Welcome

“We live in a perpetually burning building” 

— Tennessee Williams

you live in a perpetually burning building

but you can decide

flames of wrath

or of love

it’s better to burn

than to be extinguished

remember

in Dante

hell is cold

to sit

in this fiery

impossible bush

that makes

the desert holy

and to grind out your name

in a still small voice

whenever

a prophet passes

only this

to exist

to say I AM

the word

that means nothing

but

yes

Dreams

I used to dream of prisons, of windowless walls

and doors kept closed. I couldn’t even 

want to leave. When I was released,

I went back, and locked the door again.

I used to dream of blindness, of being

unable to open my eyes. There was light,

but I couldn’t see it with lids stuck shut.

It was painful to try, so I stopped.

I used to dream of losing my luggage,

of missing flights and trains and buses,

of mixed-up messages sending me running

in a thousand directions, all wrong.

I don’t want to dream like that any more.

I want a calm midnight with one bright star

to gaze at, trusting the glow of dawn

will lift me out of the dark.

Let this be my dream from this night onward:

space, and light, and peace.

In and out

We start with our heart

outside us, cupped in the embryo’s curve.

A giant head looks quizzically

at this small scrap of flesh,

a tiny period poised to answer

the questions of the brain.

What do they say? What dialogue

can they have in utter darkness?

What flows between, as heart floats free,

not yet bound and subdued?

Now my heart’s inside me, and I feel it

fluttering like a desperate bird

against the ribs of its cage,

or thumping dull as a prisoner

marking the march of days.

Head’s in command now, the only one

allowed to look from the fortress top,

telling the rest of me how to conquer

the hostile world out there.

Heart, come out.

Let me see how you live

outside me, everywhere in the world,

how your rhythm connects me to all of life

and beats in the sun and the sea.

Head, you quit knowing

you know everything.

You’re not a full stop. You have a tail –

the curving body that never ends

but points to the universe.

Open up. Be a comma, a question mark. 

Let’s start listening again.

About the author

Lory Widmer Hess currently lives in northwestern Switzerland, where she enjoys hiking in the mountains and eating excessive amounts of cheese. Her writing has been published in Parabola, Interweave Knits, Kosmos Quarterly, Enchanted Conversation, Ruminate: The Waking, and other print and online publications. She blogs at enterenchanted.com. 

Relative Closeness

I searched for you in the crowd,

A moving wall of coats, necks, and eyes

Looking past me across the square.

I saw your hair,

But it was on another woman’s head.

I saw your jacket moving away from me

But it was on someone else instead.

Heard your voice, remote

In another couple’s conversation,

And didn’t recognize you 

Smiling from the curbside,

Until you crossed the street

Toward me.

Separated by the Atlantic,

We reconnect at Christmas

With a few lines written on a small card,

And when we met,

“It has been years!”

We couldn’t stop talking.

Untangling ourselves from 

Confusion in 

A long pause.

You sat opposite me

At a small table,

And you misunderstood my question.

You answered in one word,

And there was silence,

Like a fence between us.

I pulled up in the narrow lane

Left amidst construction

Of separate lives.

Praise

Praise the falling leaves.

They are not the white oak’s grey tears.

Praise the one who offers help.

Praise the one found in prayer

Whose tree surmounts our fears.

Grandad’s Wardrobe

Hung in grandad’s wardrobe

Finely tailored threads are

Creased with a serious frown.

A God-like pose 

At the head of a projected future.

Hanging out in grandad’s wardrobe

Secure in the dark of the past

I wear out my thin life

Chafing against the present.

Resisting her sweet laughter.

She got out of Grandad’s wardrobe.

She is present.

Naked, rather than nude

Sacred, rather than rude

Stalking a future conjured out of clay.

Outside grandad’s wardrobe

Frolicking in the hay.

She is mother to the day,

Born out of what we say.

Growing out of pain into play.

About the author

Tony Bates grew up in different parts of the world following his father’s postings in the Foreign Service. Now living in Alexandria, Virginia, he is a retired government bureaucrat, house husband, part time writer, gardener, and community volunteer. He is both a self-styled “Citizen of Nowhere” and a concerned citizen of this remarkable country. 

Potato Famine 1840

Go --
Carry our love and starving dreams
Hold onto the rosary -- it reminds you of who you are
    and Who our God is

Expect fear and anger
Do not be seduced by hatred -- yours or theirs
Return kindness -- and meanness -- with kindness
    Share whatever you gather

Re-story what impoverishes your soul
Discover what wealth is truly
Remember you were a stranger
    Welcome the stranger

Home

Praying the Holy in Anger

May Anger ground me in the Real
      Earth speaks -- I am 

May Anger purify my troubled heart
      Fire speaks -- I wake

May Anger clear confusing mind
      Air speaks -- I perceive

May Anger couple together
     Water speaks -- I gather

May Anger proceed from wisdom
      Soul speaks -- I act

May Anger blossom with trust
      Spirit speaks -- I release

The Silence of a Mystic

The silence of a mystic
Is the space

Between words

In every poem

No space       no meaning
No meaning        no mystery
No mystery       no music
No music        no poem

Jan. 6/Epiphany

Their god,

a broken child 

becomes a breaking man,

clung to the sweet stink of power,

and called forth violent worship --

flags, guns, crosses, noose.

While others,

in wisdom,

surrendered

before the small and infinite One

this shocking, vulnerable love --

gold, frankincense, myrrh, self.

Every day

I must choose

my Epiphany.

About the Author

Ruah Bull is a poet and spiritual director whose calling is to incarnational spirituality and the contemplative path. 

