Mariam Bazeed
Found Poem Composed in Dearborn, Michigan
Mariam Bazeed
Found Poem Composed in
Dearborn, Michigan,
—Where Post–9/11 Streets Speak Arabic—
in the Sixth Month
—If You Wanted to Start Counting From When Actually Chinese,
Not Just Italian, People Got Sick—
of the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic,
& a Few Days After the Fatal, Everyday Shooting of
George Floyd
—a Black Man Holding the Wrong Kind of Banknote
in Counterfeit America—
by State Pigs in Prussian Blue
—Many of Whom, We Must Assume,
Love Their Children—
Seventeen-Thousand Eight Hundred and Eighteen Days
After the Conclusion of the Stanford Prison Experiment,
Which Lasted Only Six Days
Out of a Planned Fourteen,
Which, Despite the Trunc
ated Timeline,
—Less Than Half
If You’ve Been Paying Attention—
Was Still Long Enough
to Necessitate
—From Every One of Its Voluntary Inmates—
a Hunger Strike.
Rhythm is the beat of life that saves you
from the coma.
Procrastinatory cognitions.
If there is any loss of service:
(to satisfy ochre hands) powder-free vinyl gloves
determining the inheritance.
Twenty years of forlorn hope! والعشرونَ تُنادي والأَملُ المفتونُ
Bodies don’t always know what’s coming,
you know.
It’s just your luck
with the sea.
Lineage of
Found Poem Composed in
Dearborn, Michigan,
—Where Post–9/11 Streets Speak Arabic—
in the Sixth Month
—If You Wanted to Start Counting From When Actually Chinese,
Not Just Italian, People Got Sick—
of the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic,
& a Few Days After the Fatal, Everyday Shooting of
George Floyd
—a Black Man Holding the Wrong Kind of Banknote
in Counterfeit America—
by State Pigs in Prussian Blue
—Many of Whom, We Must Assume,
Love Their Children—
Seventeen-Thousand Eight Hundred and Eighteen Days
After the Conclusion of the Stanford Prison Experiment,
Which Lasted Only Six Days
Out of a Planned Fourteen,
Which, Despite the Trunc
ated Timeline,
—Less Than Half
If You’ve Been Paying Attention—
Was Still Long Enough
to Necessitate
—From Every One of Its Voluntary Inmates—
a Hunger Strike
two lines, the first of which ends Found Poem Composed in Dearborn, Michigan, and the second of which begins it, from an untitled poem, by author unknown, by Basel Zaraa, on double-sided printer paper, stuck, by a coin-shaped magnet about the size of a quarter, to which in turn are magnetized eight head pins, three of them bent, to a fridge in the artist residency apartment belonging to and across from the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. the font is Arial. i spent a lot of time on this and after answering 30 questionnaire questions can tell you that the font is probably definitely Muli. i spent even more time on this and I’m back to thinking the font is definitely probably Arial.
The boat sank in my tears and lament
And rock melted from my pain and lament
Do you think you will return while I’m alive
And our sun will rise after its absence
Crossing the border means leaving behind a 75% chance of death
Not from random shelling, barrel bombs, or evenwhippings
You enter, and just like everyone else, you nod yourhead
With each rejection
Say what you like, but all this won’t cost you more than$1000 it’s just your luck with the sea
Don’t ask me why or for what
Half of it bribes for the army and the police in Turkey
And the rest to live on and for the guys to get drunk with
Then
In short, you either beat it, or it beats you
This part will also cost you $1000
In the boats, all the faces are stressed
Holding their breaths
Bracing their wounds
They’ve heard so much gunfire
They no longer feel anything
They no longer feel anything
If I run run run run run
could it take me back
to where I started out
watching the kids from the balcony
the smell of your skin next to
me
we only wantwhat everyone wants
The boat sank in my tears and lament
And rock melted from my pain and lament
Do you think you will return while I’m alive
And our sun will rise after its absence
Crossing the border means leaving behind a 75% chance of death
Not from random shelling, barrel bombs, or evenwhippings
You enter, and just like everyone else, you nod yourhead
With each rejection
Say what you like, but all this won’t cost you more than$1000 it’s just your luck with the sea
Don’t ask me why or for what
Half of it bribes for the army and the police in Turkey
And the rest to live on and for the guys to get drunk with
Then
In short, you either beat it, or it beats you
This part will also cost you $1000
In the boats, all the faces are stressed
Holding their breaths
Bracing their wounds
They’ve heard so much gunfire
They no longer feel anything
They no longer feel anything
If I run run run run run
could it take me back
to where I started out
watching the kids from the balcony
the smell of your skin next to
me
we only wantwhat everyone wants
Rhythm is the beat of life that saves you from the coma
Dreams are drawn like a beam against the invaders
The enemy is whomever makes you hungry or frightens your heart
Whoever demonizes or stigmatizes
In war
Whoever legitimises taking from people’s pockets
But whoever puts up with hardship
And remains free
May God not harm him
He is carrying
The whole burden
Alone
And history repeats
The same sentences
But with more foul play
Again
Metal confronts the flesh of slaves
There is no point to anything
On this round planet
A jungle where the strongest hand takes all
And the weak is like a farm animal
And everyone who rejects this and rebels is a terrorist
Accused, for example, of raising their index finger
Who said this cannot go on
Sorry brother it’s gone on and on
Adding salt to the wound
And your cares drown in sorrow with every drop of blood
i should tell you
for the sake of fidelity
to poet first then to poem
that where you see the rifts
in the text
—where the needles interrupt—
those were not there before.
