{"id":9181,"date":"2015-09-15T08:00:16","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T08:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=9181"},"modified":"2015-08-17T10:27:29","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T10:27:29","slug":"khaloud-al-muttalibi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/khaloud-al-muttalibi\/","title":{"rendered":"Khaloud Al-Muttalibi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Iraq Gnaws at my Heart and Laughs<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I am blind<\/p>\n<p>I am mute<\/p>\n<p>My screams scuttle to their holes<\/p>\n<p>My thoughts are in the hands of brick-layers<\/p>\n<p>In the slums of Baghdad<\/p>\n<p>My breath is in London<\/p>\n<p>Sold by Oxfam for a penny<\/p>\n<p>In a city ghetto<\/p>\n<p>I was my mother&#8217;s love<\/p>\n<p>And my father&#8217;s<\/p>\n<p>Yet you surpass yourselves<\/p>\n<p>Designing a stadium of lavish pain<\/p>\n<p>Every time the hurt thirsts and withers<\/p>\n<p>You replant it, leafy and strong<\/p>\n<p>I am not mad<\/p>\n<p>I was not drunk when I saw the sky swallow her stars,<\/p>\n<p>The postman scoffing his letters<\/p>\n<p>Iraq gnaws at my heart and laughs<\/p>\n<p>I am dead, dead, and this air is a false witness of my life<\/p>\n<p>For I am not here, I am not there<\/p>\n<p>Hang me from Big Ben&#8217;s hands<\/p>\n<p>I am dead<\/p>\n<p>I am dead<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Khaloud Al-Muttalibi<\/strong> is a poet and translator. She is the author of eight books including <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Void-Full-You-Khaloud-Al-Muttalibi\/dp\/0993075703\" target=\"_blank\">A Void, Full Of You.<\/a> <\/em>She resides in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>Much of her work has been translated into various languages including Russian, Punjabi and Romanian. Her poetry has been published in a vast array of worldwide literary magazines and journals, both in print and online. She has appeared in several books and anthologies.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Iraq Gnaws at my Heart and Laughs &nbsp; I am blind I am mute My screams scuttle to their holes My thoughts are in the hands of brick-layers In the slums of Baghdad My breath is in London Sold by Oxfam for a penny In a city ghetto I was my mother&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9181"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9183,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9181\/revisions\/9183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}