Three Poems by Joan E. Cashin

 

Morning Rush

 

Clouds in the sky, tugging, 

leaping into the dawn 

like birds gone fey, gone, 

laughing and diving into the sun. 

 

Traffic in waves, surging, 

collapsing, is this what we meant, 

crossing the bridge alive with intent, 

racing, the race nearly done. 

 

The unsettled souls flinging, 

flailing across the serene 

stone of this bridge, did we really mean 

down the long highway alone? 

 

 

Plastic Bag Stuck in a Tree

 

It begs for interpretation, definition:

is it a brown flag, lashing back and forth, 

calling for a lost country, 

a lung wheezing in and out, 

or a captive bird, wings taped, 

crying for help? 

 

It is all of these things, 

and none of them. 

Detritus from a warming world, 

and another warning, unheeded. 

 

 

Lives of Former Athletes

 

The bright morning is over, the team is gone, 

the solo afternoon is here. 

Decades of dyed hair and budgets lie ahead, 

early marriage, bad marriage, neglected children, 

feeling betrayed as their bodies thicken

and decay from within, how did this happen, 

they can only wonder, the heavy breathing 

after a single flight of stairs.  

They labor through the ordinary days, 

slow and sad, at the mercy of time, as 

they dream of dolphins leaping over water.

Joan E. Cashin writes from the Midwest, and she has published in many journals, such as RIGGWELTER, ARIEL CHART, AMETHYST REVIEW, POETRY MONTHLY, and WRITING IN A WOMAN'S VOICE.  

  

 

Seven Poems by John Drudge

 

Clandestine Grace

 

A gentle touch

Igniting fires

In the gaps

Of resonant silence

Ensnared by desire

Intensely burning

Consuming

Elusively whispering

Through birth and demise

With our eyes reflected

In the splintered mirrors

Of fractured time

In forgotten epochs

And the illusion of lines

Through eternal space

Over the sound

Of broken notes

With a sudden

Clandestine grace

And a new-found communion

In a wilderness

Of words

Muse

 

My ultimate muse

My perpetual

Work in progress

You peel things

In the dark

And wait

Owl

 

Wisdom comes

In quiet moments

Gentle wings

On wayward winds

Soft callings

Guiding sharp eyes

Through dark forests

With the silence

Of an owl

Shimmering

 

In the moonlit air

Thick with possibility

In the jazz-filled nights

Along the river

Down long corridors

Of souls alight

Beneath the surface

Of ourselves

Where heartbeats

And dreams

Stoke shimmering fires

And we chase

The gilded mirrors

Of endless running

Beneath a new

Wolf moon

Reflected

Union

 

Absolute

In the search

For reality

Pale blue powder

In the morning light

Doors creaking open

Insight through attention

Captured

In a kiss

Under wild moons

And the union

Of the spirit

With the flesh

Unseen

 

Melancholic notes

Symphonies of longing

In dimly lit corners

Of cafes

Where unspoken dreams

Reside

And emotions bloom

With fragile petals

In silence

Cutting verse

Across night skies

Within the echoes

Of hope

And promises

Unfulfilled

Weavers

 

Savage jungles

Lovers prowling

Ravenous instinct

Dragging

Gripping

A saviour

And our undoing

A wilderness

Of untamed forces

Beneath lost language

And the intricacies

Of secret souls

And the endless weaving

Of being

John Drudge is a social worker working in the field of disability management and holds degrees in social work, rehabilitation services, and psychology. He is the author of five books of poetry: “March” (2019), “The Seasons of Us” (2019), New Days (2020), Fragments (2021), and A Long Walk (2023). His work has appeared widely in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies internationally. John is also a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children.

Poetic Voice (and the Breath of Good Intention) - Essay by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

 

Poetic Voice (and the Breath of Good Intention)

 

                              The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  

                                                                   It is the source of all true art and science.  

                                                                                                          --Albert Einstein 

In the beginning was the word and it was borne on the breath of Spirit. Just how that spark of spirit is born within us, how it is nurtured by our impressions, sculpted into phrases, how it is shaped-- its rhythm and language-- remains unknown. At what moment does it slip from our lips, does it flow as a river from our hearts, ink from our minds. How exactly does it unfold on that brilliant horizon, that full moon of revelation.

