Welcome

Flaming Katy

From my rotting body, flowers shall grow,
and I am in them and that is eternity.
— Edvard Munch

It was your hale and graceful limbs
that bound me to you,
hands stretched out in benediction
basking in a canopy of verdant shade
your florid face uplifted catching
ripening streaks of morning light.

They called you Flaming Katy
like the potted Kalanchöe,
inflorescent, always blooming
a demure and scalloped collar
faithful smile year in, year out.
I would bend to brush your garland,
reddish mantle quickening my touch,
your scent a clean and springlike balm,
a thread of freshly meadowed grass.

Seasons, memorable days beside me,
perking up the nimble umbels of your arms
I would coax then whisper adulation,
watch you sip your noontime brew,
your complexion plumped and filling
into smoothly-luscious sheen.
Watch you lift your upturned chin
in bold assertion, sweep your wrists
in welcoming embrace.

And then, one day, a crook would mar
your once imposing framework

fronds of bloom would thin then fall
the glossy cheek would slowly wilt
statuesque spine would bend and droop.

And now, your spindly stems are dried and spent,
head bowed down in pained defeat
life-sap brittle, fire quenched, extinguished
color drained and dimming
right before my voiceless eyes.

One last cup, my mother, drink.
Let these tears sink deep into your roots.
Flesh out, bequeath just one last flower
one last tendril to press
into my everlasting keepsake book.

Yew Trimming

And the message of the yew tree
is blackness -- blackness and silence.
— Sylvia Plath, "The Moon and the Yew Tree"

Clumsy day — things slipping
from my ebbing grasp
the full hunter moon waning,
shrinking, growing smaller
squinting like a pinhole
in the burnished sky.

Clumsy trees — shedding needles
threads snapping on the frosty earth
floating weightlessly
like milk pods, falling, fraying,
missing their mark
as eyes grow thinner, weaker,
filmy veils cloaking what is seen
in a gauze of distant feeling.

Clumsy twilight — a yew shrub trimmed,

tips dropping off in furry nosegays
rustling dens of hidden birds’ nests
angry thrushes, jackdaws clacking indignation
ripe red berries smearing beaks, staining hands
with poison ox-blood, bitter, acrid penance.

Clumsy night — I lift the cup,
spilling drops of sedimented wine
salute to watch the sun’s rays
dropping, sinking, stretching out their arms
in welcoming embrace dipping slowly,
gold disk flailing, drowning,
swallowed by a wave of needles
scattering threads, torn,
shredded, tattered, unraveling —
forever missing their mark.

Author of both the debut novel Twelfth House and Shaded Pergola, a collection of short poetry with original illustrations, E. C. Traganas has published in over 100 literary magazines. She is a Juilliard-trained concert pianist and composer by profession, has held over forty nationally-curated exhibitions of her artwork, and is founding director of the New York-based literary forum Woodside Writers. 

Figs

Nineteen years later. Edith Wharton with their 

clothes off. Moments that close after us like

other people’s street-doors.

                                 He seems young, now,

umber-tan, smooth-shouldered, slouching 

shirtless in a cheap deck chair. Yiayia Filia and 

Aunt Lena fingering their cigarettes and 

grievances while he watches me

eat figs.

Greece is seeking the return of her sculpture

He watches me with the watching of a much older 

man. The perfection of his jawline; the indirect light 

from the white houses opposite the white street under

the white hot sky.

            You pull the bones out of the shadows with a

disposable camera: you capture desire 

on photostock. The frankness of his gaze 

sets fire to me again and 

twenty-nine-tonne Nike, headless, missing both arms,

takes flight from the top of her staircase 

at the Louvre.

Mara Inglezakis Owens dropped out of school ten years ago; she works in IT and lives in the

suburbs. She enjoys gardening, aviation, writing much, and publishing little.

The Greener

Is the grass always greener on the other side?
Is it only the play of light?
Is it hope seeking a place to hide?

Then the light of innocence was brisk in stride.
Easy was the climb up ladders of light.
Who cared if the grass was greener on the other side?

Then choices appeared paths narrow or wide.
Who will guide along the way that is right?
Or will it be hope driving to a place to hide?

Is there a darker green? Can colors collide
shadowing the path of uncertain delight?
Is the swallowing green on the other side?

Do paths matter narrow or wide?
Who knows where they end in the uncertain light
as hope drives to a place to hide.

Will the overgrown grass waver in the wind’s ride
across acres of those beneath, far beyond light?
In the dark is it grass or green on the other side?
Hope lied. There was no place to hide.

Pramod Lad was born in India, educated at King’s College in the UK, and completed his PhD in Biochemistry at Cornell University. He was a scientist at the National Institutes of Health. His poems have been accepted in The Examined Life Journal, Right Finger Pointing, Omentum, Eclectica Magazine, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Umbrella Factory, The Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Pennine Platform, Litbreak Magazine, and Amethyst Review. 

The Healer

The Healer has learned not to hurry
A seer of all illusions
she exists in the dreamtime
where hours minutes
days and years
are of scanty consequence

Verily gifted with ample grace and flow
Performing her essentially sentient
duties of assignment:
The laying on of zephyr hands, and
steadfast feet—stepping humbly, lithely
into alignment.

In loving concert with the
Divine rhythm of God's plan
The Healer is aware that
her cardinal purpose is ascension
And this is all, she knows—
she ever really needs to know. 

