Seeking world peace and personal peace through poetry
Something
for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba
Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.
Something uncapturable is gone—
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.
Something unforgettable is past—
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
which finality has swept into a corner ... where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.
Styx
Black waters—deep and dark and still.
All men have passed this way, or will.
Spring Was Delayed
Winter came early:
the driving snows,
the delicate frosts
that crystallize
all we forget
or refuse to know,
all we regret
that makes us wise.
Spring was delayed:
the nubile rose,
the tentative sun,
the wind’s soft sighs,
all we omit
or refuse to show,
whatever we shield
behind guarded eyes.
Infinity
for Beth
Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?
Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage
on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage?
Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too,
have dreamed of infinity . . . windswept and blue.
Hearthside
“When you are old and grey and full of sleep...” — W. B. Yeats
For all that we professed of love, we knew
this night would come, that we would bend alone
to tend wan fires’ dimming bars—the moan
of wind cruel as the Trumpet, gelid dew
an eerie presence on encrusted logs
we hoard like jewels, embrittled so ourselves.
The books that line these close, familiar shelves
loom down like dreary chaperones. Wild dogs,
too old for mates, cringe furtive in the park,
as, toothless now, I frame this parchment kiss.
I do not know the words for easy bliss
and so my shriveled fingers clutch this stark,
long-unenamored pen and will it: Move.
I loved you more than words, so let words prove.
Love Has a Southern Flavor
Love has a Southern flavor: honeydew,
ripe cantaloupe, the honeysuckle’s spout
we tilt to basking faces to breathe out
the ordinary, and inhale perfume ...
Love’s Dixieland-rambunctious: tangled vines,
wild clematis, the gold-brocaded leaves
that will not keep their order in the trees,
unmentionables that peek from dancing lines ...
Love cannot be contained, like Southern nights:
the constellations’ dying mysteries,
the fireflies that hum to light, each tree’s
resplendent autumn cape, a genteel sight ...
Love also is as wild, as sprawling-sweet,
as decadent as the wet leaves at our feet.
Remembering Not to Call
a villanelle permitting mourning, for my mother, Christine Ena Burch
The hardest thing of all,
after telling her everything,
is remembering not to call.
Now the phone hanging on the wall
will never announce her ring:
the hardest thing of all
for children, however tall.
And the hardest thing this spring
will be remembering not to call
the one who was everything.
That the songbirds will nevermore sing
is the hardest thing of all
for those who once listened, in thrall,
and welcomed the message they bring,
since they won’t remember to call.
And the hardest thing this fall
will be a number with no one to ring.
No, the hardest thing of all
is remembering not to call.
Sunset
for my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr.
Between the prophecies of morning
and twilight’s revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.
The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,
and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.
What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame,
brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim,
we recognize at once, but cannot name.
Michael R. Burch is an American poet who lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Beth and two incredibly spoiled puppies. He has over 6,000 publications, including poems that have gone viral. His poems, translations, essays, articles, letters, epigrams, jokes and puns have been published by TIME, USA Today, BBC Radio 3, Writer’s Digest–The Year’s Best Writing and hundreds of literary journals. His poetry has been translated into 14 languages, taught in high schools and colleges, and set to music by 23 composers, including two potential operas if the money ever materializes. He also edits www.thehypertexts.com, has served as editor of international poetry and translations for Better Than Starbucks, is on the board of Borderless Journal, an international literary journal, and has judged a number of poetry contests over the years.
Tread Softly
Tread softly for the night is but
a prelude to the day
And all that lives must die
For thus it is as we've heard say
So many times before.
Before? the end of the beginning
Which itself is only spinning to Infinity
Divinity is but a name for good thought
Transferred into deeds
Where one man counts the cost
The other's praying for his needs
Stop!..A thought
Listen!...A bird is singing somewhere
in the Universe.
Poor thoughts, poor empty thoughts.
How can I say ' I love you?'
What's in a word?
Just frailty.
