Author Archives: Sarah

My yoga teacher said to turn our gaze inward

Encased in my body’s frame
still, vigilant
is a large bird

feathers slick
unflinching eyes

I keep my breath smooth
not to startle it

scrutinizing with
deference.

Nothing moves, not a feather
on this good raptor

I avoid its magnificent
eyes

only the ripple of bluish light
on the glassy pond between us.

Jill Pearlman is a writer and poet based in Providence, RI. She has published in Salamander, Frequency Anthology, Soul-Lit, Crosswinds and others. She writes a blog about ecstasy, art and aesthetics in wartime at jillpearlman.com

In the Beginning

Let there be beasts
Says a sky voiced god

And from the wet ground rises
Heaving breasts thick with fur
Four-limbed bodies unfurling
Toward the hot sun upturned

From that same earth
Springs up feathered life
Arching skeletons free
Soaring bodies loose of chains

Let there be god
Says a beast-borne man

And the earth shakes in knowing
The coming birth pains of
Cracking open like an egg
To show a man himself

Catelyn May is a wife, mother, and full time healthcare worker living in the Southeastern United States. She spends her free time reading books and talking to people who also read books. Her short fiction has been published in various online journals and anthologies. This is her first work of poetry.

MILLENIUM TOWER

The gods are back, companions. Right now they have just entered this life; but the words that revoke them, whispered underneath the words that reveal them, have also appeared that we might suffer together.”
—René Char

The gods of this city, at rest atop
their leaning tower, sip smooth designer
coffee. One says, “It’s time to put a stop
to worship of numbers. They refine their
calculations and forget about us.”
A goddess answers—drowned out by a bus
passing below. “Temples don’t get finished,”
says a stern, old god. “They forget to pray.”
“That bothers you?” winks a love god, playing
the fool, sliding to the street like a fish.

“Suburbs can be nice—they’re very quiet,
with wispy trees and green lawns of rolled sod.
Their hearths are screens. No talk. You should try it
for a bit.” This was the laziest of the gods.
“I eat prayers,” mouthed the stern one. I miss smoke
from offerings, ceremonies.” (when he spoke
clouds formed around the tower’s slanted top).
“We are all numbers and have always been,”
said the slyest god. “I desire days when
people are kind and their sad noises stop.

“When we made them,” offered the lost love god
just back from the cool street, “we taught them fire
and stone. Make things, we said. We thought the odds
were long, they wouldn’t last. Now we’re all tired
just watching them speed around cherished grids.”
That goddess said something but a truck hid
her sounds. They looked at their city and wished
for better creatures. Still, the stiff exhaust
was a kind of smoke, a new holocaust.
They breathed deep. Cracked the glass. Made a fresh myth.

Mark J. Mitchell’s novel, The Magic War appeared from Loose Leaves Publishing. He studied  at Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver and George Hitchcock. His work appeared in several anthologies and hundreds of periodicals. He lives with his wife, Joan Juster making his living pointing out pretty things in San Francisco. A meager online presence can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/

Mea culpa

Patiently listening—
the days in necessary living
ebb and flow.

This little Catholic boy holds
all his sins tight;
his past digressions.

When there is joy all around,
I still wait,
mouth closed watching,

and keep praying;
maybe this joy is misplaced

and when it passes,
feeling right again—
I still… wait.

Antoni Ooto is a poet and flash fiction writer.  His works have been published in Nixes Mate Review, Pilcrow & Dagger, Red Eft Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, Young Ravens Literary Review, Front Porch Review, Amethyst Review, An Upstate of Mind and Palettes & Quills.

Iphigenia

The sacrifices I’ve made
the offerings and the victims
have all been in her name

The wealth I create
by the hard work I do
………..exploiting air and water
………..stimulating demand
………..processing foodstuffs
………..utilising other life forms
………..moving money around
………..providing distractions
………..turning earth into fire
ensures I have the means
to be a good parent

She will surely appreciate
the shiny altar built for her
as she goes on alone

Dawid Juraszek is a bilingual author based in China. His fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in The Remembered Arts Journal, Amethyst Review, The Esthetic Apostle, Amaryllis, The Font, and elsewhere. https://amazon.com/author/dawidjuraszek

Specter of Essence

Seasons of query; blood moon sullen
keeper of the corn; coolness of breath
peeking sun warm; misty fogginess lifts.
grass wet with dew; footprints are aplenty.
fresh moldy earth turned by the oxen.
hard sharp edge; pussy willow softness
smells of mint tarrow; thankful for senses
buds burst with sun; lilacs bloomed today.
spector of essence; keeper of the scents
wafting through life; freshness of cut grass
inner core of sulfur; bud of bursting leaves
pious taste of roses; electric with the sun.