Cheryl Atim Alexander is an Afro-Euro woman, longtime spiritually oriented psychotherapist, social justice activist, and burgeoning creative writer. She is published in Decolonial Passage, Wilderness House Literary Review, Written Tales Magazine, Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press, Kalahari Review, and her work is forthcoming in Braided Way Magazine. 

Slowing down

What do I want as I approach 70

A slowing down

A looking back

A looking at the present

And the inevitabilities

no longer looking ahead for dreams

only back for accomplishments and joys

too many unknowns now

woven with illnesses and aging bodies

that cut into desirable paths

It’s funny not knowing what one wants

A great crevice. An abyss. Empty

and void of answers

A dying off of dreams like radiation’s

affect on my cancer cells

I’m stopped in the moment watching 

and holding each breath

I always knew what I wanted

No idea now

A complacency

or I don’t really care

whatever emerges

Craving some kind of flow

Wanting to be led

No longer want to lead

or decide

A sort of surrender

Just holding my pup seems like enough

Making rubber band bracelets

with grandchildren

Diana Raab, PhD, is a memoirist, poet, essayist, thought-leader, and speaker. She presents workshops in writing for healing and transformation. She holds a PhD in psychology with a concentration in transpersonal psychology with a research focus on the healing and transformative powers of memoir writing. Her educational background also includes health administration, nursing, and creative writing. 

Unfathomable

You have been gone for this long

That the entire world shut-down and reopened

Beyond repair and broken 

The Unknown

She automatically gained five pounds after crossing state lines

Swallowed and spat out by a sinkhole

Hypnotized by windshield wipers

The past hazy in the rearview mirror

The future approaching at 68 mph

The world once known fading into oblivion

Megan Coder has been an academic librarian for twenty years at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She enjoys nature, reading, and collecting small cute objects. 

Open

A friend’s father dies and in my search for words of comfort, I find myself looking for you.  On an evening walk, soul-aching music enters through my headphones, impelling you into my being. I am open. Will you come? A photo of me on the front steps contains you as well. Your granddaughter texts me to say, “B-ma is here.” She is sure. A stranger in a store asks me where I get my eyes. “My mom,” I state. “She’s been gone awhile.” “She speaks to you through us,” is his casual response, and now I know too.

In the evening, as I lay cradling a dog, his warm belly against my palms, the harumph of his breath, I thank you for coming back and reminding me of the profound goodbye. For the gift of holding everything all at once. The love and the loss. The gratitude and despair. The literal walk with life and death. The ephemeral and the eternal. For knowing how to stand alone without you while embracing the pain of being forced to. Your gift is a visit, as my wise niece declares, and I am here for it. I say yes to the possibilities and, at the same time, goodbye. Again and again.

Madeline Soglin teaches Pilates in New Jersey and is the proud owner of an award-winning studio, Madkat Pilates. A retired modern dancer, she began writing to fill the creative outlet void that dancing had once provided. Madeline has two grown sons and shares a home with her husband and four pets. 

The Answer is in Dew Drops

The droplet is just the ocean
The ocean is just the rain
A mystery that’s plain and yet hidden as a syllable
You will find it in the cell that claims to be skin
And forget it in the skin that claims to be you.

One morning I encountered a spider web
Full of dew drops reflecting dew drops reflecting dew
And though I understood that Indra was speaking
I did not understand what was meant
Then I looked to the ground and saw
A square mat composed of smaller squares,
That each square was no more or less square than
The mat itself
And I knew, then.

When you know this it doesn’t
Make everything like water.
It does
Show you that
Your skin is a liar, so you give it a caress

Listen

To do this, you should probably loosen
Your grip on your thoughts
Close your mouth
Even your ears.
Eyes can listen, so can noses
Bodies are the best at it
Chest softening towards embrace
Shoulders contracting at a sharp bang.
Dancing.

In this moment I can hear
What the tree outside my window is saying
As leaves clamor for attention
Inside the nursing home across the way
The drip of the IV, pulse of the heart monitor

Scuttle of a walker down the hallway
Memories of the 1930’s, prayers,
Great grandchildren asking to go home now

A plane flies above, fluttering strum of the engine
Tibetan prayer flags on my bookshelf sing blessings
Inside my ears, tambourine ringing in the sound of emptiness
Tires crunch upon gravel
I once saw waves of sound radiating from a lute flowing towards me
As rainbow light, was enveloped by it

The dog growls,
A siren

What if sound is the mother of luminosity, of matter?

Oooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmm

In the morning, the garbage truck will beep and rumble

Joy

In the way that petals offer themselves

In their exquisite unique cascade
Of sacred teardrop, triangle, cone
Their astonishing decree
Of periwinkle blue, fuschia, sunkiss yellow
Each species manifest succinctly as your own words
With just this to say

They seem to understand that the bee
Relies on them to present as source
Of nectar and pollen. A humble, faceted
Illustriousness in the strand
Of nourishment that has no end or beginning
Each jewel as precious as the next

Sunlight descends on leaves interwoven with chlorophyll
Waiting to consume and transform it
Into the stalk that continues to hold the leaf
Which gives rise to the shoot which gives rise to the bud
Which unfolds into the flower

This is how joy expresses itself
Even as petals brown,
Fall to the ground and are received
By earth to form new soil

Jeffrey Gianelli is a queer identified writer and psychotherapist who lives in Oakland, California. His poetry has been published in Braided Way Magazine and Penumbra Literary Journal. He is an ordained Buddhist minister and incorporates many different forms of spirituality into his life.