One, two ,three, four, five ,six ,seven
All good people go to Heaven
But I think otherwise and I'd advise that
You do too
Wouldn't you advise someone that
Hell's by far a better place
And that a misplaced feeling of disgrace is relatively unimportant
Oughtn't one to think so?
No I suppose you wouldn't, couldn't
I like to think a little differently
Not follow in the crowd , eh?
Tread softly, you may say,
Have it your way.
A devil, black and smoky,
Breathing fumes of concentrated orange juice through cold-pudding nostrils
What's wrong with that?
Don't tell me you don't like him
None of that!
I suppose you'd paint a better?
Fetter him in garlic, would you
Could you?
Tread softly
For the night has come and dying is
Out of tune
And all the people on the earth are Gazing at the moon
For soon her light will out
And shouts of anguish then will spill
the air
And everywhere will be a place too small
And anywhere will be the devil's fool
And stars will burst and thirst
for more good deeds to fill up History
And soft bright eyes will dim
And then the earth will lose its spin
And fighting chaos raging for a decade
Will streak the skies with noble deeds
And stars will burst and thirst for More good deeds to fill up History
And then....only Time
Not space but Time
Running, walking ,speeding
Slowing ,
Straight, bent, Lent.
Time without space
And nothing more.
A drop of sun upon a leaf
Warm rays spraying silver on the seas
A fan of light beating colours into flowers
And hours upon hours upon hours..
Tread softly....tread softly...
Flight of the Dove
The tree stands in the lonely field.
It is raining in sleep- filled rivers.
Do not hate, do not love.
beyond hope or caring, sleep or sloth
Dreams deride the thing which is
Whole world's subside and we,
Who think we know what suffering is
Cannot abide the murmuring of the dove.
We who do not hate, we who do not love.
For us the barren fields are soaked
in blood.
Send up the cry! God is dead!
Only beware the fleeing of the dove.
Have you seen her?
Flashing blue across the river?
Did you call out to her?
Splash of film over the river.
Catching sight of her wings of taut gold
Did your heart of a sudden grow old?
As she sliced the sun into pale- white ivory stalks
By the water's edge, disrupting the
moor-hen's song,
Belong, belong! belong, Belong!
But what are you doing here,old man
Fouling the greenways?
Mouth of pomegranate, stench of
tears gone sour,
How could you have tasted the Forbidden fruit
At this ungodlike hour?
You were cast in too strange a mould
A million years of shadow have Trespassed behind your eyes
How could you taste the light
of your eyes?
Rains you heed not, nor the wind's outrage,
But poach at ease beside the blood-lit streams
Not hating, not loving
But tell me, what will you do
When she comes, robed in mist?
At the first hint of dawn,
Will you see her, even in dreams?
Will you stay silent as she drops
To her pale death in the foam
Jagged rock of white mist, Plummeting down through
the air's crystal streams
Lost to the sunrise
Staining the day with new gold
As the sun's rivers melt her through
Will she touch you?
You who are so old?
Will you reach out to feel that Warm rush of feathers
Blue-green-scarlet-gold?
Or are you too old, too old?
As the waters reflect back her causeless song
Will you trace those pyramids of
light
Treading sapphire rings
into the mud?
Ode to a Drug Addict
The great scape of Heaven
Is tortured with images of Death
And the night sky.
Owls swoop in the twilight world
Where Keats went mad
For Beauty 's treacherous eye.
Ode to a fool
Transfixed by the painting
Of some great pig of a man
Eating a fly.
Tempestuous nights and dawns of
Eclipses
Fighting the otherwhere and the
Why.
I
Screech at you from the rooftops
Over the bridge, driven wild
Inside my head
Hammer the bed into white sheets
Grasp cold on
Nothing
Outstare the stars to white lead.
And running,
Hand you the piece of dust
From which I fled.
Evergreen into Ivory white
Evergreen into ivory white
The curlew calls
The morbid manufacturers of day
Attend the passing funeral
Of those who decay
Slowly with time.
