Author Archives: Sarah

Psalm with Pocket Stone and Door Key

I headache, I dry throat, I shallow breathe, 
my Witness, my Refuge, I am

one of you, locked in night smell
I go back over my footprints, comb grass
into comfort with my hands. I distort—
see eyes and mouths, spread & twist 
bodies worn inside out.
Walls weep and floors waver. 
I call myself
Scatter Moon, Brainling.
Look, see the exhaustion
of nails, unable to repent clawing. 
Once primroses grew from my fingers.

Ellen Devlin is the author of chapbooks Rita and Heavenly Bodies at the MET, both published by Cervena Barva Press. Her recent journal publications include: Beyond Words, 2023, Muleskinner Journal, 2023, Rock Paper, Poem, 2023, Westchester Review, 2023  She lives in Irvington, New York.

Fisher 

Not always as a dove. We often need
A seahawk, yes, the bonebreak bird
Of prey to fold his wings and drop with speed
Surpassing thought, to fall and thus to cede
The kingdom where his cry is sharply heard,

To plunge amid the weeds and murk as gray
As any grave. The breathless water seals
In triumph—till one feeder of the clay
Is slashed anew behind the gills, and yanked away
By some strange fish’s talons, until he feels

The specks and banks and schools he knew
Were muddy prologue to devouring grace,
And flight affords his shock-fixed eye the view
Of waters he had never known were blue
In homage to this heaven’s opened face.

It takes no eye so clear, as up he climbs
Where sun awaits and ether hazes wreathe
His form, to dream him in the world where time’s 
Hands fail, the world with which ours rhymes,
Healed of scars and newly taught to breathe.

Will Begley teaches, writes, and raises children in North Carolina. His poems and translations have appeared in journals including Dappled Things and The Road Not Taken.

When I have Penned My Final Thoughts 

When I
Have penned my final thoughts and left to meet
the sky,
don't organize my table; let the sheet,
the clipboard, and the cartridge pen lie there;
let them assume I've gone to get some air.

Don't switch
the desk lamp off. Its glow will reach me through
the pitch-
black, starry intrados, producing new
beliefs about a parted man's revival,
and say to me, "I'll wait till your arrival."

Should they
enquire about my absence of long years,
please say
to them that I am with The Pioneer
of verse, whose words can spawn a life and grow it;
He's guiding me to be a better poet.

Shamik Banerjee is a poet from India. He resides in Assam with his parents. His poems have appeared in The Society of Classical Poets, Fevers of the Mind, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Westward Quarterly, Dreich, The Hypertexts, among others, and some of his poems are forthcoming in Willow Review and Ekstasis, to name a few.

Equinox

Gazing through the window at the hint of dawn,
so many months since I've seen this sacred hour.
The house quiet, the bird under his blanket,
an occasional chirrup and settling of feathers.
The dog asleep on the sofa next door, her chin
curled to meet the stretch of her paws.
The creak of my husband shifting in bed, 
my space cooling beneath the duvet.
The birdfeeder is prepped for breakfast, 
its gentle sway an invitation to nesting blue tits, 
our solitary robin and the ever-present pigeons
who wait yawning to be fed like cuckoos.
Down by the pond a heron stares past 
its own reflection at the stirrings of morning.
I should open the door, run out there
with flailing arms to save the drowsy frogs
but it seems wrong to intervene, 
to interrupt this quiet morning prayer,
so I stay put, my hand on an empty cup,
shoulders stiff with last night's vivid dreams,
waiting for the rumble and click of the kettle
to usher in the safety of the risen sun.

 

Lisa Bristow’s poetry has been published in the Thomas Merton Journal, We are Not Shadows by Folkways Press, What the Eye Sees by Arachne Press, Kosmeo Mag and Faith, Hope and Fiction. She lives on the edge of the Peak District in England with her husband and rescue dog.

Leonard Cohen Sang to Me at Dawn 				      
 
The dream was thrilling, until
he stopped singing and, 
like a Zen Master 
presenting 
a koan, 
he declared, Song of praise. 
I will think on that, I thought. 
Then he added—in a voice clear as ringing bells, reflective as still water 
—Sing! Sing a song of praise.
I tried to protest, in my sleep-dream
paralysis, tried to say: I. Can’t. Sing.
 
