Monthly Archives: November 2023

Passing Through

Part of my soul died on the day
when I boxed up all of my metaphysical mysteries
and gave them all away.
The Rider-Waite, the Rumi Wisdom, the Wildwood,
the Doreen Virtue Oracle cards, the Mary El Tarot deck,
the Biddy Tarot guide and workbook,
the Tarot for Yourself guidebook,
the Runes and their manuals,
the Reiki texts and testimonial treatises,
the Lemurian crystal, the rose quartz,
the selenite, the labradorite, the healing wands. 
Four crates left this house and my heart along with them.
But you’re not special anymore.
Where is your magic?
Aren’t you still a witch, born on Halloween?
Did Catholicism replace it?
Am I somehow redeemed?
Messages still come, quickly, quietly.
Heat yet radiates from my hands.
Birds still appear at odd times
feathers still fall at my feet.
Messengers from above find me
with their uncanny resemblances
to those who have passed. 
Conch shells clutter my desk. 

Renee Williams is a retired English professor, who has written for Of Rust and Glass, Alien Buddha Press and the New Verse News. 

“You cannot see Him but He’s here” 

Crisp frost sparkles. She holds her father’s thumb, 
running to keep up, pavements ringing every step
to the hallowed space, hushed, sunshine flushed 
through softly coloured panes: candlelight and flowers.

“You cannot see Him but He’s here,” he says.

She speaks to Him deeply from her heart. 
She had no doubts, she never felt coerced.
‘til time, passing like the traffic 
rumbled questions through her mind.

It seemed interminable, the dryness.

And then a quickening! - a warmth of gentleness
Like a love-note slipped beneath her door,
Paper thin like a butterfly’s wing
thumb marked for her to seize or set aside

with tenderness.

Jane Keenan has been writing poems from the age of six. On retiring, she enrolled for an MA in Creative Writing with the Open University, since when she joined with two of her colleagues/friends to publish Daughters of Thyme in aid of Médicins sans Frontières (www.dotipress.com).

The Artist and the Businessman

Retellings of the Pharisee and the Publican 

Version One 

The church was a staid Presbyterian one, with an ancient pipe organ and an antediluvian choir, singing the stiffest, most theologically correct hymns anyone has ever heard. Phyllis was wearing pearls, and her hair was perfectly coiffed, as it had been every day of her life; her elder son, Gunnar, stood at her left, looking handsome and well-dressed with just the slightest hint of a middle-age paunch, sporting perfect, effortless business casual with an Apple watch and wingtip shoes. Stefan stood at her right, the exasperating and ever-wandering lost lamb of the family with an incomprehensible hairstyle, inexplicable beard, and graffiti-markings up and down his arms. 

The brothers had come back home for their sister Ramona’s wedding, which took place the night before. They never thought she’d make it to the altar; she was an HR specialist who had high standards for all prospective grooms. However, when everyone had assumed she would remain single for the rest of her life, Danny had captured her heart: Danny the tall, shy, somewhat awkward dentist who blushed easily. 

But this story is not about Ramona and Danny. It’s about the two brothers and what they were thinking as they stood in church on Sunday morning, on either side of their mother. 

Gunnar the businessman was thinking about the business he’d built, his 2.5 million dollar home with a lake view, his self-driving vehicle, his above-average golf game, his twenty-two year (somewhat tepid but functional) marriage, his two decent kids who were reasonably smart, athletic, and popular, and poised to do well in life. 

He thought of a recent event he’d hosted, remembered the transformation of his dining room into an elegant entertainment space, the expensive wine and champagne, the exquisite food he’d had catered, the witty things he’d said, and the ringing of laughter–particularly that of a filthy rich old man and an attractive young woman.  

He was satisfied. 

He knew that he was a good person. On several occasions, he’d helped his brother. Had lent him money. Had bailed him out of jail. Plus, he had donated regularly to the Volunteer Firefighters.

He was grateful and proud he’d done so well in his life, especially for the sake of his mother, who was alone now; his father, a doctor, had passed away eight years earlier. Surely his father would be glad to know that he had at least one child who could care for Phyllis in her old age. 