The bird rustles in the hedgerow
Hear its mating call
At close of day
the flight of swallows return
No matter where.
The passing shepherd summons the sheepdog
The daffodils burst out in gold
My lover's out there in the cold
The short mist comes
The gap between heaven and earth
And all obscurity
No greater love than this
Will
You
Grant
Me
A
Short
Space
For
Breath
The galleon ship enshrouded in mist
White walls surround the drowned sailor
Shipwrecked
In white water
On the turf of dreams
The bird flying calls
The seamen look up
It is not a white albatross
It is I turning about
Into this white pool
The shoreline crinkles into powder
Tiny and remote
Flying high, the day recedes
Into this ivory-white
Julia Webster studied English & Drama at Exeter University then later studied Integrated Health Sciences at Westminster. Her first play written in 1972 entitled “The Object of the Game” was performed at The Little Theatre, Barbican , Plymouth and was likened by the well known Harvey Crane critic of the South West to works by Pinter and Ionesco. She began writing puppet plays for children and performed at various Albion fairs throughout the U.K. and was selected to attend The Children’s Festival in Austria by Arabella Churchill. She also wrote poetry since her teens and has composed many songs for voice guitar, violin and piano accompaniment which have been performed in various venues across the U.K. and also in India. In 1979 she met her teacher Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rimpoche and has been a student of his and Dzogchen teachings since then. She currently lives in West London with her family and teaches piano and also practices cranio sacral therapy.
Teetering Toward Sattva My friend’s mother would tell him, I created you and I can destroy you, as though, like Parvati with Ganesh, she had literally made him from a mixture of earth and her perspiration, brought him to life with her breath. Śaivasampradāyaḥ believe Shiva is the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the cosmos. Does that mean mothers are his avatāra and children their miniature multiverses? I wouldn’t know. I’m not a mother. Mine may have been a god to me when I was little (it’s likely she was) but I remember her as my universe. One I destroyed over and over with the choices I made, huddled and weeping and bereft, my days-old sweat a blend of scotch and cigarettes and dirt from the alleys where I crouched for decades. Now those years have passed and so has she. Neither creator nor destroyer, she preserved her dreams for/in me and I live them with her hands, callused, dry-darkened at the knuckles, soft, cool. They wash away the grime so I can live for today. So I can live for us both. So I can live. Anteyesti to Anay Your body burns as your mother weeps her son into a letter. I read it, edges fluttering in the summer wind like wings, like the ashes we scatter in the canyon’s river. She asks why you wanted to melt into memory, fleeting desert snow beneath the sun of our hot grief. And in that brutal light, she begs for rain to swoop down and flood her cracked earth. (… As We Know It) Reset: Kritayuga Begins Again When the apocalypse comes what becomes of the astronaut who floats in the space station and sees the sun as it really is – a silvery white flare, incandescent as fireworks arching over our greening blue Earth?
Kalpita Pathak is an autistic poet, novelist, and advocate with a passion for research and sensory-rich details. Her work tends to explore the perseverance of hope in a sometimes despairing world, with a little dark humor and magic added to the mix. She received the James Michener Fellowship for her MFA in creative writing and has taught at both the college level and in school programs for kids from three to eighteen. She has recently been published in Mediterranean Poetry.
Sheep Dreams
My sheep stumble down the plank
and jump ship
crashing into waters whisking with every shark
that ever detected the drunken cologne
of my blood
PLACE SETTING
Where you live when you are not where you are living, and by living, I mean residing.
And by live, I’m referencing the space constructed of memory and curiosity. And by curiosity,
I speak of the galaxy where dead wishes can’t be piled like bodies. They float seamlessly,
snag your eyes with a twinkle of a wink. A location as unattainable as those aspirations you
gifted pulse and game plan. Then suffocated, ripped to portions, and ingested slowly. Well, shit.
The setting of a play, a place, the actors are not all actors, you are writer, director, knowing
it will never be produced.
FIN
Ghosted
I ghosted myself
or am I a ghost to myself?
