Privacy Policy Cookie Policy
  • TABLE OF CONTENT
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 10
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 9
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 8
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 7
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 6
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 5
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 4
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 3
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 2
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 1
  • THE DREAMING MACHINE
    • The dreaming machine n 10
    • The dreaming machine n 9
    • The dreaming machine n 8
    • The dreaming machine n 7
    • The dreaming machine n 6
    • The dreaming machine n 5
    • The dreaming machine n 4
    • The dreaming machine n 3
    • The dreaming machine n 2
    • The dreaming machine n 1
  • CONTACT
No Result
View All Result

The Dreaming Machine

  • Home
  • Poetry
    A medley of artwork from Le braccianti di Euripide collective

    The dolls have pronounced it – Poems by Mohamed Kheder

    Ukrainian Poetry in La Macchina Sognante – In Solidarity with the People of Ukraine

    Ukrainian Poetry in La Macchina Sognante – In Solidarity with the People of Ukraine

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    Three Poems from “The Bastard and the Bishop” – Gerald Fleming

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    God appeared at midnight: Three poems by Bitasta Ghoshal

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    I dream of the tree of silence: Poems by Rafael Romero

    Always another curtain  to draw open: Five poems by Helen Wickes

    Always another curtain to draw open: Five poems by Helen Wickes

  • Fiction
    FLORAL PRINT FLAT SHOES – Lucia Cupertino

    FLORAL PRINT FLAT SHOES – Lucia Cupertino

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    The Red Bananas – N. Annadurai

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    THE CULPRIT – Gourahari Das

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    A very different story (Part I) – Nandini Sahu

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    After Breaking News – Mojaffor Hossain

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    THE THEATER OF MEMORY – Julio Monteiro Martins

    Let the Rivers Speak! – Lucia Cupertino and the Poetry of the Global Souths, by  Pina Piccolo

    Fanta Blackcurrant – Makena Onjerika

    Photographer Sumana Mitra on her street photography and recent explorations of Surrealist techniques

    All the Sadeqs are getting killed – Mojaffor Hossain, translated by Noora Shamsi Bahar

    Photographer Sumana Mitra on her street photography and recent explorations of Surrealist techniques

    Here, Where We Keep on Meeting – Giuseppe Ferrara

  • Non Fiction
    Figures of Pathos  (Part I)- Salvatore Piermarini

    Figures of Pathos (Part I)- Salvatore Piermarini

    Plowing the publishing world  – Tribute to Brazilian writer Itamar Vieira, by Loretta Emiri

    Plowing the publishing world – Tribute to Brazilian writer Itamar Vieira, by Loretta Emiri

    Jaider Esbell – Specialist in Provocations, by Loretta Emiri

    Jaider Esbell – Specialist in Provocations, by Loretta Emiri

    Farewell, Silver Girl – Carolyn Miller

    Farewell, Silver Girl – Carolyn Miller

    Lino-printing fairy tales over Constitutions- The artwork of Mihaela Šuman

    Layers of overlap: theatre, cinema, memory, imagination – Farah Ahamed

    Architectures of Delusion –  Steve Salaita

    Architectures of Delusion – Steve Salaita

  • Interviews & reviews
    The Power of the Female Gaze: On Maria Antonietta Scarpari’s Artistic Practice – Camilla Boemio

    The Power of the Female Gaze: On Maria Antonietta Scarpari’s Artistic Practice – Camilla Boemio

    A new reality needed –  A conversation with Mathew Emmett, by Camilla Boemio

    A new reality needed – A conversation with Mathew Emmett, by Camilla Boemio

    Farewell, Silver Girl – Carolyn Miller

    A medley of artwork from Le braccianti di Euripide collective

    Sagar Kumar Sharma in Conversation with Santosh Bakaya

    Sagar Kumar Sharma in Conversation with Santosh Bakaya

    Sagar Kumar Sharma in a Literary Conversation with Sarita Jenamani

    Sagar Kumar Sharma in a Literary Conversation with Sarita Jenamani

    That’s how war left me alive – Wesam Almadani interviewed by Le Ortique

    That’s how war left me alive – Wesam Almadani interviewed by Le Ortique

  • Out of bounds
    • All
    • Fiction
    • Intersections
    • Interviews and reviews
    • Non fiction
    • Poetry
    M’aidez, May Day – Pina Piccolo

