Author Archives: Sarah

A Hard Nut To Crack

In the end
I was a hard nut to crack.
The quiet force
of such uninspired history
piled dream debris
inexorably into the ripples
of my cautious wake.

In the beginning
I was soft and pliable clay
as you are now.
Had I known what would	
harden and bake me and what
would ultimately break me,
I would have shouted out
an early warning to you.

Waiting for the dammed up
juices to flow,
decades blink.

In the middle
of the night I have wrestled
cryptic messages,
tried to right the riddles
in the morning
but instead kept up
this insane trading down,
swapping creativity for convenience.
I must have more time on my hands
in that other dimension
or all time
or none that can be measured
through a time-bound drip.

I used to think that in the end
God would greet me and say
I never expected you to figure it all out.
But all God said was
It didn’t have to be perfect.
And I cracked wide open.

Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and several anthologies published by Brick Street Poetry. He has published one poetry collection, Something At The Center. Married and father of two grown sons, Barry lives in Brownsburg, Indiana and is retired from Eli Lilly and Company. His poetry has appeared in Kentucky Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Grey Sparrow, Silk Road Review, Saint Ann‘s Review, San Antonio Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry Pacific, Night Train, Flying Island, Awaken Consciousness, Writers’ Bloc and Red-Headed Stepchild. He graduated a long time ago with a major in English from Ball State University.

Mary Honychurch
‘The sacred trees in the woods 
which they called Nimidas’
(Attrib., St Boniface)

Following the latest storm
many urging sprigs will flourish from the acorns
 on Taw bank’s mother tree -  
near the place the river winds, where stumps –
so many disappeared firs and oaks 
now prostrate amongst brick and ash –
are supplicants for termites, havens
for bats in cracks and fissures, for owl and kingfisher -

but illuminating saplings there are already a plenty
dotted on the bank above the curve of the river
that roots in grassy dips in Middle Down, & Long Ham,
fields splicing the hedges by the henge 
hidden in the folds of land between the dozen hedgerows – 
        -  there where the rolling valley
Nymetboghe river ebbs and flows
next where the road laid by the legion ran west 
to Nemetotatio – some from oak offsets 
planted alongside Den Brook, Shepherd’s Lake 
and other streams feeding Taw and Yeo -
there are even saplings near the Holy Well
and in the corner by the blackthorn copse 
where the newest lamb totters to bond at his mother’s teat.
Some have drifted east from the newly resurrected grove, 
grandly named by greedy sellers, Poet’s Wood.
**** 

Escaping the car I walk the hedge perimeters –

the path footfalls of the land 
               from where I come and 
will belong again – 

look and listen to the trees in meadow’s green sunlit space, 
where long-disputed dryads 
sparkle in shade’s unfurling leaves -

 the white bobs of rabbits, initiates, 
  disappear -
the copse rustling into hedgerow dusk.

Mary Honeychurch is here.
Disguised in the sweet oak glade
her fair turn of head
her tiny, virtual sandalled feet
her angel avatars silver in the undertow
of the wired world repeating
in river’s glistening mirrors,
the rhizocretions deep planted.

Down in the village the youngest children
singing, jigging home from nursery 
glance up distracted from their fidget,
forget an instant their mother’s voice,
green-spun spinning tops, within – 

**** 
Here, according to the testaments
 crowing over litigated lands
your father built his gold reserves, then left his bequest- 
the aged, the needy, poor people of Bow - 

following his death, on quiet days 
you tiptoed into church’s interior 
gazed at the exquisite floral screen,
the bosses and fern-leaves on the wagon roof,
rood screen’s fruiting vines.

Mary, this is how you came to me
your family threaded by the holy tree – 
the sacrifices at dawn, or dusk,
when under the patient oaks
detritus leaf carpet fashioned from the gale
thunder recast you, following the latest storm.

