the château of my heart

Poetry brought me back to life.

[lifeinpoetry]

We rework our images / until they no longer match our faces, / until they become the faces of others, / until we fit our faces into their pictures, / until our faces fit the frame.

— Moshtari Hilal, from "Plastic," Ugliness, tr. Elisabeth Lauffer

[lifeinpoetry]

Ugliness would be a superficial thing if it weren’t actually about hatred, about wishing you weren’t hated, didn’t hate yourself.

— Moshtari Hilal, from "Alienation," Ugliness, tr. Elisabeth Lauffer

[lifeinpoetry]

I am a battle axe that strikes fear / in the heart of dogs. A force // to be reckoned with. I am the bringer of the hunt, / the disrupting force of the hunt. // I am the watchful dog, / barking at the downfall of tyrants. // I am the downfall of tyrants. / I am the strength that only I, the bravest, can wield. // I am the vicious, untamed hyena, / fierce. 

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book One, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

Without your worship, / my hunger is a wildfire, // a searing light.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book One, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

slicing gaping wounds in all your glances. / And there, just where the pain makes you stop and think, / that’s the very place / I put down my roots.

— Moshtari Hilal, from "Negated Beauty," Ugliness, tr. Elisabeth Lauffer

[lifeinpoetry]

(Haven’t you

been sad most of your life? Come on, all those outposts in the middle . . . then they say the end of growth is that you’ll suffer “purely” . . .)

— Brenda Hillman, from "various outposts," Loose Sugar

[lifeinpoetry]

The tale of our mimicry can be subtle and gradual, a slow alienation from the gestures of our own mothers, from the features of our own faces. A discomfort that breaks out like a cold sweat. This terrible fear thrums in the pit of our stomach, knowing that we have to imitate others to get anywhere near the good life.

— Moshtari Hilal, from "Imitation," Ugliness, tr. Elisabeth Lauffer

[lifeinpoetry]

What is it that a shadow is trying to say / with the borrowed tongue of silence? Here I stand, // having heard all that has been said, / and like the prolonged abundance of an olive tree // I recall only the beauty of a life, / vast and resilient.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book Two, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

I must tell the secrets / burning in my gullet // to my ancestors with eyes clogged with the tongue / of silence—self-possessed with voicelessness.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book Three, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

In fairness, // it was my silence that sang to him.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book One, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

I was an animal, howling on all fours. With every movement, an uncontrolled, ugly wail escaped my body. I was an animal, no room for any human in my ugly pain.

— Moshtari Hilal, from "Dying Prayer," Ugliness, tr. Elisabeth Lauffer

[lifeinpoetry]

Who is this in hell praising you, Oh Lord?

— Forugh Farrokhzad, from The House Is Black, as quoted in Moshtari Hilal's Ugliness

[lifeinpoetry]

you are willing to walk away, which makes you closer to me than I am.

— Rosie Stockton, from "PUMPJACK," Fuel

[lifeinpoetry]

But I don’t want to forgive the betrayal. // Which means I still carry my own wounds. / I still carry a folded tongue, // burnished with silence; / the sweet nectar of poetry withers.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book Two, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

Was my smile a distortion, or did it leave me exposed?

— Moshtari Hilal, from "HATRED," Ugliness, tr. Elisabeth Lauffer

[lifeinpoetry]

I am now the mother-crane, / whose wings you must give back. // I am the road that brought you here.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book One, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

To me even your sweet voice does not reach There are no hot tears either But I know I will shatter at once

— Kim Hyesoon, from "Glass," The Hell of That Star, tr. Cindy Juyoung Ok