Author Archives: Sarah

The Soul of Everything

the optometrist
and I sit in the dark 
he shines 
a beam 
of light
through to the back 
of my eye
I see 
that I hold my own orbing planets
in these sockets

right retina
a jupiter swing 
bending bright blue waves
to some dark space inside my head

left retina
its own violet Venus
in how she holds on to moving light

pathways unveiled
black holes turned inside out
to brilliance
and when he finishes
says the exam is over
I carry imprints
of two bright stars
burning
on my eyes
and everywhere I look		(light)
in faces			(light)	
in trees				(light)	
in a lifting bird		(light)	
this new aura clouds my vision
as I move through the world
my windows
fully open 
to the soul of everything

Kai Coggin (she/her) is the inaugural Poet Laureate of the City of Hot Springs, and author of five collections, most recently Mother of Other Kingdoms (forthcoming, Harbor Editions, 2024) and Mining for Stardust (FlowerSong Press, 2021). She is a Certified Master Naturalist, a K-12 Teaching Artist in poetry with the Arkansas Arts Council, a CATALYZE grant fellow from the Mid-America Arts Alliance, and host of the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country—Wednesday Night Poetry. 

Preview of Postmortem

Exhausted I—
            sinking into
            hot water
            and bath salts,
            less embraced
            in amniotic bliss 
            than embalmed 
            like a specimen,
            long-gone grotesque 
            (two-headed goat,
            albino frog)
            curled, pickled,
            shelved in a jar
—dissolve
in tub and eucalyptus,
calm. My stars invisible,
but aligned. Afloat.
In space. Denizen 
of the sensate, nothing
amiss. 

Water running down
the drain gurgles
glory glory glory
nullity golly
gone

and emerging 
I find my body
lost,
no face 
not even a ghost 
stares back
from the clouded mirror
and so what
to believe 
of shrouded hereafters?

 

Jeanne Julian is author of Like the O in Hope and two chapbooks. Her poems are in Kakalak, Panoply, RavensPerch, Ocotillo Review and elsewhere, and have won awards from Reed Magazine, Comstock Review, Naugatuck River Review,and Maine Poets’ Society. She reviews books for The Main Street Rag. www.jeannejulian.com

Matinee


On the count of her hand’s baton, 
the venetian blinds rise. Outside 
the weeping willows curtsy. I tell her 
the blue flowers of the chaste tree she loves 
make her medicine. “Really?” she says. 
Everything is a miracle, including 
the pink crepe myrtle she sees as if 
for the first time. She doesn’t remember 
planting it there, but I can still see her
dragging the sapling across the lawn
where the birds still picnic. When they shoot up 
into the sunlight like arrows dripping 
purple feathers, she applauds, and asks,
“When’s the next show?” 

Cheryl Snell’s books include several poetry collections and the novels of her Bombay Trilogy. Most recently her writing has appeared in Does It Have Pockets? Switch, Gone Lawn, Your Impossible Voice, Necessary Fiction, Pure Slush, and other journals. A classical pianist, she lives in Maryland with her husband, a mathematical engineer.

Melissa Huff feeds her poetry from the power and mystery of the natural world and the ways in which body, nature and spirit intertwine.  An advocate of the power of poetry presented out loud, she twice won awards in the BlackBerry Peach Prizes for Poetry: Spoken and Heard, sponsored by the (U.S.) National Federation of State Poetry Societies.  Recent publishing credits include Gyroscope Review, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, Encore: Prize Poems 2022 (NFSPS), Persimmon Tree and Blue Heron Review.  Melissa has been frequently sighted making her way between Illinois and Colorado.

My Letters to the World

 Homage to Emily Dickinson


I dreamt words of anxiety sealed
in small envelopes
flew out my window. I woke
and whispered to myself,
Those are not my letters to the world.

My letters paint ducks
luminous on winter waters, traveling
together as if on a pilgrimage
while a gull keeps watch
high on his chosen rock.

My letters catch sunsets nesting
in bare branches before
they escape leaving clouds
brushed with an elixir of rose
as a parting gesture.

Janet Krauss, after retirement from teaching 39 years of English at Fairfield University, continues to mentor students,  lead a poetry discussion at the Wilton Library, participate in a CT. Poetry Society Workshop, and one other plus two poetry groups. She co–leads the Poetry Program of the Black Rock Art Guild. She has two books of poetry : Borrowed Scenery (Yuganta Press) and Through the Trees of Autumn (Spartina Press).  Many of her poems have been published in Amethyst Review, and her haiku in Cold Moon Journal.

"Ewigkeit"

I have loved you 
in my own way.
Under a sea of stars,
by moonlight,
near the deep 
and shallow waters,
in desert sand 
and mountain peaks.
You have captured
my heart and life
has become an art 
of stillness.

