Welcome

Love Poem

Fill up my heart with love,

it’s been frozen for so long.

Ice is in its DNA.

My coldness comes naturally.

So, fire up every ounce of me.

But stop—I’ll do it myself.

Cuddle up and watch as I am

slowly melting. Love doesn’t

come naturally for everyone.

But it does come eventually.

Why I Hate Mother’s Day

                              For A. K.

I hate Mother’s Day . . .

Maybe hate is a strong word—

but it reminds me of all the things

my mother didn’t do.

When I hear a friend or colleague tell me about

something special she did on that day or asks me what I did.

I just hang my head and mumble: We don’t have that kind

of relationship.

But I am jealous, too, and think that I would

like to be that kind of daughter.

However, I don’t want to put on a show anymore.

I am not the motherly type either and sometimes

I wonder, if I am too harsh with my mother.

That I should cut her some slack, too.

That nurturing comes easily to some people

While for others it is the hardest part.

Maybe I am that kind of daughter—now.

I am on Vacation

From my old self,

from my old soul,

The doctor is not

in right now.

Putting my own needs first, like

In the proverbial plane where you

Help yourself first and then others.

Leave it to the Gods to

Handle the rest.

They will know what to do.

Don’t you ever worry.

Tanja Kummerfeld studied American and Italian Literature at the Universities of Hamburg and

Delaware. She is currently on a journey and doesn’t know yet where it will take her. Writing and

painting are ways of exploration for her. She is interested in the interactions of words and images

and how creativity is a tool to foster healing.

The Nearness of Tomorrow

What now 

wintered body,

the tug

of leave-taking

day 

after

day—

a countdown’s hum

before launch

from Earth’s granularity.

Asked to unhinge 

willingly from tomorrow—

will you,

when the call comes

abruptly hurling you

beyond

words for everything?

Shoes Left Behind

Crossing the threshold

from mere existence

into the infinite— 

no within or without,

no edges, no matter.

A thought of planetary sod

could return me to fragile solidity—

ephemeral particles of gravity—

but the mind space empties

refusing the birth of form.

Feet dangling

above Earth’s pull—

its familiar weight—

I choose the never-ending.

Shoes left behind.

Perennial Spring

Boom—

the sound of ending

catapults me

out of my socket,

the humming hub of my heart

slipping into silence

beyond the cradle of bone and breath,

the hollow tide of my cellular sea.

Freed from laws

of cytoplasm and pulse,

the weight of nothing, 

the fullness of everything,

as it has always been

beneath the skin of time,

I hear the voice

of all voices—

a bottomless

singularity:

Come along,

Come along now

foreverness

to the Perennial Spring.

There I go 

knowing I was always awake,

dreaming my way.

I've Known Heaven

Disbelief of eyes and ears was required

to partake in ongoing life

of the family as the sun kept rising

to another day of make-believe.

Unable to pretend,

no place to land,

sanity was sought in gritty places—

treks into Hell 

where truth often burns brighter

in the heat of fire.

Scraping away encrustations—

tall tales hardening reality

into bony spurs—

came the knowing of Heaven.

Not an Elysian field

coruscating hill and dale,

outflowing celestial ethers

intended only for the blessed.

No—so utterly ordinary,

this birthright of all, 

you will laugh out loud

as the world of God stares back at you

from wherever you stand.

It will be known when seen. 

Nothing is hidden. 

Nothing is beyond.

Leatrice Evanne Asher, now an octogenarian, has been writing for more than sixty years. Leatrice wrote the first three poems above after having a heart attack. Her articles exploring self-knowledge have appeared in numerous publications. During her earlier years of writing, some of her poetry was also published. She makes her home in Santa Cruz, California. Reach out and learn more at leatricea.com. 

