SONGS OF ERETZ POETRY REVIEW
SPRING 2021 "CIRCLES" ISSUE
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Editor-in-Chief
Steven Wittenberg Gordon
Art Editor
Jason Artemus Gordon
Associate Editor
Terri Lynn Cummings
Featured Frequent Contributors
Tyson West, John C. Mannone, & Charles A. Swanson
Additional Frequent Contributors
Gene Hodge, Karla Linn Merrifield, Vivian Finley Nida, James Frederick William Rowe, & Howard Stein
Biographies of our editorial staff & frequent contributors may be found on the "Our Staff" page
http://www.songsoferetz.com/p/about-our-editor-frequent-contributors.html.
Unless otherwise indicated, all illustrations are the work of our Art Editor or taken from "royalty-free" open internet sources.
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Table of Contents
A Letter from the Editor
Featured Poets
Ross Balcom — A Retrospective
The Poetry of Tyson West
The Poetry of John C. Mannone
The Poetry of Charles A. Swanson
Distinguished Guest Poets Vlora Konushevci & Arbër Selmani
Other Fine Poets
Guest Poet Donna Faulkner née Miller
“Cleansed By Atonement”
James Frederick William Rowe
“I Start Again at the Beginning”
Guest Poet Jimmy Pappas
“Human Compasses”
Returning Guest Poet Jane Dougherty
“Whorls”
“From one Imbolc to the next”
Steven Wittenberg Gordon
“Winter Breath”
Karla Linn Merrifield
“The Transcendental Constant of Circles”
“Serpent Eating Its Tail”
“Disposable Not”
Vivian Finley Nida
“Family Circle: Thirteen Ways of Looking at Wool”
Howard Stein
“First Snow of Winter”
“Diminution in Autumn”
Guest Poet Sharon J. Clark
“And the world keeps turning”
Returning Guest Poet Maureen Anne Browne
“No Title”
Guest Poet J. A. Sutherland
“Moonbroch”
Terri Lynn Cummings
“de Bhaldraithe”
Guest Poet Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios
“Duet in Circles”
“Circle Faster, Circle Fainter, O Earth”
Guest Poet Hollis Kurman
“The Pupil”
Guest Poet Virginia Boudreau
“Ripples”
Special Guest Poet Doris Ferleger
“In the Listening Heart of the Circle”
Poetry Review
Everything really matters...to Me! by Gene Hodge, Reviewed by Steven Wittenberg Gordon
Frequent Contributor News
Forthcoming
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A Letter from the Editor
In addition to a retrospective tribute to recently retired Charter Frequent Contributor Ross Balcom, the poetry of three current Frequent Contributors is featured in this issue. Readers are sure to enjoy these mini poetry collections of these exceptional poets.
Readers will also enjoy the stunning general submission (off theme) poetry of two distinguished guest poets from Kosovo, one of whose poems appears here in translation--a Songs of Eretz first. In addition, poets from The Netherlands and New Zealand grace these electronic pages for the first time. These poets really help to put the “eretz” in our name.
The poems in this issue take many approaches to the theme. Some are quite literal. Others are deeply metaphorical. Still others stretch the interpretation of the theme to its breaking point. You may find yourself “circling” back to peruse this issue again and again. Enjoy!
Steven Wittenberg Gordon, MD
Editor-in-Chief
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Featured Poets
Ross Balcom--A Retrospective
About the Poet: Ross Balcom was a Charter Member of the Songs of Eretz Frequent Contributor group from January 1, 2016, to November 16, 2020. In addition to his many, many appearances in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review and its first iteration, Songs of Eretz Poetry E-zine, his poems have appeared in Poetry Midwest, Spectral Realms, Star*Line, and other publications. In addition to poetry, his interests include science fiction, parapsychology, and the Hoosier erotic arts. He lives in southern California.
Jefferson Turnip
Ross Balcom
1.
He appeared in the gloom
of the abandoned farmhouse.
Slender, sombre, pale,
a boy in his early teens,
semi-transparent, a ghost.
He spoke but once:
"My name is Jefferson Turnip,"
and then he vanished.
His disappearance
left a crushing weight
in the night-dark room.
I fell to my knees
and wept; long, long
and sorrowfully, I wept.
2.
Boys are the heralds of life;
they should not die.
Had I the power, I would restore
dead boys to life, would grant them
an eternity of sunlit fields and playgrounds.
This boy, Jefferson Turnip,
a child of the soil, a rural splash
of wonder, his voice like a rainbow
arching over the fields, his laughter
bright with the promise of
still greater joy, this boy
whose home is the world,
the one true world, this boy
the world's salvation, a sun-bright
heart embracing all...
...this boy I would call my own.
3.
Alas, the ghost I saw
was only the flickering afterglow
of what once so brightly shone.
Wan, dim spectre, treading
hallowed dust and mouse droppings,
a stranger in his own abode...
Jefferson Turnip.
He honored me, a mere interloper,
with his presence, breaking and entering
my heart, rousing paternal waters.
And my tears profusely flowed.
Lord God, they flowed.
4.
I see him dead,
laid in a box,
pale turnip
returned to the soil.
I pray eternal day
will follow
the loam's
dark night.
5.
Bless you, Jefferson Turnip,
bless you forever.
You gifted me
with your presence,
you made yourself known.
Though but a ghost,
you have a face and a name,
and that face and that name
belong to a boy who,
long ago, was loved.
Poet’s Notes: I had a dream in which I encountered a ghostly boy in an abandoned farmhouse. He said, "My name is Jefferson Turnip," and then he disappeared. I was inspired to write this poem.
Since writing the poem, Jefferson Turnip seems increasingly like a real person/presence to me. Maybe we are all "authored" into being. There is nothing mightier than the pen.
Editor’s Note: Sometimes, a dream cups its hands around broken pieces of truth and fiction, then arranges them into something so sincere, it demands to be written. TLC
Editor’s Note: I hear echoes of Whitman and Poe here, but this poem is still one hundred percent Balcom. “Jefferson Turnip” first appeared (in the form of poem, not as a ghost) in the May 2014 issue of the now retired Songs of Eretz Poetry E-zine. SWG
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Birds of Indiana
Ross Balcom
1.
Everywhere I look,
I see birds of Indiana.
Their numbers
overwhelm me,
these
birds of Indiana.
Where is "Indiana"?
2.
Many
are the birds of Indiana,
but their shadow
is one.
Dark, dark
is their shadow.
3.
Camped outside her heart,
I wooed her with song.
She laughed at me,
laughed at me.
Her heart was pledged
to the birds of Indiana,
to the damnable birds
of Indiana.
4.
My bloody testicles
were flung in my face
by the birds of Indiana,
by the cruel birds
of Indiana.
5.
I called the police.
"Save me from the birds
of Indiana."
I was told,
"You get what you deserve
from the birds of Indiana."
6.
Many are driven to suicide
by the birds of Indiana.
Others stand tall,
and fall like towers
struck by airplanes.
No one is safe
from the birds of Indiana.
7.
I sought solace
in my mother's arms.
I found only her skeleton,
picked clean
by the birds of Indiana.
8.
Note to self:
You will never find
your way back
to love and sanity.
Your trail of bread-crumbs
was eaten by the birds
of Indiana.
9.
Chased out of town
by bird-lovers,
I sit by a dying campfire
in the woods,
telling myself stories
of the birds of Indiana.
The terrible birds
of Indiana.
10.
The world exists
to nourish the shadow
of the birds of Indiana.
Poet's Notes: I was born in Indiana and have an interest in birds, so I suppose it's not surprising that I decided to write a poem entitled "Birds of Indiana." The resulting poem was darker than I had anticipated, but I enjoy surprising myself.
Editor’s Note: The tone of Ross’ poem reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock's movie The Birds, dark and spooky. TLC
Editor’s Note: I especially enjoy the way that the use of refrain here creates a relentlessness that enhances the impact of the story and how the abrupt turn changes the tone but does not disrupt the continuity of the piece. “Birds of Indiana” first appeared in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review on January 12, 2015. SWG
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the farm
Ross Balcom
there
where the river bends
laughing itself silly
where the wailing turnip
consorts
with the corn-silk Madonna
where tractors
rust and weep
where the boys
first stood
their legs uncertain
and gazed
long and speechless
into the eyes
of the incomparable daughter
Poet’s Notes: This is the first appearance of that iconic figure, the Farmer's Daughter, in my poetry. I hope she drops by again. She's beautiful.
Editor’s Note: Ross’ unexpected final line gives this poem an added layer of beauty. TLC
Editor’s Note: “the farm” first appeared in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review on February 23, 2016. SWG
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Teen Donuts
Ross Balcom
We use to hang at Teen Donuts,
exploring holes in reality and ourselves.
helped countless doughnuts escape
to freedom; our "underground railroad"
was the dough of legend. They caught us,
of course; the adults, they punished us.
They even killed my friend Froglice.
We needed revenge, and we burnt
Teen Donuts to the ground.
They came for us, of course;
the adults, they captured us
and sentenced us to death.
They'll cut our throats as if we're hogs;
they'll trash our names, and sing
the praises of commerce and life
as new Teen Donuts rise
in every town from here to Hell.
Poet's Notes: This is a stark, brutal take on a familiar theme: pure-hearted, freedom-loving young people in revolt against an oppressive adult world. "Teen Donuts" manifested one morning shortly after I awakened. God bless you, Froglice; I'll burn down a Teen Donuts in your name.
Editor’s Note: Ross’ voice would suit a Steven King novel. What an imagination! TLC
Editor’s Note: This one is quite a departure from his usual style but is still recognizable as a Balcom poem by its rhetoric and content. I enjoy the narrative here and the "fight The Man" motif. It appeals to my rarely manifested but secretly strong rebel side. “Teen Donuts” first appeared in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review on March 15, 2017. SWG
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Editor’s Note: The following is a special, bonus, and never-before-published poem by Ross Balcom. SWG
Crop Circle Children
Ross Balcom
1.
making love
 |
| "Gallery Of Transient Art" | Digital Photo | Richard LeBlond |
in a crop circle
progenitors
of the new race
alien voices
control
us
chanting
their circle
my seed
our (discoid)
children
2.
flying saucers
our children
flesh discs
rimmed with eyes
flashing
hearts throbbing
blood surging
to the skies
they soar
to the void
beyond
crop-lords
of the cosmos
all Earths
their home
Editor’s Note: Ross’ imagery in Part 2 left my head spinning. Wonderful flying saucers metaphor. TLC
Artist’s Notes: The photography is inspired by natural landscapes, especially places that beckon, the portals. I am also attracted to regions where human culture is in harmony with its natural setting, where people live with the land, instead of just on it. Newfoundland, Labrador, and the U.S. West have been inspirational for both of these themes.
