To sever one’s ear is something akin
to the rejection of an established grammar.
Hear,ear. To sever one’s ear begins with
listening to internal howls. To sever one’s
ear begins with smashing the palette against
the passive time. Screams ready to be set free.
Blood gushes in torrents in every direction
till it clots. {No linearity.} Red spots here &
there.—Rare rubies for the nude prostitutes
of the ungrammatical night.

Ali Znaidi lives in Redeyef, Tunisia, where he teaches English. His work has appeared in various magazines and journals worldwide. He authored four poetry chapbooks including Experimental Ruminations(Fowlpox Press, 2012), Moon’s Cloth Embroidered with Poems (Origami Poems Project, 2012),Bye, Donna Summer! (Fowlpox Press, 2014), and Taste of the Edge (Kind of a Hurricane Press, 2014). He also wrote a book of fiction titled Green Cemetery (Moment Publications, 2014) which is in fact the first Tunisian flash fiction collection originally written & published in the English language.Some of his poems have been translated into German, Greek, Turkish and Italian.You can see more of his work on his blog at aliznaidi.blogspot.com.