one line chosen from a New York Times article,
Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control),
accessed the day it was published, March 25th, 2019, in a tab that stayed
open, focus shattered by grief, in one of four browser windows until June
13th, 2020, the day I read it so as not to write this poem.
the tab is now closed.
one line chosen from a New York Times article,
Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control),
accessed the day it was published, March 25th, 2019, in a tab that stayed
open, focus shattered by grief, in one of four browser windows until June
13th, 2020, the day I read it so as not to write this poem.
the tab is now closed.
one line chosen from a letterheaded letter taped to the fridge,
intended for the artists in residence and reminding us, in Calibri
12-pt font (21 questionnaire questions) that, where the wireless
Internet is concerned…
one line chosen from a letterheaded letter taped to the fridge,
intended for the artists in residence and reminding us, in Calibri
12-pt font (21 questionnaire questions) that, where the wireless
Internet is concerned…
one line chosen from an untitled poem, rarity addressed to Khalid,
written in torn text, left by an author unknown on a large sheet of
paper tacked to the wall in the artist residency apartment belonging
to and across from the Arab American National Museum in
Dearborn, Michigan.
one line chosen from an untitled poem, rarity addressed to Khalid,
written in torn text, left by an author unknown on a large sheet of
paper tacked to the wall in the artist residency apartment belonging
to and across from the Arab American National Museum in
Dearborn, Michigan.
The number
in pencil on
the bottom
right:
one line chosen from a box of powder-free vinyl gloves, bought
that we may save our lives
ahead of the somebody who stocks them
one line chosen from a box of powder-free vinyl gloves, bought
that we may save our lives
ahead of the somebody who stocks them
one line, also a chapter
heading,
from page 115,
opened to at
random, of
Ancient Sisterhood,
by biblical scholar
Savina J. Teubal,
whose page xviii
introduced me for
the first time ever
to the ivory statuette
of the Beer-sheva Venus,
pubic hair carved
in hippopotamus tusk,
who, on the Internet, is
described over and
over and over and
over and over and
over and over and
over again, as a
pregnant woman,
despite the big
and very literal
hole in her stomach;
and whose page 97
shows a woman
kneading dough, “to make cakes
for the Queen of Heaven.”
one line, also a chapter
heading,
from page 115,
opened to at
random, of
Ancient Sisterhood,
by biblical scholar
Savina J. Teubal,
whose page xviii
introduced me for
the first time ever
to the ivory statuette
of the Beer-sheva Venus,
pubic hair carved
in hippopotamus tusk,
who, on the Internet, is
described over and
over and over and
over and over and
over and over and
over again, as a
pregnant woman,
despite the big
and very literal
hole in her stomach;
and whose page 97
shows a woman
kneading dough, “to make cakes
for the Queen of Heaven.”
one line, written by نازك الملائكة, for whose name the language of
English needs an apostrophe, from a translation Kamelya
Omayma didn’t like of a poem whose first
line is “Mother!”
غسلاً للعارْ appears in a collection of writing
by “Women from the Fertile Crescent,”
edited by a guy called Kamal.
one line, written by نازك الملائكة, for whose name the language of
English needs an apostrophe, from a translation Kamelya
Omayma didn’t like of a poem whose first
line is “Mother!”
غسلاً للعارْ appears in a collection of writing
by “Women from the Fertile Crescent,”
edited by a guy called Kamal.
