Monthly Archives: October 2021

To Plant a Lupine at Twilight in the Company of the Earthworm

a Georgic poem
 

I

Dig
down
into the dark

naked hands
embedded

let your fingers
make the hole

wide and full,
give berth

to roots; let them
wind and spread

a tangle
of hair lined ropes—


II

Lumbricina—slime and moisture,
slither smoothly on their belly

rough with setae
that bristle,
protect, move them—

Do not interrupt their rounds.


III

Gently, firmly envelop
the tender seedlings of Lupinus
which you have brought
to this moment

micro-bonnets folded,
clusters of purple velvet—

Sweep in the earth.

Wait with the patience of the trees
for full flowering—

You have planted immortality.

Ruth Chad is a psychologist who lives and works in the Boston area. Her poems have appeared in the Aurorean, Bagels with the Bards, Connection, Psychoanalytic Couple and Family Institute of New England, Constellations, Ibbetson Street, Montreal Poems, Muddy River Poetry Review, Lily Poetry Review and several others. Her chapbook, The Sound of Angels was published by Cervena Barva Press in 2017.

Wisdom of the Owl

If I could tell you what the wise owl
knows it would hardly make much 
of a book – a poem perhaps, with words 
that sound something like this:

Friend, I’m an owl, my world 
is simple – I live in the scorch 
and inundation of seasons.
I breed, I fledge, I fly.

We owls root in the patience
of old trees and their saplings,
we stretch our wings to a
featherless moon and dine 
on the scurry of little things.

My wisdom? Well, that’s simple too,
stuff of the earth which can’t
be learned by verse or epithet;
sentience of the half-hidden,
the space between the trees.

And I would rather crane 
and twist my head three sixty
than wring the world’s neck 
with the blindsight folly of your kind.

I’m an owl my good fellow,
and a wit.  Who are you?

Huw Gwynn-Jones comes from a line of prize-winning poets in the Welsh bardic tradition, but until his recent retirement to Orkney, had never written a line himself.  He now writes to find a different way of hearing the world, and has poems published by Eunoia Review, One Hand Clapping and Dreich Magazine.

Learning Late

Why, love is easy, you discover
after a lifetime blocking that route
with boulders and trunks of trees:
simply remove debris you put there
yourself, and the road is level,
straight to the horizon.

Bless us, it is better to learn
just before the sun sets what day it is,
than not at all.  Impious old
Uncle Charles took Jesus as Savior
mere minutes before he died.
Pastor was very happy.

Knowledge of what a sparrow means
by singing earns you no interest,
so acquire it only when you’re ready.
Something the young don’t realize:
late learnings lack years to harden
into dogma, the way arteries harden.

Mistakes make good students—
and that school is always in session.
It isn’t necessary that you graduate:
even the teachers are still learning.

Some say the greatest lessons await 
after Pastor throws dirt on the coffin.
How about that for learning late.

Seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, where he has judged high-school Poetry Out Loud competitions. Recent work appears in Poem, The Main Street Rag, and U.S. 1 Worksheets.  His latest poetry book, Wooden Nutmegs, is available from Encircle Publications.

The Invocation

The man pulled the car over and parked. He had spent the day—the last several days, actually—in Saskatoon. On Thursday he had flown in from Toronto to plan his mother’s funeral. Now it was late Saturday, and he was sitting outside an old country church hours away from the city.

He hadn’t thought about his mother much in recent years. In fact, it had been about a decade since he’d last seen her. Oh, he had made sure she was well looked after: the home had very positive reviews. But her dementia was too much for him. One day—after years of visiting this crazy old woman who looked like, but wasn’t, his mother—he simply stopped.

It wasn’t a deliberate decision, exactly. He just never got around to booking the next ticket. By the time he realized it had been more than a year since he last saw her, he figured it was better this way. He moved on.

Her death caught him off guard as a result. He had said goodbye a long time ago. But being back in Saskatchewan, making arrangements for the funeral… That was different. It brought back memories he had long ago buried.

The funeral, such as it was, had taken place that morning in Saskatoon. It was a small affair—no pastor, no hint of anything religious. Few people knew his mother in recent years, and even fewer bothered to attend. In all, the event took forty-five minutes.

That left the man with time to spare, as his return flight wasn’t until the next afternoon. But he was restless. There was something he needed to do. Somewhere he needed to be. He couldn’t sit still, kept fidgeting with his keys.

At last he made a decision: he would spend his remaining hours in the province driving out to see his childhood home one last time.

Only, when he got there the house was gone. Of course it was gone, he thought. It had probably been demolished thirty years ago after his mother moved to the city. Stupid. Hours wasted. He should have realized.

