Monthly Archives: February 2025

The Afterlife of Riley

Sleet slashes my window with
the undersound of faraway voices.
I watch the twisting 
flames in my woodstove,
hypnotic, like dancers
telling ancient stories
in the season of longnights.
It’s a good woodstove.
It keeps me warm even when
the cold emanates from within.  
Soot forms on the glass of the window in the door
if a log is set too close, releasing shapes
hidden in the sap, remnants of forest and earth and high breezes.
What appears to me now is the shape 
of my old dog Riley, buried just a season past.
Not some vague suggestion.
Not a toasted-cheese-Jesus Riley.
But Riley, snoozing in the soot-stained glass
of the woodstove as he had at my feet
on so many murky nights. 
It’s him, alright.
I know it in the egg-shaped hump
of his body low in the front, high in the rump, 
smoky haunches pulled up, 
the protective curl of his tail, 
even the furrowed brow 
that worried his face so in life, 
now resin stained into the glass.  
Behind his half-opened eyes, 
at rest but still watching, as he often did, 
carnelian embers glow in his pupils.  
He has become knowing, like the eyes
I’ve seen in photographs of the saints – 
Thérèse of Lisieux, she of the Little Way,
José Sánchez del Río, boy rebel and martyr, 
Gemma of Galgani, Hollywood beautiful 
pained by the stigmata.
And my Riley who was just a good boy.
Eyes, all of them, that saw beyond the veil
and burned with a holy fire
they, in their young lives, 
and Riley after death, in this winter gloom	
when the veil is thin and spirits dance in the fire.	
A long while I ponder his image, 
Riley peering back at me from the fire, gaze for gaze.  
Clearly, he is not going back tonight
to his dark bed beneath the pines,
so I leave him three potato chips 
where his dish had been.
And no, I’m not surprised to find them when I wake.
Dogs who run with the Saints have no more need of chips.  
The spirit of offering has left them.  
They are only potato chips now.  
I eat them myself, trusting he received
their salty, crunchy welcome.

Gregory Lobas is the author of Left of Center (Broadkill River Press, 2022) which won the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, such as Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, Tar River Poetry, Cimarron Review, Vox Populi, Susurrus, and many others. He is a retired firefighter/paramedic living with his wife Meg and dog Sophie in the Hurricane Helene-ravaged area of western North Carolina

The Ark and its Keeper

It started with stuffed animals,
shifting toys upright on shelves.
I picked lone plushies off the floor
at stores—wishing each one had
somewhere warm and safe to go,
a home to animate with joy.

It began with unbearable terror,
the visceral fear I felt seeing worms
tossed against brick walls at recess—
caterpillars torn apart, cicada broods
smashed alive; precious beings
in pain, helpless and writhing.

What seeded as care for creatures
turned to grave concern for climate.
I grieved kingdoms wiped from earth.
Still I drowned out a mass extinction
of souls unseen and prayers unheard,
built borders on the basis of species.

All my youth I dug tombs. I buried
the struggle of farmed animals deep
in the backrooms of my forming mind.
I silenced what felt strange and wrong
as I breastfed from countless mothers,
cooked their kin’s flesh medium rare.

I spent twenty years loving a cat.
Near the end of her days I asked
what she hoped I would remember.
She said, I’m interested in my life.
I saw that animals are here With us,
fellow travelers through holy floods.

Some watch how I move and make sense
of what matters. Some lean in, see a light
worth reaching toward. Others consider me
with a kind of pity, incredulous and stunned.
I am their cracked mirror, a crypt for questions
they don’t want answered; the ark and its keeper.

Creatures of God set sail where I go, staring you down.
I unleash pigs and cows upon the vile factory tycoons
and they storm forth, gladly. Paired reptiles and insects,
bonded amphibians, rare and mated birds all aboard—
entire histories, sacred and in danger. I make sure
you hear the chicken pray: My life is worth living.

By the time you bring the elephant into the room
I have already found a hundred ways to set her free.