 

Like any good messenger, the word falls away once it has delivered the meaning. It is the beauty of the meaning that resonates and endures. And, while all writing is a testimony of the human condition, poetry has the potential to awaken in us that dream which is most deep and profound. Who among us does not wish to realize a dream. Are we not all dreams realized—the dust of memory, the stuff that dreams are made of, the same DNA that we share with the stars? Are not all words born of imagination, illumination. Yet, poetry, unlike prose whose light is more direct, doesn’t spell everything out. It’s light, also reflective, is more indirect. We seem to glean meaning from it on an intuitive plane As in a condensation not unlike the conversion of a liquid to a vapor, it is a distilled wisdom.

 

Poetry is, after all, translation. It translates the same language to a new language… offers another way of saying the same thing, keys into associations and remembrances using metaphor, imagery, rhyme and rhythm. Like music, it evokes and is both familiar and strange. It is a key that opens a portal to the unconscious and helps us to understand on some scale without fully comprehending. Each of us holds remembrances, emotions, feelings hidden in darkness; developed and created as in a photographer’s darkroom destined to be born into light. Eager to be given a name. Some of the most obscure phrases can unlock the unconscious mind offering us a glimpse of light that might otherwise remain veiled. And, thus, poetry reigns in the world of the visibly Invisible. I am reminded that stars still shine even when we cannot see them.

 

Paradox is like that--neither this nor that—it both enlightens and obscures… remains in some way a mystery. Its strength is its vulnerability. The most powerful of words are airborne on the fragile breath of spirit. There is something so magical about language, especially in that moment when we connect with word's meaning --when everything is in alignment--the meaning of the word, the breath of good intention, the willingness to be open. There is a kind of holy synchronicity that occurs. It' s very much like being in a sacred space and receiving communion. This feeling which unites all people, no matter what our belief. Vibration—that which we, like meteors, fall short of putting into words.

 

As we invent through the vehicle of the word, we ourselves are reinvented by the word . In the beginning was the word... and with it came the SOUND! The sound of creation. Every time we utter a word-- be it spoken or written--we are recreating the world , our world--inspiring change and transformation. We have only to find our voice.

 

In bygone days I believe that there was more of an intention to write something beautiful. I think we’d all like to write something of beauty, but what is considered beautiful is evolving while it remains the same. Today, there is more poetry that is confessional as we want to better understand ourselves and the world around us. And, in these modern times, we are a little less inhibited and feel more free to express ourselves. We are also ever-aware of the possibility of being censored. Remember poor Federico Garcia Lorca. Nonetheless, we continue to strive to write something meaningful, something that imparts truth and, if one is fortunate, something that imparts wisdom. But, in order to effect change through language, it is important to be authentic, to originate, to present that which is no longer familiar so that one is forced to look through new eyes. Sometimes just by changing the order of the words one becomes more conscious and is able to see the world through another perspective. I recall what e.e. cummings said in one of my favourite poems of his : i thank you God for most this amazing day –that’s the first line... and the last two:

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

 

Sometimes, I like to think… now the eyes of my ears awake, now the ears of my eyes are opened. What would it be like to be that mindful?! To have that much empathy! One of the things poetry does for you is to put yourself in someone else s place. It nurtures empathy and compassion. This is badly needed in the world and no small thing. Everyone has a voice that needs to be heard.

While I love the written word on the page, I am reminded that intonation was our first language and am moved by the sympathetic vibration of the spoken. Both celebrate language and the human spirit. I also believe it is important to try to reach people, to speak our truth, to move people to change, I believe we can lift our voices towards that end--lift our spirits. There is something so elementally transformative about language-- when it comes alive.... and people, as well, in the creative process. How, when it is sounded through the instrument of the voice and the human emotional cadence and timbre, it opens so many windows and doors within.

Like most of you, I am drawn to attempting to solve the why and wherefore of Life's meaning. I want to know!! haha. Please tell me where the sky begins... and where it ends. Most of us have the desire to catch a glimpse of light, the familiar in the Unknown.  Perhaps, there is only ever a very thin horizon which separates us from one another The words communion. communication. community come to mind. What is communion other than finding a oneness, a wholeness , a witness. A connection.

