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Archive for March, 2018

Poem of the Month: Foreigner

Posted in words on 03/01/2018| Leave a Comment »

WINNERPOEM OF THE MONTHCONTESTForeigner

In the valleys of Brooklyn, and only
in the early night, you’ll find an
Arab man bending over these black
roads, praying with the rage
of a foreign man who has no
money to return. Watch the way
He pulls at God’s fingers
and plucks the strings holding him
to this world. Watch the letter fall,
and He, with familiar sorrow,
strip the man’s howling organs
of their covers to bare a naked
existence of longing, so long
a journey seeking after that
which can never be sought, but felt
so suddenly when it bites
the lips of those who see but cannot
speak of such things.
Of loss, many poets have cut
and paste prayer from the holy books,
trying to communicate, groping
the deep skins of their throats
for those glorious words
that will make you understand,
let you touch that thing for which
the white composers of this language
never knew needed to be expressed.

-Aiyah Sibay

——

Aiyah Sibay is the winner of the NinaAlvarez.net Poem of the Month Contest, March 2018.

Aiyah Sibay is a poet and artist originally from Syria. She graduated from University of Maryland in the Spring of 2017 and has worked as a photographer, reporter, and columnist for various publications. She has also worked as a contributing writer for the UN and the Middle Eastern publication, Barakabits. She was a Litfest finalist and a winner of the “Writing Migration Literary Competition” at the Forming Black Britain Symposium.

Aiyah has also worked with Syrian, Iraqi, and Palestinian refugees over the years and is currently residing in the West Bank where she teaches English and writes.

——

Many thanks to all those who submitted your beautiful and transcendent work.

Submissions to the Poem of the Month Contest are always open.

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