Jimmy O’Hara is a gay writer and editor who crafts science news for a non-profit medical organization. Based on the U.S. east coast, he often focuses his poetry on memory, spirituality, animal rights, social conscience, and a sense of belonging. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Pictura Journal, and Literary Veganism. You can reach him at jpohara4@gmail.com.

Rapture

In feather and in fury | fly the vicious
Eagle, entrance | end the warp,
Forth sunder | in small sun
Like beaded beauty | better than grasp
Talon-tightly | torque and tear;
Ah, small thing | thence you blossom
Stark and crimson | creature like a bloom.
Greatly grasses | gripe them short,
Flurry sudden | such small
Violence, not vengeance. | Vitality in burn,
No time, no time at all | terribly you learn
What learnéd lesson | leases not escape
But dances, dances | down so dim
Ages, and accounts | awfully seeded
Thy ledger lieth not, | look: empty
Stand its lines. | Lack my beastie
Nothing now, | never treasure
Green grass | that groweth more.
Aloft ascend, | alight in transform —
Now sightless citizen | of stranger shore.

Connor Patrick Wood is a poet and Substacker (https://cultureuncurled.substack.com) in Arlington, Massachusetts. He holds a BA in creative writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a PhD in religion and science from Boston University. Before he left academia, Connor’s research on the cognitive science of ritual was funded by the John Templeton Foundation. He has published poetry at the Rabbit Room Substack, Ekstasis, and elsewhere.

celebrate

this cloud billows
once, in all of time
the corkscrew willow
bending—the curve
a grace, a prayer

how the leopard
bears whisker spots
these rosettes 
their fingerprint
and the baby’s
cowlick at his nape

all of us, called—
how precise we are
each one unique
every one required

Amrita Skye Blaine develops themes of aging, disability, and spiritual awakening. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University in 2003. She has published a memoir and a three-novel trilogy. Blaine has been writing poetry steadily since she turned seventy. Her poems have been accepted by Braided Way Magazine, The Penwood Review, Delta Poetry Review, the New English Review, Soul Forte, and Chiron Review. Her first book of poetry, every riven thing, has been accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press and will come out mid-2025.

lessons from a peach

let the woody kernel bleed its pigment
into your flesh

ripening can be savoured 
but not rushed

when it’s time, let your body fall away 
with an ease that calls forth
celestial juice

delight in this fleeting season
then crawl into dark grooves
like an ant searching sweetness

hold the seed
in the palm of your soil
nourish it 

Shelina Gorain is a former software professional, a balcony gardener and a knitter. She writes from Toronto.

Come Sit with Me

When my small blue flame
was barely flickering, 
still in the wind of adversity,
you came to visit me. 
Without any words of advice, 
you kept vigil, still believing
as doubt and fear were busy 
building their nest, chirping away.
There is something to be said 
for just sitting quietly, our hearts 
breathing to the same rhythm, 
it can be the best prayer offering
You may be wondering how 
something that seems so small
can mean the world to me.




Michael J. LaFrancis is a trusted advisor, advocate, author and connector supporting individuals, groups and organizations aligning purpose and capabilities in service of their highest ideals. Writing poetry is a contemplative practice providing him with insight and inspiration for living a creative life. His poems are also appearing in Amethyst Review, Avalon Review, City Key, Mocking Owl, One Art and Last Leaves, Seraphic Review now or in the coming months.

By Our Hands And Days

    There is so much to do 
in a garden -  
   unlike back when 
it was done for us. Pruning, clearing 
 all the thorns 
and thistles - getting it ready for 
this year’s new plants. And the birds complain 
when I 
     work near the feeder. I give them 
     names - Daniel, Judith, Ruth. 
Pausing - I need 
to straighten my back - I look to 
the other 
side of the yard - three more chores pop out. 
Work to be done - for another day.
Back to planting.
The sun shines where it wants - 
     the best spots 
    must be 
 divined.
    Plant one here one here 
   one there otherwise we won’t 
be able to 
see them. Dig a hole - 
 painful toil - amend the soil, 
    put 
   in a plant, backfill. Not enough 
dirt - need some more from somewhere else.
I swear the Earth will slowly 
 disappear from gardening.  A 
    butterfly - small angelic - appreciates 
the 
newly planted 
    flower 
 in front of me.
Working the way back.
It’s bad for my spine but the sweat of 
 my brow is good for my soul.