    M’aidez, May Day – Pina Piccolo

    Desperately seeking Marion: A Review of ” Women, Antifascism and Mussolini’s Italy – The Life of Marion Cave Rosselli”, by Isabelle Richet

    Desperately seeking Marion: A Review of ” Women, Antifascism and Mussolini’s Italy – The Life of Marion Cave Rosselli”, by Isabelle Richet

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    Tim Ingold’s “Correspondences” – Giuseppe Ferrara

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    But for plants there is no delegating: Seven Poems by Achille Pignatelli

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    Skjelv Du På Handa, Vladimir? / Does Your Hand Shake, Vladimir? –  Transnational Solidarity Project (Odveig Klyve)

    Skjelv Du På Handa, Vladimir? / Does Your Hand Shake, Vladimir? – Transnational Solidarity Project (Odveig Klyve)

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    The malice of desires feeds the power of my imagination – Poems by Mubeen Kishany

    Alahor in Granata: A Forgotten Opera by Donizetti – Fawzi Karim

    Alahor in Granata: A Forgotten Opera by Donizetti – Fawzi Karim

    EARTH ANTHEM : A eulogy of the Earth, its beauty, its biodiversity – Abhay K.

    EARTH ANTHEM : A eulogy of the Earth, its beauty, its biodiversity – Abhay K.

  • News
    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5:  Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5: Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

    IL BIANCO E IL NERO – LE PAROLE PER DIRLO, Conference Milan Sept. 7

    IL BIANCO E IL NERO – LE PAROLE PER DIRLO, Conference Milan Sept. 7

    OPEN POEM TO THE CURATORS OF THE 58th VENICE BIENNALE  FROM THE GHOSTS OF THAT RELIC YOU SHOULD NOT DARE CALL “OUR BOAT” (Pina Piccolo)

    OPEN POEM TO THE CURATORS OF THE 58th VENICE BIENNALE FROM THE GHOSTS OF THAT RELIC YOU SHOULD NOT DARE CALL “OUR BOAT” (Pina Piccolo)

    OPEN LETTER BY A GROUP OF BLACK ITALIAN WOMEN

    OPEN LETTER BY A GROUP OF BLACK ITALIAN WOMEN

    Crowdfunding for [DI]SCORDARE project

    Crowdfunding for [DI]SCORDARE project

  • Home
  • Poetry
    A medley of artwork from Le braccianti di Euripide collective

    The dolls have pronounced it – Poems by Mohamed Kheder

    Ukrainian Poetry in La Macchina Sognante – In Solidarity with the People of Ukraine

    Ukrainian Poetry in La Macchina Sognante – In Solidarity with the People of Ukraine

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    Three Poems from “The Bastard and the Bishop” – Gerald Fleming

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    God appeared at midnight: Three poems by Bitasta Ghoshal

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    I dream of the tree of silence: Poems by Rafael Romero

    Always another curtain  to draw open: Five poems by Helen Wickes

    Always another curtain to draw open: Five poems by Helen Wickes

  • Fiction
    FLORAL PRINT FLAT SHOES – Lucia Cupertino

    FLORAL PRINT FLAT SHOES – Lucia Cupertino

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    The Red Bananas – N. Annadurai

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    THE CULPRIT – Gourahari Das

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    A very different story (Part I) – Nandini Sahu

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    After Breaking News – Mojaffor Hossain

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    THE THEATER OF MEMORY – Julio Monteiro Martins

    Let the Rivers Speak! – Lucia Cupertino and the Poetry of the Global Souths, by  Pina Piccolo

    Fanta Blackcurrant – Makena Onjerika

    Photographer Sumana Mitra on her street photography and recent explorations of Surrealist techniques

