Author Archives: Sarah

A Folding of Light

Observed from Cnoc na Péiste,
As clouds brush-stroked the land,
Soft shadows on the corn fields,
Painting forests lakes and strands.

The contours washed in shades of grey,
As light folded softly all around;
A masterpiece of nature’s art,
Both in silence and in sound.

It approached the place where I stood,
Then wrapped me in the scene,
And for a moment I was part of God,
And He was part of me.

* Cnoc na Péiste—often anglicised as Knocknapeasta, County Kerry, Ireland, part of the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks.

John Anthony Fingleton: He was born in Cork City, Ireland. Poet of the Year (2016) Destiny Poets International Community. Contributed to four books of poetry for children. Poet of the Month (March 2019) Our Poetry Archive.  First solo collection ´Poems from the Shadowlands´ was published in November 2017, which is available on Amazon.

He says no to déjà vu but I’ve heard it all before

Sometimes even when I’ve slept for hours, grey gathers
at the corners of my eyes, a dawn vignette, and you are speaking

everything you say is something I can predict
because I know we talked about this months ago

you tell me again how you don’t believe in déjà vu
because you’ve never felt the fog of it
just like the last time, when you laid out your reality
in these words, in this room

the light played on your cheekbone and chin
as it does today but it was summer then–

now it’s winter, and I know real life is no better than a lucid
dream: I must reach out and make one thing different

I must bend your tongue away from this conversation
to a point when the next step is the first new moment
of the morning

it will taste of breaking free / it will taste like a glitch

freedom is a glitch in a snowstorm, walking a circular
track looping back to find a fork in the heat-smudged road

until it is February again, when the sun has gone cold
but is trying its best to warm us.

Kate Garrett writes and edits. She is the author of six pamphlets, and her first full-length collection, The saint of milk and flames, is forthcoming in April 2019 from Rhythm & Bones Press. Kate lives in Sheffield, UK with her husband, five children, and a sleepy cat. www.kategarrettwrites.co.uk / twitter @mskateybelle

Death Contemplation

Is it dangerous?

..a woman called Kathy asks..in an online forum,
then at 12: 56 AM..zendude..from Albuquerque,

replies..not if you do it right
..followed by a cheerful yellow emoji.

&because….some…mornings
when I am walking to work

in the mellow light,
the nutty autumn smell…in the air

as I pass a row of ginkgos,
magpies resting in the branches:

I contemplate a universe minus me,
tho it is not the wasting away

of the parts of my body,
the..impermanence..of me

that I..attempt to foresee,
but..it is..You…left behind—

bathed in a baroque light
that makes..you appear

both alive and permanent.
You are on the first floor

of a modest..but pleasant house.
There is an oak table

a chair…and a burgundy sofa,
outside I imagine a slight chill in the air

just to make the home seem more scrutable
I am trying to find a way

to arrive at..an..OK

for me to be gone.

It’s not as if I want to go,
for I cling with all my might:

I’d make any deal to stay here with you
through…just one more..day

another night,

I make a list:
…….• exercise,
…….• eat right,
…….• no more sugar
…….• or cholesterol:

of course, you never know,
as they say, your time

is your time: for now, I am
here with you together

on this bus as I notice
..how The mountain forms
a deep arc…opening to the south

so…passing…….through one tunnel
..the bus is momentarily

in the sunlight
..before it enters another tunnel

here where you make me happy
..like a weekend morning,

A familiar radio voice
..in the..background

..while I am working
on something I never intend

to proclaim is complete:
but the..mind of the universe

is a shuttered building
in the industrial district,

incomprehensible machines,
clattering inside,

the occupants……inattentative
to the lists I might leave behind,

&so…between
the tunnels

I try to reduce
my list to..what

can be
…..held….between
……………heart…beats

Ash Dean grew up in Ferguson Missouri. He is a graduate of The International Writing Program at City University of Hong Kong. His work has appeared in Cha, Drunken Boat, Gravel, Ma La, Mason’s Road, Soul-Litand Afterness: Literature from the New Transnational Asia. He is the author of Cardiography from Finishing Line Press.  He lived in Suzhou, China for 6 years. He currently lives in Songdo, South Korea.

Kiddush

Every Sabbath, on my way to Morning Prayer,
I pass the tennis courts on Bialik Street. The
Russians are already in the midst of matches.
Before I see them, I hear them, calling to one
another, grunting. Sometimes I stop to watch them.
They play bare-headed, wear white sweatbands on their wrists.

After Prayer, on the shul’s steps, my friend recites
Kiddush. Some Yemenites argue loudly; my friend
arbitrates. After a while, he looks at me and
nods, raises his hand. Time to leave. On our way home,
he wears his prayer shawl draped over his shoulders.
We talk of deep things, of God, prayer, and Torah.

As we pass the tennis courts, I turn my head to
see the men. Their games finished now, they are seated
at tables in the sun, their racquets on the ground
beside them. They are drinking and eating. I love
their laughter, their banter, their camaraderie—
their shul. Must be their kiddush, I say to myself.

Gershon Ben-Avraham lives in Be’er Sheva, Israel. He holds an MA in Philosophy from Temple University. His fiction has appeared in the Big Muddy, Bookends Review, Broad River Review, Crack the Spine, Gravel, and Jewish Fiction.net. His short story “Yoineh Bodek” appeared in Issue No. 96 of Image: Art, Faith, Mystery.

12.10.18
6.58 a.m.
20 degrees

Petulant nuthatch cranks at me to fill the feeders.
Open water yesterday is frozen today, and yesterday’s ice is
noticeably thicker this morning. The hoarfrost-landscape is
dull, but the sun has just risen, and soon the dew will glint and then vanish.