Melissa Laussmann resides in a small town in Texas with her daughter. She loves to travel and watch old movies. You can find some of Melissa’s work in Haiku Journal, Poetry Quarterly, and Three Line Journal.

Giving Back

I thought of you this morning, very early. 
I mean, the you who feels that you don’t have

a future.  The western sky was dark, like night,
while in the east, the sky was running with

a daring blue—I mean, daring to bring day 
again into a sightless world.  But that was not 

what made me think of you, life-stopping 
though it was.  I thought of you because 

a silver moon, as slender as a silver hair, 
depended quietly from the urgent sky, 

placed just above the life-line of the earth.  
At first I asked myself, ‘Is that the moon, 

indeed?’  I’d never seen a moon look so chancy,
as though someone’s sigh just happened 

to blow a thread into the sky. ‘Perhaps,’ I
thought, ‘it is a lunar fraud?’  But no, my God, 

it had to be the moon, this sliver of fine silver, 
delicate, unbearable—frightening, almost—

and still, so still.  I wanted to hold my breath 
in order not to unsettle it.  I thought of you, 

and wanted to give this moment of the
silver thread moon to you—I mean, 

the you who feeds in a universe that takes 
so much away from us, sometimes. 

Johanna Caton, O.S.B., is a Benedictine nun.  She was born in the United States and lived there until adulthood, when her monastic vocation took her to England, where she now resides.  Her poems have appeared in The Christian Century, The Windhover, The Ekphrastic Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, The Catholic Poetry Room, and other venues, both online and print.

Sonnet for Markus


Drifting through the gallery on a
grey Toronto afternoon, a bit

aimless but drawn forward painting
after painting, the Rothko

jumps off the wall in the otherwise
peaceful space and pummels me.

There’s nothing there
but colour, blurred edges,

a corona, luminous and glowing
So don’t tell me what he did

is not holy, is not woman, is not 
grace, is not the nearness of death in

the night, the glory of generous day,
opening, and radiant.

William Ross is a Canadian writer and visual artist living in Toronto. His poems have appeared in Rattle, The New Quarterly, Humana Obscura, New Note Poetry, Cathexis Northwest Press, Topical Poetry, Heavy Feather Review,*82 Review, and Alluvium. Recent work is forthcoming in Bindweed Magazine and Anti-Heroin Chic.

In his last days, he leaked light


	Barbara Brown Taylor 
in her eulogy for the Rt. Rev. Bennett J. Sims


I want it said of me, in my old age, that I leak light.
That with every wrinkle, I grow brighter; with every ache,
the dandelion becomes my guide. 

I’m not talking about leaks that arrive unwelcomed. A shower
that sputters, then settles into syncopated plops. Headlines
that risk national security. Heart valves that spill with each pump. 

Last year, a busted pipe undetected for hours flooded a friend’s home
before setting off alarms. Water can be like that.

But today I’m talking about light. How it flames from a hearth, glistens
from melting snow. How when there’s so much shine in a body
toward the end of life, it gilds everything in its flow.

Karen Luke Jackson, winner of the Rash Poetry Award and the Sidney Lanier Poetry Contest, draws upon family lore, contemplative practices, and nature for inspiration. Her poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, EcoTheo Review, Susurrus, Salvation South, and Friends Journal, among others. Karen has also authored three poetry collections: If You Choose To Come, paying homage to the healing beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains; The View Ever Changing, exploring the lifelong pull of homeplace and family ties; and GRIT, chronicling her sister’s adventures as an award-winning clown. Karen is a facilitator with the Center for Courage & Renewal. She lives in a cottage on a goat pasture in western North Carolina where she companions people on their spiritual journeys. karenlukejackson.com

Brief Communion

The breathtaking heron floats down
on a sepia evening to land
on the seawall. His blue sails span six feet.

Entranced by the intimate encounter, 
by his beauty and grace,
the stick legs supporting his hull,
I forget to breathe.

He toes the seawall, takes his stance.
I scan the slash of dark feathers
above his intense yellow eye,
inspect the curves of his question mark neck.

For a brief moment 
we trust the space between us,
share the silence, soft light, and warm breeze. 
The wind ruffles his fringe, tousles my hair.
Then he presses off for the ochre sky,
as quickly as he appeared.

I watch his yacht cruise across the glass surface,
inches above bay waters,
dragging his oars behind.

He grows smaller and smaller until he disappears
and I’m struck with sadness.

I sit alone until dark like a child 
forgotten after school,
believing he’ll round the bend 
and come back for me any minute.

Lori Zavada writes poetry and prose that reveals a deep respect for nature and the human condition. Steeped in insight and imagery, her poems can be found in Of Poets and Poetry, Operelle Poetry Collection, Emerald Coast Review, WayWords,Nobis II, and her chapbook First Flight. Lori lives in Northwest Florida in a community of talented supportive writers, who work together to achieve their writing goals.