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The Bellows

The bellows breath ignites a fire.
Flames purge your nostrils, gut, and brain,
rouse the serpent from its slumber,
coiled up in your sacral cave.

Cross-legged, your head bowed
to face your heart, breathe in
to lift your chest up toward your chin.
Exhale, inhale through your nose,

pump your gut to blast air out—
in-out, in-out, in-out…
Then with a sharp in-breath,
suck your belly in and hold…

Work the bellows till the embers glow.
Breath by breath, surrender to the flow.

 

John W. Steele is a psychologist, yoga teacher, assistant editor of Think: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction and Essays, and graduate of the MFA Poetry Program at Western Colorado University, where he studied with Julie Kane, Ernest Hilbert and David Rothman. John lives in Boulder, Colorado and loves hiking in the mountains.

An Illusion in The Bright Mirror of Eternity

Translated by Yuanbing Zhang

Every day is an illusion in the bright mirror of eternity.
You see yourself from a teenager to an old man with gray hair,
as if you are a role in a play.
And the peace of mind makes you smell the fragrance of flowers from the Heavens.
You recall yourself in outer space with a smile–
that golden giant and fragrant light;
the huge number of palaces look lofty, resplendent and majestic,
they rise and fall, like a sea of gold.
Billions of years are like the drops of nectar
crystal clear, sprinkle the music of intoxicated soul.

 

永恒之明镜里的幻影

每一天都是永恒之明镜里的幻影
你看到自己从少年到白发
仿佛一个戏剧里的角色
而心灵的宁静让你嗅到了天国的花香
你微笑着回忆起天外的自己
那黄金的巨人 芳香的光芒
那巨多的宫殿巍巍峨峨
起伏若黄金的海洋
亿万年的时光犹如一滴一滴甘露
晶莹剔透 洒下醉了灵魂的乐曲

2019.07.18

.

Hongri Yuan (b. 1962) is a Chinese mystic poet and philosopher. His poetry has been widely published in the UK, USA, India, New Zealand, Canada and Nigeria. He has authored a number books including Platinum City, The City of Gold, Golden Paradise, Gold Sun and Golden Giant.

Yuanbing Zhang (b. 1974), who is a Chinese poet and translator, works in a Middle School, Yanzhou District , Jining City, Shandong Province, China. He can be contacted through his email- 3112362909@qq.com.

It Was the Bird That Drew My Eye

It was the bird that drew my eye
to the vine-framed window
that was, all on its own,
a thing of simplest beauty.
Its bare, crisscrossed twigs
seemed placed by an artist’s hand,
delicately, but with great purpose.
A closer look revealed crimson berries
and just two determined leaves,
hearty holdouts,
twirling, dancing in the wind.
To that sweet bird I am indebted.
Beauty seen, if only we look.

.

Ann Weil is a former teacher and professor from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her work can be read or is forthcoming in Poetry Quarterly, Nine Muses Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review, Headline Poetry and Press, Young Ravens Literary Review, American Writer’s Review, The Voices Project, and Clementine Unbound. Her website is www.annweilpoetry.com.

Umbrella

In heavying drizzle
you accepted my umbrella.
Your hand did not touch mine
drawing me back
from another brink,
uncovering words
long buried.

Weeping curls
licked my face.
Crushed juniper berries
in my hand,
measuring your silence,
distance paced in misted space
of maples dripping by the track,

cold wires tickled
down my back.
You, looking for light
along that thyme-lined path,
I, hearing you move on within,
without me, just a shadow
accompanying this quiet rain.

 

Jane Angué teaches English Language and Literature in France. Writing in French and English, work has appeared most recently in Le Capital des Mots, Amethyst, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Acumen and Poésie/première. A pamphlet, des fleurs pour Bach, was published in 2019 (Editions Encres Vives).

Cushions

Scattered comfort
circulates about the
furnishing pressure points;
pins and needles kept in place,
the pain is lessened,
ready cartilage.

Though nap in Galilean boat
arouses fear for lack of care,
why speak of props,
why mention bolsters
unless were there,
bulwark to suffer, without buffer,
stern rebuke from stern?