12.11.18
12.27 p.m.
22 degrees

Pitiless, windless, these days before the solstice,
occurring this year in concert with the full cold moon,
never to happen again until 2094.
Don’t see a single reason to plan for it.

12.12.18
12.28 p.m.
28 degrees

Papyral leaves encased in this new ice
on which I stand with caution,
numbly recalling days when a
dropped puck meant slash, clatter, grunt, dusk.

12.13.18
1.28 p.m.
32 degrees

Princely flurries that can barely be dubbed squall
obfuscate little in the dead calm.
Nurturant fruits of the labor have woven a
damask shawl gray as the curl of my breath is gray.

12.24.18
7.50 a.m.
29 degrees

Pastel grass, white-infused green and brown; the sun winnows through the
overcast sky, and the only movement is the whorl of smoke from Butch’s chimney,
narrow gray spiral in a gray sky. Snow flurries this Christmas Eve morning
deepen the things that weigh on my soul, the losses falling like snow that is barely noticeable.

12.25.18
7.35 a.m.
33 degrees

Christmas, 2018

Presents? Twilight. The pond one-third frozen. The sun
overlaying the moon, ornaments in scattered blue light,
notes of Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter there too, though
dawn on the water is the first light of Christmas I see.

Cathedral

All around this echo-chambered womb a rush
a beat………..the drone…… cathedral bees
the bells…… (Cull)
their toll……. this ebb and weft of words

We come to crouch in choir stalls,
this morning it is (lambing) lamentation time

the rite is drawing close

near …….we stop to bow our heads
Dies Irae……. Dona Eis

Writers making our votive scripts
we pause at candles’ inspiration

wait for the lost in absent sound
to call us

Dreaming through her emblem-well
St Sidwell in the crypt of archaic memory
swathes her scythe,
her sword is gold in the rubescent field.

Note: The last Foot and Mouth outbreak in Devon, in 2001, had a huge impact on the rural community, with repercussions that still resonate with many people. St Sidwell is associated with Devon. As martyr her severed head possessed the power of healing: flowers were said to bloom whenever a drop of blood was sprinkled on the earth where she died.

Phoenix Consumed

I am the bird
who flew for years
under the sun,

until I took the sun
into my wings,
into my breast.
……………..It raged and heated
until I was raged and heated.

My wings lost their feathers
and I fell, fluttering
……………..spines of arms
from the sun.

I fell for a long time.

The sun was still in me,
but I could do nothing
……………..except cry and lift my arms
hopelessly for the sky.

The gods could not save me.

Flames flickered and crept, dragon-tongued,
their hungry presence overtaking my body.

Then, no body.

–Only my bird spirit
fused to flame.

We move through this space
as though our forms are us–
But I am here to tell you,
……………..we do not die,
we do not stop.

L.B. Stringfellow writes both verse and prose poetry, often exploring themes of transformation, woundedness, and interdependence in her poetry.  She grew up in the Southern US, has worked as a university instructor and as a professional tutor, and holds an MA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing.

Threads

I am
just one
frayed
wound tight
coarsely made
tested by force
twisted resiliency
bound to others
strained with weight
threatened by blades
mended from attention
unequally created companion
equally essential thread
of the human fabric
crafted with care
weakened by wear
the loss of one
compromises
the whole
tapestry
to tear.

Ali Grimshaw is the author of Flashlight Batteries, https://flashlightbatteries.blog/ a poetry blog for those struggling in darkness and tough times. Her poems have been published in Vita Brevis, Poetry Breakfast and Ghost City Review.

The Tale of Silence

Before sunrise,
two thousand one hundred sixty days five hours ten seconds
before the despair,
starvation, and
r
a
p
e
,
before dreaming the wedding,
¬¬the friends and their dress,
feeling butterflies,
plaiting with her henna tattooed hands,
putting her long pure-white head dress on
headband trimmed with gold coins.
She raised her hands.
Touched the peacock figurine
on bended knees.
She turned her face towards the sun.
“Oh, Lord, You have the voice,
You have the heart.”
Before the darkest day.
After the apple.
After the fall.

Rabia Rana is a designer,  visual artist, and women’s rights activist. Her work has appeared in Glint Literary Magazine and Augusta Art Council. She holds MFA in Creative Writing in fiction from Queens University of Charlotte.

To Live By Mistakes and Perfumes

Sound of July crickets blends with
Trumpet, echo chamber,
Electric guitar, soft cymbals, clarinets,
harmony of the Fortunes singing
“Now just like you I sit and wonder why
You’ve got your troubles, I’ve got mine.
And it don’t seem so long ago….
That we were walking and we were talking
The way that lovers do…”
Parked in your father’s enormous Cadillac
In the moonlight
By the children’s playground on Nields Street.
Why did we love that song?

Today I notice that
My ghost smells like Shalimar,
honey and cinnamon, with a hint of gardenia,
a shade of wisteria,
disturbing the cold March air,
knife of aroma
where the spring peepers croak.

Anne Higgins teaches English at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg Maryland,  USA. She is a member of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul.  She has had about 100 poems published in  a variety of small magazines. Five full-length books and three chapbooks of her poetry have been published: At the Year’s Elbow, Mellen Poetry Press  2000; Scattered Showers in a Clear Sky,  Plain View Press 2007; chapbooks: Pick It Up and Read, Finishing Line Press 2008, How the Hand Behaves, Finishing Line Press 2009, Digging for God,  Wipf and Stock 2010,  Vexed Questions, Aldrich Press 2013, Reconnaissance, Texture Press 2014, and Life List, Finishing Line Press 2016. Her poems have been featured several times on The Writer’s Almanac.