About the Artist: Richard LeBlond is a retired biologist living in North Carolina. His essays and photographs have appeared in many U.S. and international journals.
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The Poetry of Tyson West
Lughnasadh
Tyson West
To someone who has swung a scythe arc under circling sun
dropping shafts of straw ordered into radii of rows
then gleaned each precious grain head for the grace of warm bread,
crop circle oppression of each plant sacred
against northern winter seems
a sin unpardonable.
The cause cannot be the malice of wee folk
for they love to steal sips
of strong drink that springs from the fermentations
of seeds we glean.
We honor here in dust and sweat
the god who has gone into the grain
and mourn leaves of grass dried in the August wind that
whispers away the chaff.
Mill stones roll kernels from our ball of soil
until our priestess bids us circle after we form the cake
shared once she spins the spell to draw down the moon.
When the circle opens to the truth of common need
we return an arc of cake
to the mourning doves who color the compressed discs for morsels
the predawn artists cast in homage to chaos of the wild
where we balance in our unsquare dance in
intertwined rings.
Poet’s Notes: Circles are the natural form of pagan worship. Pagans do not worship in square halls but in covens of thirteen or fewer in a form called a Circle. Circles can be cast anywhere. At the end of a ceremony, a circle is opened, and words are spoken: "The circle is open, but unbroken."
Editor’s Note: Tyson’s articulate imagination harvests only the choicest images. TLC
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A Thing for Pixies
Tyson West
where I paid dearly for my lover’s kiss
my want spun lost until I heard the hiss
of
pixie play. A spark glint off a wing.
Her flick of tongue commanded me to cling
I freely danced her toadstool white abyss.
Pure longing pulled me in the pixie ring
where I paid dearly for my lover’s kiss.
I tasted subtle sweetness in our fling
she chose my soul to steal but not dismiss
the sheath of flesh that conjured up our bliss
trapped in exquisite circles mushrooms bring.
Pure longing pulled me in the pixie ring
where I paid dearly for my lover’s kiss.
Poet’s Notes: When I discovered that the theme was circles, I thought of one of the more delightful cameos of circles in mythology as fairy rings that appear on lawns and forests. A fairy ring starts with a single point of a spore and grows outward in rings of mushrooms over years, usually circular in form.
Fairy rings or pixie rings as they are sometimes called, have certain darker legends attached, one of which involves a mortal stepping inside one, joining the pixies or fairies in their dance, and never being allowed to leave, unless a handsome prince or clever maiden comes along to break the spell. This topic lends itself to a short-form poem. I used the rondel supreme with varying refrains.
Editor’s Note: Tyson’s rondel supreme is the perfect vessel to swirl this magical poem. TLC
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Circles in Motion
Tyson West
My metaphysics prof stood before us forever
class after class throat bound in the same black polka dot polyester tie
dribbling down his white shirt to flat black belted charcoal slacks
gloved in the same gray sports coat – horn rimmed glasses still
unpolished – he seemed himself a universal truth.
He bore forbidden fruit – neoplatonism
spread across soft minds open
to ferment ideas stranger than some white bearded god
sending his only kid to die in Palestinian dust.
Beyond human sentience, he preached eternally
exist universal constructs like numbers unshadowed or defined
by black ties, white shirts, and gray sports coats –
my pagan lungs inhaled this heady vapor
only to blow hormonal breath into constructs
of six directions and the extension that if numbers be
unchanging as the 1950’s Roman Catholic Church
so must their patterns possess everlasting existence
beyond minds that mark them.
All this spun back at three score and ten
in the winter's tale of two brothers
busting full of business success and family and Jesus who flew
to kneel in dry Dakota grass
spotting pronghorn through scopes on their 7mm magnums
before squeezing the new moon trigger to let fly
a copper wrapped lead cone on its super sonic
twist down the lands of chromium steel tubes.
The bullet mushrooms as it explodes in the heart
before the creature even heard the sound of the shot.
Spirals of DNA in its cells cease their corkscrew laddering
then after the hunt, carcasses skinned
heads slit off to mount for trophies – the hunters spirits spiraling high –
cold air spins into compressors of the turboprop circling the propeller down the runway
into the gyres of jet stream pulling down Arctic air
around the swirl of Pacific moisture that looped this far inland
until the proud aluminum shell screws itself into the earth.
Poet’s Notes: I wrote this poem over a year ago as a result of hearing of a tragic accident where a couple of brothers went hunting on the Great Plains. Their turboprop took off in bad weather and spiraled into the ground. I began seeing all of the inner relationships between the motion of the hunters and the motions in the machinery and the motions of events that took place that led them to that point.
I thought back to my metaphysics professor in college, and his concept that there exist certain universal truths that would be the same in alien or human perception. The poem’s original title was “Spirals”. A spiral is a shape made from one point on the circumference of a circle, rotating and moving forward.
Editor’s Note: “Circles in Motion” shoots the reader with Tyson's metaphysics, numbers, patterns, and trophies, all expressed in his own particular (and circular) language. TLC
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Crop Circle Tourism
Tyson West
Please don’t present such evidence to me
I sense what shaped these circles in the grain.
Our truth’s best cut by hands we cannot see.
Our spirit guides led us across the sea
to find what druid bones and spells remain.
Please don’t present such sketchy tales to me.
Old Stone Henge and rye fields fresh feathery
designs captured our souls inside the plane.
The truth’s best cut by hands we cannot see.
You say stout tipsy pranksters on a spree
with planks at dawn stomped out this fey domain.
Please don’t lay out such common plots to me.
I’ve felt the ley lines flow beneath this lea
as lotus formed I chanted in the rain.
The truth’s best cut by hands we cannot see.
The pub blokes laughing where we stopped for tea
swear blood that raised old cromlechs flows again.
Please don’t lay out such evidence to me,
the truth’s best spun by hands we cannot see.
Poet’s Notes: When I learned the theme of circles, crop circles immediately came to mind. I started reading about them and discovered that a cottage tourism industry exists in southwest England near Stonehenge where a lot of these crop circles appear. Apparently, artists are locals who go out early in the morning using planks with rope handles on them to compress the grain. Tourists will visit the area to meditate and feel the energy inside these crop circles. Like many of the new-agers I have encountered in the past, they have a tendency to believe what they want to believe about astronomical phenomena, weather, and natural and human phenomena, and assign meaning to them based on their feelings. People with more imagination tend to build elaborate explanations, such as space aliens, for simple phenomena.
Editor’s Note: All of Tyson’s poetic elements combine for a rich read in this villanelle. TLC
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Private Hells
Tyson West
I.
In ‘69 he answered to Bruce and I Billy
drinking in grooves of vinyl discs dumped by shagged out poets
who fingered chords to mark time
while we curved our claws around
PBR, weak weed, and ideas to die for, in hopes
of bending it.
I watched him fail at setting fire to the ROTC building
long before his meditations led to the thought fall
he must have basketed Chippewa dna.
I recruited into ranks of pirates of proper papers
dull grey suits who shimmered homage to image
and drank wine from corked bottles.
In shamanship we rejoined to compass new center
from his weatherman suplex over ivy walls
and my skyscraper plate glass lack of transparency.
My drum shaped of baltic birch
distilled power through the name of my indoeuropean tribe I remember still.
We asked no questions of each other and invoked no prophets
so sure were we of the steps we danced
and throat sung hosannas we harmonized.
II.
I missed his barefoot walk west
and rode the rails from library to ledge but
arrive we both arcanaed.
Each of us had traced the cracks of a different cliff face
to inhale the same amanita sky.
Making our fire, fierce this time
he with bow and I with steel and flint, we watched flames climb for
every hurricane and level of hell rotates around its eye.
Lotusing together in visions quested through wire rimmed glasses
my night lynx shared the secret of my name.
Two eagles mirrored each other’s gyre
in thermals from the perch that pulled him up
Superstition Mountain soundlessly centering next to my drum.
My brother’s angel looked homeward
my pixie spun silently
to join keeps where our male egos
meditated koans pure over dust and smoke and sweat.
III.
We both wondered when the spirit of the mushroom left us
naked and alone in cold shadow
had we chosen the spinning clouds around us
or had some great geometer curved our paths to
the discs of hell we claimed as our own –
all metaphysical fibers we flayed and flew
lead to a crystal we sobered sure
the greatest area enclosed by the least long line be
a circle of which the center is me.
Poet’s Notes: I knew many a longhaired and bearded extremist in the 1960s. I knew members of Students for a Democratic Society from which a group called "The Weathermen" broke off. In turn, "The Weather Underground" splintered off from The Weathermen. Students for a Democratic Society protested for left-wing causes that now seem moderate and almost quaint. The Weathermen, who took their name from the line in a Bob Dylan song, "you don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" were big on running towards the police in protests, breaking windows, and doing minor vandalism. The last group, however, would set off bombs, rob banks, and were a much more extremist group that would now probably be called terrorists. Many members served time in prison.
In my wanderings in the desert of Eastern Washington, I at times sweated with a gentleman who had been a member of The Weathermen. He lived in a teepee and was pursuing a Native American spiritual route. We sweat together in the same groups from time to time. This poem is built of fragments of our relationship, and of course, is way more organized than anything we ever did.
Editor’s Note: Tyson’s poem is like a waterfall of images that spill onto the page, an exploratory freefall into 1969. TLC
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The Shape Surreal of Time
Tyson West
My final fetal climb rose with a drop
from the globe theater of flesh called womb
ball of my sentience swelling from chance singularity.
Unfocused mewling surrounded in circles of primate arms evolved to climb for fruit
I perceived blurred bubbles of light and darkness
rolling through cold and warm
eclipsed in green clouds of solstice needles
or brown skeletons dancing at 15 degrees of Scorpio,
until ice flakes float down to forgive
all filth for a white while.
Floating never fighting the flow
even in rectangular boxes where arms on a disc
long and short fingered numbers
crawled above Miss Fair’s whistling radiators.
A child’s anticipation moves in time signatures
doubled or tripled hoping for Disney promises popped in props
before wasp winged Tinker Bell ripped
he billowing fabric of Walt’s castle
with the egg tooth of her wand.
At times when Tinker homogenized the hook of hell
I had hoped I could see behind
her veil to another world
a purer world where my fidget and the scar on Judy's cheek
would wash away to a pieta carved in never rancid butter.
Against the spinning sky we sensed
the aposty of numbers curving forward
suddenly counting backwards at times to swell
into a radioactive amanita of ecstasy
rounding out the radius of my night terrors.