Fall Geese          Wild in Flight

              for my mother

From the porch at dusk  

she watches

fall geese          wild in flight

one could announce  

as joy

for she once walked  

the creek bed 

as a child splashing 

against the water’s  

dimming face

like a skipped pebble 

passing on 

down 

out of sight 

and still

she could hear splashes

farther and farther 

away

then as it grew darker  

she returned 

the same ancestral path 

as her shadow 

beyond the cottonwoods 

and willows

as splashes went on  

out of hearing

for it was darker then 

somewhere

where night 

accompanied her

into some earthly heaven

she was headed for . . .

Tremendum, Augustum

Matter’s power consoles: take for instance

             the woodpecker’s tongue, how it whips around

the little Jerusalem of his brain, then darts out quite suddenly--

             sweet-swoop flame, incandescent god . . . this is

wisdom’s dizziness, what the depressive forgets

             as he rotates daily in the unending asura of thought, . . . 

Heavy rain all winter, then up from the herculean depths, numinous lilies

             like dulcet-toned instruments: harps, zithers, flutes--

the fugitive fabric of what is ineffable, daunting, as when

             one evening the lonely astronomer stared out

into the quotidian universe and discovered the region of space

             beyond Neptune where vast numbers of small icy

objects circle the sun in cold storage; such is the over-abounding

             trace of survival, the majestus energy that beckons

the diminution of self analogous to the morning when trying to make love

             the couple were simply too distracted by the exalted song

of the May bird, a western tanager perhaps—ruddy orange jester

             gleaning its way from oak to conifer as the beatific heat in the sky

intensified, so they abandoned their inchoate ritual, and lay there

             apart in humble submergence and private devotion . . .

First Thought  

Hidden in the wheat-ear        red-lily       white rose, 

               acrid berries of summer, 

the bark-bitten-into         by the wild goat--

First thought          sacred thought         soul

              impassioned          that bursts         from stars--

What mystery remains           in the print of my hand,

            my unbound hair            like a slow river

silver-threaded with dark--

Thought haunts the groves         like a dryad,

             as lamps burn thin          in pause

and counter-pause        a fever          in song-notes--

Is thought stronger          than love        or did love 

               invent thought-- 

And does the alchemist            transmute         thought’s 

               message        translate 

I am here          like a caged bird            untrapped

or a snake      giving shape upon      shape       in a ray 

               of gilded light         on the listening air--

And who struck the spark       in the formless 

                and made the soul        awaken

in the stream       small and terrible 

holding            the white dust       of memory

                in the summer-dew 

and late rain-fall        of autumn--

Leonore Wilson is a college English and creative writing teacher from Northern California. She is on the MFA Board at St Mary’s College of California. Leonore’s work has been in The Iowa Review, Unruly Catholic Women Writers, Trivia: Voices of Feminism, Third Coast, Prairie Schooner, Quarterly West, Upstreet, Madison Review, Laurel Review, Pif, and elsewhere. Her historic cattle ranch and family home in Napa Valley were recently destroyed in the LNU fire. 

Air

A love that knows no bounds, and is as free as the currents of the wind

A love that cannot be grounded, nor contained

A love that is freeing, that breathes

Durell Desmond is an amateur poet without a background in the arts. During his time working as an environmental scientist, he whimsically wrote poetry focusing on the themes of nature, humanity, spirituality, and family. 

Fingers Together with Invisible Pearls

in my palms
I open to sky & ground
and offer precious gifts
to unseen dragons

I bend my body
to moons I cannot see &
embrace them in my chest
holding quiet

I turn & face
a new direction
stretching into the Universe
as I gather into myself

I light pearls of wisdom
with my gratitude
as stillness transforms
into the movement of Shen
 

awaking the unspoken
with silence

_____

In honour of my Ren Yuan practice (the third method in the Ren Xue Yuan Gong system).

Shen=True Self

Stephanie Ross writes at the confluence of inner inquiry and the living world. Guided by her practice as Ren Xue Yuan Qigong teacher, she crafts poetry, fiction, and nonfiction that invites readers to relax, soften, and develop connection to heart and True Self. 

