Poem of the Week: Zein El-Amine

 

How to write a poem, according to Souha Bechara

       

Sit in their circle.

Don't let your eyes linger

on any object in the room.

Extract yourself

from your body. Watch

the man with the hairy hands

describe the rape of your body

to the body. Watch him

as he begins to beat the body.

Focus on the arc

of your liberated lower molar

and make it everything:

try to guess where

it landed, crawl to it,

find it, save it for later.

Think about putting it back

in one day. Ignore

the wheeling of the cart.

Ignore the stripped cable

dangling above you.

Find the tooth.

Make solitary confinement

your longed-for-solitude.

Climb the walls:

Press your palms on one

wall, fingers pointed

to the ceiling. Press

your feet against the other

wall. Build the pressure,

step up with one foot

and up with one hand.

Repeat until your back

is to the ceiling. Now

survey the room. Do this

once at mid-morning

and once at mid-afternoon.

Repeat daily. Do this

for a decade.

Make that crack

under your door

your world: Lie down

and face the door. Look

past the roaches,

the fleas, and the lice,

into the compressed light;

wait for it to be

interrupted. Study the soles

of your captors.

Match the voices

with the soles

match the soles

with the names.

Catalog them:

the pigeon-toed,

the limping soles,

the canvas ones,

the wooden ones.

Delight at new soles.

Now find a piece of graphite.

Separate your toilet paper

into plies. Stretch

your scroll on the floor.

Prostrate yourself.

Grab the graphite

between thumb

and forefinger.

It will feel crippling

at first, your words

will be undecipherable,

but you will

eventually write

your tiny words

with smooth curves.

Set your intentions.

Don't think of meanings,

think of the time

it will take to write

your microscopic epic.

After all, this is about time

not about metaphors

or similes or such.

It's about rhyme

and meter.

So limit hope to the word,

then extend it to the line,

then to the stanza,

then reach out for the winding night.

Now write your first faint line.

-Zein El-Amine  

Used by permission.

Zein El-Amine was born and raised in Lebanon. He has an MFA in Poetry from the University of Maryland where he teaches Global Literature and Social Change and Arabic. His poems have been published by Wild River Review, Folio, Foreign Policy in Focus, Beltway Quarterly, DC Poets Against the War Anthology, Penumbra, GYST and Joybringer. His short stories have been published by Boundoff and Uno Mas magazines. Zein lives in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of DC and is a member of the Ella Jo Baker Housing Cooperative.

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