Recalling my feelings as I face the chimera
who calculus the contortions of tides left for me to remember
I watch my children decay discerning
light emitting diodes in sequential streams
on digital displays signed in seven four time
through eyes focusing through floaters.
I have learned to keep chronology clicking for
a pool of dust and decay must swell
to mold feet and cue the round dance steps.
I sense the final fragments
of the parabola beyond the mirror of my mud puddle
knowing what will remain of my bones once
my consciousness no longer spins
will find no novelty in the cold grey circumference of a pewter urn.
Poet’s Notes: When I learned the theme for this issue was circles, I immediately thought of surrealism. I enjoy working in the grotto of poetic surrealism, perfected by Philip Lamantia. I feel that surrealism, as a movement, is kind of like a trip to New York City. It's pretty hard to live there, but sometimes we need to go there to recover perspective. Because of the circular nature of time and being, I thought that this would be a good approach to the theme of circles.
Editor’s Note: Tyson’s veins of surrealism shape this poem from birth to urn. Tyson rocks the reader in swells of "time signatures”. TLC
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The Poetry of John C. Mannone
White Grapes
John C. Mannone
From the dark edge
of memory, the sweet
& sour taste in the circles
of shadows texturing landscape,
a precipitous terrain
in half-light, I remember
my mother’s art decorations—
green onyx marbles from Mexico
fashioned into clusters,
grapes bound together with intricate
(and hidden) wire for branches
unlike some asteroids, bound
gravitational aggregates, if shattered
with well-meaning nuclear rockets,
would fall apart, shower
heavy debris into ocean
coaxing tsunamis walling the coast
hundreds of feet high
before crashing down, drowning
dreams orbiting memory—a cluster
of thoughts about my mother.
That asteroid comes in
three hundred times faster
than I can think.
I don’t have the nerve
impulses traveling any faster
than hundred meters per second
or images in my eyes
registering in my occipital lobe
before 13 milliseconds pass by;
unfortunately, pain
travels much slower, lingers.
Perhaps this is simply
a bunch of white grapes
ready to burst in my mouth
to nourish and not kill me
with such thoughts of self
destruction. Maybe they’re the pulp
of memories that let me live
while at the same time, the only thing
that could break
would be the skin
of my tears.
Poet’s Notes: This past summer I was enchanted by how some fruit in my kitchen reminded me of space borne objects, like a peach, when positioned just right on a blacktop stove, resembled a yet-to-be-discovered planet in the Kuyper Belt; or how an orange, whose skin was marred, resembled the cryogenic topography of Titan; and how the close-up view of a ripening banana fooled many into thinking it was the sun spot surface of our Sun. Well, with all of that precedence, when I fetched a clump of white grapes from the fridge, I naturally thought about astronomy. However, at the same time, I remembered my mother’s jade-green onyx decoration of grapes. There’s no surprise that these two ideas merged in “White Grapes.”
Visualizing the projection of those somewhat spherical grapes and/or their shadows as circular geometries satisfies the theme. The structure of the poem was chosen to remind me of grape clusters.
Editor’s Note: “White Grapes” bursts with circles and John's imagination. Excellent use of space on the page. TLC
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Dogfight
John C. Mannone
For my father, who served as a Sergeant in U. S. Marine Corps while still an un-naturalized immigrant from Sicily.
“Foreign-born soldiers composed over 18 percent of the U. S. Army during World War I.”
—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
in an airplane, but I crawled into one
of your nightmares, Father, you, inside
a Sopwith Camel, I, your wingman.
We
climbed high, hid above a cloud deck
where, inside another dream, I could see
your thoughts all tangled with aspirations
of being an actor after seeing Greta Garbo
in a film about love and war. I don’t know
why you didn’t join the air command but
your sense of duty to America was clear
even while we flew over France dropping
out of the clouds spitting machinegun fire
at the enemy below. The four Fokkers,
when they saw us, broke hard right, we
countered with barrel rolls and vertical
loops for a firing solution. It rattled the air
screaming past their wood-ribbed bodies,
smoothed fabric doped-up without a wrinkle
except for the frayed 50-caliber holes gaping
through the ripped canvas. The dogfight
lasted twelve minutes; we all took a bad hit.
Sputter and smoke, like the Germans, we fell
out of the dream, sweat pooling like blood
on our foreheads.
Poet’s Notes: I actually do not know if my father served overseas during WWI, but this is an imaginative/fictive piece anyway. And it is in dreams and nested dreams. He did serve as a sergeant in the Quartermasters corps, and it does have a connection to France.
I am an instrument-rated pilot and often think about my love for flying. My admiration of my father as a WWI veteran convolved with my passion, and this poem was born. In satisfying the theme, “Dogfight” takes on a physical aspect of circles—military maneuvers in the air, in particular, the vertical loops and horizontal barrel rolls.
Editor’s Note: John’s descriptive thoughts board us onto a flight that spins into history’s nightmare, WWI. TLC
* * * * * * * * * *
Ode to a Broom
John C. Mannone
After Pablo Neruda's "Ode to My Socks"
Lonely in the corner
of morning, the broom
bristles to life
when I take her
carefully in my hands
and sweep her off
her feet. We sashay
unto the sunlit floor,
start with a cha-cha
finish with a waltz
dancing in circles
to get the floor ready
for the mop up—
the smooth wood
of her back flexing
with the flow.
I cherish her, she
taking my lead
as we clean
our home together
until there’s no dirt
left. And shaking
the dust off her shoes
she waves her dustpan
hands goodbye
for just a little while.
Poet’s Notes: I am awed and inspired by Pablo Neruda’s command of the ode to everyday things. Many of his odes have short lines, so my structure follows suit somewhat. Of course, “Ode to a Broom” is not simply a humorous or fanciful poem about a broom; the broom is a metaphor for the narrator’s significant other. This poem originated in a workshop on odes and praise poems at the Tennessee Mountain Writers conference some years back.
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Water Ritual
John C. Mannone
Her warm rumors
always come with the wind
and the oceans
give back their tears
to the sky,
to their creator, salt
traced drops coalesce
as a breath from stars
while she’s still whispering
like the wind. Inhales
the joy, the sadness
until she bloats
with impatience, flowers
to a fury before
windows of heaven
pull open.
Defenestrated, raindrops
rush with
thunder, flash
with anger, deluge
the mountains,
till it too seeps
deep into earth,
overflows
rills and streams
rivering to oceans.
And the sun sparks
the waves that undress
before the light,
their soul susurrates
heavenward
again.
Poet’s Notes: I am fascinated by the water cycle and have written about it before; the challenge is to do it fresh every time. I wanted a continuous verse, yet I wanted the images to breathe, so I used an indented structure.
Editor’s Note: John captures the spirit of Earth’s water cycle in this poem. I particularly liked the arrangement of lines that ebb and flow. TLC
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Circling Back
John C. Mannone
After the dream, I only remember clichés, the voice of memory still gruff until noon. Thoughts river in torrents but the rain doesn’t soothe. I am hungry. I like my oatmeal cooked for a full five minutes, not like the instant junk, there’s enough of that floating in my life. I want the spice in there too: cinnamon and clove dusted in with dry fruits. Raisins are good, but prunes are better, and not because I am old. I want the smooth fresh peaches, too. The steaming bowl sweetened with drizzles of chili-hot honey or tarry blackstrap molasses. Then, a splash of milk to silken the mixture. Don’t let the spoon be swallowed by the mixture, it’s not thin like soup, but thick like quicksand. Don’t wallow in depression but I am sinking fast in a bowl of oatmeal. Fear tints my face like jaundice but is almost morning sunshine as I am mashed down and pulled under into the quickened oats. Perhaps there will be a resurrection in my reverie, a reveille as my soul clambers up to the top, to the lip of the blue-rimmed bowl where I can stand up and rejoice above the grave, sing poems and hymns of life. For a moment, I circle back, and I am in Cambridge, Massachusetts raising a mug of beer with my poet-friend, Henry, remembering the light of stars. No longer do I have to worry about tempus fugit, memento mori. Here, time only stands still, and death is a fleeting memory.
Poet’s Notes: I love to cook and have been known to say, “food is another form of poetry.” In any case, food shows up in many of my poems, often because they trigger good memories, but at other times they provide a metaphor. “Circling Back” is such the case.
“From My Lonely Kitchen”, a near-daily Facebook posting of recipes while in lockdown from the Coronavirus, was an attempt to connect to the world in a depressing time. This stream of consciousness prose poem was born out of my contemplation over a bowl of oatmeal I had prepared on one of those mornings in late August 2020. I was particularly depressed but fought it hard.
There is a “circling back” on several levels in the poem, such as starting and ending with a memory-dream, as well as a circling back to a redemptive reality from the pit of depression, or perhaps from the reality of depression to a redemptive dream. The reference to Longfellow’s poem, “The Light of Stars” offers a kind of solution to my depression, at least at that moment.
Editor’s Note: John’s prose poem mixes well with oatmeal and the conceit of a spoon. His reference to Longfellow’s “Light of Stars” is a nice touch. TLC
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The Poetry of Charles A. Swanson
Running the Rut
Charles A. Swanson
I have allowed myself the ease of the rut.
I was raised on ruts. The two-bottom plow
cut a rut, one where I hung my wheel
on each successive pass. I learned how
I could sleep from field edge to edge,
nudging my front tire against the dirt wall,
a doze, sleeping enough to catch a bucket
of winks—dimly aware of the need to wake
for the turn. The turn from night to day
and day to night, those were ruts, running
at times to throw feed to the pigs.
As seasons turned, breaking the rut,
my rut remained, but I walked in darkness
when days were short. Work was long.
Discipline. A mental commitment
to go round and round, knowing the day
hangs on the night, the summer hangs
on the winter. Knowing that the dogs
will bring the rabbit round again,
that circular pattern, that cycle
of buck coming to sharpen his antlers
on the bark of a sapling, the bear
shaking off his winter sleep that only
seems to last forever. Sometimes I need
a frost to kill the weeds. Sometimes
I need a rain to sprout new seeds.
Poet’s Notes: I remember a Presbyterian Church elder who told his Sunday school class that he had a fixed pattern in how he prepared for each day. If he brushed his teeth out of order (for example, placing that task ahead of shaving), then he might forget to brush his teeth altogether. The pattern helped him complete his necessary preparations.
As I became more grown-up, my father gave me greater responsibilities. A time came when I bargained with him to take over the hog operation. Dad was bi-vocational, and Mom carried many of the farm duties on her shoulders. I was in eighth grade when Dad and I came to our agreement.