But I was not the woman who could
say no to Leonard Cohen. I started 
weeping, told him that life and
world of late were unholy and unfit 
for any song or praise, for reasons I chose 
not to enumerate. In the dream he knew
anyway. Into the lifting light of the 
morning, Leonard Cohen

vanished, leaving trails of irony, throaty laughter, 
a smell like moldy feathers, and some eerie words
that echoed like a shameful scolding from a god
I used to know who loved the broken:
What else is there to sing of 
 if not the unholy holy? 
 
As I awoke, I heard myself singing:
O planet spinning green and blue.
O mother mine, her touch.
O fathers, in their time.
O muscles in my legs and arms. 
O lovers and children.
O ancestors, friends.
O nurse. 
O holy ones.
All who will have carried me
To the finish line. 
Ahead of time, 
I sing your praises.

Connie Johnstone was found by poetry writing in 2021.  In her other lives she wrote a novel, The Legend of Olivia Cosmos Montevideo (Atlantic Monthly Press); edited an anthology, I’ve Always Meant to Tell You (Pocket Books); was professor of English and chair of creative writing at American River College; changed careers and was a Hospice Chaplain with Kaiser Permanente, used Narrative Therapy, became a witness to others’ stories. Her degrees include MFA from Bennington College and MTS from Harvard Divinity School. She lives and writes in Davis, California. 

Proselytism

I suppose I subscribed
to the religion 
of childhood,
an age of strawberries
cut by a mother’s tongue
and skinned knees
deemed holy
in their destruction 

It was slow at first,
but I was welcomed to the priesthood
as I pressed 
the empty luck of sidewalk pennies
to my palms 
and I was baptized 
by an August heat
that wrapped its fruit-stained fingers
across my eyes and asked 
if I could feel 
the sun pooling at my feet,
tasting my skin
with a gentle thirst

but when the preachers came to my door
preaching a renewed girlhood,
I couldn’t slip so easily into the past
with memory’s resuscitation,
a push on her chest
and the touch of her lips to mine,
a breath
a resurrection

because what am I if not an obsessive creature 
bound to belief

who didn’t need a repeat,
but a chance
to let her tired body find its way 
to the earth
and watch the moon consume itself
anew

Cate Latimer is a poet from Portland, Oregon. She is a first-year at Brown University studying English and Urban Studies and the founder and publisher at Stepping Stone Publishing, a student-focused publishing company. Her work has been nationally recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

Marlene M. Tartaglione is an artist whose creativity manifests poetry, children’s literature, the visual arts. She was born & raised in New York City. Ms. Tartaglione believes art & compassionate action are one, a powerful tool for positive social change:  Her work gives voice to social justice, spiritual transcendence  & environmental issues. Ms. Tartaglione’s writing has appeared in literary presses both nationally & abroad (i.e. The Hong Kong Review, Canada’s Dreamers Creative Writing, the Wind Journal, Cholla Needles, & The Chronogram; also, in publications of New York University & The Cooper Union, among others).

Ms. Tartaglione has been awarded four poetry prizes, her work presented at venues such as the Brooklyn Museum, New York Cultural Center, New Federal Theater, The Society for Ethical Culture, as well as the New York Book Fair. Both Ms. Tartaglione’s  writing & artwork are cited in archives at the University of Buffalo in Buffalo, New York; her poetry & children’s stories, profiled in lectures at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City. Published in Hatch-Billops’ Black History annual, Artist & Influence, Ms. Tartaglione’s poems are now part of their permanent collection endowed to Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Her M.B.A. studies at NYU focused largely on the literature of Early Childhood as well as documentary film. Ms. Tartaglione also holds a B.F. A. from the Cooper Union, where she studied poetry with eminent scholar, poet & educator, Dr. Brian Swann. 

The pomegranate


God directs your attention to the prison of the heart
its doorways gummed with impossibility

to the atom of a thought in which conjecture 
& punishment wrestle for advantage 

to great anguish locked in a small room
to a storm trapped under glass & burnt by its own lightning 

to great anguish but also the great wonders 
to the Perseids buzzing with light in the hive of the sky  

to pyramids pressed from the flesh of the desert 
to the breath of electricity caught in the ear of a conch shell 

to decades of prayer clustered in the fist of a pomegranate 
each more pierced with sweetness than the last

to the anguish of impossibility & wonder
the charge of it

Mathew Lyons is based in East London. His poems have appeared in Bad Lilies, The Interpreter’s House, Reliquiae and Under the Radar, among others.

