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Literature, PoetryAugust 11, 2013

Ausländerin

Captain’s Requiem, by Hashim Ali. Image courtesy of the artist

Sharp blue eyes scrape against the spleen,
“They were Gastarbeiter, then
why didn’t they leave?”

“Are muslims polygamous everywhere — can you choose
between the camel-boy and the shepherd?
What is that language you speak — Arabic
or Middle Eastern?”

Times have changed, they say, this is a new Germany.
Twenty-first century stained, not fascist,
“We are not racist,” they declare
with much defensiveness.

“Dumme!” a drunk man
snarls at you on New Year’s.

There is no halal food in Cottbus, a woman
died —  it’s in the news — in Dresden
while her child played nearby. Her crime?
The piece of patterned fabric
on her head.

I can’t speak — dieses sprache —
“Two years? and still no German?”
The polite inquiry
forced down one’s throat
like the doctor’s scalpel,
I regurgitate German articles:
der, die, das, die, der, das.

The whole country is filling up its stories, its mind
with lies. In each window, even the polite potted plants
frighten. Is it me? The eternal foreigner afraid
of even the sidewalks of this new country, even the
sunlight bites.

I lay a slice of brot on my plate  
place Gouda cheese over it,
bite through the thick slice
of my loneliness.

~ Rakhshan Rizwan

Rakhshan Rizwan was born in Lahore, Pakistan and then moved to Germany where she studied Literature and New Media. She completed her M.A in British, American and Postcolonial Studies from the University of Münster and is currently a Ph.D candidate at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. 

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One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

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