Monthly Archives: July 2024

Fossanova

It was a room where someone important
died. A narrow staircase spiraling up,
a massive wooden door,
plaster walls with a faded Latin motto,
irregular glass panes flung open
to the sound of quiet summer heat.

Quiet. Quiet enough to think,
to think forward to a future in which
this room seems suddenly,
microscopically, significant
of all the quiet summer evenings,
the silences together that breathe deeper
than all the chatter of breathless relationship.

If death is such a silence, then I am not afraid 
of missing the point,
of missing you, of missing
the careful paragraph of light 
that falls through the open window
upon the room's rough floorboards, careful
not to make them creak, to break
the quietness of this monastic peace.

Grace Centanni lives and writes in Northern Michigan. She has been published in the Tower Light, The St Anne’s Review, and Ekstasis.

laying down the record 

memory of oak, birch and hazel 
sometime discovered 

lay hand on me 
keep me from the bony moon 

I cross one side to the other
come I to the wall with the doles

the saint in my wake
the crouched beast under my arm

a boat breaks its moorings
when I come to fallow land 

what trails  are exposed
at your coming hither 

one for the snipe uncorked from the gorse
one for the earths crisp coat

Lydia Harris has made her home in the Orkney island of Westray. Her second full collection, Henrietta’s Library of the Whole Wide World was published by Blue Diode in March.

The Font 

A woman has taken her daughter to see
the dried font. The girl's eyes roam
round the altar, flickering between boredom

and curosity, like a screen changing channels.
What astonishes her most, it seems, is the silence.
Nothing in her life has prepared her for this

any more than her mother could have foreseen
the absence of water and what it symbolised.

All they can do is find the spot where they stood
that glass-lit afternoon, one carrying the other.
They fix it, or near enough, from a photograph

and pose, content, They know a little more
about themselves, each other, now that their feet
are at the centre of what fell away around them.

Ted Mc Carthy is a poet, translator and playwright living in Clones, Ireland. His work has appeared in magazines in Ireland, the UK, Germany, the USA, Canada and Australia. He has had two collections published, November Wedding, and Beverly Downs. His work can be found on www.tedmccarthyspoetry.weebly.com

Love Letter
 
If love had an address, it would stifle.
We cannot tether it for it is sovereign 
like everything in the universe.
Be it the clouds or breeze that 
doesn’t have an address but 
delights all in their pulchritude.

It is in the silence of the sky 
and the transmuting leaves of autumn.
It is in and around us if we 
can see through our souls.

But the earthly form has an address.
I can only deliver the letter if 
he opens his inner door.

Over the years, I have become 
the address where he lives,
And one day, my friend will 
set on a pilgrimage home.

 

Alka Balain was born in India. Her writings have appeared/forthcoming in Usawa Literary Review, DREICH, The Green Journal, Poetry India, Visual Verse, Setu Bilingual, The Hooghly Review, AlSphere, Shot Glass, Amethyst, The Tiger Moth Review and elsewhere. Alka’s poems have been shortlisted for the Glass House Poetry Award 2024, Poetry Festival Singapore-Catharsis 2023, Wordweavers Contest 2022, and Wordsmith Award 2021.She is the author of Parijat Petals, of longing and seeking (May 2024, Hawakal Publishers). 

My Late Brother Appears on My Apple Watch

He is wearing bib overalls, an owl on his shoulder,
the literal ghost in the machine.  An accidental tap 
on its face, a quick twist of the wrist -- 
my watch dislodges my carefully calculated settings
and Edwin appears, fresh from my Favorites.

Every time I think ‘he’s been gone twenty years,’
it appears he finds a way to remind me:
we abide in everything, whether we like it or not – 
just be sure to wear a leather glove on your hand 
if the bird who chooses you has talons.

He and his great horned owl, me and my crows.
Our everyday familiars, never summoned but appearing,
hungry and sure about everything that matters --  
bringing feathered peace that passes all understanding
and bony beaks that take all our unburnt offerings.  




