#eastern poets

[hiyutekivigil]

latvian national museum of art

[yourdailyqueer]

George Abraham

Gender: Non binary (they/he)

Sexuality: Queer

DOB: N/A  

Ethnicity: Palestinian

Nationality: American

Occupation: Poet, writer

[mysticaltastemakerwitch]

Viggo Mortensen, my love 🌹

[mise-n-abyme]

"Through the initial workings of the mind, we have the ability to conceive of a reality which beholds the essence of an ancient spirit; expressing dutiful reckonings of Being through moments which reign endless teachings." ~Mise-n-abyme

|Artwork: 'Birth of Athena', Atalanta Fugiens —Michael Maier (17h century)

[thatqueeridiot]

"Have you ever wondered why people from all across the world have stories and paintings about dragons, all from the same time period. From Asia to Europe to Africa. These big lizards, some with fire breath, some with wings. It’s probably because they are real. There is no other explanation. But where are they, you might ask. Everywhere. And this is what would happen if they came back."

[bones-ivy-breath]

Kinder Than Miriam by Kajal Ahmad (tr. Choman Hardi)

[alchemisoul]

"As to the roaming of sages, They move in utter emptiness, Let their minds meander in the great nothingness; They run beyond convention And go through where there is no gateway. They listen to the soundless And look at the formless, They are not constrained by society. And not bound to its custom."

- Lao-Tzu

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Iman Mersal

Iman Mersal was born in 1966 in Mit 'Adlan, Egypt. Mersal has written five books of poetry and a book of essays. Her work has been translated into Spanish, French, German, Hebrew, Dutch, and English. Mersal's creative nonfiction book Traces of Enayat al-Zayyat won the 2021 Sheikh Zayed Book Award in Literature, and her book The Threshold was shortlisted for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize.

[aphroditeaintshit]

You could stab me in the chest and I'll still apologise for getting blood on your clothes.

[alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry]

I fled with my heart's

Roof torn open, blown apart

Excerpt from Wistful Music by Edward Said

[barbara-herself]

Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie: Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie, Kto cię stracił. Dziś piękność twą w całej ozdobie Widzę i opisuję, bo tęsknię po tobie.

O Lithuania, my native land, you are like health - so valued when lost beyond recovery; let these words now stand restoring you, redeeming exile's cost.

Adam Mickiewicz, "Pan Tadeusz", translated by Leonard Kress

Life in immigration is bittersweet. You experience what life has to offer in a more established country, and soak in the sea of opportunity as its waves crash over your youth. You say to yourself "this is what life is supposed to feel like - I can finally enjoy the mundane, everyday details of my life." The trains don't smell like piss, your alcoholic relatives are nowhere to be found and the heavy burden of centuries of repressions and occupation is left behind.

To live in a young country is hard labour. I was four years old when my country joined the European Union, so growing up we seemingly had everything all the other countries had. Yet the more you study history, the more you realize that your comfortable life is built on the deep, unhealed scars of the past. Almost everyone I know (who is old enough) was living in miserable economic and spiritual poverty merely half a century ago. The collective trauma and pain of a country reborn is a heavy burden to carry, and this is what a lot of Western countries take for granted.

Eastern Europeans are the most brilliant artists, poets, scientists, entrepreneurs, teachers and overall devoted and clever people, however it often seems like we are confined in a collective shame of being "worse" than other, more progressed countries. Lithuanians specifically have a hard time with cooperation and reaching out to other people for assistance. There's this unwritten pride of doing everything by yourself, no matter how much it destroys you, because history has shown us again and again that trusting your neighbour can be catastrophic.

I miss my home country in a way I miss my childhood - romanticizing the beauty of cherished memories, but also being painfully aware of the sorrow that was present. I know I cannot find happiness and be truly myself back home. I know that if I ever come back, I will put on a mask of a hyper-productive and successful young professional, completely losing sight of what I am in my heart.

Nevertheless, I miss the flower fields where I let my dog run free and where hares found shelter in the old tree stump by the river. I miss the Old Town, with its secret passages and artistic graffiti under the bridges. I miss seeing people - truly remarkable, talented people, working wonders for pennies, out of sheer love and passion for their craft.

I hope one day, I find my home within me and I can carry my memories proudly. For now, I can only dream.

