Author Archives: Sarah

Face, Hands

the hands of this clock
move with rhyme
but not reason

by rhythm
of beginning
and quiet surprise

before you learn a thing
about telling time

the hands of this clock
do not jerk
in five-step

but dance
in shifting circles, pulse
in foreign triplets

the hands of this clock
are mischief makers
time takers
globe shakers

beware the man
who severs these hands,
worse—

beware the woman
who demands it

.

Rachel Barga Simpson lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband and three children. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature, a master’s in Speech-Language Pathology, and zero accreditations in parenthood. Her poetry can be found in Ever Eden Literary Journal, In Parentheses, and here.

Noli Me Tangere

You know the story:
Mary Magdalene in the garden,
weeping by the tomb
of her lost love.

(Everyone I know calls
Jesus ‘Lord,’ but I can’t.
I don’t know any lords.
I doubt Mary did either.)

Jesus is in the garden,
dead but alive, he calls out to her,
Mary! She doesn’t see a lord.
She thinks he is a gardener.

Artists often depict this scene
with Jesus recoiling,
hand out in protest,
against Mary reaching for him,
as if she is unclean.

I don’t believe it.
I like what Rembrandt does,
his Jesus really is a gardener,
in a broad brimmed hat
and holding a shovel;
with a dagger in his waistband.
The official disciples are off
in the distance, scurrying home,
But Mary is close by, at his feet,
outside the tomb, wide-eyed,
looking up at him, but not reaching.
Jesus is not repulsed
by her, not repulsed by earth.
He looks ready to bring things to life,
including Mary.

I can understand this scene.
I know it. I know what it is
to reach for a loved one
and have him say, don’t touch me!
It is a hard thing to not feel rejection
in that sudden strangeness,
that desire not to be touched
that sometimes arises in those unworldly ones
who are reborn to bring others to life.

.

A few of Jennifer Reek‘s poems have previously appeared in Amethyst Review. She is the author of A Poetics of Church: Reading and Writing Sacred Spaces of Poetic Dwelling (2018).

In One Lifetime

I.
We don’t bleed to be born.
We bleed our mothers
and implant ourselves
in the world
as a seed waiting
for a bird to swoop down
and swallow us whole.

II.
Being a father
means learning
that you would
burn the whole world.

Does God want us
to peer into the dark
to touch the thing
that we fear most?

And because the world is
what made him &
what he made of it
and because she
says caring is sharing
he encourages his daughter
to hit him. And he slips
the blows fluttering in the air.
Not getting hit is better
than hitting, and a swing
and a miss is so infuriating.
Such is the world: slippery
when not even wet.
And this is the vanity
of wanting to attain
Buddhahood in one lifetime.

.

 

Daryl Muranaka lives in the Boston area with his wife and two children.  He enjoys aikido and tai chi chuan and exploring his children’s multiple cultures. His poems have appeared in Gyroscope Review, the Roanoke Review, and Spry Literary Review. He has published one collection and two chapbooks.

May Day

In a western town in the foothills of the Wasatch,
folk still gather on the green adjacent the church
to flower-wreath crown their festival queen.

They come in overalls and scraped-clean boots,
straw hats and hard vowels. They come in cotton
dresses and petal-plaited hair, scrubbed faces

and gleaming hope. They come to watch the young
circle the May pole. Ribbons in primaveral colors
weave, unweave. And county kin surround them

clapping hands, stomping feet, keeping rhythm, this
ancient beat of bloom, harvest, snow, and bloom again,
all hunger and hard times like heavy winter quilts

stowed away in cedar chests, all the cold, for a time,
forgotten in their queen’s hummingbird smiles,
in the deep dimples of the dairy farmer’s son.

 

Dayna Patterson is the author of Titania in Yellow (Porkbelly Press, 2019) and If Mother Braids a Waterfall (Signature Books, 2020). Her creative work has appeared recently in POETRY, Crab Orchard Review, and Passages North. She is the founding editor-in-chief of Psaltery & Lyre and a co-editor of Dove Song: Heavenly Mother in Mormon Poetry. daynapatterson.com

Wine of Soul

By Yuan Hongri
Translated from Mandarin by Yuanbing Zhang

I picked a bunch of fairy flowers from the garden outside,
to make you instantly recall the prehistoric days of immortals
that travel leisurely by the light.
The golden car of the Dragon and Phoenix stayed on the island of fairyland,
and the layering of mountains of towers soared straight up into the purple sky;
a chant of a jade flute attracted the angels,
as if a bevy of birds hovered in succession
which made time sweet, like top-quality wine of soul.