«أمّـاهْ!» وحشرجة ودموعٌ وسوادُ،
وانبجسَ الدمُ واختلج الجسمُ المطعونُ
والشَعْرُ المُتَمَوِّجُ عَشّشَ فيه الطينْ
«أمّـاهْ!» ولم يسمَعْها إلا الجلادْ
وغداً سيجيء الفجرُ وتصحو الأورادُ
والعشرونَ تنادي والأملُ المفتونُ
فتُجيب المَرْجَةُ والأزهارْ
رحلت عنّا … غسلاً للعارْ
ويعود الجلاّدُ الوحشيُّ ويَلقى الناسْ
«العار؟» ويَمسَحْ مُدْيَتَه. «مزَّقنا العارْ»
«ورَجَعنا فُضَلاءً، بيضَ السُّمعَةِ أحرارْ
ياربَّ الحانةِ، أين الخمرُ؟ وأين الكاسْ؟
نادِ الغانيةَ الكَسْلى العاطِرَةَ الأنفاسْ
«أفدي عينيها بالقرآنِ وبالأقدارْ»
إملأ كاساتكَ يا جزّارْ
وعلى المقتولةِ غسلُ العارْ
وسيأتِيَ الفجرُ وتسألُ عنها الفتياتُ
«أين تراها؟» فيردّ الوحش «قتلناها»
«وصمةُ عارٍ في جبهتنا وغسلنانها»
وستحكي قصتها السوداءَ الجاراتُ
وسترويها في الحارةِ حتى النخلاتُ
حتى الأبوابُ الخشبيَّةُ لن تنساها
وستهمِسها حتى الأحجارْ
غسلاً للعارْ … غسلاً للعارْ …
يا جاراتِ الحارةِ … يا فتياتِ القريهْ
الخبزُ سنَعجِنهُ بدموعِ مآقينا
سنقصُّ جدائِلَنا، وسنسلخُ أيدينا
لتظلّ ثيابُهم بيضَ اللّون نقيّة
لا بسمَةَ، لا فرحةَ، لا لفتَة، فالمُديهُ
تَرقُبُنا في قبضةِ والدنا وأخينا
وغداً من يدري أيّ قِفارْ
سـتوارينا غسلاً للعـارْ؟
١٩٤٩/١١/١٦
one line from Come Here Where Are You Going Come Here by Sara
ElKamel, a sometime-roommate and friend who took up the perfect
amount of room in the fridge, which is to say, very little, breath of the
colonizer being, too, in me; appearing in a collection to which I’d
submitted a poem rejected by the editors, who, verily and most def,
probably made a mistake.
«أمّـاهْ!» وحشرجة ودموعٌ وسوادُ،
وانبجسَ الدمُ واختلج الجسمُ المطعونُ
والشَعْرُ المُتَمَوِّجُ عَشّشَ فيه الطينْ
«أمّـاهْ!» ولم يسمَعْها إلا الجلادْ
وغداً سيجيء الفجرُ وتصحو الأورادُ
والعشرونَ تنادي والأملُ المفتونُ
فتُجيب المَرْجَةُ والأزهارْ
رحلت عنّا … غسلاً للعارْ
ويعود الجلاّدُ الوحشيُّ ويَلقى الناسْ
«العار؟» ويَمسَحْ مُدْيَتَه. «مزَّقنا العارْ»
«ورَجَعنا فُضَلاءً، بيضَ السُّمعَةِ أحرارْ
ياربَّ الحانةِ، أين الخمرُ؟ وأين الكاسْ؟
نادِ الغانيةَ الكَسْلى العاطِرَةَ الأنفاسْ
«أفدي عينيها بالقرآنِ وبالأقدارْ»
إملأ كاساتكَ يا جزّارْ
وعلى المقتولةِ غسلُ العارْ
وسيأتِيَ الفجرُ وتسألُ عنها الفتياتُ
«أين تراها؟» فيردّ الوحش «قتلناها»
«وصمةُ عارٍ في جبهتنا وغسلنانها»
وستحكي قصتها السوداءَ الجاراتُ
وسترويها في الحارةِ حتى النخلاتُ
حتى الأبوابُ الخشبيَّةُ لن تنساها
وستهمِسها حتى الأحجارْ
غسلاً للعارْ … غسلاً للعارْ …
يا جاراتِ الحارةِ … يا فتياتِ القريهْ
الخبزُ سنَعجِنهُ بدموعِ مآقينا
سنقصُّ جدائِلَنا، وسنسلخُ أيدينا
لتظلّ ثيابُهم بيضَ اللّون نقيّة
لا بسمَةَ، لا فرحةَ، لا لفتَة، فالمُديهُ
تَرقُبُنا في قبضةِ والدنا وأخينا
وغداً من يدري أيّ قِفارْ
سـتوارينا غسلاً للعـارْ؟
١٩٤٩/١١/١٦
one line from Come Here Where Are You Going Come Here by Sara
ElKamel, a sometime-roommate and friend who took up the perfect
amount of room in the fridge, which is to say, very little, breath of the
colonizer being, too, in me; appearing in a collection to which I’d
submitted a poem rejected by the editors, who, verily and most def,
probably made a mistake.
