Monthly Archives: April 2018

NY Minute

I stand in the street
no cars, just sun
blazing, off the oiled tar,
my wrists extended like offerings.

Take the blood that moves
below the skin,
red. like the dawn
that barely warms this winter Sunday.

Take it, fill it with light,
leach corruption
from nighttime furies:
the heat that will not keep.

I smell the blinding steam
that rises through
the scent of wants
discarded, met and sallow,

and heave oblations;
snatched from Dionysus
strewn to Apollo.

Brunch to follow.

From the Ashes

Rekindle the divine spark
If life would try
To snuff it out, or
Blind with smoke and mirrors.

Be your own fire keeper.
Defend and watch the embers well.
See that from the ashes
The mighty Phoenix rise.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Glow.

Repeat.

Caroline Johnstone is originally from Northern Ireland, now living in Ayrshire.  She writes stories through her poems, mainly on philosophical, political and life experience themes and has been published in the UK, Ireland and the U.S. She is a member of Women Aloud NI, the Federation of Writers, Scotland, the Scottish Writers Centre and is on the Poets Advisory Group for the Scottish Poetry Library.

Baptism of Your Fire

Full immersion pushed within,
beneath,
your smile, your skin.
Pushed below the sacred water
I came up gasping for more.
Not air,
not warmth of soft robes, not prayer,
but double dose of pure elation:
from love not asking for salvation
but righteousness, that fonts from feeling right.
A coupling to compliment, not fulfill.
I swim within your depths yet still.

Morgan Driscoll is a commercial artist looking to express himself in ways that do not involve selling things. Poetry seems the the form most expressive, and least mercenary, so he is giving it a try. When not running a business, or raising 5 children, or drinking coffee, he occasionally explores the spiritual, quickly losing his way and retreating back to the profane.

Hohokam

A coyote barks back
at the sunlight

from among rocks marked
with directions to the stars

when the people who
were here before him

walked to the edge of the Earth
and continued

into the darkness
that spread

around the mountain each night
and gave no indication

of where the next
step leads.

David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications online and in print, and reflect his affection for the natural world. His newest book publication is Shatter the Bell in my Ear, his translations of poems by Austrian poet Christine Lavant.

An Unrepentant Sorceress Before the Mexican Inquisition

the men of the cloth preached / proclaimed it was a terrible heresy for María / to cast enchantments to look upon the naked bodies of men / and know (them) / witnesses denounced her / conjuror of love and other magics / a single woman / the Dominicans were dogs / of the Lord and asked her if she knew / her invocations were sins for such divinations / were not divine / craft / she had (not) learned from a black woman / Marta the Indian mother had foretold / where her lost objects were / only  the spirits know if she found them / the inquisition records do (not) say / fearful friars ordered her to be punished / to be stripped / and whipped and shunned / nevertheless she blew the dirt away / a year passed María did (not) / learn the Creed she scorned / the sanctity of the Holy Office / churchmen decreed it / heretical depravity when they sent / her into perpetual exile / perhaps she took the Bishop’s missing / gold ring with her and found Marta on the way

Ray Ball, Ph.D., is a history professor, essayist, and poet. She grew up in Oklahoma and Texas, but now lives in Anchorage, Alaska. She is the author of two history books and her verse has recently appeared in Cirque, Longleaf Review, and West Texas Literary Review.

Fuzzy-Felt Utopia

I am God, and here is my fuzzy-felt utopia.
You can stick angels anywhere you like
and play the free CD of heavenly music
whilst you do so. It won’t hurt will it?

I bumped into a person from a past-life
as I deposited my coat in the cloakroom.
He was just as surprised as I was, you
never expect to catch up with yourself

when away from home. But there he was,
still as tall and lank as ever; I might
cut out a cardboard silhouette and let him
into heaven. I have to choose between

that or sending him to cup-cake hell.
What was I thinking? A palace for the dead
is such a waste of time, they are not
good company. They pass through fire,

revisit the beginning and end of time
then settle down in the corner for
their never ending life. I’d prefer
to stretch my legs, go visit distant stars.

© Rupert M Loydell

Pessach

Despite its name
Seder
without Dad
has no order

velvet kippah
at jaunty angle,
face flushed
from Kiddush wine

taking turns
to read
the Haggada,
cup overflowing

for Elijah to drink,
too tired
and full
to say the Birkat

Notes
Pessach Jewish holiday of Passover
Haggada prayer book recounting the Exodus Egypt
Birkat Hamazon Grace after Meals

Sally Michaelson is a conference interpreter in Brussels and her poems have been published in Lighthouse and Ink, Sweat and Tears.

New Melleray Abbey

Hewn white stone, one on top of another,
side by side, immense,
Tailored to stand strong through wind and rain,
through heat and snow.

Surrounded by crops and rare ennui,
like a demanding orchestra at break,
the sky always a hymn, horizon to horizon,
blue dome, backlit, like the antiphony of candles.

Everything level, everything intentioned,
all chapters, of verse, of antiphony, of light.
Bless the Lord, Oh, bless the lord.
Hearth and relic, all divine things.

While reclining tigers in the shade of trees —
having licked clean the bloodied carcass,
called to rest now the young ones are fed —
slide hymnals into their worn wooden slots.

 
Chuck Thompson has an MA in English from the University of Massachusetts, and his published work includes Busy and Blessed: 10 Simple Steps for Parents Seeking Peace (Christian Insight Press, 2014). He’s also a secondary school chaplain and spiritual director in Chicago, Illinois.

First Orchestration on Reflective Space

The need for several minds. Several minds in the one mind all working to the same purpose. The first: mathematical; the second: spatial; the third: functional; the fourth: creative. The chance above all for dreamtime – the space in which you learn to dance.

Great sambas will come of it.

that easy movement that helps you swing

from one position to another

that lets you corral the length and breadth of it

into a clean, empirical curve.

Neil Leadbeater is an author, editor, essayist, poet and critic living in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is a regular reviewer for several journals including Galatea Resurrects (A Poetry Engagement) (USA) and Write Out Loud (UK).  His work has been translated into Dutch, Romanian, Spanish and Swedish.

Altar Yourself

The Altar’s set,
With fire made ready,
Incense and candlelight

To fill our senses,
And sage to purify

And open up the road to bliss.

A virtual fireplace where

We pull an armchair up.
For time is stilled,
To merge with the eternal,
And meet with the Divine

And new beginnings.

Our well-beloved rituals
Mark the threshold;
Leaving past behind
To focus soft on now,
On all we long to be
In spirit and our self.

They ground,
They set the place
For outside worlds to hush
And inner work to whisper,
To change the mystery of love

That holds us in – and up.

We hold our altars firm
When all else shakes.
Its spark ignites
And subtly weaves the magic
As together,
We altar our selves.

Its spark ignites
And subtly weaves the magic
As together
We altar our selves.

Caroline Johnstone is originally from Northern Ireland, now living in Ayrshire.  She writes stories through her poems, mainly on philosophical, political and life experience themes and has been published in the UK, Ireland and the U.S. She is a member of Women Aloud NI, the Federation of Writers, Scotland, the Scottish Writers Centre and is on the Poets Advisory Group for the Scottish Poetry Library.