Ken Allan Dronsfield is a disabled veteran, poet, and fabulist. He resides in Seminole Oklahoma, USA. He works full-time on his poetry, dabbling in digital art. Ken’s poem, “With Charcoal Black, VIII” was selected as the First Prize Winner in a recent major Nature Poetry Contest from Realistic Poetry International.

RAUCH

In the swirl, intense
Calmness of the Pacific
Is a reflection

You flow like a river, a fire hose, a mouse’s tracks on new snow; of words dancing between mind and hand and pen and paper and eye and mind; of light as it slants through the memories of smoke from mom’s cigarette lazing in a July morning living room; of food and hunger and scent and everything that makes me an animal; of thoughts and emotions and everything that separates me from everyone else.
You are atoms between stars and skin cells; the water blue, the Crater Lake blue, the sky blue, the emotion-filled can’t-find-the-right-pantone blue of the baby’s eye.

In the red embers
The cooling flame’s curling smoke
Is a reflection

You are connected to the locomotive tiptoeing down the center of Front Street in the middle of the night; to the explosions deep inside the sun; electronic messages, emails, texts; to the boy who wants to know how to hold the hand of the girl; to the girl who is a woman who is a mother who is alone who is happy and sad and angry and laughing; to the fingers and the tendons and the muscles and the skin and the nails and the crinkled edges of the baby’s hand as she dozes crumpled on her sleeping dad’s chest.

In the air, this air
This vacuum, town, anywhere
Is a reflection

And you touch the shoulder of the drunk veteran, the inner world of the middle school girl, the guy driving to work with the sun in his eyes, the music major, the protester, the police;
The shoulder of a mountain, of Orion, of imagination, of the sound you make when you smile;
Lightly brushes the hour, hair, heaven, hurt, hate, honor, heritage, the hush.
Looking up, intently, breast to mouth, the baby sees a sky of intimacy and smell and nourishment and familiarity and

In a universe
Of big broken reflections
Flowing is love, love

Marc Janssen is an internationally published poet and poetic activist. His work has appeared haphazardly in printed journals and anthologies such as Off the Coast, Cirque Journal, Penumbra, The Ottawa Arts Review and Manifest West. He also coordinates poetry events in the Willamette Valley of Oregon including the Salem Poetry Project, a weekly reading, and Salem Poetry Festival.

Unpacked

this, the lean season
calling for the culling
of berries, their tears.
broken lute,
shattered bits
disperse and settle
on the shifting ground
feeling of both swamp and tundra.
the shadow is an amulet
gleaming amidst moons
to soothe a struck night.

On the weekends, Kristine Brown frequently wanders through historic neighborhoods, saying “Hello” to most any cat she encounters. Some of these cats are found on her blog, Crumpled Paper Cranes (https://crumpledpapercranes.com). Her creative work can be found in Hobart, Sea Foam Mag, Philosophical Idiot, among others, and a collection of flash prose and poetry, Scraped Knees, was released in 2017 by Ugly Sapling.

Remember the Stars –

how you ached when you left
the lavish cloak of space
became stardust then dew,
leaves and blossoms bright
with the last echoes of your light:

sparking, dancing,
licked by rain and by rivers
through riffles and pools
Magnolias blushing, mimosas feathering
between sky and earth, the groan
of loss rasps past –

a tune half-remembered in the wind,
on the wing of a wren,
a note lingering in the glitter path –
calling, drawing you home

KB Ballentine’s fifth collection, Almost Everything,
Almost Nothing, was published in 2017 by Middle Creek Publishing.
Published in Crab Orchard Review and Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal,
among others, her work also appears in anthologies including In Plein
Air (2017) and Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace (2017).
Learn more at www.kbballentine.com.

The Blessing of Rain

The meadow folds in on itself
with an approaching squall.
Tall grasses lean over,
form shelters for mongeese
and other small creatures:
a casual benevolence
mothers know.

The air sizzles, sky larks wing
back to nests and hatchlings.
Kukui leaves tremble, turn upward
showing silvery slips. A lone
frog takes cover beneath
a banana leaf. Does it need
anything? Or think of death?

Prelude to the deluge, wind
drives clouds across grim sky,
then bows in silence at Gaia’s
altar. The momentary hush
is filled with holiness, everything
just as it is. Rain’s benediction
descends as truth, elixir
of unspoken mystery.

Carol Alena Aronoff, Ph.D. is a psychologist, teacher, poet. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and won several prizes. She was twice nominated for a Pushcart.  She published a chapbook and five books of poetry: The Nature of Music, Cornsilk, Her Soup Made the Moon Weep, Blessings From an Unseen World and Dreaming Earth’s Body (with Betsie Miller-Kusz).