Found Poem Composed in
Dearborn, Michigan
Mariam Bazeed
Found Poem Composed in
Dearborn, Michigan,
—Where Post–9/11 Streets Speak Arabic—
in the Sixth Month
—If You Wanted to Start Counting From When Actually Chinese,
Not Just Italian, People Got Sick—
of the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic,
& a Few Days After the Fatal, Everyday Shooting of
George Floyd
—a Black Man Holding the Wrong Kind of Banknote
in Counterfeit America—
by State Pigs in Prussian Blue
—Many of Whom, We Must Assume,
Love Their Children—
Seventeen-Thousand Eight Hundred and Eighteen Days
After the Conclusion of the Stanford Prison Experiment,
Which Lasted Only Six Days
Out of a Planned Fourteen,
Which, Despite the Trunc
ated Timeline,
—Less Than Half
If You’ve Been Paying Attention—
Was Still Long Enough
to Necessitate
—From Every One of Its Voluntary Inmates—
a Hunger Strike.
Rhythm is the beat of life that saves you
from the coma.
Procrastinatory cognitions.
If there is any loss of service:
(to satisfy ochre hands) powder-free vinyl gloves
determining the inheritance.
Twenty years of forlorn hope! والعشرونَ تُنادي والأَملُ المفتونُ
Bodies don’t always know what’s coming,
you know.
It’s just your luck
with the sea.
Lineage of
Found Poem Composed in
Dearborn, Michigan,
—Where Post–9/11 Streets Speak Arabic—
in the Sixth Month
—If You Wanted to Start Counting From When Actually Chinese,
Not Just Italian, People Got Sick—
of the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic,
& a Few Days After the Fatal, Everyday Shooting of
George Floyd
—a Black Man Holding the Wrong Kind of Banknote
in Counterfeit America—
by State Pigs in Prussian Blue
—Many of Whom, We Must Assume,
Love Their Children—
Seventeen-Thousand Eight Hundred and Eighteen Days
After the Conclusion of the Stanford Prison Experiment,
Which Lasted Only Six Days
Out of a Planned Fourteen,
Which, Despite the Trunc
ated Timeline,
—Less Than Half
If You’ve Been Paying Attention—
Was Still Long Enough
to Necessitate
—From Every One of Its Voluntary Inmates—
a Hunger Strike
two lines, the first of which ends Found Poem Composed in Dearborn, Michigan, and the second of which begins it, from an untitled poem, by author unknown, by Basel Zaraa, on double-sided printer paper, stuck, by a coin-shaped magnet about the size of a quarter, to which in turn are magnetized eight head pins, three of them bent, to a fridge in the artist residency apartment belonging to and across from the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. the font is Arial. i spent a lot of time on this and after answering 30 questionnaire questions can tell you that the font is probably definitely Muli. i spent even more time on this and I’m back to thinking the font is definitely probably Arial.
The boat sank in my tears and lament
And rock melted from my pain and lament
Do you think you will return while I’m alive
And our sun will rise after its absence
Crossing the border means leaving behind a 75% chance of death
Not from random shelling, barrel bombs, or evenwhippings
You enter, and just like everyone else, you nod yourhead
With each rejection
Say what you like, but all this won’t cost you more than$1000 it’s just your luck with the sea
Don’t ask me why or for what
Half of it bribes for the army and the police in Turkey
And the rest to live on and for the guys to get drunk with
Then
In short, you either beat it, or it beats you
This part will also cost you $1000
In the boats, all the faces are stressed
Holding their breaths
Bracing their wounds
They’ve heard so much gunfire
They no longer feel anything
They no longer feel anything
If I run run run run run
could it take me back
to where I started out
watching the kids from the balcony
the smell of your skin next to
me
we only wantwhat everyone wants
Rhythm is the beat of life that saves you from the coma
Dreams are drawn like a beam against the invaders
The enemy is whomever makes you hungry or frightens your heart
Whoever demonizes or stigmatizes
In war
Whoever legitimises taking from people’s pockets
But whoever puts up with hardship
And remains free
May God not harm him
He is carrying
The whole burden
Alone
And history repeats
The same sentences
But with more foul play
Again
Metal confronts the flesh of slaves
There is no point to anything
On this round planet
A jungle where the strongest hand takes all
And the weak is like a farm animal
And everyone who rejects this and rebels is a terrorist
Accused, for example, of raising their index finger
Who said this cannot go on
Sorry brother it’s gone on and on
Adding salt to the wound
And your cares drown in sorrow with every drop of blood
i should tell you
for the sake of fidelity
to poet first then to poem
that where you see the rifts
in the text
—where the needles interrupt—
those were not there before.
