ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Hazem Fahmy is a poet and critic from Cairo. He is currently pursuing a degree in Humanities and Film Studies from Wesleyan University. His poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming in Apogee, HEArt, Mizna, and The Offing. In his spare time, he writes about the Middle East and tries to come up with creative ways to mock Classicism. He makes videos occasionally.
Also by Hazem Fahmy:
On Adding Sand to the N-Word to Make a New Slur (After Azealia Banks)
History of Boy & Jinn
Anthropological Study of Chaos at the Bronx Museum
Autopsy of an Arab
Cause of death:
English, sometimes
French, stuck
between the ribs.
Rotting history
overwhelmed the body,
a bloodstream fighting itself.
Open rebellion.
Hell hungry for skin.
Skin open,
like a prayer book
by the wind.
No one notices.
It closes again,
just as easily.
Just like that,
an Arab dies, and
a human lives, breathing
with punctured lungs, speaking
with gurgling blood.
I pull the sheets over
the sight, too afraid
of what comes next.
Too afraid
a corpse
might
still speak.
One of the most sinister ways through which neocolonialism manifests is the erosion of identity and heritage in the name of Euro-American 'globalism'. Growing up in Cairo, I always had the uncanny, and devastating feeling that somehow parts of my culture were dying around me, that English and the symbols it brought with it were killing much of what made us who we are. This feeling was, of course, only worsened by the fact that my own Arabic is far weaker than my English. This poem was first and foremost my attempt at reckoning with this uncomfortable paradox, but it is also the beginning of a sort of investigation into this feeling of cultural loss.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
