Author Archives: Sarah

Encounter


I met god last night on the 38
and I had always understood that god was omniscient
but he had no idea who he was. 
When I asked him why he placed the stars
in their particular patterns, he looked at me
the way you might look at someone
who’s holding a knife. I wasn’t holding a knife.
When I asked him why he permitted war and famine
and heartbreak and disease and greed 
he moved to another seat. When I asked him
if my gentle grandmother who smelled like lilacs
was really waiting for me in the afterlife
he pressed the bell and the bus jolted to a halt.
As he shuffled down the aisle and hopped off
with a glance behind to be sure I wasn’t following
I called after him: That’s me and you finished, god

and god looked relieved.

Mary Ford Neal is a writer and academic from the West of Scotland. Her poetry is published widely in magazines and she is the author of two poetry collections: Dawning (Indigo Dreams, 2021) and Relativism (Taproot Press, 2022). Mary is assistant editor of 192 magazine and Nine Pens Press.

kiviti: on yearning


during the month of elul 
ani lidodi vi dodi li 
i am for my beloved and my beloved is for me

when we long for God with every cell in our bodies

craving the closeness of the yamim noraim approaching
cold days in synagogues pounding our chests
sweet honey and pomegranate at meals 
a never ending tune woven through the month

i met a woman during elul 
who had an alarm on her phone 
ringing through the day 
every half hour it went off she said
kiviti adonai linegdi tamid
i yearn for god next to me always


but it's an insufficient translation 
kiviti means not just yearn but
that romantic bodily love desperate longing
i want to be able to touch you every moment god, she said
out loud unabashed
eyes closed heart open 

we have so many words for longing in hebrew
crave/yearn/ache/thirst - are wildy inadequate 
kayl taarog al afikey mayim 
as a deer yearns for water
ken nafshi taarog elecha elokim
so my soul longs for you god


but it's so much more
deers NEED water don't you see

every day in prayer we murmur
do not send us away empty handed
raykam al tashivenu 
plz just a whisper of your voice behind us in the shul dust 
that would be enough - we plead
   dayenu

would it though?

i don't know if i want god next to me every moment
i wouldn't want to drink then wear crop tops kiss 
ppl laugh rolling on the floor 
not that i think god doesn't want me 
to do those things
just it's hard to be a body and a soul 

is it i yearn for god next to me, always

or always, i yearn for god next to me

does it matter?
always / tamid

Rana Bickel (she/they) is a queer Jewish poet from Maryland residing in Chicago. She is a recent graduate of Barnard College where she was a member of the slam poetry team. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Bourgeon Magazine, Thimble Literary Magazine, and the Jewish Literary Journal. She loves books, community, and rainstorms. 

A Poem Called Mala

My third finger 
and thumb
move along each bead.
Smooth to the touch, 
the bead,
a marker
a prayer
a desire 
a plea-

to:	all the angels in heaven
to:	the one that i call god
to:	the buddhas  and bhodisattvas
	of the past the present the future and beyond
to:	 my ancestors of my highest good only
to:	 palden lhamo the protector of the doctrine
to:	 mahakala the protector of the doctrine
to:	 padmasambhava the guardian of awakenings
to:	 avilokiteshvara the buddha of compassion.

To all of you blessed beings
with your abundant compassion,
have mercy on me
have mercy on all of us who pray
to clear our karmic obscurations
so we may thrive
in your shelter 
of peace.

Jodi Lin is a Queer/Trans Asian Pacific Islander poet and filmmaker based in Manhattan. Their poetry can be experienced in a video diary called “Leaving Beauty” on their YouTube channel of the same name, Olney Magazine, and The Poetry Project Footnotes publication. A graduate of the ART Institute at Harvard, Sarah Lawrence College, and a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship recipient. https://linktr.ee/hellojodiii

 An Anti-Memoir
 
Our predictable memoirs if collected
recorded from their motley sources
would be strings of wishful kindly
(some far less kindly) lies,
as truths of what we were,
not what we wanted to be, are so boring
 
the ghostly future past
a small grey figure sits
on one shoulder, while on the other
is a patch of sunlight
they switch places now and then
it’s in their act
the CEO, the emperor, the dashing general
rock star, celebrity billionaire
trade off with a shimmering void
of strident bird call just before sunrise
of elevator doors opening
on someone we almost recognize
 
of walking a hallway
away from an ugly scene
where we weren’t at our best
but might have been
if the moment had been longer,
had included a pause that lengthened
if we used it to re-enter
that other self we always are
 
in that patch of shouldered sunlight
impending, quietly heralded
by an almost-foreign steadiness descending
with an implicit anti-memoir
as if we could have forgotten
 

Don Brandis is a retired healthcare worker living quietly outside Seattle writing poems.  Some of his work has appeared in Amethyst Review, Leaping Clear, Blue Unicorn, Poetry Quarterly and elsewhere.  His most recent book of poems is Paper Birds (Unsolicited Press 2021).

Current

My breath
             shall be sufficient
                                       unto thee

roared
               nearly in silence

the attentively controlled muscles

circling 
                  in and out
                                        in opening
closing without cease

               to open again
                                         within me

slaying every notion of I am

                                     portraying
instead:
                a matchbox counting

off each sulfur 
                              tip
                                          burnt:

one by one
                     the gift
                                   its warmth 
simply of
                 joy or sorrow
                                      released:

the simplest
                       one word
                                        answer:

body's heave in spirit's keep—
this treasure is beyond belief:
you are welcome into blood:
into faint thickness & vitreous
matter of star: which hour upon
hour shall re-arouse the flick,
o unchanging, o infinite power:

             feeling: this:
                                            how
the automatic magic
      snows

                        where all of this

now eventually
                          now ever
                                          shall go:
struck

             into flames.