Fred Briggs is a graduate of Stony Brook University where he majored in English Literature with an emphasis on 17th Century poetry. An award-winning poet, his work has been published in several journals and online.

See more of his poetry on Facebook: The Poet’s Cloak – The Poetry of Fred Briggs

In Her Sunroom

The recliner all but swallows her up now. 
Approaching from behind, I must
look from a certain angle to see if she is there.

Her lap cradles no Sunday paper,
no junk mail. Even her decrepit Bible 
sojourns on a nearby chair. She must be asleep.

Then I see her blue eyes 
gazing blankly ahead of her
through the window to the woods.

She sits as still as a column of cumulus clouds
in late summer. Her face has been practicing 
its look for the grave all day long. 

I imagine the den has a whiff 
of ether about it. I don’t dare breathe 
it in or light a candle against the coming dark. 

I can almost hear the scratch
of match against box, and then
an explosion of light 

that might take me, too.
But now all I see are the pilot lights 
of her eyes as they burn

through the woods behind the house,
across the black water beyond the woods,
to a place I cannot see from where I stand.





Ralph F. Matthews is a high school English teacher and poet living in Columbia, South Carolina, with his wife and three children. He has published poems in Visual Verse and Time of Singing.

Seed

The roaring, the cry in daytime,
in the season of night. Seed time.
 
The bulls circle me, the bulls
of Deuteronomy, gaping
mouths, ravening.  
 
My bones are numbered
and allotted. I am poured
like molten metal. My heart
melts like dirty snow along
the city curb. I am dry as
broken clay, as corpse teeth,
as dog dust.
 
At McDonald’s, an assembly
of the wicked, a court of
miracles, a communion of
saints. My feet, my hands.
The song of Moses.
 
My bones converse. My
garments keep time. My
work shirts are the color
of vestments, white for
death, red for wonders,
green for the sun on the
field at dawn.
 
The mouth of the lion, the
horn of the bison, the
sparrow beak. In the
midst of the congregation,
the seed.
 
My beard, my vows.
The meek and the kindreds. 
The fatted calves.
 
Soul seed.
 

Patrick T. Reardon, who was a Chicago Tribune reporter for 32 years, has published six poetry collections, including Darkness on the Face of the Deep, Salt of the Earth and Puddin’: The Autobiography of a Baby, A Memoir in Prose Poems. His poetry has appeared in Commonweal, America, Spiritus, Heart of Flesh, Amethyst Review, Rhino, Burningword Literary Journal, Poetry East and other journals. His new poetry collection Every Marred Thing: A Time in America, the winner of the 2024 Faulkner-Wisdom Prize from the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans, is forthcoming from Lavender Ink. Reardon has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize for poetry.

Capsule

Expecting the sommelier to swing
in glee when one is on the water wagon
is placing him in an unusual position.
Unfurnished fittings
seek furnishings:
I understand once-overs.
Bereft of bliss,
some find it in birdsong
or shadow and its spryness.
Concision in the corporeal slot
prods me to consecrated halation.
Unsure of His insignia 
in day-to-day settings:
I push myself to others for picayunes.

Sanjeev Sethi has authored eight books of poetry. Legato Without a Lisp is his latest (CLASSIX, Delhi, September 2024). His poetry has been published in over thirty-five countries and has appeared in more than 500 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He edited Dreich Planet # 1 India, an anthology for Hybriddreich, Scotland, in 2022. He is the joint winner of Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK. In 2023, he won the First Prize in a Poetry Competition by the National Defence Academy, Pune. He lives in Mumbai, India.

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