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Stone vats of colored dyes and white liquids.Hides of cows, sheep, goats, and camels.The eager salesman explained the process,how hides need to soak for two or three daysamong cow urine and pigeon fecesto clean and soften the skins for the dyes,natural colorants like indigoand henna and poppy. Then they areContinue Reading

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Little brass welt how dare you try to mock meWe’ve come farther in one thousand & oneNights than any blue-eyed continental explorerI should shove you in a junk drawer & lose youFor letting in the nameless men of the palaceWho have become accustomed to measuringThis cursed room for their nextContinue Reading

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The process of this tattoo-makingrequires a steady hand, unshaking,so a continuous line can be laiddown by the needle’s glass blade. Precisely like a surgeon’s scalpel,but above the skin,this moving line will beginalmost feeling palpable of the practitioner’s art:she, who draws from imaginationand an experienced hearta unique creation. The brown dyeContinue Reading

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They keep doves in the palace & release themCeremoniously each sunset to mark the workOf women greeting husbands return from warThey light candles to hide the scent of sweatIn the red bedchambers while children watchMaids turndown sheets warmed w/ stonesFrom the garden where their mothers weepSilently mid prayer let usContinue Reading

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In the sandy haze, the pyramids riselike apparitions. There is nothing elsevisible in this land of sand and rockand rubble. They have spent a long time acclimating to the harsh conditions.It’s hot and dry and gets unbearable,but still they patiently impose their presence,having prolonged the inevitable. They challenge us toContinue Reading

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Remember that words have power when spunThe way they turn spider silk into tapestriesRemember your enemies laugh themselvesOnto the floor for the same reasons as youRemember the sound of my voice as I rockedEach of you to sleep during the rainstormsIf I cannot see you off to be married doContinue Reading

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How to get familiar with infinity . . .A camel ride into the Saharato stargaze a wide open desert sky? The astronomer Carl Sagan once saidstars outnumbered grains of sand on beaches—so I rode a camel from Merzouga out into oceanic dunes of sandand sat there after sunset for theContinue Reading

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a masculine marmaladeour feline bathesbetween his toesmore assiduouslythan anyone we knowclaws flexingto and frolike translucent crescent moonscored by conquered bloodthe rasping strokeof his scouring tonguea ferocity pristineas raindrops or water hoseamong the wieldedyielding thornsof this bucephalus-headed rose. My name is Aletha Irby and I have been writing poetry for overContinue Reading

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I got wine drunk in the Holiday Inn Notre Damewith a view of the Eiffel Towerput on Brahms Symphony #1 in C Minor and was back in my British History classroomon an August night in 1982on the second floor of Alumni Recitation Hall working out ways to includeEnglish Beat andContinue Reading