The Samovar
The samovar sits on a table in my living room like a shrine. Almost two feet tall with a chimney on top, common for tea-making in 19th...
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All Stories
- Nov 25
- 1 min
A Trip to the Peak District
A rundown pub tucked in a sleeping village, A Sunday roast served on a cloudy day, A pint gargled down the throat. I was becoming English...
- Nov 25
- 2 min
The World's End
That Christmas, you took me to the village where you grew up in North Yorkshire. A village whose name you said could be found in the...
- Oct 29
- 4 min
A Train Whistle
Life was simpler then in innocence in trust when I walked through the night a seven year old on the road of flight my mother pushing the ...
- Aug 1
- 1 min
Albino Forest
Stadium of blue eyes surround me The charm and pride of a peacock dancing But something in their stare Is malicious Measure me up and...
- Jul 25
- 1 min
The Muezzin
for Seyyed Javad Zabihi A seyyed— the Prophet’s descendant— he wore a fez— as a pious Muslim chanted the azan and spiritual supplications...
- Jul 25
- 1 min
Forever Mystery
They look at me, a beautiful alien I am a forever mystery, an ethnic accessory Almond, golden eyes Slanted Small Chinky Coin slots Warm,...
- Jul 18
- 2 min
From Byker to Botany Bay, 1950
A long line of up-and-down terrace flats Adjunct outside lavvy and cobblestone back lane Runs cheek by jowl steep down to the foggy Tyne,...
- Jul 17
- 1 min
Thoughts of Migration
New world, new life, that’s what I wanted to see, unforeseen problems, old dreams, that’s what life wrote. The airport was like a gate,...
- Jul 14
- 1 min
Heaps of Home (for Berlin)
Combat boots trample gritty sidewalk weeds Lilacs bloom against monuments and walls Legs brush leaves brush glass brush stone We live...
- Jul 14
- 1 min
Migration Song
I sleep better here though I yearn for my former home. Here the fox stays mostly in his lair beneath the rocks and though the bigger...
- Jul 13
- 1 min
How Jozef Korzeniowski became Joseph Conrad
When he first arrived in England, Jozef K felt like a single whole pea in a blob of mushy peas. It is difficult to be surrounded by...
- Jul 10
- 1 min
Ode to Emigration
The suburbs can be bleak They render isolation The dreams of shores afar Inspire to emigration The fantasy of light In sunny cities tease...
- Jul 10
- 1 min
Generations
a father’s rule a brother’s will the needs of pigs that must be slopped until the farm divided bought her passage to the New World’s...
- Jul 10
- 1 min
Secrets of My Great Grandparents
No one knows how Jennie and Nathan managed to establish a life together after she had become the sorrowful teenage kallah in an arranged...
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