 

Word is an extension of thought and expression—a good part of what makes us very human . Trying to connect to people, to meaning effects healing and change. Even when we are standing still we are still moving and wishing to be moved... to get somewhere. And, if you don't image (imagine) a place for yourself somewhere on the Large Screen of life, in the Larger Picture, you get left behind. That's why they call it Moving Pictures. For life is not a dead noun but a living verb. Love not just love, but loving. Loving is Everything. You may go a thousand miles and get nowhere… or never leave your room and yet traverse an entire Universe. The more significant home we carry is within our hearts-- love, kindness, a sense f humor. The humility to accept the challenge of darkness, to transform and be transformed. Perhaps, we are not so unlike word, itself ---the light we are buried in?

 

We are kept in the dark about so many things, whether for political reasons, personal or other unknown . Dark knows we are afraid of it. Wants only to be loved. Why not consider Dark our darkroom and give birth to ourselves? Turn negatives into positives by developing our perceptions. Be more capable of change and experience ourselves as being moved from fear to love. There is something about the duty of caring for the soul and realizing its potential. Humanity. It is one of the reasons I write, one of the reasons I go to listen to others. To you. I can't wait to hear your voice--what you have to say, to sing, next from your minds and hearts. Baring one's soul takes courage, but it is one of the most transformative experiences one can have. Be it written or spoken, whether from near or far, no matter who you are, we may all take comfort in the knowledge that we go our separate ways together. May we do it mindfully... and with grace.

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko was first introduced on the BBC and to the literary world by the legendary James Meary Tambimuttu of Poetry London–-publisher of T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Henry Miller and Bob Dylan, to name a few.  his death, it was his friend, the late great Kathleen Raine, who took an interest in her writing and encouraged her to publish.  A nominee for the Pushcart Prize, The Best of the Net, and a former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion, she is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (which she represents France) and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the recipient of two grants: one from Poets in Need, of which Michael (100 Thousand Poets for Change) Rothenberg is a co-founder; the second—the 2018 Generosity Award bestowed on her by Kathleen Spivack and Joseph Murray for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she is Writer/ Poet in Residence.  Her selected poems On the Way to Invisible is forthcoming in 2024.

Four Poems by Gregg Norman

 

ORCAS

 

Everything happens in whispers

Reverence is required

By seascapes, thick fogs, eagles

Paddling out of Port Hardy

In a kayak

Getting the hang of it

 

Clifftop monitoring station

With underwater mics

Recording  whale music

Ghost singers named and numbered

Pods as distinct as clans

Residents and transients

 

Camped above a narrow gravel beach

Tenting in the night-dark trees

Awakened by wet breathing

They’re right off the shingle

Spy-hopping, eyes bright

Watching us watching them

 

Next morning one comes paddle close

I’m well beyond reverence

Beyond wonder beyond awe

It glides under the kayak

Silence is black and white

I hold a prayer in my mouth

 

 

OVER AMARILLO

 

Flying in over Amarillo

Over a polka dot yellow-green

Landscape of irrigation pivots

Feedlots full of cattle

In a cornfed mosaic of man’s folly

 

Cows and corn drink deeply

Of water that can only come

From below the fertilized ground

The Ogallala Aquifer

One of the world’s largest

 

Giving up its gifts

Faster than manic man

Can restock its shallow shelves

Green wheels of growing

Round pegs in square holes

 

Land bone-dry but for

Subterranean water

How many years of drought this time

The numbers in and out

Don’t match up

 

I land to meet

Two good old boys

In boots and hats

To talk a little ‘bidness’

Over beans and barbeque

 

Bellies full

Toothpicks chewed

We study fading midday light

Dark clouds race in low

Filling the diner’s window

 

Scattered fat droplets

Become a sheet of wrinkled water

On the glass

The old boys walk to the window

“Look, Charlie, she’s rainin’”.

 

 

BADLANDS BOOGIE

 

Hoodoos rise

on voodoo’d shafts

Toadstool tops

tense with anticipation

waiting on the wind

in a bomb crater

of natural causes

Frost wedging

row on row

of sloped schisms

on sidewalls

Cathedral spired

Glacier-worn gullies

Cactus pebbled

flat butte tops

for fire-dancing

the Badlands Boogie

Fire piled pyre high

Pagans stomp and shuffle

in alluvial dust

backs bent

arms akimbo

wide as wings

tranced moon howling

Luna reflecting

dead sun’s light

Coyote gopher snake

prey of birds of prey

sneak squeak and slither below

where man’s foot fears

the Devil’s domain

 

 

COUNTING RADISHES

 

I loved gardening when I was left alone

to do it the way I wanted to do it,

to plant too many radishes,

to thin then with pinching fingers,

pull weeds and water them

and count them into a bowl

like it was a religious practice,

something I actually believed in.