    All the Sadeqs are getting killed – Mojaffor Hossain, translated by Noora Shamsi Bahar

    Photographer Sumana Mitra on her street photography and recent explorations of Surrealist techniques

    Here, Where We Keep on Meeting – Giuseppe Ferrara

  • Non Fiction
    Figures of Pathos  (Part I)- Salvatore Piermarini

    Figures of Pathos (Part I)- Salvatore Piermarini

    Plowing the publishing world  – Tribute to Brazilian writer Itamar Vieira, by Loretta Emiri

    Plowing the publishing world – Tribute to Brazilian writer Itamar Vieira, by Loretta Emiri

    Jaider Esbell – Specialist in Provocations, by Loretta Emiri

    Jaider Esbell – Specialist in Provocations, by Loretta Emiri

    Farewell, Silver Girl – Carolyn Miller

    Farewell, Silver Girl – Carolyn Miller

    Lino-printing fairy tales over Constitutions- The artwork of Mihaela Šuman

    Layers of overlap: theatre, cinema, memory, imagination – Farah Ahamed

    Architectures of Delusion –  Steve Salaita

    Architectures of Delusion – Steve Salaita

  • Interviews & reviews
    The Power of the Female Gaze: On Maria Antonietta Scarpari’s Artistic Practice – Camilla Boemio

    The Power of the Female Gaze: On Maria Antonietta Scarpari’s Artistic Practice – Camilla Boemio

    A new reality needed –  A conversation with Mathew Emmett, by Camilla Boemio

    A new reality needed – A conversation with Mathew Emmett, by Camilla Boemio

    Farewell, Silver Girl – Carolyn Miller

    A medley of artwork from Le braccianti di Euripide collective

    Sagar Kumar Sharma in Conversation with Santosh Bakaya

    Sagar Kumar Sharma in Conversation with Santosh Bakaya

    Sagar Kumar Sharma in a Literary Conversation with Sarita Jenamani

    Sagar Kumar Sharma in a Literary Conversation with Sarita Jenamani

    That’s how war left me alive – Wesam Almadani interviewed by Le Ortique

    That’s how war left me alive – Wesam Almadani interviewed by Le Ortique

  • Out of bounds
    • All
    • Fiction
    • Intersections
    • Interviews and reviews
    • Non fiction
    • Poetry
    M’aidez, May Day – Pina Piccolo

    M’aidez, May Day – Pina Piccolo

    Desperately seeking Marion: A Review of ” Women, Antifascism and Mussolini’s Italy – The Life of Marion Cave Rosselli”, by Isabelle Richet

    Desperately seeking Marion: A Review of ” Women, Antifascism and Mussolini’s Italy – The Life of Marion Cave Rosselli”, by Isabelle Richet

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    Tim Ingold’s “Correspondences” – Giuseppe Ferrara

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    But for plants there is no delegating: Seven Poems by Achille Pignatelli

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    Skjelv Du På Handa, Vladimir? / Does Your Hand Shake, Vladimir? –  Transnational Solidarity Project (Odveig Klyve)

    Skjelv Du På Handa, Vladimir? / Does Your Hand Shake, Vladimir? – Transnational Solidarity Project (Odveig Klyve)

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    The malice of desires feeds the power of my imagination – Poems by Mubeen Kishany

    Alahor in Granata: A Forgotten Opera by Donizetti – Fawzi Karim

    Alahor in Granata: A Forgotten Opera by Donizetti – Fawzi Karim

    EARTH ANTHEM : A eulogy of the Earth, its beauty, its biodiversity – Abhay K.

    EARTH ANTHEM : A eulogy of the Earth, its beauty, its biodiversity – Abhay K.