Tempus

I repeat:
I am right on time for the good things.
I am not a nanosecond
too late to receive life’s bounty.
I don’t have the hubris to rush,
nor the silliness to dawdle.

As I walk toward my dreams,
they become demystified,
more physical and sensuous,
as real as porous flesh.
I am right on time to receive them.

*

The river refuses to run straight;
its meandering innocence restores faith.
I can trust the turns and dips,
hush the linear thinking & hyperactive ambition.
Step out of the dull throb of anthropocentric will.

A leaf floats in the periwinkle sky,
untroubled, and mapless. 

*

I listen to the wind’s bodiless message
the mind has no translation for.
I open my eyes to the luminous nimbus of light.
The sky is a constant witness.
The soil is a consistent support.
The legs on this body know where to go,

guided by a deeper, capacious gnosis.

*

I walk forward, and in the movement of toward
lies the inevitable: change.

Roxanne Noor is a writer and editor living on a small island in Thailand. She's the founder of Nude Studio, a magazine that explores voluntary simplicity in a culture of excess. Her work has been published in Anti-Heroin Chic, Mixed Mag, Sunstroke Magazine, Nymphs, Uplift Connect, and Full Potential.  

How Did I Get Here? 

Middle of this January day, 

walking Lily, six hundred miles north 

of my Florida childhood home.

The grass crunches from the frozen

dew, and Lily runs ahead of me

in her red dog sweater. The sky 

is the bluest I’ve ever seen.

The creek to my left glazed over.

How is it possible I could live

in such a beautifully, cold place?

Thirty years in St. Petersburg,

then Orlando, endless days of sweat 

and sun, barely able to breathe 

from the heat, and somehow I’m here 

on what feels like the cusp of old age, 

walking in three layers of clothes, 

with my dog, in this park, a half mile 

from home. In the heat of my youth,

I could never have imagined I’d be this happy.

It’s Only 

while reading my Auntie Carol’s obituary

that I learned my father was also called Stevie,

a nickname my mother and sister, Kim, and her kids

still call me deep into my fifties. What else 

don’t I know about my father? Did he like 

working as a printer at the St Pete Times? 

What did he think each morning when he woke? 

Did he think, Another day at this fucking job? 

Ten hours before I can have a beer? 

Did he think of Kim and me asleep in our beds? 

I’ve heard people say fathers are unknowable. 

A father myself now, I’d like to think this isn’t true, 

but I also know how much I keep inside, 

tucked away from my wife and son.

After Buying a Watermelon Popsicle from a Cub Scout at Harris Teeter

Walking home, through the Carolina July heat, 

the popsicle tasted like Florida, long sticky streets,

walks from my best friend Dennis’ house to mine, 

swimming pools and palm trees, 52nd Street bike races, 

and the Kapok tree where my cat, Sasha, once climbed 

up and didn’t come down for eleven hours.

Third Wheel

When my wife says it’s time 

to take away the tricycle 

and let Trevor try a real bike, I say, 

He’s not ready. That third wheel

is keeping him up, helping him gain 

his strength and work on his balance. 

She smiles, and does not say what she’s thinking, 

Really, Steve, is that the best you got?

I know my argument is thin 

and this isn’t about him riding a bike 

without the safety provided by a third wheel,

but about what I’m willing to risk, 

to let go of.

Steve Cushman has published three novels, including Portisville, winner of the 2004 Novello Literary Award. His first full-length collection, How Birds Fly, won the 2018 Lena Shull Book award. Cushman’s latest poetry collection, The Last Time, was published in 2023. 

Freed by Dissonance  

I saw heaven in the habitat before me.

In stillness I surveyed scenery. 

Soundly, you slept. 

Uneasy, I explored with soft eyes.

Studies enlightened me. 

You sensed it; tectonic plates shifted.

My fingertips crept up mountains and into valleys.

They wove through paper white birch stubble; 

a ghost forest, echoing lacerating verbiage.