From that day, until I finished my first year of college, I fed the pigs every morning before school. I carried my aura of responsibility around with me as determinedly as I did the unmistakable odor of the barnyard.
Discipline, the day-to-day necessity of completing tasks, is important to me. Getting the job done is a commitment to repetitiveness, but it is also a mark of maturity.
Editor’s Note: Charles’ straightforward, narrative style put me in the moment. TLC
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The Watchers and the Watched
Charles A. Swanson
I. The Little Boy in the Picture
I’ve come to accept the stocky, wide,
fat kid in the photograph.
I didn’t love me at the time, certainly
not that awful still life.
I look at the picture, see some signs
of surety, but more I see
awkwardness, in the mismatch
of flannel shirt and tweed coat.
II. Those Awkward Teenage Years
Later, I watched a guy run a dozer,
clearing land on our farm.
The tracks clanked, the blade piled high
oak stumps, fine dust chalked
the late summer air. I watched,
secretively, coveting
his brown hair, limber frame, easy
nonchalant posturing.
I thought, what could be cooler
when he took his breaks,
leaned back in his Corvette Stingray,
napped in dark sunglasses.
A spray of hair, a sunlit wave,
trembled like a breath
as it cascaded from his baseball hat—
hat, sunglasses, hair,
body stretched at ease, unconscious
of my admiration.
I was nothing like that, too stocky,
ungainly, unwatchable.
III. Clearing Land on a New Farm,
A Summer Between College Semesters
But later in life, not so much later,
but enough so that some
of the pudginess had thinned out,
but still, as they say, stout,
wide as a barn door, still thinking,
as I ran a bulldozer myself,
bush-hogged briars with a tractor,
plowed fields for sowing,
stirred up a whirlwind of dust
and debris, and had it
coat me like fuzz on a hairy goat,
I was nothing to see.
Later in life, I say, I learned
as I operated my equipment,
I, too, was being watched—four eyes,
two teenage neighborhood girls,
hiding in the forest undergrowth,
the border of dreams, peering.
I went round and round, oblivious,
a figure in their field of desire.
Poet’s Notes: The creation of an image, fading as the image might be, seems a lifelong obsession with me. I am bound to the frailty of the flesh, even though my hope is in an eternal destination.
I have long been fascinated by the “caught” moments of life. I remember key words and phrases and examples I’ve heard from a teacher, a parent, a minister, and I’ve realized that the speaker had no way of knowing how those few words would stick with me.
I am also responsible for creating impressions and images in the lives of others, but rarely do I learn what I have said, or done, or how I’ve looked, that has lodged in the mind of another person.
When someone tells me, “I remember when you ____,” the first part of that statement is a gift—as long as the memory that follows is something positive or even humorous.
Editor’s Note: Charles skillfully threads the three sections of his poem to form a circle. TLC
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Inexorable
Charles A. Swanson
Now, forty years I’m looking back.
That first afghan still holds,
the tight stitches, chains,
double crochets, a pattern,
loops, knots, worked in squares,
a pattern of columns and holes,
an easy pattern for beginners.
Make one, two, three, ninety squares—
somewhere in there the shape
becomes rote, as do the twists
of wrist, the slide of yarn
over the finger holding taut
the thread and emerging weave.
That first afghan, something
of dream and quest, of creative
juice and craft, of tension
and release, of conversation
and silences—matched
by the substance and the holes,
the windows and the walls
of the pattern. And then
the colors—autumn in full fall—
oranges, yellows, goldenrod
and cinnamon, browns like leaves,
all bordered by static black,
with some squares wholly black,
so night comes to this farmhouse.
I made that first afghan for you,
Mom, you and Dad, those years ago.
I sat the tedious, sweet and timeless
hours before the fire in Grandma’s house,
that house you love, that house that’s peopled
though desolate, beside that woman
you keep seeing, reaching her hand
from a place immeasurably bright. For you,
your twenty-fifth anniversary. The black
squares, yes, the mystery
for I see through a glass darkly,
and you have lostness in your face.
But I cling to what you’re also seeing,
the brightness, the yarn of a dawning sun.
Poet’s Notes: My first afghan was made in one of the easiest crochet patterns, the granny square. Each separate block starts with a circle of yarn that is then quickly squared off.
I learned to crochet from two of my aunts and then I worked on that afghan through many hours at my maternal grandmother’s house. We sat in front of a fireplace through winter evenings, both doing handwork and talking about the events of our days.
At the time, I was nineteen, a sophomore at the local community college. When I finished the afghan, I gave it to my mother and father for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.
Years later, as my mother went through her last months of life, her sense of time warping, she kept going back and back to that same house of her mother’s, and to her mother’s ability to sew, quilt, crochet, and do embroidery. Many times, as I crocheted beside my mother in those memory-filled hours of both confusion and strange enlightenment, she would say to me, “My mama would be so proud of you.” Those words keep coming back to me now, and I know my mama was proud of me, too.
Editor’s Note: Charles’ use of repetition and metaphor enhances this poem. I appreciate his reference to “through a glass darkly”. TLC
* * * * * * * * * *
What would I put my hand in?
Charles A. Swanson
I’d put my hand in to work, and I’ve done it.
Pulling tobacco, the gummy tar building on the hand so thick I could roll it up, a black ball tacky between fingers and thumb.
Washing dishes, hot water almost scalding. I hand-dive for a fork. The steam from the water fills my head with the pleasantness of soap, scent, morning light.
Mashing together food particles, eggs or onions or bacon bits, from the sink basket to pick them up, running my finger around the drain’s smooth flange, no matter how dishwater- gray or squid-black.
My hands have learned there’s little harm in the hairball of my daughter’s long strands, left limp in a soap circle of the shower drain.
A long way up the birth canal, my hands have gone to touch wet skin, the slickness of hair, the anxiousness of the cow’s insides, the struggles of the unborn calf. These hands, so uncertain, that twist and tug. These hands too occupied to aid in prayer.
What once was unthinkable, the hand has learned to touch.
The hand, the hand, the hand has taken care of the body.
Like my Aunt Peggy, I can change a baby’s diaper with one of these two hands; eat a peanut butter sandwich with the other.
“Employees must wash hands before returning to work!”
Before loving that lovely dough, that yellow yeast ball that needs kneading, that needs the hands to punch and pull and, yes, caress the warmth, the fragrance, the promise of sweet rolls.
Hands that hold the yarn, the hook, one hand a distaff, a cradle, for the smooth yarn to thread through the friction of callused fingers, providing the necessary tension; the other hand darting the hook, learning the feel of metal and the twist of hand to grab and knot and fashion the mind’s dream of stocking hat, prayer shawl, or afghan.
“Busy hands are happy hands.”
No more pleasure than the slip of sharpened knife under apple skin, of slices thin as parchment to mount crisply in the bowl.
No more happiness than the preparation of hot peppers for pickling, even though the burning chafes the hands for hours.
“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
You have to trust these hands, trust when I hold the holy handkerchief across your nose and mouth, trust when I take you under the baptismal waters. God must raise you clean, but I must lift you out.
And now my dear, my one and only, my wife, watch these hands. They stir the chocolate filling. They are patient, holding the wooden spoon. The spoon goes round. The chocolate thickens. Slowly, the clock’s hands move. Every minute, my hands are saying love.
Poet’s Notes: If the original inspiration is strong, then the poem seems to find good soil. The sprouting of the seed, the unbending of the fragile stem, the opening of the poem to sunshine all seem like good timing, as if spring warmth has readied the page for the miracle. Thus I felt when I was writing this poem.
I am reminded of the words of William Ross Wallace, “the hand that rocks the cradle / Is the hand that rules the world.” The hand in service is a wonderful thing to behold. The hand in service, when the hand serves the purposes of love, the hand opens like a flower.
Editor’s Note: Charles’ facile prose is beautiful and relatable. TLC
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Distinguished Guest Poets Vlora Konushevci & Arbër Selmani
Editor’s Warning: Some readers may find the language and imagery of Konushevci’s poetry to be disturbing.
Quails, Grapes, A letter from Quarantine
Vlora Konushevci
Only my eyes are alive,
everything
else in me was murdered.
My mother witnessed
savages dumping their filthy seed
inside me for twenty one days
in a row.
Only her voice is alive now
to cry out my name as a call to a prayer
every time I get near the well.
Nine times I tried to take my life.
But death has many doors
her wail horrified the well
I saw the edges of my soul flattened
in a rotted blood land
my father’s land
my grandfather’s
their corpses rotted too.
Ten times I tried to take my life.
Rozafa* is forgotten
The mother’s curse
shall bury you alive
on judgment day
just as you buried alive
the horror
the sinfulness.
In the land of rotted roots
Rotted are the living.
I don’t try to take my life anymore
A sip of water is all I want!
2. Grapes
Cruel is the sound of rain
hitting your soul put out for sale
even to the devil if he were bidding,
or exchange it with immigration,
crumbs of bread, a cup of tea,
a slice of freedom.
A grim death dances around
naked refugee camps!
Cruel is the sound of prayer
to an absent God at the border,
heavy are the abandoned souls to
carry through the lake of rushes,
bitter is the taste of agony on
an empty stomach.
An insatiable death dances around
naked refugee camps!
But then someone brought grapes
pieces of peace as they released
an ecstasy to a dry mouth
and we ate it, otherwise,
peace would be just a fragile dream
in naked refugee camps
where nobody ever sleeps.
3. A letter from quarantine
I just can’t stand tight clothes anymore
narrowed minds,
I’ve spent the whole day dusting
with a cloth which smelled of honey,
if it were Sunday I would go for a walk
in Germia, I would shop for groceries,
but it’s just a workday in the museum
of frozen dreams.
The city is bathed in sluggish cries
of the government to keep the distance
imposing limits on life.
Spring has just set its foot
the longest day of the year,
the world is facing a plague
a tragedy in the Greek sense.
Aunt Emine has just died
I couldn’t even say goodbye
your filigree pieces are passing away
mom. It’s just another workday,
a Thursday after a bleak anniversary.
Our generations that endured the war,
famine and genocide survived to face
not only the pandemics today
but ourselves, the monstrosity
we created through the voting booths.
No earthly deed have we granted to this word!
We bestowed only sorrow, silence and immigration
as an obscure end from the ashes of fire
we bestowed on ourselves.
Poet’s Notes:
* “Quails” is a story written by Gazmend Bërlajolli, based on authentic testimonies of women raped during the war in Kosovo.
*Rozafa: Rozafa’s Castle is a castle near the city of Shkodër, Albania, which according to the famous legend was built by three brothers. They set down to build a castle but despite working all day the foundation walls fell down at night.
