Salimah Valiani, pág. 24

SALIMAH VALIANI is a poet, activist, and researcher. She has published six collections of poetry. Her latest, 29 leads to love, has just been released by Inanna Publications. Her audiobook, Love Pandemic, is forthcoming from Daraja Press. Salimah’s poems and creative nonfiction have been published in online literary magazines in Africa including brittle paper, Praxis Magazine, Poetry Potion and Jalada. She lives in many places and crosses borders frequently.

sodade (viii)

at Frenco

across from Bar St Laurent during the first intifada a woman studying Spanish guitar a few other artists and me were cashiers always by the tills a favourite crescents singly wrapped gingerbread hue but not tenderness of freshest Turkish Delight but not rosy crushed almond Palestinian sweetmeat

untold times my tongue craving its touch years searching a recipe without a name not finding it not finding it

19.10.23

Histories that we know as history and those we have yet to know are all fair target in The Age of Everything We saw this with Congo Afghanistan Iraq Libya Tigray I am writing this right to left Back to front The modern Saint Porphyrios said Even a simple glance or sigh influences Even the slightest anger or indignation will harm

A friend who never spoke to me again told me at her wedding to go see Damascus Before they destroy it That was 2010 A decade earlier she said the belief in Palestine is that Israel will never back down Just before dying the other day in Gaza a man saidWe will not forgive the world Placard some place: When You need To Have Hundreds of Protests Just to Tell the World that Bombing children is NOT OK That is when you know Humanity has failed

At the Inaugural Shireen Abu Akleh Lecture May 2023 at the University of Johannesburg and Birzeit University a Palestinian-USAmerican advocate Member of Al Awda I couldn’t find on google spoke of land Refugees returning to Palestine on foot three weeks before She said this is about much more than Apartheid I am writing right to left Back to front Re-occupying the land Not claiming ownership via ancestors In Johannesburg Jews held prayers for peace What of the land under the homes they returned to What of the water filling pools in a waterless city water scarce country Increasingly water scant world Wars to come for things we never needed to own

A poet writes of shedding onions Slicing tears for all that she’s lost and never cried for Things stolen she never really needed The flea markets of freedom I write right to left Back to front

The human fleas preying/seizing goods/ seizing dreams/selling what was seized Back to her The domestic worker dodging border police on the way back to her shack is unphased by Israel’s latest The Ha Noi street child kept racing spiders at World War II’s début I write back to front write to left The poet is referring to USAmerica I am thinking something bigger

A culture

A world World Culture Ours

Moral highground while refusing to start taking less

Voicing without loading our acts with love

Showing Telling devoid of the bareness that will change the world