Julie Sampson‘s poetry is widely published and she’s been placed in a variety of competitions. Sampson edited Mary Lady Chudleigh; Selected Poems (Shearsman, 2009). Her collections are: Tessitura (Shearsman, 2014); It Was When It Was When It Was (Dempsey and Windle, 2018) and Fivestones (Lapwing Publications, 2022). See www.juliesampson.com

Trust

Every day I endeavor to pray,
raising my heart and my voice,
beckoning God to come, lift me 
out of myself, turn my eyes 
toward the horizon of a cerulean sky.

What am I called to do with my life?
I wait for answers—glimmers of God 
speaking to me through the wisdom 
of my mentors, poetry, lucky coincidences
that often catch me by surprise.

And when I pay attention,
pay close attention, I am called
to abandon myself, to lie down
in sweet grass, to be held 
by this tender earth and believe
everything is possible.  

Anderson O’Brien lives in Winston-Salem, NC with her devoted husband and two terribly spoiled cats. She has published in Iodine Poetry Journal, The Kentucky Review, Blue Fifth Review, Red River Review and Heavy Bear.

New Moon
	Isaiah 1


Women, soothe yourself with incense and oils.
Do not make burnt offerings;
there is no pleasure in the blood of bulls and rams and goats.
Do not put your trust
in man who has but a breath in his nostrils.
You are tinder and your work a spark.
Your heart, a tongue of fire,
will lick up the straw.

Go into the rocks and bow down.
You do not need a land filled with silver 
and gold, horses and chariots . . . .
Rejoice in the new moon festivals; dance.
Delight in your gardens of sacred river valleys;
clasp hands with pagans and praise 
the cedars of Lebanon and the oaks of Bashan.

Tani Arness lives in beautiful Albuquerque, NM. She’s been inspired by hours spent stargazing in Northern NM. Tani’s work can be found in Tzimtzum: 5 contemporary poets lend us their hearts, and numerous literary magazines including North American Review, Malpais Review, and Crab Orchard Review. See also: http://www.tani-arness.com.

Fire

that crack makes
you stop a space between
seconds the body
alert not to bones
taken in arthritic flame
but fire in the box
the glow the ember rare
each time the light
getting in the arc
of a life rising in tongue
to cold air burning
down to ash a morning
silence stoked by need
to keep it lit the fire
aching while there’s still
oxygen you don’t move
listening closely to turn
green wanting seasons
all the colours vented 
inside migration the skin 
breaking open that loud
crack hot killing cold

in Huron squalls you feel
one crystal born in orbit
out of fire banging
the senses that hunger deep
in storm gusts you
reduced insignificant 
absorbed mostly by biggest
nothing only this spark
a vision of universe
merciless you love it
the hurt the predator
the free alive in frozen
lake pretending to be
serene blindness is real 
wind and snow making you 
see another way death
is there in water expanding
forms the sculpting flame
at fingertips in lungs
in squall and cabin
a fire has to roar hot
or cold the same flame

D.B. Goman aspires to be a professional arm wrestler. On occasion, a bon mot appears on a page, real or on-line.

Transformation


There’s tender alchemy to a warm night:
You search for meanings that you never touch
while fireworks battle your soft inner eyes.
Then stars transmit power and your old mind
blazes. You linger outside, question life,
quoting long lost books. Memory’s a knife—
quick, sharp. Open the frayed almanac. Find
out how far money went and just how dry
this land once was. It’s all subtle. Much
stays left unsaid, Your mind glows with new light.

Mark J. Mitchell has been a working poet for 50 years. He’s the author of five full-length collections, and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. A Novel, A Book of Lost Songs will be published in March by Hstria Books. He’s fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Dante, and his wife, activist Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco where he points out pretty things.y things.

Inner Journey

Please bring strange things*
on this venture into new territory.

My reflection in the window startles me.
I don’t like what I see.

I have never felt this way before.
I am uncertain what I need.

If it's true what they say,
please bring love, all you have.

Hold me in your heart
through the long dark days.

Point out a blue sky
on a crisp cold day.

Send me a tiny, brightly colored bird
despite the chill in the air.

In the depths of despair
gratitude always helps.

Leave your judgment behind.
Accept me, as I am.

Broken, but healing.
Not the best company.

Laughter lightens every load.
Every smile soothes.