The singing ended, and the prayers began. Gunnar and Stefan sat in the pew on either side of their mother, Gunnar fiddling silently with his phone, Stefan with his head bowed and his arms crossed over his chest. 

Stefan felt–or imagined he felt–the disapprobation of the people around him. The preacher’s accusing words about sin and depravity and wickedness seemed to be aimed right at him. 

He flushed with shame. 

These people didn’t understand, of course; he’d never been fully understood by anyone. He was different; he was an artist. 

A phenomenally unsuccessful artist. 

He liked to compare himself to Van Gogh: he would die, and then everyone would weep and rush to buy his paintings. 

While this kind of thinking was well and good on the streets of his recent haunt, where he regularly contributed to local graffiti, it seemed hollow, somehow, here in the austerity of the Presbyterian church. 

They’re hypocrites, he told himself, halfheartedly. 

But he knew in his heart that they were generous, kind people, who had consoled and cared for his mother in her loss. He knew that they were hardworking, disciplined, earnest, productive people who, perhaps, even deserved their success. 

Maybe some of them were selfish hypocrites. But who was he to judge? He’d been selfish too. He had sponged off of others most of his life. He had stolen. 

And worse.

When the offering plate was passed around, Gunnar gave a sizable donation. Stefan gave a crumpled dollar bill. 

When it was time for communion, Gunnar took the bread and wine, not exactly believing in Christ but, in his heart, affirming the church as an OK institution.

Stefan let the elements go by, certain that he was not worthy, half-suspecting he was beyond redemption. 

He whispered a half-articulated prayer to God for mercy.

Version Two 

The church was one of those dark, theater types with no windows that served coffee and donuts in the lobby. The pastor wore jeans, as did the pastor’s wife. Phyllis also wore jeans, paired with a “Jesus Saves” T-shirt; she clapped and raised her hands to the music, rock anthems and ballads with electric guitars and drums. Her hair, dark brown streaked with gray, hung to her shoulders somewhat limply, covering a bald spot from recent chemotherapy treatments. Her eyes filled with tears, over and over again; she swiped at them with a kleenex. Her elder son, Gunnar, a businessman with slick, swoopy hair stood at her left, stiff in his khakis and button-down shirt, his hands clasped in front of his belt, watching the words to the songs appear on a screen, his mouth tightly closed. Stefan, her creative child in dreadlocks and tie-dye, stood at her right, munching his donut, nodding his head to the music. 

The boys had come back home for their little sister Ramona’s wedding, which took place the night before. They never thought Ramona would make it to the altar; she was a devoted ER nurse and had high standards for all prospective grooms. However, Danny, the brusque, burly construction worker, had captured her heart. 

But this story is not about Ramona and Danny. It’s about the two brothers and what they were thinking as they stood in church on either side of their mother. 

Stefan was thinking about all he’d been through, how he’d been knocked down repeatedly by life, how he’d gotten up each time, how he was a good person who cared about people, how he’d helped folks who were down in the gutter, how God had given all the herbs in the field for mankind to enjoy. 

He thought of a recent party he’d thrown at the derelict house he was crashing in. He’d given some sad homeless dudes a little grass and then let them sleep on his living room floor. In the morning he’d given them Cheetos and Mountain Dew for breakfast. 

He was happy with the life he was living. Like everyone, he’d made mistakes, but those mistakes had made Stefan who he was today. 

And who he was today was pretty good.

He was grateful that his mom had such a caring son now that she was alone. Her jerk husband had left her in the middle of her battle with cancer. His brother, who had money, was full of himself, stuck-up and cold. 

The singing ended, and the sermon commenced. The brothers sat down on the gray upholstered church-chairs. Gunnar the businessman sat with arms crossed over his chest as he half-listened to the preacher in blue jeans. Something about the “father-heart of God.” Gunnar despised the preacher, despised the motley crew around him, dressed as if they didn’t care about anything, all in blue jeans and T-shirts. They were probably blue collar workers, service workers, unskilled laborers, or unemployed. 

