Jeffrey Encke
FROM MOST WANTED
Rashid Taan Kazim (2♠)
I wanted to be an infant
at times
gawking in your embrace
if I could unlock you
from history
child and daunted in-laws
the peacocks of Lisbon
their lisping bones
—even your memories
borrowed
a kempt Visigoth courtyard
a collar of stone
Muhammad Hamza Zubaydi (Q♠)
Door ajar, among spruce
still pools of koi headlights
panned across your face
contorted as I floated
bobbing in uncertainty
avoiding the courting gaze
of the rearview mirror
a curtain of brow sweat
eschatology, you said,
and I thought you meant cosmetology
not knowing what the other meant
Muhammad Zimam Abd Al-Razzaq Al-Sadun (4♠)
Why glass and stone
are cold to touch
why lips bleed in the sun
why the snow falls in curves
figments of unconscious
we stalked after the war
sagging wool, a lunatic stagger
nub of nil—
all talk
intubating meaning
to put the stammer
under
extinguish an inflammation
Hikmat Mizban Ibrahim Al-Azzawi (8♦)
Simply a passing
a drawknife coursing the surface
of present, part of the flow
I could not sieve
with diction
glass from a swell
of gravel
infected with significance
as though death
were an unraveling dirge
an image washing through me
as I slipped
from the edge
into the frigid sound
thrashing as fan palms do
above uncertain perch
in trousers, shirt and shoes
and you there with me
watching time pass
head nodding