They were told by an old man to sacrifice a woman for the walls to stand. They decided to sacrifice one of the wives who comes the next day to bring them lunch. It was Rozafa, the wife of the youngest brother, who left her infant son at home.
She didn't protest but, worried about her son, accepted being immured on condition that they must leave her right breast exposed so as to feed her newborn son, her right hand to caress him and her right foot to rock his cradle.
Editor’s Note: Konushevci’s sharp lens, precise language, and tight imagery sculpt the many faces of humanity, and then leave us with a decision, a choice. TLC
Art Editor’s Note: Pictured is a close-up of the Heroinat Memorial in Pristina, Kosovo, which honors the sacrifice and pain endured by Albanian women during the Kosovo War (1998 - 1999). More information about the fascinating construction of this symbolic masterwork may be found here http://molosgroup.com/heroinat-memorial-2/.
About the Poet: Vlora Konushevci is a famous regional poet and translator from Kosovo, winner of the UN Women Kosovo Poetry Contest on Peace. A feminist activist, she is the founder of www.poetetshqiptare.com, a web page featuring female Albanian poets. She holds a BA degree from Prishtina University in English Language and Literature and is a master’s degree candidate in Linguistics.
Konushevci’s poems and translations have appeared in local and national cultural platforms and literary magazines. She regularly participates in poetry events in her country. Her first collection of poems in the Albanian language, sponsored by the Albanian Ministry of Culture, was published on February 11, 2021. She lives in Prishtina, Kosovo, with her husband and son.
* * * * * * * * * *
When my father died
Originally in Albanian by Arbër Selmani
Translated into English by Fadil Bajraj
When my father died,
a part of me died,
my mother and my sister died a little too,
his shirts died
my last salary died in my right pocket
the blessed day died,
apologies, hard slaps, the wishes I had
the dreams that I didn’t have died
the morning shopping died, and the whole morning died on that day.
When my father died,
An oak tree died somewhere in the holy mountain,
Something good has died, a goodness, a tale that no longer was told,
The body died which never got anything good from life,
Because it cannot be called a life
When every five years, misfortune finds its peace upon you.
When my father died,
I died piece by piece on the bathroom carpet.
I crawled to the faucet to wash my face,
To see my death,
To forget that the body was dying on the same day.
When my father died,
No one had limpid mind in my house anymore,
The last quarrel died, a scholarship to America died
The school diploma, which today is useless as a piece of rag, also died.
The weak men of this world died,
The women who were being kicked more and more by nature, died.
My happiness also died with my father,
The seas where once I swam with my tiny body, died.
The fields where I grew up happily, died.
My forgotten beloved died,
My wife, the one that will never exist, died.
With the death of my father an old piece of me died.
With my father the beauty died,
Marx’s Capital died,
Every Rumi’s poem died,
When my father died,
I felt the sting in my soul and harsh hand of God
In front of me I saw those who are not as beautiful as my dad
Because no one is more beautiful than the divine beauty of my father,
Because all of them had an easy life, but not my father
Because when most of them were hugged, my father shed tears,
Because luck walked barefoot in the town but didn’t meet my father.
When my father died the white fairies turned into a long black snake.
When my father died,
I overturned the furniture in the house and I didn’t find him,
I took a plane, but there was no place for him even in that other country,
I picked up pieces of uneasiness and put them together,
When my father died
A deity somewhere up above that got tired of living, also died.
And an Eros whose good days were numbered, also died.
His friends died, his women friends died, his close relatives died, the ones who were never really close.
When my father died
I sat by the river of my tears and cried.
About the Poet: Arbër Selmani is an award winning journalist and poet from Pristina, Kosovo. He has published three books: Why grandpa is sad, & Kosovo in 14 cultural stories, 1, & Kosovo in 14 cultural stories, 2. He has participated in numerous literature festivals in Europe, naming POLIP – International Literature Festival in Pristina, LITERODROM – Literature Festival in Slovenia, and the XV Biennale of young artists from Europe and Mediterranean in Rome. He has been translated to Slovenian, Turkish, Italian, Bosnian and Serbo-Croatian. He has a literary book of poems, journals and short stories forthcoming this year.
About the Translator: Fadil Bajraj is a renowned translator from English into Albanian, Albanian into English, and Albanian into Serbian. He is perhaps solely responsible for introducing the Beat Generation to the Albanian-speaking world with his translations of Ginsberg, Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Baraka, and others. He is also responsible for the works of Ezra Pound being translated into Albanian.
Bajraj has also rendered selected works of James Joyce, ee cummings, Raymond Carver, Frank O’Hara, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and Ernest Hemmingway, among others. He most recently translated the works of Gregory Pardlo, and Lou Lipsitz. In addition, through the publication of the Anthology of Rock Lyrics, Bajraj has introduced Albanians to such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Jim Morrison, Lou Reed, and Bruce Springsteen, among others.
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Art Gallery Section
Coming Soon!
Please see our Forthcoming Section for details!
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Other Fine Poets
Cleansed by Atonement
Donna Faulkner née Miller
A flash of cold steel .
Bad blood letting ,
flesh rips a
restrained gasp .
It’s echo reverberates around the cold room ,
made ready .
The strategic cut self inflicted ,
halting my inward breath .
The wound superficial ,
clean enough to heal in time.
More than just a scar
this will be a masterpiece
My tattoo of self acceptance.
My hearts racing -
as breath returns
the shock subsides.
A pulse
pushing blood . Cascading down
braided streams staining pale skin .
Hidden within the nucleus of every spilt drop,
generational sins lie dormant .
Tainted blood .
Gelatinous .
Bright red now
exposed .
The flow is steadying .
Calming .
Blood dripping slowly now.
Slow dripping - like a faulty tap .
And I observe it all
from outside .
Synchronised with my shallow breaths
returning to their natural rhythm .
The ancestral curse
surrendered .
An amateur Picasso
painting the floor
with imperfect circles of red redemption.
Blots of clotted blood spreading .
Expanding - like my consciousness .
The alchemists transforms sacrifice
into enlightenment
and I feel lighter.
Beautifully raw ,
this process of atonement.
Editor’s Note: Normally, I don’t like to see a space before a period or a comma, but in this instance it works. Faulkner née Miller uses punctuation as a superb metaphor for a drop of blood. This poem lingers…. TLC
About the Poet: Donna Faulkner née Miller immigrated to New Zealand in her teens and currently lives in Rangiora with her husband Victor. The couple is at their happiest when exploring New Zealand on the Harley together.
Donna has had poetry published in fws: Journal of Literature & Art, Havik: The Las Positas College Journal of Arts and Literature 2020, Other Wordly Women Press, Written Tales Magazine, and Tarot Poetry Journal. Donna also occasionally posts to Instagram @lady_lilith_poet.
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I Start Again at the Beginning
James Frederick William Rowe
Though my steps take the straight path
Though my life follows the same
I start again at the beginning
Returning, I find myself starting
What has always remained undone
I start again at the beginning
Once again I see it all undone
And never once my goal is reached
I start again at the beginning
My path has never veered
But all must be a curve
I start again at the beginning
My straight ever a circle
To futility always bound
Poet's Notes: Going around in circles is an exercise in futility. You end up where you started time and time again. I thought to capture this sense of futility in a poem which links such circular motion to a sense of personal failure.
Aesthetically, this poem consists of stanzas marked by an initial repeated line of "I start again at the beginning" to underscore the sense of futility this poem embodies. Besides that, each stanza consists of two further verses offset from the left, with the story of someone's failure expressed throughout.
The poem was inspired by the repeating line coming to me before I came to bed; I then I forgot about it for almost an entire day but somehow managed to retrieve the notes from my muse the day after. This is a rare occurrence, so I am thankful.
Editor’s Note: James’ choice of form and space played well within the circle. TLC
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Human Compasses
Jimmy Pappas
Giotto's
O. The perfect circle. One arm remained fixed,
the other swirled a red O. Even the Pope was impressed.
John Donne understood the compass. Two people,
one soul. One part centered, the other part moving,
but never separate. But even Donne doubted at the end.
Wrapped himself in a shroud, had a statue created
so he could stare at his dead body for hours at a time.
The youthful lover long gone. The pious priest taking over.
He must have worked hard to convince himself the center
would still hold, the circle would maintain its perfection.
Editor’s Note: Pappas did his research and then wrapped two stories together to form a circle of events. TLC
About the Poet: Pappas won the Rattle Poetry Contest’s 2018 Readers Choice Award. He won the 2019 Rattle Chapbook Contest for “Falling off the Empire State Building”. His interview with editor Tim Green is on Rattlecast #34. His book Scream Wounds contains poems based on veterans' stories.
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Whorls
Jane Dougherty
In the
grave-dark and lamp-flicker,
where stones breathe deep and slow as millennia,
asperities rubbed smooth by aeons-dead hands,
where the air is steeped in stars already dust,
and the threshold opens
to embrace the winter moon,
I stand,
finger poised to follow the carven whorls,
round and round,
to feel the endless, eternal truth in their simplicity,
to drift with the circling wave, time-tide,
back to the dark night,
when the world was simple, harsh and stark,
and fierce as the light of winter stars.
Poet’s Notes: I have never felt closer to the beginning of things than in the passage grave at Newgrange in County Meath. The antiquity is palpable. I have breathed the Neolithic air and traced with a finger the same whorls as a Neolithic finger, trying to understand the magic symbolism in the figure. Roots are more than a house and familiar faces. They go deeper and further to a time we only recognize in our bones.
Editor’s Note: Dougherty returns with her usual lyricism and imagination, honed with imagery, personification, and a provocative ending. TLC
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From one Imbolc to the next
Jane Dougherty
she walks on goddess feet
these days of rising milk,
flood waters and the juice of trees,
the cycles and circles,
rippling round in whorls of stone,
valves and bivalves carved by the sea,
and seashell-knotted hearts of oak.
Red the colour that detaches
from the gentle water greens,
the stirring mud,
blue of sky haze and dunnocks’ eggs;
a gown, perhaps a slipper,
wild tulip petal fallen,
a glimpse of the magic
behind the wind.
Poet’s Notes: Brigid, one the major figures of Irish mythology, has always fascinated me. She wasn’t restricted to the usual female deity roles of fertility and healing; she was also goddess of wisdom, poetry, fire, metalworking, and animals. No wonder she was not allowed to survive Christianization and had to be transformed, in different versions of her story, into a holy woman, a resigned forgiving wife of a violent husband, or a nun.
Editor’s Note: Dougherty give us beautiful imagery throughout this reoccurring pagan holiday. Her word choices are creative as well, such as “juice of trees”. TLC
About the Poet: Jane Dougherty lives and works in southwest France. Her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, ink sweat and tears, Nightingale & Sparrow, Brilliant Flash Fiction, and Songs of Eretz. Her poetry chapbooks, “thicker than water” and “birds and other feathers” were published in October and November 2020.
