Monthly Archives: November 2023

The Dishcloth's Glory


I admit 
it was only a dishcloth

that had been left, 
scrunched up
on top of a green wheely bin.

Yet the heavy hoar frost
that had come in the night
had decorated it 
with fine shards of ice
that bristled out
into the cold morning light
like a diamond halo.

Or a headdress belonging 
to some lost civilisation,
intended perhaps
for a sacred purpose,
now forgotten. 

There it was
the gorgeous artifact
sparkling wildly
on our unworthy plinth.

My family stood round it, speechless,
but only for a moment,
until uncertainty crept in

and then 
there was a shifting of feet,
a blinking back of beauty
whose gaze they could not meet.

Meteorological facts 
were thrown out
just one or two to break the spell
and allow everyone
to go back into the house
to watch TV
and open Christmas presents.

I stayed however
suffering my joy alone
until the day itself
took 
the dishcloth's glory.

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.

Ritual Prayer							

Flannel-heavy midnights where sleep cracks open to grief, the deep now 
of absence curled close, the fog of death and dream a mumbled prayer 
that keeps looping back to hope or, at least, survival: Wisdom, 
Mercy, Kindness, Healing, the cold sheets of sometimes-comfort a mercy 
to embrace—or an urgency, friend, family (sometimes foe) begging the kindness 
we solicit easily from strangers, not those we know, our own need for healing 

forgiveness the necessary first petition. Or in the mid-day gray of the mundane, healing
that joins hands with those unseen saints hovering in the shadows of past and now.
Heavy these petitions we promise for others, our pleas on their behalf a kindness
that covers all our wounded souls. Purifying is the tear-soaked prayer
wept daily for the poor, the afflicted, the sorrowful not-us—a mercy
immersing each intercession in humility, that truest wisdom

confronting who we are without epiphany, the experienced-earned wisdom
of the penitent prodigal. And so, again, Wisdom, Mercy, Kindness, Healing
leaks through cracked lips or, exhaled from restricted lungs, blooms to mercy,
the letters of me/you/us/them merging into, if not understanding, the now
of examination that eventually breathes the deeper dispensation of grace. Prayer
pulls closer to God both the petitioner and the stricken, such Divine kindness

measured out daily in small syllables and seeds of belief. “Pay forward kindness,”
scriptures and billboards recommend. But more so, the kindest yet—this wildflower wisdom
that daily digs and sows, but also scatters, prayer begetting prayer
begetting action—is ritual that rinses even the grittiest intentions from the unhealed
on the path to healing. Which always brings us back to now
and each minute’s need and choice for empathy and mercy. 

What, then, will we answer, deep in the night, when the Merciful
calls out for us? “Here, am I”? Wisdom, Mercy, Kindness
Healing. Or better, “Speak, Lord, your servant listens now,”
an obedient if not immediate faith, even as, half-awake to wisdom,
we murmur words that put in motion healing.
O Great I AM, accept our inarticulate prayers—

mid-day or midnight—you the first and living Prayer
for us, penitents and portals of your mercy
when we bow to Word and words. Heal us.
Bestow again your unearned kindness
of grace. Re-shape these abbreviated intercessions, Wisdom
of All Ages, into shining orisons for others. And now,

may we repeat and renew the well-worn prayer
that brings us near to you: Wisdom, Mercy, 
Kindness, Healing, Forever and now.
					Amen.

English and creative writing professor at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 14 collections of poetry—most recently Begin with a Question (Paraclete, International Book + Illumination Book Award winner and CMA Award, 3rd) and the ekphrastic collections Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (with Karen Elias) and In the Museum of Her Daughter’s Mind, a collaboration with her artist daughter (www.hafer.work). She has poems included in the anthology Christian Poetry in America since 1940 . In addition, she has published the story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite) and 4 children’s and YA books. She has poems included in the anthology Christian Poetry in America since 1940 (Paraclete Press), edited by Michael Mattix and Sally Thomas, and in Taking Root in the Heart, edited by Jill Baumgaertner. Please see www.marjoriemaddox.com 

Hermit Lessons
 
around your throat at all times
a muffler
the phone must be always broken
or full of static
your would-be friends
all their hearing aid batteries dead
 
you must have one book
that repeats itself
and a garden with only tubers
 
in the night in the day overhead
silence spills slowly like oil
black on oil
 
the pool shines
can even catch fire
but no one can drink it
 
strong winnowing hands
separate atoms from air
and no sound can travel
 
your vocal cords heal up like wounds
become smooth
your two lips knit together
no line
 
in the depths of the pool
the blind eyes of a fish
cannot see
that its body shines blue
 
 
 

Laura Sheahen has published poems in Four Way Review, Posse Review, and other journals in the US and UK. Her poetry book The Genie Smiles was printed in India. She lives in Tunisia.

Gods, Humans and Beasts   

On a gray day, reaching down to lift 
a classic from the lowest shelf, I found  
my rabbit had chewed yet another book,   
The Bacchae, with a jail-housed Elvis   
on the cover, my Euripides ripped.  
At first mad, I surmised an omen - 
 
How the young let weeds grow wild 
and the old regret how often they mowed.     
But no matter the generations, we’re 
little creeks that flow down the mountains 
though we think ourselves the dazzle of stars 
flung across otherwise meaningless skies. 
 
No matter the age or time of our kind,  
we thump upon the ground, on four  
or two or three, crawl, dance, and limp,  
too proud and more than a little sad,  
sex toys of the gods we construe and blame 
for being who we are and what we do.   
 
