting in over 8 million views. Here is a list of our most popular posts in 2019 listed by category: poetry, personal essays, political articles, and art/music/cinema.
Philip Terman: Darwish and Amichai Share Poems in Heaven
the breath of their words
shaping the winds
across the deserts
of their homeland,
which is the same homeland
Iman Chahine Sharba: God of Dreams
God passed away empty handed
But with regret
And like a sly boy
Broke with his shoe
the last dry loaf of bread.