[pugswithlasers]

from the girl to the salamander they met in 3rd grade:

i’m sorry i found you like that, half-crushed on the hiking trail at the beginning of autumn. sorry about the other kids who stepped on you, i’d like to hope it was an accident. sorry that the terry fox run went over your path that year, it’s unfair that it’s a day about surviving.

from the boy to the salamander:

i’m sorry there wasn’t a better option. i’m sorry that my parents run a farm, so i know when it’s too late. i’m sorry that the girl grabbed my hand and asked me to help, and all i could offer was the heel of my sneakers. sorry that a trace of your orange skin got stuck on my shoes.

From the boy to the girl:

i’m sorry i taught you something that day, that death is a way to solve anything. i’m sorry that i was right, that the salamander was already dead even as its limbs twitched in the mud. i’m sorry i kicked it down the hill after, i didn’t want to see it any longer.

From the girl to the boy:

i’m sorry that i looked at you like that afterward, all frightened and sick. i’m sorry i forgot about the kindness you offered, seeing the flash of orange disappear into the ferns. sorry you had to show me that there is no medicine good enough for small things.

From the salamander to the girl:

i’m sorry that they caught me, that you had to see the aftermath. i’m sorry that i took that route, that my flesh was too soft. i’m sorry that i did not live. sorry your parents taught you about souls going to heaven, but not bodies going to the dirt.

From the salamander to the boy:

i’m sorry i haunted you like that, the way i felt beneath your shoes. i’m sorry i stuck with you, who cared so much for me, rather than the children who did not see me at all. i’m sorry you needed to save me, just like you were taught. i’m sorry i couldn’t thank you.

[yourdailyqueer]

Rauda Morcos

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

DOB: N/A

Ethnicity: Palestinian

Nationality: Israeli

Occupation: Poet, activist

Note: Set up Aswat, the first Palestinian group dedicated to supporting lesbians.

[empirearchives]

Ozymandias by Percy Shelley possibly inspired by Napoleon

Interesting

[mise-n-abyme]

"To intertwine within the experiences of this fabric of reality without judgement, without any clues of an identity or separation from it, projects a deeper focus on what it truly means to receive the gift to participate within this human experience. What may be realized now is that no amount of ideological structure or conclusions can come close to this essence; that the very words and sentences of our understanding of literal and metaphorical language cannot fathom its ever-expanding pervasiveness which shrouds around us in each subtle moment of being.

We spend great deals in conferring solutions to what this existence might mean to us; we patent this meaning with a stamp of objectivity in hopes that it may align with our narrow scope of understanding, yet this small understanding is met with a wider perception of what we truly do not know. We are then met with the realization that what little we know is of nothing at all, as not even the smallest drop of wisdom penetrates onto the surface of this world; it is the reality of the unknown which drives man into desolation, the realization that we have no control over life but with the control of Will and reactions which may come to face. A life bounded by the restraints of the human condition; the mental faculties of what we do not know is possible and what could indeed be possible."

~Mise-n-abyme

|Artwork: 'The Chakras of the Subtle Body' —Unknown | Nepal, 18th century

[solvaaya]

Oklahoma by Hala Alyan. Text ID under cut.

[Text ID: For a place I hate, I invoke you often. Stockholm’s: I am eight years old and the telephone poles are down, the power plant at the edge of town spitting electricity. Before the pickup trucks, the strip malls, dirt beaten by Cherokee feet. Osiyo, tsilugi. Rope swung from mule to tent to man, tornadoes came, the wind rearranged the face of the land like a chessboard. This was before the gold rush, the greed of engines, before white men pressing against brown women, nailing crosses by the river, before the slow songs of cotton plantations, the hymns toward God, the murdered dangling like earrings. Under a redwood, two men signed away the land and in history class I don’t understand why a boy whispers sand monkey. The Mexican girls let me sit with them as long as I braid their hair, my fingers dipping into that wet black silk. I try to imitate them at home — mírame, mama — but my mother yells at me, says they didn’t come here so I could speak some beggar language. Heaven is a long weekend. Heaven is a tornado siren canceling school. Heaven is pressed in a pleather booth at the Olive Garden, sipping Pepsi between my gapped teeth, listening to my father mispronounce his meal.]