These were the kind of people who felt that they were somehow morally superior because they were poor. Gunnar had worked hard to get where he was; he deserved what he had. 

And yet, as he looked around, he knew that many of these people worked hard, too. They were decent people, actually. They had been kind to his mother when she was alone, had been her friends, had prayed and cried with her, had brought her meals, had shared their faith with her. 

A fissure began to form in the stoney edifice of his being. 

He began to see his callousness, his arrogance. He’d been successful; he’d made money. But along the way he’d learned to hate and despise most people, to mock them in his heart, to see them as ignorant sheep to be manipulated. 

On top of this, he felt constant, enormous stress and pressure. The strain of his responsibilities caused him to lash out at his wife and kids and anyone else who seemed to hinder him from accomplishing what he needed to accomplish on a given day. 

He took several vacations a year and ended up on the phone or in Zoom calls most of the time; he couldn’t even relax on vacation.

And so, when the sermon ended and the pastor in blue jeans gave an invitation, reading the scripture “Come to me, all who are weary…” Gunnar wished that he could ask God for help.  But he wasn’t quite sure he even believed in God. 

“You know you need the Lord,” the pastor said. “You’ve tried everything, but your life is empty. You know you can’t make it another day without Him. If this is you, raise your hand.”

Stefan the artist was thinking “me and Jesus are pretty much buddies already” and felt no need to raise his hand. 

But Gunnar noiselessly raised his hand up to his ear. 

“I see that hand. Christ has come into your life today, brother,” the pastor said. 

Jessamyn Rains is a homeschooling mom who writes and makes music. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in various publications, including Reformation Journal, Awake Our Hearts, Trampoline, and Kosmeo Magazine, which she helps to edit. She lives with her family in Tennessee.

Migration

Still, there is joy. Yesterday 
I woke to the monarchs’ 
fall migration, the dune thick 
with goldenrod, and everywhere 
butterflies flitting from one 
yellow plume to the next.

And last night, from the upstairs deck,
we watched Cygnus, 300 miles away, 
launch from Wallops Island, a trail 
of fire lifting in a perfect arc 
through sky so crisp and clear, 
the second stage so bright 
the moon paled in comparison. 

I am sad you weren’t here to see it,
but I want to tell you
this morning gulls work the water
where a school of bluefish heads south, 
and just beyond the breakers
two whales feed.

Even when you and I no longer are here
monarchs will reawaken and 
venture north, laying eggs 
in the milkweed, and a pair of osprey
will return to the buoy
where they have long nested,
where each night in darkness, 
the Northern Cross rises overhead. 

Cheryl Baldi is the author of The Shapelessness of Water and a former Bucks County, Pennsylvania Poet Laureate. A finalist for the Robert Frasier Poetry Competition and the Francis Locke Memorial Award, her work is forthcoming in ONE ART: a journal of poetry and Philadelphia Stories. She lives along the coast in New Jersey and in Bucks County where she volunteers for the Poet Laureate Program and the Arts and Cultural Council.

The Conversions 

Did the sun spin 
like a burnished penny? 
Was there a voice? 
Some testify, most don’t, 
and so the mystery remains, 
they have heard with the ear 
of their heart, seen 
with the eye of their mind, 
for God is always figurative, 
hidden in a burning bush, 
a fig tree fattening to life. 

Whatever slide or shift, 
immense or slight, 
it’s all the same and soon 
they’re shedding their own selves
like artichoke leaves 
scattered thick and plasticy 
until they’re back to naked bud. 

Their spouses look away. 
Their mothers frown. 
Who wants to hear? 
At least for comfort they’ve 
each other – St Helena, splintered
by the cross, or Saul, pawing 
at black space, 
Francis making a woodland
of his body. 

So it goes on. Quietly 
as linen is unfolded
they unfold. Even now 
someone is seated on a chair
five thousand miles from here, 
two streets away, 
staring as a strange flower 
opens in the dark.

