Cultural Critique Corner

                                  Break a Fast Your lips are dark, my love, and fleshy, like a date And night is honeyslow in coming, long to wait I have fasted, darling, daylong all Ramadan but your mouth —so sweet, so near —the hours long! Grant but one taste —one kiss! You know what good reward feeders of fasters gain from our clement Lord See how the fruits are ripe and ready, O servant of God Kiss me —it's time, it's time! And let us earn reward                                                        Mohja Kahf                                                 

                               My Body My breasts are neither wells nor mountians, neither Badr nor Uhud My breasts do not want to lead revolutions nor to become prisoners of war My breasts seek amnesty: release them so I can glory in their milktipped fullness, so I can offer them to my sweet love without your flags and banners on them My body is not your battleground My hair is neither sacred nor cheap, neither the cause of your disarray nor the path to your liberation My hair will not bring progress and clean water if it flies unbraided in the breeze It will not save us from our attackers if it is wrapped and shielded from the sun Untangle your hands from my hair so I can comb and delight in it, so I can honor and annoint it, so I can spill it over the chest of my sweet love My body is not your battleground My private garden is not your tillage My thighs are not highway lanes to your Golden City My be...

  Arabic Music The Dog River is dry. Under historical plaques, Arabs sit making rababas. One is playing softly Sliding the bow across the horse hairs which are stretched  Over a tight skin. They work with their eyes down, Carving words into the necks. I want one and ask how much, how much? None of them speaks. At the road where we wait for a bus, an Arab brings me a rababa  he has just finished. We the telefrique across the bay up the mountainside To Harissa where the Lady of Lebanon looks over the country.  From a restaurant, I can hear an Arab in long black robes beating coffee. He strikes his mortar in a rhythm that makes my mother dance. She twirls her arms around  my father's head. I stand in my parents' village, looking down into Junieh Bay. It is night. The stars are thick clouds and so close I think I can reach up and write my name through them with my finger. There are some lights in the ocean and I can see Beirut to the left. Behind me the men invent s...

Email From Scheherazad Hi, habe. It's Scheherazad. I'm back For the millennium and living in Hackensack, New Jersey. I tell stories for a living. You ask if there is a living in that. You must remember: Where I come from, Words are to die for. I saved the virgins From beheading by the king, who was killing To still the beast of doubt in him. I told a story. He began to listen and I found  That story led to story. Powers unleashed, I wound  The thread around the pirn of night. A thousand days  Later, we got divorced. He'd settled down & wanted a wife & not so much an artist. I wanted publication. It was hardest,  Strangely, on my sister Dunyazad. She  Was the one who nightly used to start it. She and my ex do workshops now in schools  On art & conflict resolution. Narrative rules! I teach creative writing at Monclair State, And I'm on my seventh novel and book tour. Shahrayar and I share custody of our little girl. We split up amicably. I taught ...