Judy Ireland is the author of Cement Shoes, a poetry collection that won the Sinclair Poetry Prize in 2013.  Her poems have appeared in Hotel Amerika, Calyx, Saranac Review, Eclipse, Cold Mountain, Coe Review, SWWIM, the South Florida Poetry Journal, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including the Best Indie Lit New England anthology and Voices from the Fierce Intangible World.  She is a Poetry Editor and Reading Series Producer for the South Florida Poetry Journal, Co-Director of Performance Poets of the Palm Beaches, and she teaches at Palm Beach State College.

A Tree

Touch a tree!
Feel the scabrous skin
painted with moss--
shadowing blue to green.
Touch the leaves--
mature and tender shoots!
Touch the roots
where they fall
below the ground.
Feel it all,
every aspect
and tell me what 
it is you have found.
See it
as a whole,
and then in part.
See it
not by eye and hand
but with the heart--
And then,
and only then:
tell me
what it is
you truly see?
Tell me
what it is we call... 
A Tree?

Dean Schreck is a retired and relocated Long Islander who has been writing since the age of fourteen.  His work has appeared over the years in Zephyr, Voices International, Literary Hatchet, New Myths, Penumbric, Magical Blend, Owlfight, WeirdBook, Penumbric, Eldritch Tales, Littoral, Space and Time, New Myths, Trembling with Fear…to name a few.  He has also done work in Comic Books–Bloodscent (Comico 1988); Twilight Zone #7 (Now Comics 1992) and 2 Tales for Marvel/Epic Hellraiser series.  Dean is a long time student of the spiritual and paranormal.

The Calling

I hear her song in
accidental melodies that harmonize
with breath of wind through leaves and branches.
An invocation of form and pattern
that blends complexity
with elementary truth
and calls me into
that infinite space between
my protons and my neutrons.

How can I not follow her
down the rugged mountain
to the shore of Llyn Tegid?

Together we ride the spiraled wave of Awen,
faster and faster
chasing the seed,
shifting and sailing
from earth
to water
to air —
a greyhound pursuing a hare
an otter hunting a salmon
a hawk descending upon a wren
a black hen gulping a kernel of corn. 

Diane Perazzo is a poet, legacy writing facilitator and eco witch in the Reclaiming tradition. She is a co-creator of the art and poetry exhibit Sowing the Future: Women Farmers +EcoAgriculture and author of the chapbook Six Poems for Healing (illustrated by the late amara hollowbones) and the children’s novel The Secret in the Ravine (available on Amazon). Her poetry has been published in earth-based spirituality and ecology-focused online and print publications.  

Draw Near

You, the masterful Artist,
breathing life into life into me.
You stitch the cosmos into
intricate garb, enrobing Yourself
with galaxies. On Your fingertips are nebulas, yet 
in Your palms, Your people find shelter.
You paint the depths of the velvety seas,
bestowing wonder and mystery upon every pearl,
colors as yet undiscovered flowing from Your palette.
Oh God, who else would create--
who else could create--
this dazzling domain
I am blessed enough
to call home?
Who else but You
would draft so carefully, so artfully,
arranging every last, perpetual detail,
from the flames of faraway suns
to each bristle in the paintbrush
held safely in the hand of the artist
who embodies Your mitzvot?
Oh God, who else would
have the compassion to 
place syllables and sounds 
on the tongues of ancient peoples,
to coax chaos into language
so that my ancestors could praise Your name?
Oh, God, let me study at Your easel,
let me read at Your bedside,
and God, let me love the world a little better
for You having drawn me into it at all.

Katherine Orfinger is a writer, artist, and MFA candidate at Rosemont College. She holds a BA in English from Stetson University. Katherine’s work has appeared in Beyond Queer Words, Outrageous Fortune, You Might Need to Hear This, Touchstone, Aeolus, and others. Katherine draws inspiration from her Floridian hometown and Jewish faith. She currently resides in Pennsylvania.