https://soundcloud.com/m-a-djeribi/ashraf-fayadh-a-melancholy-made-of-dough
The poet Ashram Fayadh is scheduled to be executed in Saudia Arabia. There is a call to read his poetry aloud all through today. There’s an appeal next week. Let’s keep hopeful: lots of publicity for his case, and maybe this Amnesty petition can help https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/free-ashraf-fayadh-saudi-arabia-palestinian-poetry-apostasy-execution
I chose this poem for its unusual and disturbing use of bread-baking imagery.
This poem, from Instructions Within (2008), was translated by Tariq al Haydar:
A Melancholy Made of Dough
Parts of you pile one on top of another—a mixture of your blood,
sweat, remains, and discharge from your eyes.
And discharge from your eyes.
The knot of your tongue at the midway point of the ocean,
and when the sphere of the sun swims
in a preconceived orbit—
Complications!
What the sidewalk never mentioned
is that you used to step on it
and present your shoes on a plate of concrete,
your feet on a plate of shoes,
your legs on a plate of your misfortune.
You tune the strings of your head to affect your foolish delight,
you bury a skull—you’d rather not bear.
You heap yourself on a slate that claims whiteness due to a fistful of flour—
and you ferment.
You swell and puff your sadness like a hot loaf
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