He meant then to go back to the city. A few minutes later, when he reached the crossroads, he knew he should turn left—that was the direction of the highway. Instead, he turned right. Now here he was, parked at the corner of two gravel roads in the middle of nowhere, staring out at the church of his youth. 

He tried to think. Why had he come here? Some shadow of a memory seemed to be playing at the corner of his mind, some… Thing… that if he could just retrieve he knew would make sense of everything.

He waved his hand to dispel the thought, like brushing aside a fly.

He examined the church from his window more clinically now. He was looking for… what, exactly? A chance to reconnect with his family roots? He snorted. Church had been his father’s thing, not his mother’s. After his father died, they just stopped going. He had been in his teens. What could he possibly be looking for here?

The man got out of the car and walked across the grass towards the church. It showed its age: the exterior, once gleaming white, was coated with years of dirt. The cross on top of the small bell tower was slightly askew. The sign read “Holy Cross Lutheran,” and indicated the years the congregation had opened and closed.

So the church is dead too, he thought—long dead. He wasn’t surprised. It had been a tiny congregation when he had lived here decades earlier. It wouldn’t have taken much for them to pack it in.

Still, he thought, it isn’t completely abandoned. He could see that the grass had been mowed fairly recently. Someone was still watching over the place. Maybe people still used the church once in a while for community events. Maybe weddings.

He decided to try the door. The wood was swollen at the bottom, but it came open after a firm tug. He stepped inside.

It was exactly as he remembered it. The altar, the pulpit, the baptismal font, the pews… they were all there. An open Bible lay on the lectern. Candlesticks still stood on the altar.  Tucked away in the front left was the old pump organ he’d tortured more than once as a child. And over the whole scene a large crucifix loomed, brutal and demanding, sunlight from the window behind bathing it in fire.

He glanced to the left as he entered the sanctuary and was surprised to see the back wall still held several frames, most of them crooked. His baptism and confirmation photos must be among them. He turned away.

The furnishings were all as he remembered them, but the sanctuary had nevertheless aged. A fine coat of dust covered everything, and an unpleasant musty smell permeated the room. A large dark stain—presumably the result of a leaky roof—took up a good portion of the aisle floor. The wood creaked beneath his feet.

He took a seat in the fourth pew on the right without considering what he was doing. It had been the family pew. It seemed appropriate somehow. Then, he waited.

He waited ten minutes. Twenty. The sun outside began to set, and the light passing through the dirty windows cast a golden haze over everything. Thirty minutes passed. He felt anew the sense that he was forgetting something; somewhere in the back of his mind a dim recollection was struggling to form. A shadow from the cross began to spread across the floor.

He sighed. What was he doing here? What was he expecting? “A sign?” He asked it aloud, mockingly, and the sound of his own voice startled him. He hadn’t realized how quiet the church had been.

The sun sank lower, and the cruciform shadow grew.

He sat in silence a minute more, and then shook his head. Whatever he was searching for, he decided, it was not here. The man rose and began his way to the door.

Suddenly there was a crash behind him, and he spun around. One of the candlesticks had fallen from the altar and was now rolling slowly across the floor.

The man gasped and glanced wildly around. Blood rushed to his ears. His heart pounded.

The candlestick came to a stop. The man stood perfectly still, listening, waiting…

Nothing.

He swallowed. “Damn mice,” he muttered at last.

He glanced nervously at his watch, then at the door. He licked his lips. He had to go. Yes, he had to go now. It was still several hours’ drive back to Saskatoon. He should leave.

He looked back towards the altar. The shadow from the cross was stretching towards him with surprising rapidity.

He took a small step back. The shadow advanced. Several more steps. The shadow kept pace. His breath came quicker.

He reached the entryway and his hand darted for the knob. He pushed but the door stuck at the base. Suddenly the shadow rushed him, enveloping his feet, and the man panicked. He flung himself at the door. It gave way and he tumbled onto the grass outside.

He ran to his car. He left the church. He did not look back.

Mathew Block is editor of The Canadian Lutheran magazine and communications manager for the International Lutheran Council. His writing has been featured in a variety of publications, both sacred and secular, including First Things, The National Post, Converge Magazine, The Mythic Circle, and more.

IN QUEST OF THE SANGRAAL


The carmine liquid gleams in shallow cracks.
A few collect it, find it sweet, then sour, 
then realize that it has kissed their brains
and made them more alert to minds of light.

