Poetry
Nkechi Ebubedike, Cloud Collage VI (detail), featured in AGNI 104
Featured
Standing Bridled before Dawn
A line from ‘Alqama,
a burning arrow
in the head, his ostriches
In Other Words: What Odysseus Says
A war in reverse: SLOW MOTION. First the
victors lose their spoils. Blood flows. Back
to the dead. They stand up. And kill.
Emerald Veil
Bound by love, Snow White’s body beams
like a second moon, her aura braided with her husband’s,
deep in dusk, the tree limbs haloed by bats.
Woman, Mouth, Leaf
In times of peace,
I see how my mother’s mouth
is a leaf. Jade, moon-pocked. The kind
De Re Publica
Because you still lived with the idea of a Republic
you knocked on doors, you waved
your sign by the side of the road, you leafed
A Portfolio of British and Irish Poems
Cross-pond tidings from 2006.
“We offer the following selection as a kind of postcard: brief yet informative—and one we hope will provoke further investigation.”
From the Archive
Skinhead
Dead Reef
Meanwhile
Night in August
Someone is smoking in the lavatory / and one of the flight attendants says / shit and she gets on the mic and says / whoever this is will be prosecuted / to the fullest extent of the law / upon landing while I’m writing / I hate ballpoint pens / with a ballpoint pen because / they don’t spray my period-brown / ink all over . . .