The Quickening By Eva Rider I am the Voice behind the Silence behind all you have forgotten... not yet remembered. I am the Dance between... the one and single movement which twists like grapevine in Spring. I curl through toes, bend around ankles, grasping at knees and thighs. I am sinew, muscle, bone. I sing your cells awake.. anew. I lighten your shoulders, I kiss your fingertips. You are my vessel, my instrument, my temple, my shrine. Through all of your passages, through darkest tunnels of time, through wild winds to quiet shores.. I have held you; even and especially, when you believed faith to be a farce and reason merely a tool that men designed for ends without beginnings. To pave a way to me, life boarded up your heart and slowly turned up the heat. Smoldering white ash, Now...you are ready to receive me.. To trust, because all other roads are barred to you. Your will is now at last, My Will. Surrender - Dance, on a cliff edge.. a mountain crag, Dance, on the crest of an ocean wave.. a cumulus cloud, Dance, on a puff of smoke billowing from your own chimney. Sing..... even though you are off-key; Sing, and the rain begins to fall; Sing, because My Voice calls you when all else is Silence.
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The Prisonerʼs Silence By Eva Rider Shocked into silence, lips sealed against a truth that pounds against the stirrings of the heart. This is not a Silence that heals. This silence thrusts truth into the dank, depths of caverns beneath the underworld, its relentless cries, heard by no one. I have been bound to secrecy by my misplaced loyalties to the gods of my betrayal and inequity. My voice has not been heard for millennia. Lost is the key to mystery that has caged my right to life. I will no longer be silenced. I will not be placated into submission and obedience. I am not Nice. I am raw, I am tender. My design was misconceived. The aid that came was too swift to hold substance. my direction,unclear... my wings guided me westward..... Yet, I arrive in the east.
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Wild Horse By Marlene Dean I dream of a pale horse, running free under a prairie moon, moving so fast nothing can catch him, air washing over his back, streaming through his mane and the silk of his tail. I dream of an ancient horse stocky and sure, thundering overland, leaping hollows, clattering over river stones, pulling himself to the top of the highest hill, lord of the dark lands. I love the horse of starlit shadows with all the force of my soul, he beckons to that part of my mind where no one has control. He is the bridge, the ancient guide, the one who remembers the way to the other side.
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After the Fly's Buzz
By Susanne Dutton
“And then the Windows failed — and then
I could not see to see.”
Emily Dickenson I Heard a Fly Buzz — When I Died
the next thing
is to let,
not will,
ease, unmanaged
awn, unbidden
lids up, eyes
open, uncleaving
as dry leaves
on cold
earth, let
break, unbent
rise, unchosen
light with its blue
math, its
inch trance
work, picking its
way in, let
the bride, unsought,
unasked for,
unlonging,
fall, unmade, at
her own altar.
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Octave Destination By Shelley Lynn Pizzuto We are here as we are there Blown out through these standing waves Conserving and expending Bringing us into this ever so delicate interval The unseen unison Secured from two points Frolicking between what is above and what is below We are orchestrating ourselves through one another Conduits of reeds and string Wet and dry, sharp and dense The waves of sound created sight so clear that at noted points the smell of a touch was tasted by the heart Our souls singing Reaching this crescendo, blown out again through standing waves We fold back against these echoing chambers Pump Visceral Be still in this interference, as harmony blinds our sight to disappearance Our Pythagorean cloak, woven with suspended chords The unseen heard And we are dancing motionless, hinged between two points Is it your voice that translates through this hand; or this hand that translates you into voice Do I dare to turn and risk the silence of the loss of this hand If only to bring our meeting to this octave destination once again We shall push down and blow out Words, and rhymes, and rhythmic stories that tell of our dancing with the overtones Quivering
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Incantation for Ancestor By Pamela Preston Bat wings slice The cellar air The tree frog falls To its death All sleeps. Winter fog like dry ice Gathers in the cleavage Of unknown mountains Seeping into bones Hollow like reeds. Winds howl Stopping breath While walls of One existence Crumble. ӬShe knelt on matted grass Listening to You, Who once carved Hieroglyphics on cornerstones Who left your anagramma coded Who stained your pages with tears While ants Legless toads The lion And the dead Became your helpers Collecting works From your mysterium. You Who live in this night Above the moon Became her ancestor. Light your pipe Old one Tell her she will not break Remind her of the truth of trauma Guild her to the rock temple. Strew flowers Giant one Before the smaller ones The root And the tree.