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Winter Breath
Steven Wittenberg Gordon
I exhale.
Mist from my body pours into the air.
The wind blows.
The mist from my body rises into the sky.
The mist cools.
My mist condenses around tiny dust particles.
A cloud forms.
Tiny droplets from my breath are captured by a cloud.
The droplets freeze.
Ice crystals grow as water vapor condenses on their surfaces.
I am snow.
My flakes float down to me and melt on my tongue.
Editor’s Note: Steve's couplets, combined with imagery, drift like snow to shape the end of his poem. TLC
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The Transcendental Constant of Circles
Karla Linn Merrifield
the antiquity of a sequoia’s diameter,
the time of day on grandfather’s clock face,
the value of doubloons and euros,
and the
full moon’s silvered disk.
True to the sun, its eight planets, and the rings
of Saturn, in every circle is the unknowable
number— the never-ending pi, π of all life’s
mysteries, including the blissful irrationality
of marriage, of our encircling cosmic romance.
Editor’s Note: Karla’s poem includes a nice mix of circles, from micro to macro in imagery and metaphor. TLC
* * * * * * * * * *
Serpent Eating Its Tail
Karla Linn Merrifield
Again smoke rings, orbit of Pluto,
our own Earth’s equator or its
Arctic Circle, growth rings
of redwoods, my wedding ring –
I am thinking in circles, starting
out & ending where I began back
at zero often by inches, often by miles
of journeying through time
changing me along the way to myself.
I’m spinning off again on a traffic rotary,
rubber gasket, rim of a bone button
or corolla around December’s full moon—
because I cannot stop traveling toward
the throbbing core where I’m afraid, not afraid,
ignorant, knowing,
youngster, crone,
the same old, different poet
I always am & never will be again.
Editor’s Note: Karla’s choice of the word, ouroboros (or uroboros) for the title of this poem is superb. I particularly like how she traveled from specific circles to her personal travel through time, making a full circle. TLC
* * * * * * * * * *
Disposable, Not
Karla Linn Merrifield
I fish it out of the kitchen bin
a second turquoise napkin,
completely crumpled, a wad
of color I want to save because
there lie the crumbs of another batch
of months, two dozen this time,
the outline of his lips beneath
a Covid-grown beard, which is behind
a mask lifted to sip and nibble
and leave again his famous grin
in the four-ply fold—you’ll recall
paper-thin, heaven’s sake.
This imperfect souvenir cannot be pressed
between the pages of a Moleskine journal
dated August 2, 2020, full sturgeon moon,
in this era, or at the back of this volume,
Brockport Years, XIII, begun on the 13th,
a Friday, December 2019 in NoFoMy, Florida,
continuing to today—everything is artifact.
With this petite serviette in my left hand,
I remember in the fleeting moment:
We shall not perish. From my fist
into a Ziploc baggie it’s stuffed into the rear
pocket of this black book. Ephemerality
o’erleaps fragility—social distancing
does not apply to old souls; we put our bodies aside.
Take a deep breath and remember to recycle the story:
Once a circle, silver-embossed or otherwise, always.
Editor’s Note: I appreciate Karla’s use of artifacts to describe her life during COVID-19, the sturgeon moon reference, and the act of recycling as a metaphor. TLC
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Family Circle: Thirteen Ways of Looking at Wool
Vivian Finley Nida
I
Making her way around twenty bolts of fabric
even with eyes closed
Mama’s thumb and fingers know which is wool
II
Under three clouds
like fleece
Great-grandma spins yarn
III
Lamb, destined to be Grand Champion
mills around tufts of green
serene as David’s 23rd Psalm
IV
Finishing loop through museum, I realize
Van Gogh and his brush
are one
Van Gogh, his brush, and The Sheep Shearers
are one
V
Husband is not sure which stirs emotions more at county fair
Grooming sheep perfectly to highlight proportions, muscles
Showing poise in ring with stubborn sheep
Hearing judges’ decisions
or just after
VI
Frost on window pane creates opaque whirls
as Grandma’s knitting needles fly
darning holes in small wool socks
Soon bare patches of ground
boast blanket of white
and children squeal
flinging snowballs
again, again
VII
Oh, frontiersman
why embrace lassoes and cattle
Hear the sheep’s bleating hymn of praise
Accept flock’s tithe
milk, cheese, meat, wool
VIII
I know Grandpa’s horse carried him
back and forth from Indian Territory
to Clarksville Academy in Texas
and I know, too, that sheep’s wool
for his saddle blanket was part of the circuit
IX
After shortening wrap-around skirt
Grandma sews the wool scraps
into kangaroo, encloses joey in pouch
X
Thick wool cardigan hugs Sister
as northern lights swirl
Even Jason’s Golden Fleece
dims beside them
XI
In wool topcoat, fedora
Daddy unveils new Chevrolet
I think that he and Dinah Shore’s
“See the USA in your Chevrolet”
will roll forever, but her TV show ends
a month after heavy lid of casket
closes over his wool suit, ashen gray
XII
Quarterback is crossing goal line
Cheerleaders in pleated wool skirts
must be turning cartwheels
XIII
As clock hands sweep round, round, round
those of us counting sheep finally spiral down
weave through folklore:
receive good luck meeting a flock of sheep
good weather when sheep lie peacefully in the field
Poet’s Notes: When the theme of circles was announced for this issue, I first thought of a photograph of my great-grandmother at her spinning wheel, holding a strand of wool yarn. Thoughts of other family members followed, with wool at the center. I gratefully acknowledge borrowing the shape of one of my favorite poems, Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” to tie these diverse images together.
Editor’s Note: Vivian uses multiple poetic devices as she references a circle in each section. In some stanzas she incorporates shape and haiku. Admirable take on Wallace Stevens’ poem. TLC
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First Snow of Winter
Howard Stein
New
Year’s Eve, I went to bed early,
The hard-caked earth, barren and dry.
I awoke to delight, six inches of snow,
Treacherous wonderland, but wonderland still.
Sky Painter had done his job well,
A thick canvas of white
Left little room for darkness –
Mostly south sides of tree trunks,
And undersides of branches.
The gale that blew in the snow
Had passed eastward hours ago –
Now, only stillness and brilliance
From an unimpeded sun.
Seventy-five years of this same moment
In all the places life and work took me,
Each first snow, a new canvas,
A fresh painting, not a print;
Recurrence, an illusion –
Though our earth had completely
Encircled the sun, and winter
Arrived right on time.
I do not know how routine becomes amazement,
How old once again becomes new.
Am I the child who long ago
Encountered this scene for the first time,
And now each year’s first snow
Revisits this forgotten enchantment
In new delight? –
When now becomes then
And back to now once again?
I end with amazement just as I began –
Unable to surrender wonder to cliché,
When each year’s first snow
Is like none before.
Editor’s Note: Howard builds a frame for the circle of life within a familiar scene, the first snow. His use of imagery is particularly appealing. TLC
* * * * * * * * * *
Diminution in Autumn
Howard Stein
The rhythm of seasons
Spring, summer, fall, winter,
Lost, but later found,
Leaving, then returning,
Blessed Assurance,
Promise unbroken.
In Nature’s circle,
I am completed anew
For another year.
Autumn, though,
Sometimes is different –
Fall makes no vow for spring;
Yields only to winter,
As far into the future as it
Is allowed to see.
Maybe there is no Promised Land,
Nothing beyond a wall of ice.
Endings cannot assure beginnings,
When endings are all they know.
Maybe spring will not follow
This year. Even circles
Have exceptions.
A pungent scent rises
From decaying leaves,
Soggy from recent rain –
Maybe this is the best
Any fall can do.
Maybe full circle is
Wager and conceit,
Our geometry wrong:
Sometimes a tangent
Drifts so far from its circle,
The circle vanishes –
From sight, from thought.
Did the circle ever really exist?
How can autumn yearn
For a spring it can no longer imagine?
Sometimes a tangent,
Lost in space and time,
Cannot find its way home,
Or even remember home.
Only autumn and perishing
Remain of what
Was once a full year.
Editor’s Note: I appreciate Howard’s universal metaphor of this poem. TLC
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And the world keeps turning
Sharon J. Clark
as marshmallows burn above the belly of a fire pit
a Mobius strip offers invitation to an eternal journey
safety on the inside, exclusion beyond the
circumference of society where white spheres of fungi
swell on the forest floor – sustenance or toxin –
the revolving doors of life and death.
Poet’s Notes: Written during a time when our freedom of choice has been curtailed by a pandemic, this poem is an attempt to capture the circular nature of our lives – both physical and spiritual dimensions.
Editor’s Note: Excellent imagery, such as “belly of a fire pit.” Clark digs down to the floor of the world. TLC
About the Poet: Sharon J. Clark is a poet and short story writer with a first class honors degree in humanities with creative writing. Her work has featured in a number of anthologies, and she serves on the steering group of the Milton Keynes literary festival.
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No Title
Maureen Anne Browne
The world she walks
is mapped different:
her school a wooden hut
with no windows,
books non-existent,
or the tattered cast-offs
from white children.
Nevertheless, delighting
in her year two reader,
carrying it home holding
it close, but hidden
under brown paper.
Drawn to whoops and cries
she stands on the other side,
her nose tight against the wire,
eyes, laden with longing,
widen, and widen at children
flying high on swings,
shooting down slides,
spinning round and round
on painted horses, colours
whizzing into dizzy rainbows.
Her eyes drop down,
she picks up her parcel,
half-looking back starts to go,
stops, starts, walks slow
the road home, kicking the stones.
Poet’s Notes: I came across a photograph of a little black girl on the other side of a wire fence longingly watching white children play in a Whites Only playground. It brought home the ugliness of segregation, and I have tried to capture this in my poem.
Editor’s Note: Browne offers a brief snapshot into poverty and racism. A vicious circle and timely topic indeed. I appreciate the metaphor of a book covered by brown paper versus that of a colorful playground. Effective ending. TLC
About the Poet: Maureen Anne Browne is a member of Ards Writers and attended poetry workshops at the Seamus Heaney centre for poetry at Queens University, Belfast. She has read her poetry at The Festival of the Peninsula, Swaledale Festival, and summer season at La Mon Hotel. Her work has been displayed in public places in Havant, won various prizes in competitions, and received an Honorary Award from Washington for her poem “Evil Under the Sun”.
Browne’s poetry been published in several magazines, among them Pulsar, Orbis, Writing Magazine, and Honest Ulsterman, and in various anthologies, most recently Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands (Shabda Press). She is currently working on her first collection.
