Monthly Archives: January 2023

         Hope
                  . . . looking beyond / . . . to the / bright place, where 
                  their undaunted / spirits were already walking.
                  —R. S. Thomas, “Two”



Hope falls like spring rain,
More miracle than an art
We strive to attain.

Hope roots in the ground,
A lush rose garden—hidden
Partly, partly found.

Hope hovers like dreams
We wish we could remember,
Like music that seems

To come from nowhere
We know, eternity’s theme
Spilling from a tear.

A young man at dawn
Singing to himself, walking, 
Waking, now a yawn,

Then he’s emptying
His small boat of rain water,
Forgetting to sing.

Pain his love endures
Seeps into his mind. His hands
Pause, longing for hers.

Sun shooting off reds.
Trees still dark on the far shore,
Toward which the boat heads.

Hope is born naive, 
Conceived, as it is, in love,
And can’t help but grieve,

Though day may reveal
Hints that time won’t prove itself
Ultimately real.

Through the lake’s damp chill,
He sees they’ll be together
Always, as they will.

Charles Hughes has published two books of poems, The Evening Sky (2020) and Cave Art (2014), both from Wiseblood Books. His poems have appeared in the Alabama Literary Review, America, The Christian Century, the Iron Horse Literary Review, Literary Matters, the Saint Katherine Review, and elsewhere. He worked for over 30 years as a lawyer and lives in the Chicago area with his wife.

Haiku for Buried Prayers

the end of winter
willows fur in the chill wind 
and an almond blooms 

near the back fences. 
plums unfold under a streaked 
sky; these words - prayers, 

growing like the roots
of tall oaks. the stars raged in 
the fall horoscope 

the land turned inwards, 
biting and chasing for its
heart. soon comes the spring.

Junwoo (William) Park is a 14-year-old high school sophomore currently attending International School Manila in the Philippines. His work has been recognized by journals such as One Art Poetry, Cathartic Literary Magazine, etc. Aside from creative writing, he frequently enjoys playing football with his friends, watching Netflix, and likes to read.

Overheated  (Tamid)


Three places—in the chamber of incense,
in the chamber of the spark, and the fire chamber itself,
the priests keep watch in the temple,
The fire chamber, the largest, was vaulted, 
surrounded with stoney outcrops, 
much in the manner of the time. 
This is where the elders used to sleep, 
having with them for safekeeping the keys of the Azarah.
But in the upper chambers—a secret place—above the spark
the priestly novitiates keep watch themselves--
they did not sleep in their sacred garments, 
but took them off, folded and placed them
beneath and covered themselves 
with their ordinary clothes.
If an accident happened to one, 
he would go out and take the air
much in the manner that his elders 
have ever since recommended—
and sometimes have commanded 
surely, since the beginning of our people,
the beginning of time.
And he has obeyed, as if listening to the law
was nearly the equal of heeding a parent,
And who among us is to say it is not?  

Alan Walowitz, from Great Neck, NY,  is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry. His chapbook, Exactly Like Love, comes from Osedax Press. The full-length, The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems, is available from Truth Serum Press.  Most recently, from Arroyo Seco Press, is the chapbook In the Muddle of the Night, written trans-continentally with poet Betsy Mars.

Meditation 

 
I sit, wrapped in a duvet, by the window. 
Outside, the streetlamp sends a yellow glow 
across the blankness of the neighbour’s wall. 
What else? a pole, a clothesline made of cable. 
 
A distant train horn sounds its two-note warning; 
somewhere its headlamp slides towards a platform 
where people hang about with bags and coffee, 
ready for doors that open on urgent journeys. 
 
Meanwhile, the sun is rising, the wall whitens. 
Someone unlocks their door. A scooter guns 
between the houses, joins the traffic sounds 
that heave and flow about me. The pole is rusting, 
 
the empty cable sways upon the breeze. 
I sit among the beingness of things. 

Rowan Middleton teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire. His pamphlet The Stolen Herd is published by Yew Tree Press.

About Blessings and Fish


My son, 
the Blessing, 
squirmed like a fish in my arms.