Haunting my leftovers, haunted by what
I left over in a geography
without space or proof.
Hushing Heroes
I’ve been reading my heroes wrong
I’ve been reading my heroes bedtime stories
A collection of heroes
is a herd of one’s own insecurities
I’m rocking both to sleep
Bekah Steimel is an internationally published poetic person who was “mostly dead, slightly alive” on VV ECMO life support in 2019 from double lung failure (get your flu shot! And, COVID vaccine as well!). An artist reporting back from the other side. Developing Chance Books LLC. She can be found online at bekahsteimel.com and followed @BekahSteimel.
1] The Rain-Wet Rats She bathed in cold fire which softly sterilized Her fitful thoughts circling constantly Back to what gets lost, what set free, Gently startled, but not at all surprised. The cold front rattles in with peevish rain Concealed by darkness in the morning chill But nudging at the mind as hostile specters will, Cold drops rattling like a fatal chain. Can she be easy regulating the fates Of two dozen dirty peasants with staring eyes And rusty pitchforks, furious at lies, Shrieking in the rain outside her gates? Is risk or safety the best choice to make? The rain outside keeps rattling like a snake. The rafters of civilization broke that day, And all the rain-wet rats nimbly raced Away like greyhounds, all order displaced, And she ducked aside to hide out of the way. Thunder crashed, as it were, and she Smiled secretly and thought of my face Aping consternation ludicrously. 2] Symbolist Gunslinger Purges His Vocabulary Lovely ladies, decked with smiles and flowers, Dissolve all war and ugliness generously, Gently repudiating suspicion, hostility, Disarming all the cowboys’ macho powers. Let sunshine warm where desert heat once dried. Let kindness soothe the pain of outraged minds And cool the excessive heat that burns and blinds. Let understanding leave rough men satisfied. For this is a magic, a witchcraft you yield, Medea, Medusa, Miranda, Antigone, Criseyde, Duessa, at times ferociously, And Judith, and the fair witch I once met Upon the meads, whose ring I wear within My blood-curdled heart, and will wear when Chariots descend to collect my fatal debt. Lovely ladies, let the world spin away Its grief, let conflict fire our blessed sunlight, Let the right simplicity be ours today, And the right words bless our witless dreams tonight. 3] Jukebox Catullus Hums and Strums I can’t stop playing Banquo’s ghost, And blood runs everywhere each time I twitch, And somewhere my corpse is bleeding in a ditch, And you’re still indifferent to who loves you most Despite this commitment, this dramatic dedication Here on these boards where happy endings hide From murdered noblemen with broken hearts inside And no luck in erotic conversation. May I venture an aside, though I should leave the stage? Let no ghost be dishonored, or his staring eyes Will plunder your heart in midnight surprise. Enough. The mad Queen calms the murderer’s rage. The curtain never falls for the players in this trade; We wait to spring the traps the poet made. 4] The Right Reply for Second-Hand Fear “Now time’s Andromeda on this rock rude…” --Hopkins A delicate matter prevented her revenge: Madame Alving was, at that time, at least, (Delicious pause) Andromeda waiting for the beast, Long-legged bait a gate to unhinge, A passage of a champion of the stage, Sic semper tyrannis the cry of the day, Cooing doves flapping wings to fly away, And the old monster’s dilapidated rage, Bursts forth though in need of upholstery, Roaring his regrettably wheezy roar To remind us what monsters are onstage for, And everyone fake-quakes, all but she, For she smiles somewhat palely with that fire in her eyes, And waves a hand defensively without fear, For she knows who and what is scary here And what is God’s truth and what the Devil’s lies. That steady fire grows, its intensity stays, However much your maudlin monster weighs.