The rabbit sits in her cage nibbling the grass 
I’ve brought to her, fresh and green 
the way she’s trained me though any book  
would serve her turn. She might as well  
be my god the way a Cherokee myth   
has a rabbit at the center of the world.

Anthony DiMatteo’s third poetry collection Secret Offices is just out. Why secret? One can’t take credit for an office dedicated to the pursuit of beauty and fairness as a poet must be. No one knows what one is doing in such a search, a prerequisite for it. Recent poems have appeared in The Connecticut River Review, Cimarron Review, The MacGuffin, North Dakota Quarterly and The Galway Review. A full professor of English, he has defended the mysteries of literature and art at the New York Institute of Technology for over 30 years. He lives on the Outer Banks with his wife Kathleen O’Sullivan, pianist, designer and fellow empty nester. Please feel free to leave a trace at his e-tent: https://anthonydimatteo.wordpress.com   

Amen
 
He is his own patron saint,
martyr to the cause, victim
of well-meaning ignorance.
His halo is a dinner plate,
his piety affectation.
 
He is his own saviour,
interlocutor between life
and death, will do anything
to avoid humiliation,
even crucify himself.
 
He is his own prayer
but does not know
how to talk to absence
or persuade the world
to find its own salvation.
 
He is his own proclamation
about what is to come;
his own declamation,
his own exclamation mark,
own unfulfilled prophecy.
 
He is his own creation,
trying hard to become
who he has decided to be,
yet often seeing himself
walking the other way.
 
He is his own undoing,
will betray and desert
all he knows and loves,
will lay down and die
just like everybody else.
 
He is his own resurrection,
stepping in footsteps
left in the desert,
endlessly circling,
out of his thirsty mind.
 

Rupert M Loydell is a writer, editor and abstract artist. His many books of poetry include Dear Mary (Shearsman, 2017) and The Return of the Man Who Has Everything (Shearsman 2015); and he has edited anthologies such as Yesterday’s Music Today (co-edited with Mike Ferguson, Knives Forks and Spoons Press 2014), and Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh: manifestos and unmanifestos (Salt, 2010)

Evening Prayer


Not wanting it said that only desperation
drives me to prayer, I’m trying giving thanks
this time. Thanks for the whole creation,
especially my patch on Bayou Teche.
Thanks that the bayou overflows its banks
in heavy rain, bringing the herons in.
Thanks for the sunset flinging golden mesh
on the stone streets of an Italian town
seen long ago. Thanks that I’ve reached old age
with not so many burdens of the flesh
as I expected. Thanks that I’m at the stage
of contemplating death with open eyes
and without bitterness or dread or rage.
Thanks for my readiness to meet surprise.

Gail White is a contributing editor of Light Poetry Magazine and a frequent contributor to formalist poetry journals and anthologies. She is a 2-time winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Prize. Her most recent books, Asperity Street and Catechism, may be found on Amazon. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana with her husband and cats.

Exaltation


On the other side
of the glass separating me 
from wind and wilderness,
I see the quick black arc
of a crow’s descent.

I’m half-convinced
they only do this 
for the rapture of wings.

The next time we travel
the mournful grey sidewalk,
no matter how busy
we must all stop to bear witness–

see the delicate tips of a tree
reaching for the sun,
how the crows alight on them, 
this new growth
just strong enough 
to bear the weight.

Faith Allington is a writer, gardener and lover of mystery parties who resides in Seattle. Her work is forthcoming or has previously appeared in various literary journals, including Bowery Gothic, FERAL, Cosmic Daffodil, Gold Man Review and Crab Creek Review.  

From an Attic Window in Tuscany

Earth in all directions. Little roof tiles of sun-baked clay, 
lumpy individuals in peachy skin tones, 
trooping, bumpy, down from the top of the house -
like the back of a big armadillo.
The corrugated arc stutters softly to the ground:
reaching for the rocks, searching for the soil,
remembering where home is, and sliding there again.

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. 

We Need to Talk

To be inside this conversation
is to step through a threshold

of wilderness, no horizon in sight, 
across a boundary so antiquated,

its rusty barbs break off across our shins. 
The thickets and thorny patches 

along the path entice us 
with their bright, ripe berries,

inviting our bare hands into 
the clutches of teeth and grief and reason. 

We try to sneak in, are stung, and
retract. But the laws of foraging 

dictate that the choice of any crop 
lurks beneath its leaves. 

Listen, my love: Lacerations heal, 
but left unharvested, fruit rots on the vine.

Lynn Glicklich Cohen has been published in Amelia, Brushfire Literature 
and Arts Journal, Cantos, El Portal, Oberon Poetry Magazine, Peregrine, 
The Phoenix, SLAB, Spotlong Review, St. Katherine’s Review, Swamp Ape 
Review, Thin Air Magazine, and Trampoline. Her novel, A Terrible Case of 
Beauty, was published by Trebol Press in 2013.

Starfall


When I look up,
Fog veils the mountain
Outside the cafe
Window, an ethereal 
Blanket enfolding trust.

Mint tea and guitar 
And the galaxy of mist
Assures me that the 
Light is coming, though
Hidden from view.

Below, rain falls like stars
Onto the puddle’s surface. 
Planets bubble and
Burst, echoing circles
In their wake.

Lauren H. White teaches, writes and gives her daughter piggy-back rides in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She has been published in the The Mighty, Fathom magazine, The Fallow House, and ELLA library’s Reflections on Generosity and Thanks. You can connect with her on Instagram @healbipolarandbeyond and at laurenhwhite.com.