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Carry Me Home
Naomi Ruth Lowinsky
The poem is my chariot transported as I am
through mid-summer's long twilight round the great round
maiden
maker
ancestor
back to the land of the swinging bridge
ivy caves
great mother oak
where I was a wild horse girl
In those days the voice of the father ruled
fear stirred the waters lilies pulled petals in close
The poem was my chariot the words knew the way
They were horses out of a cave painting
but when spooked
O my runaway chariot
how you plunge
into nightmare
The castle crumbles
Grandmother tiger slashes my writing hand
How's a girl to light the primal fire
when Isis is
a mound of pottery shards and
Sappho
a forgotten mode of song Yet
She sings to me as ocean devours the sun
She sings to me in measures of moon
for only the ancestors know
how to slow those horses down
slow breath
slow heart
gather my fragments to greet
first light
Poems build a temple deep in the woods
Isis appears in shining form
wraps me in
Lesbos
Sumer
Babylon
the lips of the lustful earth kiss mine
transported as I am
by every poem I've ever danced sung wrestled wrought
wrung out of harvest moons
Words are my horses out of a cave painting
the chariot is made of bone and tiger claw
Sappho takes the reins She sings me through
midsummers' long twilight round the great round
maiden
maker
ancestor
across the swinging bridge
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TO THE LUMINOUS GIFT OF A SNAIL for Richard and Carol by Naomi Ruth Lowinsky I've been trying to figure you out You seem to be a snail bearing light In my hands you are solid glass In my eyes you're a wave full of swirling color A snail bearing rainbow light Though you claim to be an ordinary paper weight What's with those swirling colors? What's with that primordial fetal curl? Why pretend to be a simple paper weight When placed on a desk you go dim Losing all traces of fetal curl? When you end up in my kitchen window Escaping the drudge of that desk You seem to me a genie of fire and ash Curled up in my kitchen window Whose job is to show me the light Could it be you're a genie of ash and fire Or maybe a color wheel dervish Whose job is to show me the light To drench me in lilac and gold Perhaps you're a whirling dervish of color Come to alter my newsprint mind To drench me in turquoise and pink To cast me a spell in which purple turns green Enchanting my newscast mind When the ancients drank from Lycurgus' cup Green turned to purple So says the snail of the long unfurling When the ancients drank from Lycurgus' cup They found themselves turning inward So says the snail of the long unfurling In the hands of the fire God of glass They found themselves twirling outward From umbilical curl to cosmic swirl In the hands of the green God of purple Cast on the spiral path From cosmic curl to umbilical swirl From outside of inside to inside of out Cast on the spiral path In the hot melt of creation From inside of outside to outside of in From the gift of the snail in my hands To the hot melt of creation I'm still trying to figure it out
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Stories for Sale By John Guchemand What kind? We got spiced; bittersweet; perfumed; cold and logical; phantasmagorical... Roiling-bellied lover in velveteen backroom, crepuscular choking on dream-deal rabid”• to trade all closeted possessions for gram-fraction of powder-fantasy? Or how about this beaut' hanging here? The greenish mutt, cowardice-charged, bellyaching and unrobust. Expects her at streetlamps”•examining her vialed scent”•bowing Hanging onto mafia-days by fingernails”• a memory of a scratch behind the ear. No? Take your pick. Look here, society's simpleton! Or worse”•villainous-hearted, pestilent. Wrecking ball to woman's virtue. What about this one? The story of the hero psychologique, charged to skewer the imperial basilisk, scaled-away hearts. A way. A man-child sniffing out backdoor ritual. A genetic shaman suffering a wound of the spirit. A carrier of humanity-treasure. Perhaps you need the femme fatale, a walking smile sans merci. If beauty is naked contrast she's Christ in contemplation of detonating the nuclear bomb. You can't forget this one”•the artist (method actor). Inspirations”•wind-blown clouds”•cast glances. Shapeshifter tempting. A coin toss”•siren or muse? A machinating anima. A prick-eared Abraham. We witness another supplication at the altar of love, a warm spine, a lit match held behind, a dream of ear-offering separation, hectoring. Nothing of interest? Ah, you already have a story. Sorry we couldn't help you today. Come back again for a better selection.
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