But soon an institution forms to keep
this lifeblood as a regulated drink,
a necessary structure in a world
where felons bleed themselves, their servants or
their pigs, and sell it on the road in jars.
It's then the royal blood sinks out of sight,
a memory revered, no longer known.

How to manipulate the world (without
reshaping what we are) to bring it back,
the same old rural scenery of brooks
and holy people in their laundered wool
imbibing simple life from heaven’s wells?
How shall we hold our tongues to speak aright;
or cross our fingers, toes or eyes to snare
this sacred cup we somehow cast aside?

John J. Brugaletta is professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton, where he taught classes on Shakespeare, Dante, and Homer, as well as the writing of poetry. He now lives in retirement on the northern coast of California.

A reminder that Amethyst Press is launching Diana Durham’s beautiful poetry collection, LABYRINTH, at 7-8pm UK time, 2-3pm EST today. Free online zoom event which you can register for by Eventbrite. One attendee picked at random will get a free Labyrinth book and tote!

click here to register

About Labyrinth:

The poems in Labyrinth trace Diana’s psychic journey out of England and into New England, and how that forced her to grow and expand her understanding of herself, and of the shadow and the gifts of both cultures. 

Praise for Labyrinth:

“Diana writes with a particular crystalline clarity suffusing both her poetry and prose: it is her essential expression. At the same time, her philosophical cast of mind reaches the highest level as a result of her many years of training and inner work.”

—Jay Ramsay, author of Kingdom of the Edge, Monuments. Described by Caduceus magazine as “England’s foremost transformation poet.”

“I loved the light in this one! And that slow large wave that moves through much of your poetry….where I end up existing in something huge, like a massive sense of space..” 

—Jude Repar, Attunement Practitioner and healer.

“Beautiful—your work speaks to me.” 

—Iain McGilchrist, author ofThe Master & His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

Opa! To The Evermore of The Great Somewhere

So.   Now we are old.   I see you
from a distance in the produce aisle 
checking the blackness of the grapes
the softness of the pears
   and I think
Oh! that's my old hat man

as you ramble off with the cart
searching for fresh kale.
Now we are ripe.

I used to dream about you 
climbing over mountains without
me at the bottom trying to get out the words
   wait up!

But.   You are on the other side before I can speak.

Once.   I saw you waving goodbye
from the train's window
me running beside the tracks
trying to catch you.

But.   The dream that roots in me 
is one of disembodied love 
more grave than a slaughtering of horses
   in deep grief 
I come upon a cottage in the forest
knowing you are dead
But.   There you are in the kitchen waiting 
raising a glass of wine in opa! to our reunion.
   I love you so much 
I am weeping on my morning pillow
you snoring bawdily beside me.

I would wake from the dead for you
would stay with the brute truths of our bodies--
the gouty feet
the thinning hairs
these stiffening fingers, a bundle of sticks--
to forgo all the perfections of the divine.

Yes.   We are old now.   But not older than dirt you say.

No.   Not older than dirt.
But.   The dust storms circle.

If.   You board the train without me

   wait  

on the platform where you arrive

   I will be

on the next train coming.

Stephanie K. Merrill has poems recently published in The Rise Up Review, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, and elsewhere. She has work forthcoming in UCity Review and in Moist Poetry Journal. Stephanie K. Merrill is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a retired high school English teacher. She lives in Austin, Texas. 

Sunrise from St Michael’s Tower


Daybreak,
tangerine bands already streak
across stretched out sky.

If the heavens do speak of glory
then surely here,
where each cold stone remembers 
the caress of angels
and every breeze is a song.

But I have been in church lately
and found nothing.

Below
the fields lie shimmering
and willow steeples call across the floodwater.
The dawn seeps upwards
and ink-blot clouds begin to show
and I think I might walk,

weightless and unashamed
across the meniscus of this new day.

Alice Watson is a new poet, a priest, and a mother to young children based in Northamptonshire, England. She is inspired by the natural world and her faith. She has had work published in Earth and Altar and Dreich. She chats about faith, ministry, and feminism (amongst other things) on Twitter @alicelydiajoy.

Little Prophets Everywhere


Who wants to write a poem about fire?
when you can just build one      stacking the phrases 
in logs      leaving spaces      between      for the breathing.

Either way it's all embers for the art of getting cooked.
Last night my father came to me in a dream. 
He said, "Don't worry about the world. Just keep your own bed warm."

I want to believe The Book of James (William, that is) 
& the upward progression of souls      traveling somewhere widely
among wise spirits      & I want to accept that this body will not survive the journey.

I try to abandon restlessness      to live among the ferns and the mosses
who tell me      over & over      by slow degrees
the few good & glowing truths.
 

