Monthly Archives: September 2023

Holy Lore


In the lore of the nightcrawler and red wriggler, 
it’s said that, when Jesus knelt and wrote in the dust, 
their progenitors saw it from below
      (saw it, though they had no eyes!)—
two vertical lines for the tree of life, and two 
along the bottom for the river of life.`

As He wrote, they saw those lines, engraved now
on the wide palm of His hand, framing the names 
He’d made and blessed, billions of us, written
      in vanishingly small 
nanoscale, miraculously legible 
letters. And some say, on a golden wall

of the Holy of Holies in heaven are two 
upright lines, the trees of wisdom and life; 
two horizontal, for the waters we drink 
      from once and never again thirst; 
and squiggly lines for the Annelida 
underfoot: these least that shall be first.

And they say Jesus saw the little worms
and promised: You will enrich the soil of Zion
and restore the loam of Eden. When My hands
      that rolled you from clay and mud
are pierced, you will see the fount of red
composting death with vivifying blood. 

J.S. Absher’s second full-length book of poetry, Skating Rough Ground, was published in 2022 by Kelsay Press. His first full-length book, Mouth Work (St. Andrews University Press) won the 2015 Lena Shull Book Contest from the NC Poetry Society. His poems have recently been published or accepted by the NC Literary Review, Triggerfish Review, and Tar River Review. His poems have been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife Patti. His webpage is js-absher-poetry.com. 

Origami


As the day trembles between afternoon and evening,
	a salmon jumps in the river.
	An old woman reads verses from Dante

in Guadalajara.
	A heart-red cardinal decorates a tree line.
	In Reno, a couple argue

over something they will not forget.
	A woman stops working in a field.
	A spider spins its web.

A man in a suit
	closes up his papers
	and locks his office door.

A girl solves a mathematical equation.
	An Audi crosses a residential neighborhood.
	Henry lights a cigarette.

The ghost of the Moon
	hangs in the vast proscenium
	like a stranger at a feast.

A butterfly dreams of pollen.
	On a rocky beach, a dog runs in the shallows.
	A lion eats a gazelle.

These events
	fold up like paper
	in the unknowable mind of God.

John Claiborne Isbell taught French and German for many years in Indiana and Texas after his Ph.D. at Cambridge University. In 1996, he appeared in Who’s Who in the World. He has a new monograph, An Outline of Romanticism in the West, with Open Book Publishers, where it is available to download for free online. His first book of poetry, Allegro, came out in 2018. 

Bellini's Saint
   ~ restored at the Frick Museum

The artist's brush left
only light here,
as if removing paint
coating the lanky saint
from the creator's mind
within a rocky landscape,
like Jesus off in the desert,
alone looking to God
gently heavenward,
with open palms raised.
Behind is a fortified town,
a donkey idly grazing,
and perhaps tended orchards.
But what is here -- placed
by the painter to tell something?
A red bird, particular
plants, an elegant heron,
and a rabbit he had ransomed,
bribing the meat vendor
to carry here to release.
We catch a glimpse of specks
of red dotting the hands
and a spot on the saint's foot.
But there is nothing that others
depicted of Christ's wounds
and the terrifying angel
disturbing turbulent air.
Perhaps that is unseen:
blood on a pierced side,
thorns hid in the mouth,
the struggle with God's pain.
But here for us is only
light.

Royal Rhodes taught the history of Christianity for almost forty years. His poems have appeared in a number of literary journals, including: Ekstasis Poetry, Amethyst Magazine, Foreshadow Magazine, The Cafe Review, New Verse News, and  STAR 82 Review, among others. Art and poetry collaborations have been published by The Catbird [on the Yadkin] Press in North Carolina.

Quiet Psalm of a Ditched Snail

Coiled and confined,
she retracts her mole-like jelly eyes
on the end of her tentacles and topples off 

into a ditch. 
She looks stunned, top-heavy.  
Do you think she knows her shell is a masterpiece? 

A powerhouse whorl 
to uphold her? A lime-crystal mantle 
to cloak her? A conch horn of song to deliver her?

She rights herself 
and struggles out, then sets off 
with a whistle, painting the moist earth silver.

Helen Freeman started writing poetry whilst recovering from an accident in Oman and got hooked.  She now lives in Durham, England and has poems published on sites like Visual Verse, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Clear Poetry, Ground Poetry, Open Mouse, Algebra of Owls, Red River Review, Barren Magazine, The Drabble, Sukoon, Poems for Ephesians and Ekphrastic Review.  Instagram @chemchemi.hf 

Light in the Tempest

An epithalamion

Like the disciples,
you’ve felt bone-snapping air . . .
plunge from the eastern mountains,
tumbling into the Galilee.
The chop heaves three lengths
more than the height of your body; 
the water’s temperature drops; 
pleadings rise from the alveoli 
in your lungs, distend the back of your throat.
Tests always begin like this:
Cold wind, even colder waves,
your own screams leaving you
in the last rasp of belief.