Kathryn Simmonds’ third collection of poems, Scenes from Life on Earth, was published by Salt in 2022. Her poems have appeared in various publications including Poetry, the Guardian, the New Statesman, Poetry Review and The Irish Times, and, along with her short stories, have been broadcast on BBC radio. She lives in Norwich with her family and tutors for The Poetry School and other organisations.

Travelling

On a bus, all sleeping or
lost in our phones, 
aware of the driver’s space 
up ahead:

a white sleeve, an arm with 
a wheel and our fate
(one glimpse of his face 
back reflected, intent, 
when we went through a tunnel 
and all else was dark)

I’ll have to say thank you 
to him at the end.

Katherine Spadaro was born in Scotland but has spent most of her life in Australia. She is married with two adult children. Her poems are typically short and focus on some everyday event or feeling; sometimes they have narrowly survived having all the life edited out of them. She is interested in the symbolism and impact of regular experience and how it is connected with spiritual truth. 

For Ten Seconds I Consider Dancing


with the great, joyful unknown. Dancing barefoot
in the slippery mud at the edge of a deep, wild lake.
You can’t fake this kind of dancing, though you make it up
as you go. I throw my cell phone in the lake, my wedding ring,
decide to break all previous engagements, remake myself
here, in this moment, baptized, falling back with perfect
unintention, opening my eyes in pea-green water,
watching bubbles that were my breath rise and burst
on the receding surface—interface between then and now,
between was and will, outer and inner. For ten seconds
I go limp while sunrays bend where seaweed blooms,
its secret flowers seeding an unseen life. Here in the deep,
I will always be dancing.

Title from “Dancing with Storm” by Nikky Finney

Alfred Fournier is a writer and community volunteer in Phoenix, Arizona. His poems have appeared in Amethyst Review, Third Wednesday, Gyroscope Review, The American Journal of Poetry, The Indianapolis Review and elsewhere. His chapbook A Summons on the Wind is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Twitter: @AlfredFournier4.

Distant Horizon
 
Early at dawn, when all is quiet,
the night sky is yet to surrender,
it holds on for a few more minutes
with bated breaths as it
hears the footsteps of the sun.
 
Another hug,
another colour of
meeting and parting —
 
deeper, darker, brighter colour of silence
before the sun breaks open on the earth.
 
There is something that makes me
look forward to the moment.
Possibly a hope
when
it may any moment
culminate into
a final union.
 
But they part again with
a promise to meet at dusk
that they honour,
unlike my merciless beloved.
 
What tapas they agreed to
for the universe to exist
for beauty to unfold
for life to happen
for us.
 
So glad to be a part of it all
and be it all.
 
Glossary:
tapas (in Sanskrit):  deep meditation, asceticism

Alka Balain has been an educator with a short stint in the corporate world. An autoimmune warrior, she resides in Singapore. Alka enjoys going on long walks in nature and loves to paint. Alka’s writings have appeared/are forthcoming in Usawa Literary Review, Kitaab, AlSphere, Dreich Review, Poetry India, The Hooghly Review, Visual Verse, Live Wire, among others. She is one of the shortlisted winners of the Poetry Festival of Singapore Catharsis 2021 and a featured shortlisted writer in the Wordweavers Poetry Contest 2022. She chairs the Writing Enthusiasts’ Club of the Indian Women’s Association and is also the Chapter head, Singapore of the Asian Literary Society. 

Just this


Propelled in midlife I take on 
ventures, some of which 
fall apart—mere trifles against 
sobering news big and small, 
like my mother’s failing health,
a cousin’s hardship, a friend’s
broken ankles, and grave news 
such as a boy killing eight 
schoolmates in cold blood that 
I read over breakfast this 
rain-drenched morning, 
gazing at a copse of pine, 
where on a high branch sits
a bald eagle in ascetic patience, 
and lifts its great wingspan
to become the vastness.
 