A Large and Unexpected Statue of Anubis

I saw you and my knees gave way. 
I think it was in the V&A, I almost fell; your majesty a shock. 
(All strong men should have jackal heads.)
My bones demanded that I worship you,
Each cell was heavy with your praise. 
O black divinity.
O weigher of hearts. 
I knew myself your supplicant; your slave in thrall. 
But I was modern. I stood tall, but quaking:
Stillness brought by shame,
Trained to refuse such adoration, my mind whispering your name;
Whispering it still, as softly as a kiss. 
O jackal god, O more than dog,  
O beautiful unknown Anubis. 

I am three thousand years too late to be your acolyte.
I shall never witness jackals scratching open shallow graves at night.
Devouring what they find. Becoming you. 
I wish that I had felt the floor beneath my palms and bones. 
The weight of your authority, the pull of earth; your realm below. 
Down through ages and discoveries, 
Back to the believed, the known. 
I yearned to fall, but I stood still; disobedient but not free,
Listening to the world, and not your majesty. 
A statue myself, pinioned, there I was:
Girl refusing her impulse to venerate an ancient god.
Regretfully declining there to worship recklessly,
For I was with my mother,
And still Catholic in name at least. 

Now I hunt you, seek your face
In museums with Egyptian rooms, 
And cases of old gods. 
Sometimes you appear as you did that day, 
Striding like a man towards his own.
Other times you are most doglike;
On your haunches in Stockholm,
Misplaced by the staircase, 

Almost in disguise. 
But I could see you. I was not surprised. 
In engravings you lie outstretched, 
With always that strength in your rigid neck. 
Never does your muzzle rest upon your paws, never do you doze.
You, lord of darkness and the endless sleep, are lively in repose. 

The diastole is half the heartbeat still; the pause is part of life. 
You come to weigh and hold the heart.
(Anubis, judge it light!)
Beyond the visible life of earth you are the gatekeeper, 
The strict companion of birth. 
Another time I will bring down my lips
To the cold black stone of your feet or claws,
Then make a shrine to you at home.
Bring you fruits and flowers and perfumed oil. 
Burn incense. Light the gloom with candles. 
Their gold will throw circles, bright collars on the walls. 
Anubis, you are a living god to me. 
I come now with bowed head and upraised heart. 
I worship thee.

Liz Kendall works as a Shiatsu and massage practitioner and Tai Chi Qigong teacher. Her poetry has been published by Candlestick Press, The Hedgehog Poetry Press, and Mslexia. Liz’s book Meet Us and Eat Us: Food plants from around the world is co-authored with an artist and ethnobotanist. It explores biodiversity through poetry, prose, and fine art photography. Her website is https://theedgeofthewoods.uk and she is on Twitter/X and Facebook @rowansarered, and on Instagram @meetusandeatus.

Cruz de Ferro
             30 April 2022

We awoke before dawn and climbed the mountain track in the dark.
Light had broken by the time we reached the mound:
a pile of rocks left over the years by the pilgrims before us,
a pole rising from its heart, an iron cross at the top.

People broke apart to sit alone on the dewy grass.
No one spoke. Even the merriest there were silent.

I thought back to the week before when we ate
at long wooden tables, after passing
round a candle and speaking about why
we had chosen this pilgrimage. No one at that table
was there for God, but even those who walked
only to joke and drink with new friends were respectful
and spoke a few words. Here at the cross it is the same.
The dawn is too quiet for laughter. Someone near me is crying.

It is tradition to leave something here. So, one by one
we climb the mound, lay down a rock or memento, touch
the cross, and go on. I write myself a letter to leave folded
under a stone, carrying the words away within me.

I love and have loved and will love.
That is okay. It may sometimes hurt –
                       I think of a boy somewhere on the road ahead,
                       with bright blue eyes that will never look twice
                       at me
– but it will not kill me. Far from it –
                       I think of his smile when I told him so.
                       He didn’t take my hand but I didn’t need
                       him to. He had met my eye
– it will make me more alive day by day.

This journey is remaking me. I have never breathed so deep before.
One day, perhaps, I will step into a holy space
without bending it – but not today.

I pull on my rucksack again, and walk on.
The sun is up now. This is all I believe in
 – this, right here.

Finlay Worrallo is a queer cross-arts writer studying Modern Languages at Newcastle University. He writes poetry, prose and scripts, and his work is published in VIBE, Queerlings, 14, the Braag’s speculative fiction chapbook Unfurl: Portrait of Another World, and the Emma Press’ anthology Dragons of the Prime: Poems about Dinosaurs.