				               But then 
you listen and watch and yearn and wait. 
You sense something stronger than tides
below sea-level. You raise your head 
peering into the abyss of melancholy
and madness. You let go of trying
to grab the dangling oar
from the back of the boat
as the wind starts to shift, as the lake
turns from squall to blue, as clouds lift,
gradually, your wet body gives way
to the gentle rebuke in His voice
once the light shines through
touching everything you never knew
you could see.

Mark D. Bennion‘s poems have appeared in Christianity & Literature, Dappled Things, Spiritus, U.S. Catholic Magazine, Windhover, and other journals. His most recent book is Beneath the Falls: poems (Resource Publications, 2020). Currently, he teaches writing and literature courses at Brigham Young University-Idaho.

Banging My Head on My Dad


The day my father died I struck my head
hard against the cupboard above my 
laundry tubs that caught my crown as I 
straightened suddenly, though wash days 
had been mishap-free till then.

“Wake up and cheer up!” a paternal voice had 
boomed a second later. . . . Through decades, 
we’d barely spoken. 

The day my father died I sensed his soul 
high above, heading northwest (a line 
from his home to mine and beyond), 
his lightless fundamentalist bellowing 
and bullying having dissolved between
doctors cutting his vagus nerve and his
having found joy in Jesus.

The day my father died I contemplated 
our reconnection the forty miles to his 
farm and there lay a stiff, silent form. 
I didn’t know whether to grieve or 
rejoice, being both sad and glad 

that day I banged my head on my dad.  

A former journalist and book editor, Neall Calvert has had poetry published in books, journals and online in the United States, Canada and abroad, most recently in Worth More Standing: Poets and Activists Pay Homage to Trees (Caitlin: 2022), Laugh Lines (Repartee: 2023) and the journal Sea & Cedar (three poems, Summer 2022). A student of trauma recovery and healing, Neall is an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets and writes from the quiet and wildness of northern Vancouver Island, BC, Canada.

Bark Rubbings

Do you have any recollection 
of that pine tree?
Your gaze 
close up to the rough bark
– studying the weeping sap?

Do you remember how it all happened 
on a hot day, long past? 

And can you recall 
how you put your finger 
into the wound?
– Just out of curiosity, 
to test the viscosity of its tears
and smell 
its sharp scent, 
so like disinfectant 
but wild? 

And did you find your fingers 
suddenly glued 
so that your right hand 
turned into a paw 
and you had to walk away 
holding it up like a metaphor, 
wondering
how on earth summer 
could do that to you
and leave you
flexing your claws 
and wanting to climb and climb
to some higher branch
where honey
might be the good blood?

Valerie Maria Anthony is a London and Hampshire-based poet who has published In Oremus Magazine and Amethyst Review. She believes poetry can be an instrument of grace and takes joy seriously enough to look for it everywhere. She has many years of experience facilitating creative writing workshops in social care settings and is a trained visual artist.

Eastward


Do you remember the fence?
And the tucked jungle 
Spreading its phalanges over 
And under, ample.

It was a wilder country,
Nourished land, neon pharmacy,
A perpetual ampersand
Implying both you and I. 

You sliced into the thicket
Siphoning a sliver of space, endless
Groveling across gravel bent
Eastward. 

Oh, dear epidermis and dirt
Ever rattling with Eden’s seizures
As its tectonics embed with tact
An epitaph. 

Here lie the entangled limbs – 
And here you lie with them
A tree stump without rings
Never here, not quite there. 

Caroline Liberatore is a poet and librarian from Northeast, Ohio. Her writing engages with interminglings of divine brilliance and day-to-day grit. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as Ekstasis Magazine, Solum Press, and Calla Press.

              On the Mat

Jordan Boyd is writer, musician and educator living in Oakland, California.  Jordan released the poetry collection, shadow burn, in 2020.  Jordan released the album, praise by you, in 2023.

Each Day is Written
Song of Forever


The world is full, like this watering can I pour 
slow over matching flower pots at my front door. 

Wash me, says Elijah Blue, cool me, calls Wave Petunia. 

A cobweb is strung from stem to stem 
with orbs of morning dew. Glistening necklace 

in the sun—web with ancient watery worlds 
where I can see myself—thirsty and beautiful.

How like spider’s transient threads we are: 
holding tight, then gone on the slightest breeze. 

And like the dew: we shine as we are consumed.

Lesley-Anne Evans, an Irish-Canadian poet, writes from Feeny Wood, a contemplative woodland retreat in Kelowna, B.C., on the traditional unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Antigonish Review, Letters Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Contemporary Verse 2, The Catholic Poetry Room, Soul Lit, and other periodicals. Lesley-Anne’s debut poetry collection, Mute Swan, Poems for Maria Queen of the World, was published by The St. Thomas Poetry Series (Toronto) in 2021.