Poems

by Linda Abd Al-Baki*

Comforts

Skilled

In hanging the life

From its waist

Life As I See It With My Heart

By Thekra Luaibi

Translated by Mahmoud Abbas Masoud

None has deceived me

No one has let me down save myself

The echo of places

Swings in my memory

The Executioner  - Excerpt from a play

By: Sabah Alanbari*

Translated from Arabic by: Soheil Najm**

The stage is a carefully constructed half green lined with pieces of bright glass. The dome has one gate built in the form of jaws lined with long pointed fangs stained with blood. The gate is open throughout the show and in front of it, at the center of the stage, there are metal bars to which the victim is tied. The bars look like a big window, and to the audience the victim seems as if inside the predator's mouth, or that the mouth is about to devour her, in front of the bars and the victim there is a wooden chair stained with blood and surrounded by various torturing tools. The executioner sits on the chair, his back facing the audience.

Gitta Pardoel

The time that I had to work inside the house had a very contemplative effect for me with epiphane moments. At the same time, it is a time of uncertainty, fear of loved ones. The false security in our rich Netherlands has left us for good.

Nature plays a major role in my work. Gardens have always been a source of inspiration for me. This started at the garden of my childhood home. So many stories have already arisen here ....... for example the story of Dorus, the blackbird, who came to get cheese in our kitchen. Or the flowers from which you could suck honey. Or the delicious fresh green herbs from my own herb garden. Gardens proved to be a passion for me and my work. Life in balance, between flora, fauna and people.

Because of the coronavirus we are more bound to home and garden. We as humanity are unsure how to contain the virus and protect our way of life but the spring still arrived, flowers that bud and birds that lay eggs.

Rusudan Khizanishvili

As almost all artists I am mostly introvert and working on daily basis at my studio, in these times of course I keep working , yet fortunately I haven’t been interrupted because my studio is right next to my house.

Just feeling uncomfortable for I cannot see anyone except my family but this is some thing I can stand.

These circumstances of course made a huge influence on everything I am doing, but this situation for me as for any creator is rather interesting, it motivated me to start a series of paintings i used to help in looking at myself,

Philip Terman

A good friend just passed away from the virus. I participated in a Zoom farewell with his family—he was also on the zoom on his ventilator. He had been on the ventilator for two weeks but just got worse—as most people do.  Each of us said goodbye to him, hoping he could hear, and then the rabbi said the last prayer.  

After the zoom session was over, the doctor removed the ventilator.

Very sad.

Here is the poem I wrote for my friend who was taken off the ventilator. It is my response to the questionnaire.

Another Time of Love

Haggit Grossman

It was another time of love.

As long as a refuge remained, we found it

Whispering and wet.

Outside, there arose ignorant rulers,

Who compiled lists of banned books

And commanded artists to swear loyalty

To the state.

Significance of Colours in the worksof Ali Rashid*

Saleh Razzouk** (with Scott Minar***)

Lately the artist Ali Rashid moved from economizing colours to elaborate with it.

I don not mean he started in vain to explode with colours, I think he is still limiting colour expansion at the expense of other elements, since his colours are still about the same vision, between two poles, the black and the ash. All simple shades of grey, either dotted or granular.

Strollers with Light-weight Clothes

Nasser Rabah

The poem has uttered its word and gone.

No celebration, no birth ritual beyond that.

No reed flute guide us to

A love salat,

No clouds exchange a eulogy with me,

Yet no trees summon me

Real Illusions

Scott Minar *                                                               

I wanted to see Troy up close.

So I got out my microscope,

The one I had years ago as a boy,

I wound the dial

International Writer’s Journal

ila magazine

International Writer’s Journal is a new literary entity  just started in USA to cover the contemporary international scene. It is edited by two Romanian translators long lived in The United stated. namely by: David Paul Vnuck and Muguras Maria Vnuck.

the aim of the journal as explained in the Call to Writers:

A SECRETLY WHISPERED PRAYER  

GEORGE FILIP *

Translated from Romanian by : Muguraș Maria Vnuck and David Paul Vnuck

Our Lord enshrined in heaven

Piously I pray to Thee

Culture of Terrorism

Julia Kapuśniak*

The 20th and the 21st centuries brought to the history many conflicts of political, economical and military background which were, and until  this day are involving almost every country in the world. Whereas, the Old Continent is struggling with many issues within the European Union like political differences between its members and heads of the European Parliament as well as the crisis concerning refugees from Syria and other Third World nations but the biggest problem is the world flooded with terrorist attacks. Terrorism is one of the gravest problems of the world nowadays but what are the root causes of this phenomenon.

The Cafe of Sad Lands

Iman Shahin Sharba*

In the sad café,

History sits on the last chair,

Following –from the near distance,

The despair cycle,

Görenoptik

Theodor Damian

tran. from Romanian by  Muguraș Maria Vnuck* and David Vunck**

Ankara is calm

at midnight

I thought it was warmer

at the beginning of August

but it is perfect like that

at this time a man

properly dressed

Issue 2020 of   The Bridge Literary And Art  journal

Ila magazine

The Bridge Literary and Art Journal is published by The Bridge Literary Arts Center, which is supported by the non-profit Franklin Arts Council. The Bridge Literary Arts Center was established in 2013 and holds writing workshops, readings, and collaborative events with musicians and visual artists. For submission and other information please visit our website: bridgeliteraryartscenter.org and on Facebook.

GRATEFUL BEASTS

Judy Rock*

We’ve come back to the farm—

to the animal responsibility.

To haul their hay, scarce and heavy, still breathing,

Into the loft of the second floor—where we’re building