This is a small poetry club that started as a poetry email exchange between two friends. Our goal is to read a poem everyday, and this blog is one way to help keep us accountable. There is only one valid rule in poetry club: there are no rules in poetry club. Read any poem, in any order, with any or no interactions. You decide. We only suggest you read poetry!
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Sep 1: "Lay" by Solmaz Sharif
down
to sleep
to rest
to waste
across a stretcher
across a shoulder
over a leg
beneath an arm
in a shroud
in a crib
on top of a car
chained to a bumper
beneath a bridge
in town square
in the fountain
in the Tigris
under water boiled from smart bombs
in a cellar
in backseat of car counting streetlamps strobing overhead
under bomblets
under tendrils of phosphorus
in a burnt silhouette
on a cot
under a tent
still holding your breath
beneath dining table
beneath five stories
in a hole
The words remind me of the military: cot, tent, bomb, silhouette, etc. Especially Tigris, I knew the Tigris goes through Iraq. I just looked it up and it also goes through Turkey and Syria. After seeing Syria it sounds like a refugee. It's really sad to think about all the places refugees have to lay, and for many the last place they lay as a refugee is in that hole.
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