My mother 
said, You are 
my blessing. Now sit on my knee, she teased.  
I perched, and my squirmy Blessing
blessed John with his little 
fin,
swimming, 
tummy-down, 
as John gazed
at him.
We all grew 
still.

Then I saw: blessings,
can often be squirmy things.
I said so to her, part play.  But I pondered
their ways
and turns:

blessings have their own intent–
divine 
design squirms against
our restraining
embrace.

My mother blessed me then, eyes 
deep as a spectre’s abyss,
she pointed upward, 
her hand so like
a sceptre

Johanna Caton, O.S.B., is a Benedictine nun.  She was born in the United States and lived there until adulthood, when her monastic vocation took her to England, where she now resides.  Her poems have appeared in The Christian Century, The Windhover, The Ekphrastic Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, The Catholic Poetry Room, and other venues, both online and print.  

Carlene Kucharczyk is an American poet and essayist, who lives in Vermont. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Mid-American Review, Conduit, Green Mountains Review Online, and Tupelo Quarterly, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She holds an MFA from North Carolina State University.

Going for Refuge

Buddham saranam gacchami
singing from the singing bowl
sandalwood scented smoke 
loving-kindness Oh longing
for kindness and for escape 
from all that weighs down - 
from samsara - into this refuge
sangha set up it seems to outface 
my lonely unlovedness with
chanting brothers and sisters
I go for refuge untie my
family try to untie my other knots
with love before Teacher I bow 
my eyes lowered to his sandals
I offer him a wispy-white scarf
Insider now I call him Venerable Sir 
in Pali - it sounds like Daddy
Like a number of the younger men 
his cadre of committed votaries
I am invited to Teacher’s bed    
where I am very special 
till he shows his non-attachment
so that I may come at last to see
the tantric juxtaposition -
my young heat with his cold 
white body jolting me
out of my ego conditioning 

Mark McDonnell had a long career in industry, living and working in Barcelona, Miami and Cambridge, England. He then trained as a psychotherapist and began to devote more time to writing.  His work has been published in Rialto, Ink Sweat and Tears, Morphrog and The London Grip.

While Listening to Fleck, Hussein and Meyer, 
I Consider Children's Book Titles, 
Hops and the Ongoing Search for Meaning



If we unravel the threads, removing 
context, by what means do we regain it? 
You say monstrous glisson glop, behooving
me to counter with a Willamette
and Azacca, or whole cone Mosaic,
which inspires a reply of Dooly and
the Snortsnoot. But my life is prosaic,
bulging with the commonplace - gritty sand
in shoes, cobwebs on shelves, an unshaven
chin and a mind for the ordinary
seeking refuge in words, a cool haven
in summer's long grip. Feathered or hairy,
I ask of the glisson glop, seeking insight.
Does it giggle, does it love? Do you bite?

Robert Okaji lives in Indiana. His work has appeared in Buddhist Poetry Review, Evergreen Review, Midwest Zen, Vox Populi and elsewhere.

Lament
 
One morning, after a quick
thaw, the frozen creek begins
 to breach beneath blue ice
 
a slow crack becomes an
exuberance of water shifting
its weight, bank to bank, until
 
slabs of ice rise like monoliths
in this wilderness, shimmering
in its moment of being
 
solid and striking, despite
the flood’s ability to take
everything with it
 
One day . . .
I imagine I will see
it happening

M.J. Iuppa’s fifth full length poetry collection is The Weight of Air from Kelsay Books, May, 2022, and a chapbook of 24 100-word stories, Rock. Paper. Scissors. from Foothills Publishing in 2022.  For the past 33 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.

Don’t Tempt Me
 
eve   drop the apples
keep your hands up
and mouth closed
here  take a mango

Patricia Biela is a UVA grad with a BA in Psychology. Biela is a Cave Canem South Fellow and has participated in 19 writing workshops. Her poem “Back Speaks” won The Best of Poetry from Around the World Award from Wild Sound Festival Review. Biela teaches poetry workshops to retirees.