灵魂之琼浆

我采撷天外花园的一束仙葩
让你瞬间忆起史前逍遥的乘光而行之仙人岁月
那龙凤之金车在仙岛上驻留而那层叠之楼台直上紫色云霄
一曲玉笛之吟弄引来了天使若群鸟纷飞而让时光甘美恍如灵魂之琼浆

.

Hongri Yuan (b. 1962) is a Chinese poet and philosopher. His poetry has been widely published in the UK, USA, India, New Zealand, Canada and Nigeria. He has authored a number books including Platinum City, The City of Gold, Golden Paradise, Gold Sun and Golden Giant.

Yuanbing Zhang (b. 1974), who is a Chinese poet and translator, works in a Middle School, Yanzhou District , Jining City, Shandong Province, China.

 

Interstellar Kingdom

By Yuan Hongri
Translated from Mandarin by Yuanbing Zhang

My snowflakes are white flames
and death is a singing of golden car from the kingdom of heaven.
I walked through the black forests for many years and slept soundly on the rocks
forgot images of the world, until the wings of gold were like clouds
when I heard a call from the outer world,
which was as sweet as the sun rays
I opened the doors of the ninety-ninth floor of heaven
the interstellar kingdom, with fragrant words of honey.

那词语芳馨甘醇的星际之王国

我的雪花是白色的火焰而死亡是一曲天国之金车的吟唱
我穿过多少岁月的黑色森林且在岩石里熟睡而忘了世界之画图
直至黄金的翅翼如云而听见了天外的那一声召唤甜蜜若太阳之闪电
我打开了那九十九层天宇之门扉而回到了那词语芳馨甘醇的星际之王国

 

Hongri Yuan (b. 1962) is a Chinese poet and philosopher. His poetry has been widely published in the UK, USA, India, New Zealand, Canada and Nigeria. He has authored a number books including Platinum City, The City of Gold, Golden Paradise, Gold Sun and Golden Giant.

Yuanbing Zhang (b. 1974), who is a Chinese poet and translator, works in a Middle School, Yanzhou District , Jining City, Shandong Province, China. He can be contacted through his email- 3112362909@qq.com.

Flowers for the Body

1 Bronze Chrysanthemum

In October,
I garnish pumpkin stew with your sunburnt petals.

In November,
I intinct bygones in your radiance sipping a glass of Viognier.

What turns gold,
I overwinter like cabbages.

 

2 Daylily

Daubing my palette with invisible color,
your buds in butter sate my tongue.

Blind taste, you brighten the blanks
of my unfinished self—

a canvas taken by surprise.

 

3 Indian Cucumber

Turkey-foot stigmata,
tepals curved like moons—

your flowers can’t compare
to your souterrain salad—

a flourish of roots.

 

4 Hibiscus

My pom-pom filaments tipped with five rubies could be
the crown of an underworld goddess rising in benediction.

Or a maiko, beads in hair, brewing petals for ceremonial tea,
even a caterpillar’s ghost before the Monarch change,

its last hope dangling by a thread.

 

5 Nicotiana

I go up in smoke—
leave behind ash on a face
without lips, nose or eyes.
After fresh leaves are applied as a poultice,
I burst into a shooting star.

 

6 Indian Pipes

Shamans of the wood, we make groundwater broth
of mushrooms and roots shared with healers.
June rain is our summons, spirit our garment.

Staining the hands purple,
we awaken what stands between
what’s not and is.

 

Anna Evas: Published internationally in literary journals such as Irises (The University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize), Michigan Quarterly Review and, soon, Long Poem Magazine (England), Anna Evas works as a lyricist, recording artist and composer.

 

EXPECTATION

Outside I looked
for carnage,
there was none
that I could see.
No sign from the night,
nothing amiss.
We rarely look up
at the night sky.
Stars dimmed
by so much light.
Searching
for any change,
or perhaps a sign
of significance,
a message from Sophia.
I wonder how the heron
stands in the cold water
for such a long time,
waiting.

