Author Archives: Sarah

Interview with the Clooty Well, Munlochy 2 August 2018

Time was when they’d bring
their best circling sun-wise in houndstooths
silks dipped in my spring
tied to a nearby Ash with knotted prayer.

Left to rot
Pain forgot
Off the tether
Pain forever

Things were different then of course.
I mean we’re talking way back to the AD’s,
St Boniface, fairies.
Some even trusted me overnight with their babies.

Did it
does it work?
Do I think I can heal hurt?
According to TripAdvisor I’m a right state.
Barely a trickle emerging from the hillside.
Leafless branches creaking under the weight.

Problem is very few truly believe nowadays.
Others are so spooked
teeth get chipped on the tree roots.

And the stuff they offer
t-shirts, trainers, wigs, x-rays.
Synthetic crap that never decays.

Not that anyone dares remove or replace

just in case.

Helen Ross is a teacher of History in Glasgow. She has published in a range of academic and popular history magazines but has only recently started writing poetry.

Eve

In evening
we are most awake.
Darkness dulls the outside
and we are left alone.

We were never awake
in the garden
that was never black,
never left to ourselves.

We slept
and dreamt, made love,
always watched
by the somnolent moon.

I brought the dark
to this place.
Now I sleep, dream,
make love in blackness

that brings each call
of the lark to life.
I taste the dark that opens
each jasmine,

letting its scent dance
among the trees,
black against the moon.
I am left surrounded

by night, within fear’s
reach, but I do not regret
my act, my theft.
I have no care for what

comes next because I know
what I was never meant
to know: without the dark
true beauty cannot show.

Rebecca Guess Cantor’s first book, Running Away, was published last year by Finishing Line Press and her second book, The Other Half: Poems on Women in the Bible, is forthcoming from White Violet Press. Her poetry has appeared in The Cresset, Mezzo Cammin, Anomaly, Two Words For, Whale Road Review, Anomaly Literary Journal, and The Lyric among other publications. Rebecca is the Assistant Provost at Azusa Pacific University and lives in Fullerton, California.

Tintinnabulations

Awakened insides ensure steadiness
in cognition and commission. In His
fluorescence thoroughfares glide to
goodness. If this seems ballyhoo-like
so be it. He doesn’t need this noise.
This is my deed, my dodge. His light-
heartedness eggs me on to poetize.

Sanjeev Sethi is the author of three books of poetry. His poems are in venues around the world:   A Restricted View From Under The Hedge, Pantry Ink, Bonnie’s Crew, Morphrog 16, Mad Swirl, The Penwood Review, Faith Hope & Fiction, Communion Arts Journal, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Meditation with Weights

The turf is my temple,
the sled my altar—
each white line a mala
to help me remember
my breath. I remember
my breath and my legs,
my feet and my hips,
my hands and my arms.
I remember each person
who helped heal my body.
The white lines compel me
to move on in spite of
exhaustion, sore muscles,
depression, and age.
My heart pounds a message
that life courses through me,
though I may feel distant
from life and its source.
All that I know is: keep
pushing and pushing—
reminding myself
that my breath is my life.

The Communion of Saints

Every Sunday I declare that I believe in it.
Those women torn apart in the Coliseum,
Brigid, whose father was a Druid,
Lioba, almost buried in the same tomb as her cousin Boniface
Therese, the youngest, with her shower of roses.
But also Margaret Slavin Higgins, hugging me in the kitchen,
Fannie Denlinger Kauffman, who died when my mother, her daughter, was seven.

Holy cards don’t do them justice.
On Sundays, I feel their cloudy presence
Which surrounds me like the scent of Spring hyacinths
In the air of the garden,
Thicker, sweeter than incense.

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.

The Gentle World

There is a gentle world.
Mushrooms send their healing
mycelia through the mossy earth,
trees listen with their sensitive leaves
to the weeping in the wind,
and communication runs through stone.

There is a gentle world. And it must be so
because the mountains are so large,
with millions of human feet smoothing
and indenting the ridges of rock,
and our faces shine
from caresses, too.

Love is a mist. There is pain
but with empathy, veins of justice
in the worn-down cornerstones of towns;
and we uphold the basics
like strangers calling people Darling
for those who like that endearment,
advice for one who loses hope,
sedatives for one with too much hope.