Sayantani Roy’s writing straddles both India and the U.S., and she calls both places home. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Cold Lake Anthology, Gone Lawn, Heavy Feather Review, Imposter Poetry Journal, Pen to Print, The Hooghly Review, The Seattle Times, and Wordgathering. She dreams of teaching poetry to young children one day. Find her on Instagram @sayan_tani_r. https://www.instagram.com/sayan_tani_r

The Mural

During my seventh month of pregnancy of my forty-second year I would walk three laps around the park by my house. My big city neighborhood was more like a small town and so I became a familiar sight. I was the pregnant woman in black sweats walking in the late afternoon light. Neighbors would wave and I would wave back. Truthfully, I was only half in my body, barely aware of the chill or leaves crunching around my feet. As I marked each lap done, done, and done the knot in my chest would loosen. Back-to-back miscarriages had shaken me so badly that I created a whole series of rituals to protect this child. Three laps around the park every afternoon was a part of that. Other rituals included: Acupuncturist appointments where I dozed in a chair with needles piercing my forehead and feet. Ditching my vegetarian diet for meals of venison marinated in red wine and fresh garlic in the hope that meat would strengthen my blood. Visiting the national shrine of St. Rita of Cascia, patron saint of Impossible Cases once, sometimes twice a week where my scribbled prayer requests all said the same thing—A healthy child born.  

            Rituals are typically used to mark the holy passage of time or to lead us to a place of greater awareness. Mine were born out of grief and a desire for control. Still, they worked. The acupuncture needles unblocked what was blocked, the venison strengthened my blood, the patron saint of Impossible Cases heard my pleas and my daughter arrived on the feast of the Epiphany. 

            As my daughter grew she developed her own rituals. There were bedtime rituals involving the arrangement of dolls and mealtime rituals involving favorite plates and cups. These days her rituals center around her swim lessons.  She likes the idea of swimming but likes the feel of solid ground beneath her feet more. I watch as she lays her towel just so, adjusts her swim goggles just so. She knows instinctively that to touch and arrange the items connected to the water will impart at least a measure of courage and calm once she is in the water. 

             Still, in the pool she refuses to float, arching and squirming so that her head doesn’t touch the water. Theinstructor is patient and wins her over bit by bit. Each week I watch my daughter relax more and more into the instructor’s arms trusting they would hold her.

            “Kick, kick!”  the instructor shouts and the children all kick, kick, doing their best to stay afloat.

            At the height of the pandemic, my daughter and I would go for a walk to see the mosaic mural a few blocks from our house. Nearly everything was shut down and so a walk outside had become a treat almost as good as ice cream on a hot day. “Let’s look for something on our walk we haven’t seen before,”  I would say to her before we left the house.  Not so easy for me as motherhood has taught me to to take in the bigger picture, to turn my full attention towards potential predators. I’m less attuned to the smaller changes around me. My daughter fills in those blanks although looking from a distance is usually not enough for her. She likes to get up close. She wants to touch.

            Once the contents of a convince store medical kit scattered along the curb.  Antiseptic swabs, wipes, bandages in all sizes and shapes.

            Once a bag full of colorful, crumpled stickers propped up against a tree pit. 

            Once a small dead bird in the middle of the sidewalk. No visible signs of illness or injury.

            While the bandages and bag of stickers disappeared almost overnight, the dead bird remained on the sidewalk for a surprisingly long time. Sometimes my daughter forgot about the bird and I was glad. Other times I would think we had safely passed when she would say, oh! the bird! and we circled back where I did my best to answer her questions about decay and the possibility of resurrection.

            Once a line of ants swarmed over the bird to carry away its flesh. We watched their busy work for a long time and no explanation was necessary. 

            The mural itself was installed before my family moved here. It was meant to celebrate the nearby elementary school as we all as acknowledge a neighborhood grappling with gentrification. It is a riot of colored stones, tiles, and shards of glass that capture and reflect the light. There is a blazing sun, a tire swing, a rainbow. In the center are two hands reaching towards each other as if to say: We have arrived. We are BELOVED COMMUNITY.  Several years have passed since its installation and the mural has fallen on hard times. Many of the stones and tiles have fallen away. The reaching hands are badly chipped. 