Timothy Lavenz is a poet, philosopher, and translator. His work has appeared in Epoché Magazine, Oraxiom Journal, Kunst und Kirche, and Sequestrum. Many of his writings can be found at fragilekeys.com.

Revelations

Sun is resting on the leaves.
It is 4pm now and
The city is sleeping in silent chaos.
There is an obscure movement of pain 
in the wind.
It is a time of revelations, of unresolved stories
that brings out the nail pinned in your heart
to nail you further down
inside the vast abyss of time.
Time is distorted here.
Its landscapes form from the melting sun
and dissolve inside the minds.
We who live with closed doors
are forever pining for the lost songs of childhood
to soothe our crammed souls.
There is dampness everywhere-
over the tin roofs, on the railway stations and over us
when we cook our meals for the next day.

We are used to sleeping with lies.
And we live like crossroads 
with our entangled bodies,
our hands searching for the wind birds.
Do we wake or sleep?

Oindri Sengupta is a published poet based out of Kolkata, India. Her works have appeared in a few online and print journals like Muse India, Kritya, Ethos Literary Journal, Istanbul Literary Review, Poetry Quarterly, USA, Contemporary Literary Review, India, Penwood Review, USA, Usawa Literary Review etc. and also in a couple of poetry anthologies. Apart from writing poetry, she also teaches English in a Govt. Higher Secondary School in Kolkata. Her maiden book of poetry After the Fall of a Cloud was released by Hawakal Publishers in February 2022.

Wisconsin Barn, Sunday Morning


They are talking about the Church of Saint John
	Coltrane on NPR.
You wouldn’t like how they play A Love
	Supreme in the background
Like crickets, 
	like atmosphere.

I stop at the barn on the way
	back from getting the paper, 
Roll down the window, watch the flycatcher
	sit on the wire, dart along the roof,
Come back again.

After you died we took your Coltrane collection 
	to the public library. I had never heard 
Saint John and yet somehow I knew
	I knew if we had dropped the box
In the middle of the street, there would have been no
	stopping the music, ever,
Ever.


We have been to church. Light in the indigo
	riffs on the Epistle
Makes psalms out of milkweed,
	makes this waste place 
A parable.

If there is an old barn somewhere in Coltrane
	any sun-loved red elegance
Any steel roof elated with light, any timbered 
	vault like a cathedral where
The Irrepressible slides in 
	sideways through every hallowed interval

Hides you, surprises you, well
	you would know.

Somewhere at the Church of Saint John
	they are exalting in God.
A sax gives the sermon
	the flycatcher stitches	
A benediction in the bright air

You would understand.

Melaney Poli is an artist, writer, and Episcopalian nun. She is the author of the accidental book of poems You Teach Me Light: Slightly Dangerous Poems and an accidental novel, Playing a Part.

Three Haiku

A drop of dew forms
and an empty nest remains 
as the crane takes flight.

The singing bowls ring
announcing Buddha nature
a plum blossom blooms.

A night heron drinks
pure water from a blue shell
sanctity unfolds.

Caroline Reddy’s accepted and published work include poems in Bethlehem Writers Roundtable, Clinch, Cacti-Fur, Star*line, Braided Way, Active Muse.org and Soul Lit.  In the fall of 2021, her poem A Sacred Dance was nominated for Best of The Net prize by Active Muse. 

Head in the Clouds



The cloud, so distant from me here,
on earth, on this wood of our deck,
on two feet, looking up.
I reel it in, and imagine 
droplets misting my face…
tears or shower; relief, renewal;
it's all there, in a white fluffy ball
changing semblance in winds 
that come from all directions.
Able to morph; adapt.
Can I be the cloud? May I 
take it as my cotton-filled pillow,  
tuck it under my head,
let muscles relax, 
and dream-visions come?
Resting on the cloud, 
I send thoughts up and away. 
It is near, and far; 
supportive, and sieve-like. 
I will bring cloud down, wrap it round,
wear it as a shawl, or skirt. I will twirl,
letting it take what shapes it may.
I’ll see how the cloud is holding me
today. I know there are days I laugh aloud; 
in some, feel enveloped by trepidation.          
Let me remember, while still free from shroud, 
to lift my gaze and not ignore. 
In that space and time, of each given day,
whichever season, let me adore, 
adore, adore.

Marjorie Moorhead writes from a river valley at the border of NH/VT. She is grateful to have found poetry as a language and community in which to ponder different facets of existence, such as survival, relationship, responsibility, faith. Much of her work can be accessed at https://marjoriewritespoetry.wordpress.com/places-you-can-see-my-work/

Dharma: Vision

Day. Night. Their shadows
creep up slowly as age. We
are not prophets; we do not

live in deserts, where there 
is no hope of rain. No; instead,

I live with you in an old house
deep in the woods, and seize
upon the harmless wild of your

eyes. My gaze sees but does 
not penetrate. Am I blind?

Perhaps. Beyond the woods, I face
the wide, unbroken sea, transfixed
by the horizon.
 

Christopher Kuhl earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and one in 
music composition, as well as two masters of music degrees and a PhD in 
Interdisciplinary Arts. He taught English at the Illinois Mathematics 
and Science Academy. He enjoys reading a wide array of literature, as 
well as philosophy and history.