Plumped to prop, flexible,
the cushion takes the body shape.

Is comfort too readily available
corporate or corporeal?

.

Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales from ministry in the Methodist Church, has had pieces accepted by some twenty on-line poetry sites, including Amethyst Review; and Gold Dust, The Seventh Quarry, The Dawntreader, Foxtrot Uniform Poetry Magazines, Vita Brevis Anthology ‘Pain & Renewal’ & Fly on the Wall Press ‘Identity’.  https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/

Saint Clare of Assisi: At the Beginning of My New Life

I first saw Francis preaching in San Giorgio.
Most people, even my pious mother,
thought he was mad, perhaps from the hard year
in prison during the war—the stone bed, stale crust of each day—
and the illness that followed. Oh, and all that followed—

He was beautiful when the Gospel tenderly set its talons
upon him. When he spoke I saw tears drop onto his tunic,
small moons of grief and bliss—that he had only this
thin body to offer, this frail and furious life.

But it was a kind of singing, the words of Christ
rising out of his throat, and I felt wings
of a giant bird or angel beat in my breast.
I was so afraid the joy would tear my soul
from my body, I could only beg our Lord
for time to be His servant here first.

I said no to the world that day and yes
to the world inside and yes
to the promised one, beyond.

.

Lisa Zimmerman’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Florida Review, Poet Lore, Chiron Review, Trampset, Amethyst Review, SWWIM Every Day and other journals. Her first book won the Violet Reed Haas Poetry Award. Other collections include The Light at the Edge of Everything (Anhinga Press) and The Hours I Keep (Main Street Rag).

are/are not

We hear you
and
do not.
We are with you
and
are not.
Through whom,
with whom
and in whom,
we are – what?
We are one
with what
we are
not.

No voice is audible,
yet we hear.
No hand touches ours,
yet we feel.
No eye has seen the glory,
yet we kneel.
What you are,
who you are
is and
is not
clear.

Knowing
and
not knowing.
In
and out
of touch.
Out of mind
yet
mindful.
Out of sight
yet
insight.

We are
in relation
to much
that is excess –
beyond
comprehension
and expectation –
being
night
and
light.

.

Jonathan Evens is Associate Vicar for HeartEdge at St Martin-in-the-Fields. Through HeartEdge, a network of churches, he encourages congregations to engage with culture, compassion and commerce. He writes on the Arts for a range of publications including Artlyst, ArtWay and Church Times. He is co-author of ‘The Secret Chord,’ an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life written through the prism of Christian belief. He blogs at Between: https://joninbetween.blogspot.com/

A Poem in the Margins of Cavafy

If you don’t remember it is it real?
Some impression must keep recall
Unconscious that attests to lives lived
That were lost to Time, lacking any
Grave in consciousness, that field,
Memory; or there must be some
Idealistic god tasked as an Atlas
Of Experience to chronicle all Time-
Who must write, with a million hands,
Events as they are happening.

.

S. T. Brant is a teacher from Las Vegas. Publications s in/coming from Door is a Jar, Santa Clara Review, New South, Rejection Letters, Quail Bell, Mineral, Dodging the Rain, La Piccioletta Barca, Cathexis Northwest Press, a few others. Twitter: @terriblebinth

THE SPEED OF LIGHT

A billion light years is a fantasy
to me and to a lot of other folks.
It ripples off the tongue like meet for tea
and many other phrases, even jokes.

But try to think of it in miles or feet.
How many trips to buy a fifth of booze?
That speed your shot goes in a game of skeet—
the pellets are not fast at all. They ooze.

Before and after all our lives, the stars
explode, black holes collide and spread in trillions
while we eat breakfast, read a book, drive cars.
We live our tiny lives in modest millions.

Yet we, and maybe only we, observe
and think of it. It’s that way that we serve.

.

John J. Brugaletta has seven volumes of his poetry in print; the latest of these is Selected Poems (Future Cycle Press, 2019). He is a professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton, and an ELCA Lutheran.