            I like the mural’s deterioration. I like how time and the elements have left their mark as if it were a living person. We visited the mural through all four seasons now. Some of those seasons had dramatic moments like when the cherry blossoms drenched the cars and sidewalks around us, and we scooped up the paper-thin petals in hands. Or the time we outran a hailstorm to return home breathless and delighted. We were that strong, that fast.

            Each time we stand before the mural we are different too, if only on some cellular level. I am reminded of those nights when my daughter woke up crying saying her bones hurt. How I sat beside her and rubbed a sweet-smelling, mostly useless lotion onto her shins and forearms. I remembered the mornings when she marched into the kitchen to proclaim, ‘I feel taller’ and I noticed her wrists and ankles poking out of her pyjamas and thought, Of course. How could I have missed it?  She has been growing in the dark.

            After I suffered a rare heart attack at forty-six, my ritual was to sit in the hospital cafeteria overlooking a courtyard twice a week with a container of yogurt waiting for my cardiac rehab session to begin. At cardiac rehab I walked at a moderate to brisk pace on a treadmill with electrodes attached to my chest. Courtyard, yogurt, treadmill. The weeks and months after a heart attacks are strange and filled with silent “what-ifs?”  Peace is elusive. After several months my care team praised my progress and sent me back into the world with few restrictions. I walked, swam, laughed, ran. People were shocked, horrified when I told them what had happened to me. Pretty soon it became a story I stopped telling. 

            The national shrine of Saint Rita of Cascia where I went to offer my prayer requests for my then unborn child is a popular sport for modern pilgrims. People arrive via tour busses and are drawn to the lower shrine where they are greeted by a statue of the saint surrounded by candles and red roses. Her pose is one of welcome although her expression is sad, almost pained as if she is already familiar with our most private griefs. Saint Rita of Cascia’s remains are in Italy, but one of her brown habits is on display in this shrine. We were only allowed to look as I imagined fabric so fragile it would disintegrate under the slightest touch. 

            After writing my prayer request,  I often visited the gift shop looking for an item to mark my visit. I longed for something I could wear against my skin, some scaled-down version of a nun’s habit. After my heart attack my best friend sent me a bracelet of green Aventurine crystals that were believed to hold heart healing properties. I wore that bracelet everywhere, even to bed although the crystals left painful indents on my wrist every morning. The arteries that had torn deep within my chest were invisible to the naked eye, their healing an uncertain process.  The bracelet became a tangible symbol of both my wound and my healing. One day my daughter stretched the elastic of the bracelet so much that it snapped and the crystals scattered across the floor. I sent her to her room and then cried.

            These days we don’t visit the mural anymore. The pandemic has ended leaving our family mostly untouched. We have entered into a different rhythm of school and activities. We pass the mural in passing, and it is something of an accident or what my pastor calls grace that I now recognize it as a sort of shrine—not one attended by statues and roses but one abandoned to time and the elements. Our nightly walks required a necessary sense of wonder and the belief that dragons might appear alongside angels. We wore sturdy shoes and jackets with deep pockets for whatever treasure we collected along the way. My daughter often insisted on bringing dolls so worn from her small child love that I almost felt sorry for them and the witness they were meant to bear. Even the ants swarming over the dead bird were doing holy work although we did not realize it at the time. And the bird lives because the ants do. When we reached the mural, we stood back to consider the mural as a whole then got up close to examine the details we’ve overlooked. The glossy pink flower hiding in one corner. A kite with its tail twisting across the entire length of the mural. We ran our fingers over the chips and gouges, not to mourn what was lost, but to better feel the broken parts that remain.

Marylou Fusco‘s writing has appeared in Carve, Swink, Five on the Fifth, and Mutha magazine. Her short stories have won the Philadelphia City Paper and literary journal, So to Speak fiction contests. Past jobs have included general assignment reporter, GED instructor, and ghost tour guide. She lives with her family in Baltimore where she is finishing a novel about reluctant saints and resurrections.