  • News
    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5:  Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5: Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

    IL BIANCO E IL NERO – LE PAROLE PER DIRLO, Conference Milan Sept. 7

    IL BIANCO E IL NERO – LE PAROLE PER DIRLO, Conference Milan Sept. 7

    OPEN POEM TO THE CURATORS OF THE 58th VENICE BIENNALE  FROM THE GHOSTS OF THAT RELIC YOU SHOULD NOT DARE CALL “OUR BOAT” (Pina Piccolo)

    OPEN POEM TO THE CURATORS OF THE 58th VENICE BIENNALE FROM THE GHOSTS OF THAT RELIC YOU SHOULD NOT DARE CALL “OUR BOAT” (Pina Piccolo)

    OPEN LETTER BY A GROUP OF BLACK ITALIAN WOMEN

    OPEN LETTER BY A GROUP OF BLACK ITALIAN WOMEN

    Crowdfunding for [DI]SCORDARE project

    Crowdfunding for [DI]SCORDARE project

No Result
View All Result
The Dreaming Machine
No Result
View All Result
Home Poetry

I guarded my theft like a relic – Four poems from “Noura” by Asmae Dachan

Selected and translated by Pina Piccolo, from "Noura", Blu di Prussia, 2016

April 29, 2018
in Poetry, The dreaming machine n 2
I guarded my theft like a relic –  Four poems from “Noura” by Asmae Dachan
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

To my sister Noura (Aleppo, 28 October 1975 – Ancona, 30 October 2014)

Guardian of memory

I appointed my insomnia

guardian of your memory.

I asked my loneliness

to accompany your shadow

and my silences to articulate time,

time that separates your eyes

from my glance, your smile

from my stony face,

your hands from my embrace.

I wrote your name among the leaves

and the wind blew it away,

I painted your face among the clouds

and my rain dissolved it

into rivulets of yearning.

Among flowers I looked for the most beautiful

and I found you in the flight of a butterfly.

I whispered your name to the waves

and the waves composed an ode,

and the ode rocked the moon

and her melancholy in the night.

I stroked your white gravestone and I heard

a breath of life take wing among the cypress.

 

A handful of earth

 

I stole, for my severed roots,

a handful of earth.

With my hands I picked

the red that tells its story

and with my glance I stroked

the grassy  carpet I had never trampled.

I bowed to kiss her wounds

and breathe its glory

and find myself.  I, unknown to myself.

I guarded my theft

like a relic

and now the relic

embraces a land foreign to you

you who saw the first rays of the sun in Aleppo,

and closed your eyes in a faraway land,

in a city where I have no blood,

but I write my history.

I gifted you with my theft, my relic,

so that you may sleep caressed by a veil

that is neither that of a bride nor that of the faithful

but a veil of memory and identity.

Now on that hill

merging like two sisters

are the land of Syria and the land of Italy,

embracing you forever.

 

The name of rain

I am looking for a name

for the fragrance

of the first rain

an ephemeral moment

fragment of eternity.

 

 

My  first memory

 

From behind the window where I was standing

I lifted my eyes to the sky

and saw white clouds floating by

and birds getting drunk on freedom.

I heard the wind singing

a tune I didn’t know

and I trembled out of a sweet fear

dressed as the unknown.The world, outside, was flying

and I wondered where it would stop

and how we would return home.

My punishment was to stay there by myself

to learn that you are not supposed to write on walls

but you, an accomplice in that passion,

looked up to give me your smile.

The first thing  in life I recall.

 

Asmae Dachan is a writer, blogger (Diario di Siria) and an award winning journalist, born in Italy of Syrian descent. Editor in chief until 2015 of the Italian journal Mondo Lavoro, she writes about human rights, the Syrian conflict, the refugee crisis and the anti -Assad  resistance for major national Italian magazines and newspapers. An award winning novelist, she published Dal quaderno blu in 2009, 2 collections of poetry, Noura and Tu, Siria (co-authored with Yara al Zatr). Her latest novel, published in 2017 and set between Syria and Italy is titled Il silenzio del mare.