An Invitation

I invite you into my sanctum

to openly avow

my past, skirt the truth

no longer, become more

trusting, transparent, 

share shocking secrets

to escape the suffocating 

omerta of polite society, 

then strip away the colorful

mantle that hides

my chiaroscuro,

fragile membranes prone

to breaking, spilling

darkness—    

and challenge you

to react freely, expose

your self, unashamed.

About the Author

Miriam Louis is a native of New York. She has also lived in Israel, Japan, and Washington, DC, her current home. While overseas she started teaching English as a Second Language, which became her profession. Most of her life she has been writing poetry, leading up to a collection called increments.

To Be With You

There is a curtain, invisible yet present

Separating the dream of ego

From the breadth of now

Separating the world of objects and pomp

From stillness and being.

Sometimes we move in and out of the curtain

Rolling like a marble

Like an indecisive child.

The choice, however, though it be a practice

Is clear.

I had the opportunity to sit by your deathbed

And experience

The silent choir of angels.

You gifted me with that blessing.

Let me be your honorable friend

On this, most peaceful side

Of the curtain.

Stained, Innocent Child

You laid out your royal flush

For all the kings to see

And hear

And touch.

You played your favorite song on the jukebox

More than once.

You, the fool,

You, the righteous,

You, the caged

The feral the free

Never failing to fall through the widening gap.

Every crack an opportunity

A narrative

A jewel embedded in the flesh?

You will rise

My stained, innocent child

You will rise.

A  Psalm

You can proceed now

You can proceed

Do good deeds now

Do good deeds

Devil will recede now

Will recede

To worship the lie is to bleed now

Is to bleed. 

The Lord is my refuge

The air I breathe

The nature I perceive

The Lord is my everywhere

And at all times

Please allow my desire to be with you

Be received by your light

Allow me into your home

Under the wings

Of a sparrow.

About the Author

Judy Gershon  is a writer and peer counselor in Mt. Vernon, New York.  Throughout the years Judy has been a singer/songwriter, actor and performer and has toured with a traveling theatre troupe.  More recently she has pursued the field of peer counseling and is currently working as a peer mentor in Mt. Vernon, New York.  She believes that poetry is a channel for the essential voice of our eternal being and is a light on the path to truth.

Mud-bound

The first step is to remove your shoes.

Nothing is more freeing 

than the introductory squish 

between the toes, the ground

remembering you with its lover’s kiss. 

That magic mixed from liquid and lack—

a gift for the black-winged beauties 

to baptize their tongues. 

Even the pigs understand. Nothing 

feels better than slosh, or ooze, 

rolling along the lips, cooling 

the flesh smooth with melted brown silk.             

There’s no reason to fear 

the worms. When time comes

for them to crawl, 

your body no longer minds.

Petrified 

Oh love, what would you know 

of deserts? You’re chasing a mirage, 

craving steady rains, afraid of what 

may happen once the veins begin to parch. 

You never learned to dig, to see 

beneath the prickly pear, unaware

that endless rivers pulse beneath 

dried and ancient lakes. 

Lean in—

your ears speak the secret: 

Our people rose from salt. Remember

wrinkled faces weather-worn, wind-

whipped by time and circumstance? 

Did you know we no longer bleed?

Listen, my child. You must get still.

You must learn to stand in the burning—

to let it all burn, until your mask melts 

and your skin peels away, revealing 

the white glow underneath. Only then 

can we show you the secrets of bones. 

Only then can we teach you

how to drink from the stars.

Exodus 

It’s been three days since the burning 

and the bush has not stopped speaking.

I wake to rustling—an offer of winds

to guide me through the change, my shoulders 

weary from the long haul up the mountain.

The air is strange, that mysterious shade 

of morning, when at first glance no one can tell 

if it’s dawn or dusk. The moon is still alive, 

waning, but alive nonetheless, gathering herself 

into an invisible thin line—so light,

she slips inside my pocket, 

directions for the new voyage home.

I can feel the heat, now a pleasant warmth 

spreading. The way coffee’s bitter sip  

soothes, or the hum of horns, honey-sweet, 

dripping in the distance—familiar delicacies 

rising up from below. The flames begin 

to lick my feet, but no matter.

I’m on my way, and this time, 

I’m my own damn savior.

About the Author

Kelsey D. Mahaffey rests her head most nights in Tennessee but keeps half her heart in New Orleans. She currently walks the Earth barefoot beside two of her favorite humans and a geriatric cat. Her work can be seen in Eunoia Review, Cumberland River Review, and at Minera Rising Press.

The Internist

The internist called one night before the solstice.

She said osteosarcoma and radiation

(I know, at least, where the words

come from). 

                       From the heated seat

of the dinged-up Subaru I was too busy

to lead you into I said 

inoperable, and then

dignity.

           She was relieved. Said if she were

my dog, and right thing (underneath: I 

just want to go home.) Knowing, not 

knowing, I could afford that radiation.

You could not.

Dry Creek

Your pads still in the snow:

glass on cornflower;

sea holly that never

came up in the backyard

after that stupid ash tree

crushed the back balcony.

So it’s not just me holding

your foreleg above the first joint to 

ease your passage. 

                       Beneath

the snowpack, the dry creek

is melting. 

           God always takes

the best of everything.

Why God Made Greeks With Such Big Noses

My daughter would say: you went out.

I felt the sea-breath of your passage

like that time before you were born

and we descended into the valley

of psalakantha; windows down;

necks out; surpassing

jasmines, emergences of Aphrodite, all the rebetika 

of Asia Minor—

                    when we dream of America

this is what we dream.

Radiation

First sunrise without 

you; trees wear robes 

of glass. Branch

to node. Light

of a billion

suns.

About the Author

Mara Inglezakis is a poet and informatician with a background in practical epistemology and vocal music. Writing about faith, generational trauma, and sexuality, she lives in the Midwestern United States.