Monthly Archives: December 2025

Matthew Tallied Who’d Eaten the Most

Jesus called forth his friends
to star in their own work of art,
gently washed their feet.

Thirteen companions reclined
on carpets and floor cushions
in the dimly lit upper room.

Pure stone jars of olives, dates,
pistachios — supper laid out
on low tables by Peter and Simon.

Judas dipped bread into Jesus’s fish sauce.
Thaddeus stroked the air with prayers between bites.
Bartholomew passed the lamb.

John leaned close, listening.
James refilled the wine.
Thomas bit his bottom lip,
doubted their truth.

Andrew and the other James
argued over leavened bread recipes.
Matthew tallied who’d eaten the most.
Philip questioned how bread became body.

In the centre,
Jesus broke bread and drank wine,
asked his friends to do this
in memory of him—
body in bread,
divinity in wine.

Amen.

Margaret T Rochford is a poet and playwright originally from Ireland living in London. She regularly performs her poetry at open mike sessions. Her poetry has been published in magazines and on line, she is working on her first pamphlet. Two of her short plays have been performed at the Irish Cultural Centre in London and she is currently working on a play about Irish dancing.

The Fish in the Deep Lake

run their mouths 
over rocks again, 

take many forms 
of flesh,

dart among
the wild celery
and driftwood— 

And we the people 
do not see them; 

we do not acknowledge 
they’re alive. 

As we turn
from this side of the lake 

toward the other, 

they’re all the same 
making a difference 
in their own world.

Though we can’t see them 
in their camouflage,



a life-filled world

exists     beyond ours—

Ahrend Torrey is the author of This Moment (Pinyon Publishing, 2024). His work has appeared in Denver Quarterly; Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature; storySouth; The Greensboro Review; The Westchester Review; Welter; and West Trade Review, among others. He’s currently working on a new collection of poems titled Running Among the Trees—New & Selected Poems. He lives in Chicago with his husband, Jonathan, and enjoys exploring the nearby forests and dunes. Read more of his poetry at https://ahrendtorreypoetry.wixsite.com/website

The Path for Me?
 
In the hall are twenty devotees, a terrier
and a mongrel.
 
A smile greets when I hand in a quiche lorraine
for the potluck meal; blank faces disappoint
 
when I tell them I've been exploring Theravada.
A volunteer lights incense and candle then invites the bell.
 
We recite ‘The Community’’s version
of the five precepts. I’m too shy and dodge
 
my turn; say I’ve forgotten my glasses.
Walking meditation makes me self conscious
 
and feels strange. After a blessing,
we savour lunch in silence.
 
Some of us take a walk through the village,
over a bridge, down a lane and back.
 
As we do so, we talk and talk;
released from silence.
 
One serene follower sits cross legged
on a mat, peels and eats a banana
 
before the dharma talk on mindfulness.
After which, I still don't know what it is.
 
 

Terry Sherwood lives in Northamptonshire, England. A former painter, his creative outlet is now poetry. His poems have been published in Allegro, Acumen, Orbis, Pennine Platform, The Cannon’s Mouth, The Ekphrastic Review and The Seventh Quarry amongst others.

Stone

I am soaring miles above the earth.
Below me,
the smooth surface of the precambrian shield
is flowing like a river.

Water snakes and winds around bedrock.
Vast swathes of forest and wetland
are changing shape,
dancing with the living granite.

The stone tells me:
“Everything good lives on forever in spirit
and returns to the Earth when it is ready.”

I wake and remember Kateri,
their hand on a boulder,
saying, "This is the speed
at which Spirit moves."

Silas Foxton is a tattoo artist and community worker meandering around the great lakes basin. Their work picks at a simultaneously strained and reverent relationship to land, ancestry, and identity which draws on experiences of dream life and things only seen out of the corner of one’s eye.

Dominion

is not exploitation’s synonym,
reason’s rationale for ruined resources,
permission to pursue people as assets,
a commandment to act as God.
 
it calls us to be
secure in our skin
so others can be in theirs,
acknowledge that abundance means
enough for all not more for me,
understand equality and equity
are not the same,
see the forest and the trees,
know the village it takes is lifeless
until we dwell in it.

Duncan Smith grew up on a farm in southeastern North Carolina in the 1960s in one of the nation’s historically poorest counties. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A public librarian who started a database company, he published his first poem at the age of twenty. Decades later he published his second poem, reclaiming writing and poetry as a long-lost and recovered passion. Duncan’s work has appeared in or is forthcoming in BRILLIG, Broad River Review, The Crucible, Kakalak and online in North Carolina Literary Review, Red Eft Review, Table Rock Journal.

Waiting Hours

This month, there has been no revelation,
no miraculous sign, no sudden turn.
The earth spins slowly and my poems end
without the Spirit stealing my pen.
He does not work the same way twice, I know,
and still, the ache for Him to work at all:
I know You could heal me if You gave me the words.
I know what it feels like to be surprised.
I read once of a type of bamboo that, once planted,
didn’t show a sprout for three years. In a day,
it grew straight into the sky.

Elle Rosamilia grew up in upstate New York, moved to Mississippi for college, and spent the next three years teaching English in North Africa and studying theology in the UK. She currently lives in Pennsylvania, where she can be found reading poetry on her lunch breaks and writing in the pockets of free time she has amidst her retail job. Her latest poetry collection, The Mourner’s Almanac, explores seasons of grief and hope, and she has poems published in Prosetrics and Vessels of Light.