There is gold drifting down,
brilliance in the scales of fishes,
carved bowls overflowing with seeds,
enough macerated plums
for us to feel grateful.

Joel Moskowitz, an artist and retired picture framer,
lives with his wife and cat in Maynard, Massachusetts. His poems have appeared​ in J Journal, Naugatuck River Review, Midstream,
The Healing Muse, and Whiskey Island Magazine;  and the online journals Muddy River Review, Boston Poetry Magazine and Soul-Lit. He is a First Prize winner of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire National Contest.

Paradox

for strait the gate and constricted the way leading to Life and few are those finding it. -Matthew 7:14

I pray from my diaphragm.

Adoration travels up
Through my body
Shines out of
My face to become
An expansive embrace
Beyond me.

The narrow way encourages
Such overreaching.

LA Felleman is currently an accountant at the University of Iowa.  Before that, she was a seminary professor. Prior to that, she was a pastor.  She moved to Iowa City with her husband in 2016 and started writing poetry soon afterwards.  In order to learn this new craft, LA attends the Free Generative Writing Workshops and participates in local poetry readings.

Architecture

Palisades forbade entry to the glade
Perceptions fade in the jade mind of a young renegade
Cascades fall as the façade crumbles through the raid
Deranged I wade through the rubble that I made
Aid comes in rays illuminating everything to the bay
Intricately laid relaying a story through lines and ways
The changing times interpreted through structures for days
Telos creates form like a cay or a fay
I’m gay like a piece of hay in the beak of a jay
No life, no cry tears of bliss caress my cheek as I lay
No days off, I lead with no delay spreading radiance like May
Nay, you say? I discovered beauty without pay
Inspiration in a part of my mind caving in from decay

Mugabi Byenkya was born in Nigeria to Ugandan/Rwandan parents and is currently based between Kampala and Toronto. Mugabi is a writer, poet and occasional rapper. His debut novel, Dear Philomena, was published in 2017 and he recently concluded a 30 city North America/East Africa tour in support of this. https://theysaidishouldtalkmore.wordpress.com/

Working Royalty

My father climbed into his semi
like a king onto his throne.
His skin was stained brown by
the harsh sun, unprotected
by the tractor he commanded the eve’n before.
His sleep came inside an old coffee thermos,
the one thing he was never without.

My mother watched as her beloved chased
yet another paycheck down the highway;
her calloused hands wiped my tears
as confidently as they ruled our little home.
You could see the worry she held
by the way she always double-checked
that our doors were locked at night.

A steady flow of tenderness and faithfulness
radiated from their worn faces.
The endless hours they toiled
taught me the meaning of work
and I began to realize that it’s best done
when done out of love for another,
not love of thyself.

Torri Brooke is an undergraduate senior currently pursuing a degree in English and Creative Writing. Torri is also the managing editor of a Nashville based literary journal, The Cumberland River Review.

The Monarch

He floated in, as if he had been here before, as if,
strangely,
He knew his way.

He stayed, moments only, perhaps,
Strong in the warm summer breeze,
Confidant
Of his ability to fly away at any time,
allowing me in,
Ever briefly.

Dancing the fragile dance,
That afternoon
Both strong apart —
Fragile,
Together.

He fluttered, opening his strong wings emblazoned with bold orange and
Black so dark it appeared blue
Powerful,

Gentle.
Until the moment his colors
Burst into flame,
And he was gone,
Leaving only his imprint
On my soul.

Christine A. Brooks is a graduate of Western New England University with her B.A. in Literature, and is currently attending Bay Path University for her M.F.A. in Creative Non Fiction. Most recently a series of poems, The Ugly Five, are in the summer issue of Door Is A Jar Magazine and her poem, The Writer, is in the June, 2018 issue of The Cabinet of Heed Literary Magazine. Three poems, Puff, Sister and Grapes are in the 5^th issue of The Mystic Blue Review. Her vignette, Finding God, will be in the December issue of Riggwelter Press, and her series of vignettes, Small Packages, was named a semifinalist at Gazing Grain Press in August 2018.