Lots of exotic seeds I planted

didn’t grow or grew up weird

like I grew weird about what I was doing.

At least that’s the way some saw me,

because I was young

and had no business

loving a garden.

Gregg Norman is a recovering  lawyer who lives in a lakeside cottage in Manitoba, Canada. He reads and writes poetry every day to maintain his frail grip on reality. His work has appeared in Lothlorien Poetry Journal and has been accepted by Horror Sleaze Trash. He is also the author of four novels and a novella.

Five Poems by Karen A VandenBos

 

Luminescence

 

I sit on shore on a windless

night where the sea of glass

comes alive, the luminescent

green of ctenophores rising

to the call of the moon.

I applaud you for this daring

display for I know the tiniest

movement will rip your fragile

bodies to shreds.  You must

trust the waters to be silent.

Tonight I will stay with you,

be one with this stillness and

pray the stars will be the only

things that move.

 

 

Wish You Were Here

 

On this blood warm night when

swamp waters caress the roots of

cypress trees I will cast off all my

inhibitions and dance naked under

a moon softened by ghosts.  I will

make a mud pie for you and feed

it to the stars and wish that you

were here.

 

 

A Force of Nature

 

Struck by lightning thirteen times

her smile has an unearthly glow.

For fun she wrestles with bears

and teaches the wolves to howl

at the moon.  Her words are the

force of hurricane winds, her hair

the color of rainbows.  She gave

to DaVinci a secret code and

taught Mona Lisa how to smile.

With a sneeze she empties the

lakes of water and rearranges

landscapes.  At night she stitches

the stars together with the threads

of spiders and creates her own

galaxy.  While she sleeps, her

snores send the tumbleweeds

tumbling and set the canyons

on fire.  Her dreams cause feral

cats to stagger and opossum to

play dead.  She plays hopscotch

on lily pads that float in the river

and she travels the oceans in

the belly of a whale.  On nights

when the sun never sets she

will fly on the back of a dragon

and embellish her own myth.

 

 

At the Edge of Death

 

Write the motherfucking poem.

The one about how you wanted

 

to dig up the dead and steal the

secrets buried in their pockets

 

and write them in the dirt.

 

Tell us how you have wanted to

shake death from your bones,

 

place death's ashes in your pipe

and watch them rise on tendrils

 

of smoke that ricochet off the

moon and are reborn as stars.

 

Then tell us that all you really

wanted to do was sit at the edge

 

of death, gasp as what remains

and bury it in a simple poem.

 

 

(After the line “write the motherfucking

poem” from poem “Threnody” by

Diane Seuss in her book “Modern Poetry.”)

 

 

Rattled

 

Behind the peeling green door on Bowery Street

is the Den of Hair and the stage of Medusa which

she opened after the snakes shed their skin and her

eyes lost their demonic glow.

 

Stoners and punks are drawn to her, hypnotized by

her weirdness. They know for the cost of a few

scary moments they can have their hair kneaded,

twisted, frizzed, fried, wind blown, beaded, coiled

and more.

 

With her flair for experimentation she sends them out

the door looking like they have just been through a car

wash in an electrical storm, transformed and transformers.

 

After hours the bands plug in ready to shed some skin. 

The crowd begins cheering and chanting Dylan's anthem

about “everybody must get stoned” when Medusa herself

walks on stage.

 

Grabbing the microphone she screams her latest hit:

 

      “You thought you broke me so I played along

        I let you believe you were the reason for this song.

       You used me, abused me, kept me alive until my

        eyes saw through you and my hair began to writhe.

        Betrayed by your lust, you gave me snakes and

        stone but I will shred your evil and make it my own”.

    

At closing time when the venom of snakes and sweat ooze

ringlets around her face, Medusa puts on her sunglasses

and watches her adoring fans slither out the door, their hair

rattled, her lyrics carved in stone. 

Karen A VandenBos was born on a warm July morn in Kalamazoo, MI. She has a PhD in Holistic Health where a course in shamanism taught her to travel between two worlds.  She can be found unleashing her imagination in two online writing groups. A Best of the Net nominee, her writing has been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Blue Heron Review, The Rye Whiskey Review, One Art: a journal of poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Ekphrastic Review, Southern Arizona Press, MacQueen's Quinterly, Moss Piglet, Panoply, Peninsula Poets and others.