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Moonbroch
J. A. Sutherland
On viewing “Darkness Visible” by Christopher Orr
She drew a perfect circle in the air
the
circle wasn’t without form or void
and so she toyed
with what she thought she couldn’t see
– eternity –
although she thought it wise to draw the circle
anti-clockwise
It hovered like a halo in the dark and though
it cast a glow
beside her as she studied its circumference
no luminescence
emanated from within nor light as she peered deeper
fell upon her
nor an inkling or epiphany or flicker of enlightenment
for what it meant
It was a perfect circle that she drew
and looking through
brought nothing new to her and yet
she couldn’t let
her eye be turned from its mesmeric stare
– she didn’t care –
it was a perfect circle in the air
and nothing more
She did not pause
to wonder why she never saw venn diagrams
– a hexagram –
of other overlapping spheres
since only hers
appeared to her a single singular paradigm
of broken time
that neither was a moon nor sun nor clock
but was perhaps
a moonbroch or an aureole of a lunar eclipse
that hinted at
a deeper storm or darker threat
of things to come
that only she could see by looking through
– beyond – to where
another woman drew a perfect circle
in the air…
Editor’s Note: I enjoyed the form that Sutherland chose for his poem, which closed a circle in the final lines. Excellent conceit at the end. TLC
About the Poet: J. A. Sutherland is a writer and performer, based in Scotland. Using artifacts, visual art, and photography for inspiration, Sutherland has produced three limited-edition, hand-stitched art-books that have formed the bases for various collaborative performance ventures. Another set of poems, 26 Doors, formed an exhibition/performance/print project, which has been widely shown throughout Edinburgh. Sutherland’s blog is called throughtheturretwindow.blogspot.com.
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de Bhaldraithe
(Irish Celtic: Fairy ring)
Terri Lynn Cummings
Best avoided by humans
a ring of mushrooms
ascends from fairies’
steps on potter’s field
An ancient rite—
the spores of life
and death circle
sacred ground
Wedded synchrony
beneath shrewd moon
shifts from waltz
to Irish jig
Only immortals frolic
in the middle of this phase
nearer to the grassroots of Eden
than humanity
Poet’s Notes: Last spring, I found a fairy ring in our front yard. My mother, who was from N. Ireland, raised me on tales about these wondrous circles.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Duet in Circles
While listening to Brahms’ Cello Sonata No. 1 Op 38
Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios
Allegro Non Troppo
They were beautiful…
two sleek porpoises,
powerful, dark boned,
glistening from
their unbound bonding,
fountain-sprung as the gushing
of dark songs from a singer’s mouth
trembling in ecstasy.
Curling into themselves,
they exult in perfect harmony,
of a language all their own.
She, straddling the big-hipped creature,
gently touches the singing strings,
he replies, with flurried grace.
Their backs in paired graceful arcs
glide in perfect rhythm
to the water’s caress,
wreathed in translucent sprays .
Allegretto quasi Menuetto
Green waterspouts of music
open the salt-blue gates
to expose a view of
the universe
before land was,
before water was.
Two swimmers
sharing the dizzying churning
of white water phrases
rising and submerging
in an exquisite mating ritual.
Conversed in a harmony
that seems to rise
from the deep crater of the singing sea,
the droplets of sixteenth notes
glittering in the fugal depths
of the music,
undecipherable,
contrapuntal
singular,
yet together.
Allegro
A fluid upheaval of
descending octaves
fill the air and sea
with circles of sound
in thundering conclusion
rippling against our beings
until we,
sole survivors
of the merging spheres
are broken against the shores
of our mortality.
Editor’s Note: Kirkpatrick-Vrenios weaves an elegant cello sonata through a mating ritual. Imaginative employment of the senses in this poem. TLC
Editor's Note: A recording of Brahms’ Cello Sonata No. 1 Op 38 may be enjoyed here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XiYrzsgWto. SWG
* * * * * * * * * *
Circle Faster, Circle Fainter, O Earth
Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios
I am a Dwarf Planet
called woman,
who, shrouded in your shadow,
circles in silence.
A small celestial body out of reach
of pitching stones.
Arctic, naked,
I orbit beyond the stars
glistening like ice.
You, my birth sphere,
mother of iron and phlegm,
eclipse from the world
your black-holed temper
your unpredictable fire.
(Could it be that only I have seen it?)
You long to be the moon,
but are the sun, a buckle-hot light
whose blazing yellow mouth shrieks.
You strut love-bellied, but empty.
You, a dominant star demanding
devotion,
can also incinerate.
I cannot circle faster than who I am,
waxing small out of the skirts
of the telescope’s dark eye. The silence
I've only ever imagined
now audible,
reveals the constant thrum of my distant orbit.
Editor’s Note: Kirkpatrick-Vrenios spins imagery and imagination into beautiful,
warm cloth. TLC
About the Poet: Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios is a Professor Emerita from American University. She has performed as a solo singing artist across Europe and the United States and currently resides in Mendocino, California. Her poetry has been featured in such online poetry columns as Ekphrastic Review, Abyss and Apex, Kentucky Review, Form Quarterly, Scissors and Spackle, Foliate Oak, and in issues of Poeming Pigeon, Unsplendid, and The Edison Review. Yellow Chair Press published her prize-winning chapbook, “Special Delivery”, in 2016; her second chapbook, “Empty the Ocean with a Thimble”, is pending release in April 2021 by Word Tech Communications.
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The Pupil
Hollis Kurman
Through the open window, a lesson.
Vowels in the trickle of a fountain,
chasing mosquitoes over a fake pond:
‘A’, ‘E’, ‘AA’, ‘EE’, ‘EI’, ‘IJ’, ‘UI’...
Bueno. De nuevo. The low drone of a plane,
too close to the city on its way wherever,
distracting, vuelos y viajes, here in the wet
breeze in the wet leaves, anemic sun
a tease through the grey, those vowels
are just not round enough, twisted as
the church bell, whose half hours sound
like one o’clock, always one o’clock,
hints of a lunchtime not yet deserved,
missing a radio’s stadium static, el partido.
A bird screams, I’m landing, and lands.
Bracelets jingle, silvered circle punctuation
between enunciations. Try again, mija.
A motorcycle boasts the wrong way down
a one-way street, ay no mas, not this time,
‘O’, ‘OO’, ‘OE’, out of reach.
Poet’s Notes: “The Pupil” is one of my migration themed poems, a subject that is an important part of my family history, my life interests, and my writing. My Cuban neighbor in Amsterdam and her efforts to learn the Dutch language and culture are what inspired this poem. Those vowels are just not round enough...
Editor’s Note: Kurman constructed a poem filled with fine descriptive language and the senses. TLC
About the Poet: Hollis Kurman is contributing Editor at Barrow Street Books. She serves on the Board of Trustees of Save the Children Netherlands, the Fulbright Commission NL Board, and the Human Rights Watch Global Advisory Council for Women’s Rights. She is also Chairperson of the Ivy Circle and moderates literary events.
Kurman’s poems have been published in multiple journals, including Barrow Street, Rattle, Phoebe, the Ocean State Review, VIA (Voices in Italian Americana), Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, Global Poemic, and the current/winter 2020-21 issue of Lilith. Her début picture book, Counting Kindness: Ten Ways to Welcome Refugee Children (US: Charlesbridge), will be published in at least nine countries in 2020-21. The book is endorsed by Amnesty International, was nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal 2021 (UK), and won a Northern Lights Award (US) for 2020.
Kurman lives in an old canal house in Amsterdam and can be found online at https://www.holliskurman.com /IG: holliskurman_writer /Twitter: @HollisKurman.
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Ripples
old tree alone on the hill’s
cusp bent branches shield
new apple, furred with luago
delicate, like the coat
skimming newborn skin. red
blush stains emerald cheek.
flesh gathers bounty round
a seeded heart. tiny sphere
smaller than a coveted glass
marble. I remember the day
grandpa shot a complicit wink
and with silver soup spoon dug
a shallow pit in the soil, all the pink
earthworms recoiled in sudden light.
I chose my favourite alley, jade
green alabaster swirled with white
and ruby stripes. his was solid cobalt,
transparent and clear as the spring
sky overhead. I squatted and rolled
the small orb, felt anticipation
shimmer in the air, fresh between us,
like stones skipped on a still pond
circles widening.
Editor’s Note: Boudreau’s poem has a nice metaphor in the title. I enjoy how the poem starts out with something unexpected, like an apple (another metaphor), and then comes full circle with a marble. TLC
About the Poet: Virginia Boudreau is a retired teacher from coastal Nova Scotia, Canada. Her poetry and prose have been published extensively in international literary journals and anthologies, both in-print and on-line. Some credits include The New York Times, Palette Poetry, Westerly, Claw And Blossom, Grain, and UnderStorey. She placed first in The Bacopa Literary Review competition for Flash Creative Non-Fiction in 2020.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the Listening Heart of the Circle
Doris Ferleger
In the belly of Box Canyon, in the womb
of boulders, in a circle of women, one by one,
we tell our stories. In the center of the moon-circle,
a fire burns. A flickering sun, A rising sun.
Of boulders, in a circle of women, one by one,
some are still afraid to speak at all.
A fire burns. Each one, a flickering sun, A rising sun.
In the center of the circle of our hearts,
some are still afraid to speak at all.
All are still afraid to speak of some things..
In the center of the circle of our hearts,
we place trust. We place kindling.
All are still afraid to speak of some things..
In speaking, each by each, we transform,
we place trust. We place kindling.
No longer fitting into familiar fictions.
In speaking, each by each, we transform,
we embody ourselves. Take full breaths,
no longer fitting into familiar fictions,
memories pour from our mouths,
we embody ourselves. Take full breaths,
Like marbles spilled from a child’s pockets,
memories pour from our mouths,
tiger-eye fierce-swirl, jewel-blue joy.
Like marbles spilled from a child’s pockets,
colors we keep creating to survive.
Tiger-eye fierce-swirl, jewel-blue joy.
We must not let ourselves be washed away.
Like colors we keep creating to survive,
tiger-eyes’ fierce-swirl, jewel-blue joy,
a baby’s eyes seeing for the first time.
In the belly of Box Canyon, in the womb.