My lips scraped across your crater rim; 

a volcanic shaft that spewed pestilent proclamations.

Blinded by vog, I stumbled in dizzying dissonance

over furrows of fury,

scars of shamelessness,

wrinkles of regret.

Ages had sculpted your barren, sand-scorched scalp; 

sediment filling follicles,

suffocating roots, 

new shafts no longer springing.

Twisted thickets accentuated seductive cenote pools.

Surrendering, I slipped bare into their openings,

swiftly seared by stares of scorching blue.

Vapor that once warmed my body

now encased me with hoar frost;

freezing needles impaled me, 

immobilized me.

Deep canals that once heard my pleas 

became impenetrable with pernicious brambles.

Earth’s crust cracked, 

slipping from lava-blistered flesh

rubbed raw from a forced façade.

The surface rupture ripped wider,

flinging me,

freeing me

from a biosphere where I never belonged.

Tracy Ahrens lives just south of Chicago, Illinois, and has been a journalist/writer for over thirty years. She has published ten books, including two non-fiction works, five children’s books, and three books of poetry. As of 2026 she had earned over 130 writing awards. See her website at www.tracyahrens.weebly.com. 

Ecclesiastes 1:18

But in much wisdom is much grief
and growth of knowledge is sorrow.
To learn is to know this world is brief,
and in such wisdom is much grief,
for knowledge offers no relief
from the end that is ours tomorrow,
so in much wisdom is much grief
and growth of knowledge is sorrow.

Song of Songs 8:6

But love is as strong as death
and passion fierce as the grave.
Wisdom is to kiss each breath,
for love is as strong as death
and hesitance a shibboleth
of our fears. Oh, be brave,
for love is as strong as death
and passion fierce as the grave.

Brian McAllister is a retired academic who lives and writes in rural southern Georgia. Recent
poetry has appeared in Autumn Sky, Ancient Paths, Red Eft, and others. 

The Sides

Part One— I Hear You

No worries. I hear you.

I feel your breath—

though mine has nowhere to go.

I only want to know

why you say that,

that no one is around,

and you are alone.

You are not alone.

I hear you.

I am where your voice arrives

and cannot stay.

It means we are not dead, yet—

at least, not both of us.

Part Two— If You Hear Me

Tell me that you are alive.

Tell me there is life again,

that we will meet some sunny,

or a dark and rainy day.

I am alone here. Loneliness is a kind of insanity.

I feel my own cold breath—

not on my skin, but somewhere

the walls remember.

Even the silence repeats my fears.

Maybe it means none of us are dead yet.

If you hear me, give me a sign.

Love is that sign, I know now.

When love is gone, we all will go.

The Sides  – Explanation 

The structure and the concept of the poem mirror the connection between the two realities. It is clean and intentional. For example, in part one, we see the clear emotional condition of a spirit on the other side— and its certainty, calm, presence. In part two, we see longing, doubt, and reaching.

The titles of the parts of this work already create tension: hearing vs. hoping to be heard. That’s a strong conceptual spine. One thing that works especially well is how both parts circle the same ideas: breath, voice, presence, aloneness, but from opposite sides of existence. 

One voice knows, the other hopes. The voices and the emotional logic feel grounded in part one, when we see the monologue of a spirit from the other side, almost steady in its awareness of death. Part two feels human in the best way—slightly fragmented. Part one reassures without fully comforting, and part two asks without receiving a clear answer. That symmetry is what gives the poem life. Imagery and motifs are built as a quiet system of echoes. This is cohesive and effective. Nothing feels random. 

The poem has the emotional and conceptual anchors—everything else orbits them, and everything depends on the poet’s intention—right now, it gives closure from the human side, because the relationship between the two parts is where the poem really succeeds. Part one says: a connection exists.

Part two asks: prove it. And the reader sits in the gap between them. 

The poem doesn’t try to resolve the distance between the two voices—and that’s exactly why it works. It trusts the reader to feel the connection without closing the gap. Only love can do that. 