Tags: Asmae dachandeathdislocationItalymemoryNoura Dachanpremature deathremembrancesisterSyria

Related Posts

M’aidez, May Day – Pina Piccolo
Out of bounds

M’aidez, May Day – Pina Piccolo

May 1, 2022
Plowing the publishing world  – Tribute to Brazilian writer Itamar Vieira, by Loretta Emiri
Non Fiction

Plowing the publishing world – Tribute to Brazilian writer Itamar Vieira, by Loretta Emiri

April 29, 2022
Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo
Poetry

I dream of the tree of silence: Poems by Rafael Romero

April 28, 2022
Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo
Interviews and reviews

Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

April 28, 2022
Always another curtain  to draw open: Five poems by Helen Wickes
Poetry

Always another curtain to draw open: Five poems by Helen Wickes

April 26, 2022
Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo
Fiction

THE THEATER OF MEMORY – Julio Monteiro Martins

April 23, 2022
Next Post
KAHLIL GIBRAN AND BLAKE’S RECONCILIATION OF OPPOSITES- PART II, Sana Darghmouni

KAHLIL GIBRAN AND BLAKE'S RECONCILIATION OF OPPOSITES- PART II, Sana Darghmouni

The Dreaming Machine

Writing and visual arts from the world.

Non Fiction

The Creative Journey – On Art and Travel, by Glen Rogers

  My creative journey has taken me to some incredible places around the world while inspiring my art ...

April 19, 2021
Non Fiction

IN CONVERSATION WITH LANGUAGE-SPACE: A “Bio-bibliography” – YVES BERGERET

  Yves Bergeret's “Bio-bibliographical Note” February 15, 2021   I am asked for a "complete an up-to-date bio-bibliographical note". It's a ...

April 26, 2021
Interviews and reviews

Alahor in Granata: A Forgotten Opera by Donizetti – Fawzi Karim

With this first English language translation of one of the hundreds classical music reviews that the multi-talented Fawzi Karim contributed ...

April 23, 2022
Fiction

Excerpts from the novel “I negativi” – Daniele Morgese (Giulio Perrone editore, 2021)

Book synopsis Andrès is twenty years old, lives in Paris with his mother and has never met his father, Jean-Luc ...

November 16, 2021
Interviews and reviews

Writing in the Crack between Two Languages: Aritra Sanyal Interviews Murat Nemet-Nejat

  Murat Nemet-Nejat: Poet, Translator, Essayist was born in Istanbul, and has lived in the United States since 1959. His works ...

May 1, 2019

Latest

The Power of the Female Gaze: On Maria Antonietta Scarpari’s Artistic Practice – Camilla Boemio

The Power of the Female Gaze: On Maria Antonietta Scarpari’s Artistic Practice – Camilla Boemio

May 4, 2022
M’aidez, May Day – Pina Piccolo

M’aidez, May Day – Pina Piccolo

May 1, 2022
A medley of artwork from Le braccianti di Euripide collective

The dolls have pronounced it – Poems by Mohamed Kheder

April 30, 2022
A new reality needed –  A conversation with Mathew Emmett, by Camilla Boemio

A new reality needed – A conversation with Mathew Emmett, by Camilla Boemio

April 30, 2022

Follow Us

news

RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT
News

RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

by Dreaming Machine
2 years ago
0

3 SEPTEMBER 2020 – DEADLINE FOR RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT   Rucksack, at Global Poetry Patchwork is an...

Read more
  • TABLE OF CONTENT
  • THE DREAMING MACHINE
  • CONTACT

© 2019 thedreamingmachine.com

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Poetry
  • Fiction
  • Non Fiction
  • Interviews and reviews
  • Out of bounds
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Intersections
  • THE DREAMING MACHINE
    • The dreaming machine n 8
    • The dreaming machine n 7
    • The dreaming machine n 6
    • The dreaming machine n 5
    • The dreaming machine n 4
    • The dreaming machine n 3
    • The dreaming machine n 2
    • The dreaming machine n 1
  • TABLE OF CONTENTS
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 7
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 6
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 5
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 4
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 3
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 2
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 1
  • News
  • Contacts

© 2019 thedreamingmachine.com

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In