July 2020

Aliyah Daskal Painting- Acrylic on Paper by Ammar Aziz Aliyah Daskal has a strange memory of a synagogue In one of the narrowest streets of old Lahore: The Star of David engraved on a brick wall And a pipal

Would we get along with our ancestors? Do you wonder if they’d even like us? We claim that we all come from them but then we expect they’ll take the blame. My great-great-grandfather was paid to go all the way

My bookshelves are stacked with journals, children’s books, histories, dictionaries, novels, travel guides, philosophy and the thousands of books I read in my youth and continue reading today. I pull out Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy. I was

Is fading the memory of its son, Who for words must ride the night Fleeing ears that hear thunder on a baby’s purity guggle, Zvegona, my homestead, Ancestors are watching Elders on a scheming mission Trading lies with more lies The

A seventy-year-old woman who was never allowed to leave home visits a park in the centre of town she sits on a broken wooden bench basking in the warmth of the morning sun around the park residents of the neighbourhood

Not for her Ethereal glimpses             Of roseate morning skies   Not for her Tridasan vihaya, the              Crimson trails on the parting of her hair   Not for her

Stripped of your beauty, Stripped of your name. Stripped of everything that you thought you would have, Stripped of your freedom to go back to your place of origin. Stripped of the friendship you have with your people, Stripped of

My parents refuse to let me tell them about how the world is ending: the high end stores in NYC are boarded up, and people are lying on the bitumen-laid bridge in Portland in peaceful protest, and people in police uniform

The conceivable prescient books, by notable authors in literature, narrated the theme of isolation, community, and love. And in this respect, they are powerfully relatable to our present situation, conveying a hope that we all have been through this

I admit it, I don’t even like them just bought them on a whim but as my hand closes around each creamy sliced-off stalk end with its cool clasp of overlapping leaves the same pallid green as the porcelain

When every day is Sunday morning and none of the bells are ringing and all the inhabitants are inside praying to some unseen god that offers no relief from their ongoing sorrow then you know that these must be

In those pathless roads In those shoreless seas In the air so mutilated In the sadness of me I lived another day In this world of asininity In this nature of tranquillity In the existence of fatality Off, the humanity

It’s only been a week since Elena stroked my forehead, but it feels like it happened in a different lifetime. I’ve had to call Irwin’s office several times, but when Elena answers the phone, she sounds distant and businesslike. I

Right now, I’ll message loved ones And make sure that they’re okay Then I’ll read Milk & Honey A little later in the day In the night, I’ll start a painting Of a girl with turquoise eyes And maybe write

And Then She Took A Nap She watched as the links grew Like dots on a piece of white paper Crooked black lines scrawling across blue skies Towers like spider webs climbing over pink horizons Cables like serpents writhing under green

She was seated on the low bench with a warm cup of kahata the cupped between her palms. She watched the ocean becoming calm with dainty white ripples gushing and disappearing on the sandy beach. The bright orange ball was gradually

It’s not very often that I feel inspired to write a story or to express what’s going on in my life. Mostly because I don’t consider myself that great a writer. However, I had the most amazing breakthrough yesterday. Perhaps the