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July 2019

by Abu Nuwas, translated from the Arabic by Alex Rowell Cease your reproach, for reproach is only temptation And cure me with the very cause of my debilitation Saffron-coloured, no sorrow possible from it Even in stone would it inspire elation Poured from the palm of a girl dressed as boy An intrigue for one of any orientation She lifts the carafe against the black night Her face lit with brilliant radiation Sending from the jug’s lip a stream so bright That eyes, in its glare, close as in sedation Wine so fine, so pure and delicate To add water would be contamination With light alone may it be mixed Giving off dazzling illumination Passed

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Poetry, Translations
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by Abu Nuwas, translated from the Arabic by Alex Rowell Pay no heed to puritanical talk And drink of a northern-breeze-chilled rose Red wine, pure, proffering its scent Musk, with a hint of apple on the nose Were it to fill the depths of a glass It would beam as a lantern glows I pour again for my love, and kiss him Under night draped in monastic robes Till he sings, with head inclined: “O for the Hanna Monastery groves”((Much of the wine in Abu Nuwas’ time (c. 800 AD) was sourced from Christian (and Jewish) vintners, who were able to cultivate orchards on church land. “Hanna Monastery” was one

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for Joseph Delore   We are a mystery to our children— we befuddle them with our excitability, how we live waiting   for the other shoe to drop even when skies are clear, our summer days are calm   and our vines have tender shoots curling around the garden lattice. They humor us, thinking we don’t notice   the glazed indulgence in their beautiful eyes as we tell our stories—the euphoric nights   the grown men in our families downed shots of scotch, blessed themselves then danced the dabke,   hips as if disjointed, twirling their arms in the air like royalty then pulling our mothers off their kitchen chairs   with a rush of tender kisses, they twirled them heartbeat close until Joseph stopped suddenly—   held his oud

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it is not a sin to want to feel, everything, full and fervent. to feel the inside of my head. the tips, of my fingers, blistered, silver-lined edges of my palate, somehow, not enough. on their own, too benign, too blatantly refined. to become part of a crowd, to acquire a temporary taste of reality, of overlooked horizons, its satin folds I caress. undiscovered pleasures, saturated, rain drops. only to quench my thirst. voluntary heightened madness, to which I was not born. the forbidden fruit’s peeled back layers of the universe, I want to eat it whole. sweating, stepping out of my own silence, into a world

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When there is no tomorrow The happiest place on earth, or The last place you want to go is At the heart of the image, where Between love and madness lies obsession   When you care enough to send the very best Think big, or think small, for nothing is Impossible, just as impossible is nothing Make believe. Save money, live better Eat fresh. Twist the cap to refreshment and Reach out to touch someone   When the world zigs, zag Get N or get out. Expand your mind Change your world. Fly the friendly sky Share moments, share life Let your finger do the walking Just do it and have it your way   If you want to impress

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All things written feel a little terrified at first as though come to destroy us. Mary Ruefle   A Rumour ran through town on broken legs that went something like this—   he veered off course averted a school for boys dropped his bombs into the Med instead   embroidered and embellished in each telling they knew, their father’s fathers knew he was the son of a local Jew   he chose the sea embroidered and embellished with each shelling to drop his bombs on a school of fish   good man, good man you, they said, they said he was a Jew embroidered and embellished with each telling     Memory has a room: a stand-in for the cinema its leaders, I’m told, are kind

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by Fadwa Souleimane, translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Hacker Tonight we hear the voices of machine-guns not death’s footsteps Who guides the bullet to choose who dies? The one who fires the gun ? The bullet ? Death itself ? The one who dies? Or you, hiding we don’t know where? Or you, who we call by name? Who will rest among us? The sniper? The bullet? Or the one who stays behind to count the dead, Or the one who waits because the sniper missed his target, Or the one far away struck with sadness, not knowing why, Or the one who died? Dear universe, good people were killed by other good people’s hands Is there a candle in this

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I come back to this machinery, this dark cologned compartment,   I come back to wool sport jacket rickety door and silver watch.   I put out my hand into the breath you keep taking back   stubborn with your eyes shut like caves no one knows are there.   The corridor you’d pass me in, the corridor where you were tired.   Comes back the wall-to-wall carpeting that took our steps, absorbed our weight,   made us all beige in that house, lulled possibility into drywall;   the joists between floors noticed something pressing down.   The timber I come back to from 1910, a derailed past,   where rain gets in sometimes, turns its entrance yellow, turns   our eyes to it; we try everything to keep it out.

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Once upon a time, a dog slept beside an empty bed in a house also empty, while all around   the sky sank. Days and nights the dog spent looking out the window for someone to save it and soon   fell in love with the view, a tree the long gone master had planted for the departed wife.   The dog grew thirstier, and thirstier, until it could hardly bark, but it never stopped loving the tree.   The night they came, the dog, as dogs will, begged for water but the soldiers left   only their footprints. By morning, the dog was no more and the tree, as trees will, said and did nothing.

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From the series Postcards from Rock Bottom One morning in between your fifth and sixth sip of coffee I will spread a map across the table, spill the contents of your mug into the nearest flower pot, (then make you another one – one sugar, no milk) and arm you with a magnifying lens until you trace back every alley, every bus stop, every local supermarket where somebody’s vocal chords had glitched and called you unremarkable. Barefoot, with a megaphone in hand, I will trudge through every muddy trail, from the riverside in East Kilbride to the Coliseum, back through the camping sites in south-west England and up into your bedroom window. I will spell your light

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About Us
Rusted Radishes: Beirut Literary and Art Journal was founded in the English Department of the American University of Beirut in 2012 with the intention of creating a space for both emerging and established writers who have a connection to Lebanon.
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Letter from the Editor | كلمة المحرّرة

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