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Nov 28, 20231 min read

The Samovar

The samovar sits on a table in my living room like a shrine. Almost two feet tall with a chimney on top, common for tea-making in 19th...

Nov 25, 20231 min read

Poetry

A Trip to the Peak District

A rundown pub tucked in a sleeping village, A Sunday roast served on a cloudy day, A pint gargled down the throat. I was becoming English...

Nov 25, 20232 min read

Poetry

The World's End

That Christmas, you took me to the village where you grew up in North Yorkshire. A village whose name you said could be found in the...

Oct 29, 20234 min read

Poetry

A Train Whistle

Life was simpler then in innocence in trust when I walked through the night a seven year old on the road of flight my mother pushing the ...

Aug 1, 20231 min read

Poetry

Albino Forest

Stadium of blue eyes surround me The charm and pride of a peacock dancing But something in their stare Is malicious Measure me up and...

Jul 25, 20231 min read

Poetry

The Muezzin

for Seyyed Javad Zabihi A seyyed— the Prophet’s descendant— he wore a fez— as a pious Muslim chanted the azan and spiritual supplications...

Jul 25, 20231 min read

Poetry

Dirt

When I was a child, I dug my fingers Into the damp soil where the weeds grew, With their thin and gnarled roots Like the blue veins...

Jul 25, 20231 min read

Poetry

Day

Imagine, on a foreign shore, Ships linked up on the faraway horizon or Somewhere else, then molten links of them Across the water lead us...

Jul 25, 20231 min read

Poetry

Forever Mystery

They look at me, a beautiful alien I am a forever mystery, an ethnic accessory Almond, golden eyes Slanted Small Chinky Coin slots Warm,...

Jul 18, 20232 min read

Poetry

From Byker to Botany Bay, 1950

A long line of up-and-down terrace flats Adjunct outside lavvy and cobblestone back lane Runs cheek by jowl steep down to the foggy Tyne,...

Jul 17, 20231 min read

Poetry

Thoughts of Migration

New world, new life, that’s what I wanted to see, unforeseen problems, old dreams, that’s what life wrote. The airport was like a gate,...

Jul 14, 20231 min read

Poetry

Heaps of Home (for Berlin)

Combat boots trample gritty sidewalk weeds Lilacs bloom against monuments and walls Legs brush leaves brush glass brush stone We live...

Jul 14, 20231 min read

Poetry

Migration Song

I sleep better here though I yearn for my former home. Here the fox stays mostly in his lair beneath the rocks and though the bigger...

How Jozef Korzeniowski became Joseph Conrad

Jul 13, 20231 min read

Poetry

How Jozef Korzeniowski became Joseph Conrad

When he first arrived in England, Jozef K felt like a single whole pea in a blob of mushy peas. It is difficult to be surrounded by...

Jul 12, 20231 min read

Poetry

Dirt

I know nothing about countries. I know nothing about nations. But I know the soil, Or is it easier to say the soil knows me, the soil...

Jul 12, 20232 min read

Poetry

The Woman

"How was your journey?" The woman began to speak, her calm elegance and natural ability to tell captured the audience. Back then she had...

Jul 10, 20231 min read

Poetry

Ode to Emigration

The suburbs can be bleak They render isolation The dreams of shores afar Inspire to emigration The fantasy of light In sunny cities tease...

Jul 10, 20231 min read

Poetry

That Date

I still remember that date Years ago when I arrived at that gate Family was there to greet 5th Avenue was our street Once settled I did...

Jul 10, 20231 min read

Poetry

Generations

a father’s rule a brother’s will the needs of pigs that must be slopped until the farm divided bought her passage to the New World’s...

Jul 10, 20231 min read

Poetry

Secrets of My Great Grandparents

No one knows how Jennie and Nathan managed to establish a life together after she had become the sorrowful teenage kallah in an arranged...

Immigration Diaries

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