Stephanie K. Merrill has poems recently published in The Rise Up Review, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, and elsewhere. She has work forthcoming in UCity Review and in Moist Poetry Journal. Stephanie K. Merrill is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a retired high school English teacher. She lives in Austin, Texas. 

Diana Durham, Labyrinth (Amethyst Press, 2021)

Labyrinth – US purchases

Book free tickets for Labyrinth’s online launch on Thursday October 7th 7-9pm BST (2-3pm EST) via eventbrite

Labyrinth, Diana Durham’s new poetry collection, is a search for connection, a search for finding a way into a new land. The roots of belonging, the familiar markers of entry are no longer there. Walking the path of the labyrinth – a metaphor for the collection – becomes a way of finding the physical and spiritual centre where the epiphany of connection can take place. In her introductory essay Diana Durham writes about the circumstances in which these poems came to be written when she moved from England to New Hampshire in America, where she was to live for over twenty years. Anyone who has been uprooted and transplanted from their own homeland can relate to the feelings of alienation which echo through many of the poems.

Apart from providing the background for the writing of the poems, the introduction also provides a description of Durham’s poetic process, a process that is individual to each and every poet, and in this case gives an interesting insight into how Durham approaches her craft.

Many of the poems in the collection come under the title of what I would call densely descriptive prose poetry, a genre which has been very popular among contemporary poets. It is well executed, its language meticulously crafted, and portrays the many landscapes of America as experienced by the poet. The urban blight of interstate highways and modern soulless towns is a constant leitmotif as the poet tries to reach beyond these to a deeper connection with the land they disfigure. “Mock Nothing” is a good example of a commentary on the ugliness of urban spaces and urban life with its sham emptiness. “Planet America” is another poem that speaks to attempts to fit into a foreign culture and land, find a way into the labyrinth and discover the transcendence at the centre. A poem such as “Lonely Climb Away from What We Love” captures something of the brittle hardness and anonymity of New York.

Yet the writing is punctuated with a continued quest for these outer layers to be stripped away and become transparent, for the veils between the worlds to thin so that they can open gateways onto a deeper reality, as in “Advent”:

the vanishing layers
of matter and thought
become like tissue, like lace 
lights threaded through the tree 
light on light - interstices 
gateways, advent.

“Philosopher’s Stone” depicts yet another such reaching towards the transcendent, “the thing itself, / shining / into the prism world”.

“At the Surface” contains more explicit personal emotion than many of the poems (“I remember this, this is the backward / plunge, the vertigo drop / the full glittering cascade / of reasons why there is no hope”), leading to a realization that the sought after transformation could come not through rage and struggle but through a “silent and fragile” power.

Many of the poems are strongly descriptive presenting pictures for the brain to conjure up. “Icing” and “The Snows of March” are examples of successful nature studies and word paintings. “San Diego Ladies” is a refreshing vignette, a nicely wrought image of the ladies who “talk in long, slow / sentences / like smoke from a slim, white / cigarette”. “At the Women’s Retreat” touchingly portrays a woman as “a soft half-statue / shined by water / her face / framed by the grey / brown curves of her hair / beautiful / in the light.” “Black River” is another particularly successful word painting.

“Gold” is one of the best poems in the collection with its interplay between gold – radiance – temple walls – facets – and space itself as a temple. The density of imagery really works here in evoking an inner landscape of the soul.

“Soft Scalpel” is another poem that stands out, offering a possible key to the collection in its concluding stanza:

This soft speaking
constellates geometries,
opens doorways into places
we have always known existed
yet, when our hearts needed so much 
filling, could not find.

The poet wanders through this labyrinth, seeking to “speak simply” (in “Clear Through to the Sun”), looking often, finding but rarely.

“Temple” is another standout for me, also for the musicality of its concluding lines which are a gem combining meaning and form:

remember when this temple gets defaced
our bodies are the fractals of its grace.

In the introduction the poet writes of how she finally came to heal her homesickness and alienation and find the transcendent connection she sought with the new land, as expressed in the poem “Labyrinth”. Yet it is the second poem in the “Labyrinth” sequence, which for me clearly evokes Glastonbury Tor, that speaks most strongly of the epiphanies generated by a connection to the spirit of place. There is a strong sense of the constant pull of the Old World, a deeper pull which grows no less.

For those who like finely crafted and densely packed descriptive poetry which reaches towards transcendent meaning this is a good collection to savour and unpack.

Irina Kuzminsky (DPhil, Oxon)

Book free tickets for Labyrinth’s online launch on Thursday October 7th 7-9pm BST (2-3pm EST) via eventbrite