Poet’s Notes: I was inspired by the Circles theme to revisit, reconstruct into a pantoum, and totally revise an unpublished poem I had written after attending a three-week memoir writing retreat with Natalie Goldberg at Ghost Ranch, a 21,000 acre retreat center adjacent to where Georgia O’Keefe lived and painted. The experience of writing together, meditating together and sharing our stories with seventy-three women among the boulders of Box Canyon, in a large hall, in our separate rooms, and on long walks through the sagebrush, was extraordinary. The Circles theme inspired the idea of writing a pantoum, which is a circular structure that perfectly fit the poem’s concerns--writing and sharing in a circle of women, circling back to our childhood stories, encircled in the womb of boulders, circling the fire, and the circles or cycles of life.
I had abandoned the original poem not knowing what needed to happen to make it what it was meant to become. The Songs of Eretz theme of Circles was bashert to bring this poem into being as a tribute to that extraordinary experience in the circle of women. May it be a blessing of inspiration.
Editor’s Note: Ferleger shares her heart through metaphor, trust, clarity, and love. Her voice reminds us of how language redeems. TLC
About the Poet: Dr. Ferleger holds an MFA in Poetry and a Ph.D. in psychology and maintains a telehealth Imago and Dialogue psychotherapy practice. She was the winner of the now defunct Songs of Eretz Poetry Award Contest in 2018. Her numerous literary prizes include the New Letters Poetry Prize, Robert Fraser Poetry Prize, and the AROHO Creative Non-Fiction Prize.
Ferleger’s book, Big Silences in a Year of Rain, was a finalist for the Alice James Books Beatrice Hawley Award; she is also the author of As the Moon Has Breath, and Leavened, as well as a chapbook entitled “When You Become Snow”. Her work has been published in numerous journals including Cimarron Review, L.A. Review, and South Carolina Review.
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Poetry Review
Review of Everything really matters...to Me! by Gene Hodge
Reviewed by Steven Wittenberg Gordon
There is immediacy to this collection. The poet must share it. The reader must read it. This sense of urgency begins with the introduction (which should be read more than once, rather than glossed over) and carries the reader on a less than smooth bullet train ride from the book’s hopeful beginning to its thought-provoking and surprisingly dark ending.
Two sinusoidal waves of emotion run throughout its pages--one of optimism, hope, and togetherness, the other of cynicism, depression, and profound loneliness; the former attempts to cancel out the latter, but, alas, even though Gene tries desperately to bootstrap his natural exuberance and optimism to combat the relentless negativity that life sometime rains down on us, even he must sometimes admit defeat. “Walmart”, which describes how the titular corporation destroyed the spirit and soul of his hometown, and his chilling closing poem, “It Is Finished!”, which opens a disturbing window into the senseless destruction of war, are two powerful examples of how, as Forrest Gump would put it, “sometimes there just aren’t enough rocks.”
From a “meta” level, Gene includes several pieces that poetically describe how poets see the world differently from everybody else. These poems are often his most optimistic. Gene teaches us that the world around us may be dirty, ugly, noisy, dark, and violent, but a poet can always find beauty and love even in such depressing environments. Gene invites, even begs, the reader to see the world as a poet does, to find beauty and love even in the most desperate situations.
As did Whitman, Gene chose to self-publish his book rather than wait, perhaps forever, for it to be released by a commercial publisher. As a result, it may be difficult to find outside of Gene’s home of Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee. It is available in a perfect bound trade paperback of approximately ninety pages in length. Those interested in obtaining a copy should contact Gene directly at P.O. Box 802, Soddy-Daisy, TN 37384.
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Frequent Contributor News
Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is
pleased to announce the following publication credits among current and former
Frequent Contributors and staff.
Editor-in-Chief Steven Wittenberg Gordon
His poem, “Mashpee Beach Sonnet”, was published in Cape Cod Times on February 22, 2021. https://www.capecodtimes.com/story/entertainment/books/2021/02/22/cape-poets-explore-gratitude-ever-extraordinary/4517607001/.
FC Gene Hodge
Gene recently published another poetry collection, Everything really matters...to Me!
Former FC Mary Soon Lee
Her poem "On Reading Le Guin" was anthologized in Climbing Lightly Through Forests: A Poetry Anthology Honoring Ursula K. Le Guin.
Four of her poems appeared in Star*Line #44.1, Winter 2021. One of them, “What Aliens Read”, was an Editor's Choice poem and so may be read online at http://www.sfpoetry.com/sl/edchoice/44.1-2.html.
Her poem "How to Forfeit the Future" appeared in NewMyths.com, Issue 53, December 2020 https://sites.google.com/a/newmyths.com/nmwebsite/poems/how-to-forfeit-the-future.
Her poem "Heroine" appeared in Uppagus #43, December 2020 https://uppagus.com/poems/soon-lee-heroine/.
Her poem "The Reaper's Cat" appeared in Mirror Dance, Autumn 2020 http://www.mirrordancefantasy.com/2021/01/the-reapers-cat.html.
Her poem "Why We Resist" appeared in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Volume 31, Number 4, Winter 2020 http://mobiusmagazine.com/poetry/whyweres.html.
Her poem "The Middle Kingdom" appeared in Polu Texni, January 24, 2021 http://www.polutexni.com/?p=10750.
Her poem "Brighton" appeared in Constellations, Volume 10, Fall 2020.
Her poem "How to Colonize Venus" appeared in Andromeda Spaceways #81, December 2020.Her poem "Directions to the Underworld" appeared in Eye to the Telescope #39, January 2021.
Her short story "Just Desserts" appeared in Daily Science Fiction, December 2020 https://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/aliens/mary-soon-lee/just-desserts.
Her short story "Red" was anthologized in Twilight Worlds: Best of NewMyths Anthology Volume II, December 2020.
Former FC Lauren McBride
Her poem, "We Chose Titan Together" is in Asimov's March/April 2021 issue, Vol. 45 Nos. 3 & 4. https://www.asimovs.com/
Her 100-word short story, "Our Alien Friends Honor Us with a Visit", won 2nd place in the Drabble Harvest Contest: Diplomatic Immunity for Extraterrestrial Visitors, February 2021.
https://www.hiraethsffh.com/product-page/drabble-harvest-2-edited-by-terrie-leigh-relf
She has three poems in Star*Line, 44.1, Winter issue.
She has five poems in Scifaikuest, February 2021 print issue.
FC Karla Linn Merrifield
Karla has embarked on a podcast series, My Body the Guitar, in collaboration with British guitarist Paul Garthwaite. Five episodes have been published to date, which you can view here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUFQTQmwQaU&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKv3PQjfsBI&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKv3PQjfsBI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3DH2zDT8KM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksKnmXa7uGk
FC Vivian Finley Nida
Vivian recently judged primary writing and high school and teacher poetry entries for the Oklahoma Writing Project's 2021 Write to Win contest.
Former FC John Reinhart
His poem, “Cardboard Universe", was printed in the Vol. XXXVII, #1 of Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature (https://tmorris.utasites.cloud/sla/aethlon.html).
His poem, “Heart Tree", was printed in the February “roots” edition of Taproot Magazine (https://taprootmag.com/collections/magazines/products/issue-43-roots).
FC Howard Stein
His
poem, “Exile in Situ”, appeared in New
York Parrott on November 17, 2020
https://www.newyorkparrot.com/exile-in-situ-a-protest-soliloquy-by-howard-stein/.
His poem, “What a Leaf Tells Me” appeared in miller's pond poetry magazine Vol 24 Web 1
(millerspondpoetry.com).
His poem, “A Dot’s Journey” appeared in A
River Sings on February 7, 2021
https://www.indolentbooks.com/a-river-sings-02-07-21-howard-f-stein/.
Howard and Seth Allcorn co-authored a poem, “Black Walnuts”, which appeared
in AWEN, Issue 111, February
2021. Another poem by Howard alone, “Straight Party Line”, appeared in
the same issue.
FC Tyson West
Tyson had two poems anthologized in Childhood USA published by The Poet Magazine, "Sunday Fire" and “Dinosaur Dreams.”
He participated in his first zoom poetry reading in December 2020 of his poem “The Carpenter's Wife", recently anthologized in Mother Mary Comes to Me.
His short story, “KEK versus CTHULHU”, was recently anthologized by Rogue Planet Press.
He has five poems in the fib review http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/tyson_west1.html.
His poem “Wind from the Sea” was recently published in The Ekphrastic Review.
Former FC Alessio Zanelli
Alessio’s poem, “The Rage”, was published in the Winter 2020 edition of Nunum https://online.fliphtml5.com/kmmwt/jbnm/#p=1.
His poem, “The Arrow Of Time” appeared in Vol. 20, No. 2 of Taj Mahal Review http://www.tajmahalreview.com/index.php.
His poem, The Vixen”, was featured on the cover of The Journal, issue #62.
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| "Lana the Poetree" | Digital Photograph | R.E. Gordon |
“Love” will be the quarterly theme for our forthcoming Summer 2021 issue. Editor-in-Chief Steven Wittenberg Gordon will be the lead editor. He will be looking for poems that express love in all of its various aspects. Although romantic love poetry will be welcome, romantic love is not the only kind of love. Successful poets must bring something fresh and new to the party. Poets are encouraged to be creative. General (off theme) submissions of poetry will also be considered, but they will have to be extraordinarily good to make it into this issue.
One of the things that makes Songs of Eretz Poetry Review unique is that we do our best to enhance the enjoyment of our poetry by pairing every poem with an illustration. In the past, these illustrations have come from royalty free Internet sources or were created especially for the purpose by our Art Editor. Recently, we have sought submissions of and provided honoraria for art by guest artists.
Beginning with our Summer 2021 issue, we will be expanding the opportunities for guest artists to participate in our quarterly themed offerings. We will consider cover art not only for the “front” but also for the “back” of each issue. In addition (as some readers may have noticed from the announcement in the middle of our current issue), we will publish an Art Gallery section in each issue. It has been frustrating to turn away so many good art submissions that were on theme but did not match any of the poetry. Now, such pieces of art will have a potential home. These changes should increase the opportunities for guest artists to be published in Songs of Eretz by at least an order of magnitude!
Art Editor Jason Artemus Gordon will be keeping his mind wide open as he considers art submissions for the “Love” issue. He hopes to be able to fill its Art Gallery section with as many creative representations of love from as diverse a group of artists as possible, adding a whole new dimension to the enjoyment and appreciation of the quarterly theme. Remember, cover art (front and now also back!) must depict a seagull or seagulls; inside art need not. Also remember, art submissions must be on theme; we do not accept general submissions of art as we do for poetry.
We will begin accepting submissions of poetry and art for our Summer 2021 issue on May 1, 2021, and the narrow submission window will close on May 15, 2021. That said, “Love” was our most popular quarterly theme of 2020--so popular, that we had to close for submissions early. Accordingly, we recommend that you begin planning now and do not wait until the last day of the submission period to send us your best!
FIN
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