After Brandon Melendez
Spring 2022 | Arthur Kayzakian Reads "Synonyms for Maps" – MQR Sound
Arthur Kayzakian reads their poem, "Synonyms for Maps" from MQR's Spring 2022 issue.
fence | an imaginary line | a signature of victory at the expense of a skull | a translator of fields | a traitor of grass | the color green reminding me of my executed friends | paintings that lie | paintings that lie down | paintings that lie down in the rhythm of victory | victory victory victory | an invention to value document over blood | i call up a dead friend on a disconnected line | a partition between a dream and an obliterated collar bone | a mechanism for trade | zinc for laughter | fire for jokes | a geopolitical divide that supports a wall | the un-shingled rooftop festered with pigeons | the opposite of joy | antithesis to holding hands | to force queerness as a definition of distance | as in man, you’re gay or don’t be so queer | as in a line denying strangeness from beauty | a strange boundary | can i please have some water | a phantom rule that promotes mortgage | an urge to surge a needle in the vein | a distinction of history etched in dye | a king traced in dark laces of laughter | a president who clears a path through a sea of people | a contract stained with tea | a voided tree lot piled with wood | a city crawling over a land | my dead friends leave a message on a disconnected line | a sudden wave of a flag on a horse | the air cancelling the trespass of bullets
For more from the Spring 2022 special issue of MQR, “Decades of Fire: New Writing from the Middle East and North Africa,” you can purchase the issue here.