 

Elaine Fletcher Chapman (formerly Elaine Walters McFerron) is the author of a volume of poems, RESERVOIR forthcoming with Saint Julian Press in late 2020, Hunger for Salt published by Saint Julian Press and a letterpress chapbook, Double Solitude published by Green River Press. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor teaching Literature at Old Dominion University, Chapman worked on staff at The Bennington Writing Seminars, Bennington College for 18 years. She founded The Writer’s Studio where she teaches poetry, nonfiction and an ongoing class, On Keeping a Journal. She also provides editing services and organizes Poetry Readings and Crossing Over Writing Retreats.  For the last 39 years she has worked as a therapist in private practice. Also she is a Certified iRest Yoga Nidra Meditation teacher. She has poems forthcoming in Hoot Review, Cloudbank and Poetry Pacific. Her poems have been published in 8 Poems, Rabid Oak, The Tishman Review, The EcoTheo Review, The Cortland Review, Connotation, The Sun, Calyx, Poet Lore, 5AM, Salamander, and others. She was guest blogger on The Best American Poetry Blog and The Solstice Literary Magazine blog. She now lives on the West side of the Chesapeake Bay near the James River in Newport News, Virginia. She also spends a great deal of time in the San Francisco Bay area. Trailer and Poetry Videos for Hunger For Salt: www.vimeo.com/elainefletcherchapman or http://www.elainefletcherchapman

The Halfway House of the Sea

The sea is a land-bed’s life
spread out over it like the kingdom of heaven
a flowing poem over rigid empty prose
calling to us the uncovered from within,
…..beneath our common hearing
of birdsong, fly and cricket themes, even digital chatter

traffic rumble, the low hum of inhouse motors
muffled rants of memories
The sea is an endless wash;
we need its multiple self-clearings
of old days, old moments spent

or we would never awaken
From a resort on a modest bluff
the sea scene spreads like a mountain range
marking the curve of the planet
out beyond our hearing

in closer waves dance
a chorus of young French women
thrashing their layered petticoats at us
the Can-Can in an old movie
legs flying, high cries above the music

In time or out of it we somehow begin to hear
what the sea offers us; that we be to it
…..a not-so-rare inclusion
It sings a work tune, building a halfway house
for a new we

for when the old we, always failing, falls away
and the refugee camp of the sea falls away too
leaving no place, needing none
other than our inattentive hearing un-revised
the coughing of passengers on a bus

the tramp of a crowd on a stadium walkway
…..into ballgame repetitions
If we couldn’t hear again what we’ve already heard
we couldn’t hear at all, even these
original sea-calls subtly but vitally new
among old chants and verses

The halfway house of the sea ever rebuilds itself
around us, for an us more basic than either seemed
alone together a moment ago understood separate;
now out of the time of each
into a mythic time of wordless surprise

appearing out of discards, scraps and planks
sawed off, mis-hit nails bent
empty paint cans, brushes too stiff to carry and spread
only when nothing is wasted do we begin even poorly
to see at a distance, to hear up close

 

Don Brandis is a retired healthcare worker pursuing his passion for poetry.  He’s had poems published in Leaping Clear, Free State Review, Neologism Review, The Hamilton Stone Review, and elsewhere.  A book of his poems, Paper Birds: 40 Poems,  is pending publication with Unsolicited Press.

Between Decades

On the last day of the decade, I decide
to make an effort. I begin with a restorative
yoga class, and when the instructor tells
us to float our bodies toward the sky,
then bring them back to the earth, I am
surprised to learn that I can do this.

Then she tells us to forgive ourselves,
and levitating my body suddenly feels
like a piece of cake. I twist myself through
the class, then walk two miles among oaks
and pines on what is a perfect cold
and sunny day, my favorite music blaring
in my ears. I don’t exactly embrace
my loneliness, but I don’t resist it, either.
I manage not to cry.

I make an old-fashioned and drink it
while I prepare a stew, ending the day
with a bit of old-school style and substance.
My own new decade arrives in just days.
It is an advanced one, and I become frightened
when I anticipate it. I cannot fight time,
though I would like to kill it. Perhaps,
in this new decade, I can learn to forgive myself.
In the meantime, I can float my body toward
the sky, and maybe—for now—that is enough.

 

Diane Elayne Dees has two chapbooks forthcoming. Her microchap, Beach Days, is available for download and folding from Origami Poems Project. Diane also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world. Diane Elayne Dees