Visit me in my grief.
Your friendship brings me comfort .



*From Initiation Song from the Finders Lodge, Ursula LeGuinn 

HM Ayres grew up in Northern New Jersey. She retired and moved to Cape Cod, MA in 2021 after a 43 year career in college student affairs administration. Since retiring Helen has been devoting her time to writing poetry, exploring the Cape conservation areas, bike paths, waterways and beaches and is engaged in several social justice and community volunteer efforts.

Circle of Protection

Cage bars of fluorescent lights glared down upon the Pittsburgh Greyhound station’s scattered denizens well after midnight.  Bare walls of dingy tiles framed with blackened grout encased foul odors of cheap booze, diesel fumes, and unbathed bodies under unwashed clothes. Rough characters with menacing glares, weather-beaten ramblers clutching one-way tickets, and runaway teens fleeing to anywhere slouched in sticky, crumb-covered orange plastic chairs, threaded with cracks and splinters, and bolted to a buckling linoleum floor with a patina of accumulated funk. It was the summer of 1988.

I’d arrived there through a combination of young love and stubborn pride: love of a college girlfriend living several states away, and pride over paying my own way to see her, in spite of my dad’s offer to help. I was an adult, I had insisted, and should be responsible for my own travel expenses – a principled stance I’d now come to regret. As airfare was out-of-budget for an undergraduate with an hourly wage, Greyhound appeared my only practical option. Plus, the romantic in me had a nostalgic image of a cross-country bus trip through small towns and rolling farmlands – a slice of classic Americana lifted straight from a Woody Guthrie song. 

The Pittsburgh station’s filth and palpable desperation shattered whatever remained of that illusion, leaving me feeling vulnerable, foolish and scared – until a new arrival appeared. Dressed in black, prim and pressed, she sat perfectly straight in her plastic chair as if in a pew. Sensible shoes, a veil upon her head, and a cross around her neck identified her as a nun. I moved to be closer to her and place myself within what I imagined was a circle of protection.

We didn’t exchange a word. I wasn’t Catholic, and had never spoken with a nun before. I didn’t know what to say, and we sat in silence. But it didn’t matter. Her habit spoke for her, hinting that light can always pierce the gloom, and goodness intrude where it seems conspicuous by its absence. And insisting that there are those not too proud or privileged or petrified to find themselves seated amongst such company. Unlike me. 

Scott Hurd has authored five books, including Forgiveness: A Catholic Approach. His books have been translated into Korean, Polish, and German, and won awards from the Association of Catholic Publishers and the Catholic Press Association. His essays, reviews, and poems have been published in numerous journals, newspapers, and magazines, and he has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is married to fellow writer Diane Kraynak.

Communion

Two women stand still as statues 
in the neighbor’s yard in winter. 
Looking up into the bare branches 
of a tall elm, they watch a large hawk 
perched high overhead and doing 
very little. Another and then 
another passerby is drawn in, 
faces lifted to the sky, strangers 
otherwise, standing shoulder 
to shoulder to shoulder. 

We are no longer in a time of churches.
The world, nevertheless, draws us
together—the cars backed up 
at rush hour, onlookers curious
for the flashing red and blue lights, 
the violence of the torn metal
and shattered glass. There is praying,
so many prayers—as many
as there are harried curses— 
I’d put my money on it.

Here in this cathedral, the one
that has no name but earth,
that has no entrance but here,
we are called to the altar 
of our own being, only to find 
that we are not alone. 
This is the hope of wonder 
and a reason for suffering— 
to arrive where we are 
in God’s sanctuary, 
knowing already 
how to worship, 
knowing already how 
to accept each gift, 
not the least of which
is each other.

Catherine Kennedy studied creative writing and poetry as an undergraduate at Denison University and is a former children’s publishing editor. She splits her residence between Columbus, Ohio, and St. Simons Island, Georgia, and not-so-creatively named her two cats Simon and Georgia. Catherine draws inspiration from place and nature, which reflect her midwestern and southeastern roots as well as her travels, as much as her life will allow. Learn more at http://www.catherinestewartkennedy.com.