by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Jun 27, 2026 | Featured, Poetry, Uncategorized
How to get here Among the joys of love was when we got our first apartment on a boulevard above the trams and tree-tops and the wires that cut the street like tangram puzzles and our friends would come with olives and cheap wine they found the...
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Jun 26, 2026 | Featured, Poetry, Uncategorized
Khair At the feet of al-Ka‘ba you asked for a daughter. You named me Khair – Blessing. I answered inside you forcing myself into your ribs remaking you in the emptiness of your lungs. in the space he made— his shoes left in the...
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Jun 24, 2026 | Featured, Poetry
Smashing Narcissus We set about him with rifle butts and spades, waiting our turn alongside our enemies, the same sunburnt flesh, the same blistered feet. Met where our camps, the same badly pitched shelters, the same lack of meat, converged. Laboured...
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Jun 23, 2026 | Featured, Poetry
She remembers the house of her husband He’s not, as they said he is: loathsome, most monstrous. He has a strange and sinister beauty. His eyes are obsidian, shot through with gold, a ruby burning in each. A noble brow, and magnificent cheekbones. You can...
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Jun 22, 2026 | Featured, Poetry
Renegade Voices I am most visceral when being disarmed by a song, a lyric written and sung… in the broad New Yawk vowels of Dean Friedman. The scowl of Dylan. The scat and growl of George Ivan. Matthew Devereux’s demonic staccato. Pierce...
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Jun 21, 2026 | Featured, Prose
The Last Key My father died with all his keys still on the ring. House key. Padlock key. The tiny brass one for the old suitcase he never opened. Office key for a job he left in 2002. A car key for a Toyota that rusted behind the house. I...