David Dephy is an award-winning American poet, novelist, and multimedia artist. He is the founder of Poetry Orchestra. Named Poet-in-Residence for Brownstone Poets for 2024-2026, Dephy was exiled from his native country of Georgia and was granted indefinite political asylum in the U.S. He lives and works in New York.

Incomprehension

I have lost the energy to smooth 

the shape of my body from my bed, 

and I miss the January air's nifty trick 

of filling itself with falling snow. 

The girl across the alfalfa field climbed silos 

to consider the heavens and her own 

ten thousand impossible hereafters. She said, 

The shards of starts shelter in improbable places. 

The mourning doves she loved never landed 

because the waters of Noah never receded.

They kept going more and more over the earth. 

The waters resembled an unending river 

but no one could find a bend, so we learned 

to walk the floor of a flood. Even now, 

fish cluster like asters and the shadows of birds 

rush past on the surface far above us. Older folks 

talk about how lucky we are, how it beats all hell 

to sit at the bottom of a river just watching the rain fall, 

but you can't see rainbows this far underwater.

Jacob Grussing works in county government in Shakopee, Minnesota, where he lives with his wife, children, and dog. 

Longing Covers Me Like an Old Blanket

Longing covers me like an old blanket,

Comforting, yet worn by anguish.

The strain of union and separation 

Tears at the threads of this fragile loom.

This partnership is frayed;

Uncertainty unravels 

What holds me steady

As I press toward the Divine.

I yearn to be skillfully woven,

A tapestry made whole

By hands offering steady love.

Yet, I am the one who tears at the bond,

Fearing loss of self,

While God fastens each stitch,

Drawing me closer.

Encounter with Acorn

Walking on a bed of fallen leaves,

I suddenly notice you on the trail.

Bathing in sunlight, you prepare

To open yourself to a new level of awareness,

A moment when your shell falls away

And you begin your journey toward the sky.

I sense a profound intelligence

Delighting in removing your shell,

Freeing you to embrace your true identity,

A glorious tree one hundred feet tall.

I am aware of God breathing

As I hold you in my palm,

Each breath a beacon of the infinite intelligence

That will direct your majestic growth.

Tears fall softly on my face

As I recognize the intimate bond we share;

God’s love urges us to shed our shells

And express our vast life force

With courage and integrity.

David Block is a poet and retired nonprofit executive director whose work explores themes of mysticism, spirituality, and the human search for divine connection. His recent poems draw from contemplative practice and devotion, seeking to illuminate the presence of God’s love in everyday life. David's poetry appears in several issues of Soul Forte: A Journal for Spiritual Writing.

Slay Me, My Maker

Slay me, my maker, when you are through with me;
remove my shadow from the sun.
Do not cast a tender blow,
thy mighty force be done.
My resting place will be of no matter;
No peace, no comfort yet.
A potter’s grave will serve me well,
where wretches pay their debts.

Descending from the darkened skies,
where burning air halts breath,
will be hordes of angels in disguise;
they’ll poke and prod us yet.
They’ll strike their swords upon our hearts;
we’ll bleed but never die.
For lo, it is the wretch’s fate
to linger and survive.

Back in the earth where life is dead,
yet where the life survives,
the lives of wretches put on hold—
half‑buried, half alive.

I’ll keep company with the wretch—
why must he go alone?
What makes me one to feel the sun,
and him to give the groan?

Slay me, my maker, when you are through with me;
bring out your mighty sword.
Wipe my blood with a wretch’s cloth,
sacrifice be my reward.

Lessie Ehrhardt is a poet based in Charleston, South Carolina. Lessie writes poetry attentive to life’s journey, transformation, and moral resilience. Her work seeks to offer clarity and empowerment amid darkness, honoring endurance, faith, and human dignity. She values restraint, ethical seriousness, and language that bears witness while remaining hopeful forward.