R. W. Haynes, Professor of English at Texas A&M International University, has published poetry in many journals in the United States and in other countries. As an academic scholar, he specializes in British Renaissance literature, and he has also taught extensively in such areas as medieval thought, Southern literature, classical poetry, and writing. Since 1992, he has offered regular graduate and undergraduate courses in Shakespeare, as well as seminars in Ibsen, Chaucer, Spenser, rhetoric, and other topics. In 2004, Haynes met Texas playwright/screenwriter Horton Foote and has since become a leading scholar of that author’s remarkable oeuvre, publishing a book on Foote’s plays in 2010 and editing a collection of essays on his works in 2016. Haynes also writes plays and fiction. In 2016, he received the SCMLA Poetry Award ($500) at the South Central Modern Language Association Conference In 2019, two collections of his poetry were published, Laredo Light (Cyberwit) and Let the Whales Escape (Finishing Line Press).
Living with the Elephant I guess the fog has little cat feet sometimes, but around here it dances with the wind, wild and fierce, especially at dawn. Howling across the ocean, up the hill, gusting my robe against me, sloshing coffee into my face as I try for a sip. I guess aging is gradual sometimes, but around here it’s a tempest, arising suddenly, wild and fierce and relentless. Wrenching my days apart into a before that can never be found again -- and a very different now. I guess one could fight it sometimes, hair color, face cream, supplements and potions, exercises, affirmations, denial. I guess one could simply accept it sometimes, but around here arthritis has swept in on elephant feet, fierce and relentless, and no pill, no potion, no affirmation, no meditation, can sweep it out again. I guess one could handle things gracefully and sometimes I do, but around here there are other times, too, when everything seems to hurt and I want to stay under a quilt for whatever part of forever I get to see. And then again, there are yet other times, sometimes, the majesty of the ocean at first light, the sweetness of love found late, my hand sliding into his. New buds on the camellia, rain on the roof, deer in the yard, granddaughter’s smile, or a nothing-special-time in the exquisiteness of the now. And I find that sometimes, increasingly often, I welcome it all: the cat’s feet and the elephant, things wild and fierce, quiet moments and raging ones, lines on my softening face, creaky joints and aching bones, wind in my hair, full heart, fog over the ocean at dawn. (This poem was originally published in Multiplicity Magazine)
Bio: Cynthia Bernard is a woman in her late 60’s who is finding her voice as a poet after many decades of silence. A long-time classroom teacher and a spiritual mentor, she lives and writes on a hill overlooking the ocean, about 20 miles south of San Francisco.
Publication history: Her poetry has been published in Multiplicity Magazine, The MockingOwl Roost, The Vita Brevis Press Poetry Anthology, Last Leaves Literary Magazine, Flora Fiction, fws: a journal of literature and art, and Open Door Magazine, and will appear in upcoming issues of Passager Journal and The Fresh Words Magazine Anthology: Contemporary Poems 2022.
:x.
but it's not just that.
permanence and impermanence.
lasting legacy of what and for how long?
stability defined as: x
the leaning tower of pisa rights.
perception is reality.
and people leap to their deaths in the virtual world.
but where is the line? and more importantly, who drew it?
i kant do that.
and our collective reality mimics meatloaf,
minimizing magnified metamega for milieu,
because what is it all worth/about/settled for/done for/answered by anyways?
*
webster's
goblin mode, 2022.
ok then...
fragments of my metaverse.
blaming my ennui on my gravity disorder.
starseedblahblahblah.
i'm genetically predisposed to lighter climes.
it's my woo-niverse.
and the typing cat fervently, feverishly paws out:
the weight of it all, unbearable.
*
fischschuessel
enjoy the fragmented figments.
flashes of light.
flashbulbs of fame.
reasoning, that recognition fails, fleets, flounders, flops, flippantly flying
from rear-end fenders.
and when does the wordplay stop?
einhalten an alles.
und alle einsteigen.
zack. sagt die stutzstaffel.
protection from what?!
*
Jessica Skyfield is currently a teacher. She has been a scientist, a mother, will always be a student, and worn other hats, too. Her poems seek to bring light to our struggle with our awareness of our humanity: the juxtaposition of the smallness of ourselves when viewed universally and yet the large impact each of our individual actions can have.