one line chosen from a New York Times article,
Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control),
accessed the day it was published, March 25th, 2019, in a tab that stayed
open, focus shattered by grief, in one of four browser windows until June
13th, 2020, the day I read it so as not to write this poem.
the tab is now closed.
one line chosen from a letterheaded letter taped to the fridge,
intended for the artists in residence and reminding us, in Calibri
12-pt font (21 questionnaire questions) that, where the wireless
Internet is concerned…
one line chosen from an untitled poem, rarity addressed to Khalid,
written in torn text, left by an author unknown on a large sheet of
paper tacked to the wall in the artist residency apartment belonging
to and across from the Arab American National Museum in
Dearborn, Michigan.
The number
in pencil on
the bottom
right:
one line chosen from a box of powder-free vinyl gloves, bought
that we may save our lives
ahead of the somebody who stocks them
one line, also a chapter
heading,
from page 115,
opened to at
random, of
Ancient Sisterhood,
by biblical scholar
Savina J. Teubal,
whose page xviii
introduced me for
the first time ever
to the ivory statuette
of the Beer-sheva Venus,
pubic hair carved
in hippopotamus tusk,
who, on the Internet, is
described over and
over and over and
over and over and
over and over and
over again, as a
pregnant woman,
despite the big
and very literal
hole in her stomach;
and whose page 97
shows a woman
kneading dough, “to make cakes
for the Queen of Heaven.”
one line, written by نازك الملائكة, for whose name the language of
English needs an apostrophe, from a translation Kamelya
Omayma didn’t like of a poem whose first
line is “Mother!”
غسلاً للعارْ appears in a collection of writing
by “Women from the Fertile Crescent,”
edited by a guy called Kamal.
«أمّـاهْ!» وحشرجة ودموعٌ وسوادُ،
وانبجسَ الدمُ واختلج الجسمُ المطعونُ
والشَعْرُ المُتَمَوِّجُ عَشّشَ فيه الطينْ
«أمّـاهْ!» ولم يسمَعْها إلا الجلادْ
وغداً سيجيء الفجرُ وتصحو الأورادُ
والعشرونَ تنادي والأملُ المفتونُ
فتُجيب المَرْجَةُ والأزهارْ
رحلت عنّا … غسلاً للعارْ
ويعود الجلاّدُ الوحشيُّ ويَلقى الناسْ
«العار؟» ويَمسَحْ مُدْيَتَه. «مزَّقنا العارْ»
«ورَجَعنا فُضَلاءً، بيضَ السُّمعَةِ أحرارْ
ياربَّ الحانةِ، أين الخمرُ؟ وأين الكاسْ؟
نادِ الغانيةَ الكَسْلى العاطِرَةَ الأنفاسْ
«أفدي عينيها بالقرآنِ وبالأقدارْ»
إملأ كاساتكَ يا جزّارْ
وعلى المقتولةِ غسلُ العارْ
وسيأتِيَ الفجرُ وتسألُ عنها الفتياتُ
«أين تراها؟» فيردّ الوحش «قتلناها»
«وصمةُ عارٍ في جبهتنا وغسلنانها»
وستحكي قصتها السوداءَ الجاراتُ
وسترويها في الحارةِ حتى النخلاتُ
حتى الأبوابُ الخشبيَّةُ لن تنساها
وستهمِسها حتى الأحجارْ
غسلاً للعارْ … غسلاً للعارْ …
يا جاراتِ الحارةِ … يا فتياتِ القريهْ
الخبزُ سنَعجِنهُ بدموعِ مآقينا
سنقصُّ جدائِلَنا، وسنسلخُ أيدينا
لتظلّ ثيابُهم بيضَ اللّون نقيّة
لا بسمَةَ، لا فرحةَ، لا لفتَة، فالمُديهُ
تَرقُبُنا في قبضةِ والدنا وأخينا
وغداً من يدري أيّ قِفارْ
سـتوارينا غسلاً للعـارْ؟
١٩٤٩/١١/١٦
one line from Come Here Where Are You Going Come Here by Sara
ElKamel, a sometime-roommate and friend who took up the perfect
amount of room in the fridge, which is to say, very little, breath of the
colonizer being, too, in me; appearing in a collection to which I’d
submitted a poem rejected by the editors, who, verily and most def,
probably made a mistake.
