Rafiq Kathwari, the first non-Irish recipient of the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award, obtained his MFA from Columbia University and an M.A. in political science from the New School. His recent poetry collection is My Mother's Scribe (YodaPress); his translations from the Urdu of selected poems of Muhammed Iqbal (1877-1938), many individually published here at 3QD, are forthcoming soon. He divides his time between New York, Dublin, and Kashmir where he was born a Scorpio at midnight. Email: rafiqkathwari [at] gmail.com
Website: https://www.rafiqkathwari.com
After Sir Mohammed (Iqbal) Twist your curls to an even fiery radianceBreak a few hearts, shatter all the senses When passion is revealed, can beauty be concealed?Unveil yourself I’m a shell, my luster tarnished; am a shard of potteryBut I can be a royal pearl You’re a vast ocean, not merely a brook like me—To…
“THE PRESIDENT IS HUMAN. HE GETS SICK” — White House Press Secretary Responding to Reporters' Questions in The New York Times, January 9, 1992 A thousand tiny dots of light: I diminish the noise. Duped smirk on aging face, eyes eclipsed by spectacles, The President, previously recorded, vomits, moving his lips slowly. Watching me watching…
After Seeing Caryl Churchill's Seven Jewish Children, A Play For Gaza by Rafiq Kathwari Tell her the proper name of thingsThis is barbed wireThis is a watch-tower (so unlike the one in Brooklyn)These are thermal imaging video camerasThese are 25-foot-high concrete slabsDon’t tell her this is a fenceTell her it is a wall Teach her…
“Fire log in cunt,” a pious father yells at his daughter who tells him that an egg she swallowed has grown a chickinside her belly. Sure that his only child is possessed, he buys a perky hen to entice the chick and purge it. Hen flutters in his hands as he chases his daughter barefootaround…
by Rafiq Kathwari As arranged, they meet the first time.He’s law student. She’s a child-bride. She wears red— for rancor?Head bowed, veiled little stars In gold thread, waits on the bedLike an arrow drawn on a bow. Henna-touched hands, a mirror poisedOn lap: A girl staring back. If he sits beside her,She will see him…
Translated from the Urdu by new 3QD writer Rafiq Kathwari: WE WILL SEE That promised dayWritten into tablets of pre eternity It’s inevitableWe, too, will see Colossal mountains of tyranny Floating like wisps of cotton The earth shaking and rattlingBeneath our stomping feet Swords of lightning clashingOver the heads of despots Idols flung out From…