we're going to see Dido, Queen of Carthage
by Michael Estabrook
Phone rings, my mother telling me
that Aunt Jean "has cancer,
all in her liver and
lungs and colon. The doctor said
this moves fast, mows down
everything in its path."
My father's sister, the last of those children.
Then the phone rings again,
my father-in-law
letting us know that Uncle Neal
has passed away, "died of a heart attack
early in the morning, at least he didn't
suffer just before the end."
The youngest of three boys
on that side of the family.
I hug my wife, "God, today's
not starting out all that nice."
But the washing machine starts
banging away, loud as a pile driver,
because the clothes in it are off-balance.
"Let me fix that," she says,
"And I have to finish washing the kitchen
floor too, before we leave for the play."
Copyright 2005 by Michael Estabrook
Reproduction is prohibited without express permission of the author.
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Break Free
by Cheri Fry
Haven't been able to crack a smile
I have taken myself too seriously
and feel embalmed within a tomb of my design-
want to break free
laugh with the winds that playfully swirl amongst the trees
of the living ~ of the alive ~ of the carefree~
Take these chains and let me toss them into the mire
forgetting all the sorrow that attachment brings and
chanting om mani padme hum to
rid myself of all this negative karma~
Let the sweet sounds of joy filled laughter touch our hearts
letting love pour, with purpose, forth from an endless chasm
and
like the pupal transforms to butterfly - transform this world for us all.
Copyright 2005 by Cheri Fry.
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The fallen angels
by Joneve McCormick
Words can freeze revealed truths
and transform meanings.
Following dogma
many have been caved in:
Tibetans, followers of Christ,
warriors losing battle flags...
sacrificed to profane causes.Followers who try
to live wise teachings fully
fail guidelines they didn't source,
not unlike mothers bearing
children with malignant marks.Many believe that what goes out
gets pulled in,
impelling forgetful victims
to lash out,
pull in again,
until knowingly they turn a cheek
or come to understand in other ways
how flows work;those we call enemies return
until we see ourselves
well enough to free them;
in time, everyone sheds many skins.Sages say we grow
out of our prisons slowly
while displaced vision wages wars
instigated by third parties.Some who claim to have climbed
out through the entire morass
say humankind has fallen
far below the ability to create
it once had.
Copyright 2005 by Joneve McCormick.
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Generations
by Raud Kennedy
The rusted cyclone fence
surrounds the boarded up house,
yellow, underneath the willow tree.
Fresh smoke rises from the black chimney.
The new owners have arrived.
Young, in love, anticipating
the future in their dream home.
It's good they don't know
the memories their house holds
for another couple, now old,
but once young, in love
and …
Copyright 2005 by Raud Kennedy.
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TRIPTYCH IN ARABESQUE
by Shadwynn
I
Jerusalem, an urban portrait in arid tones
smeared by the palette knife of passing centuries,
its thickly pigmented paint
desert textured, sun-splattered
in nuances of Mediterranean mixture
character-cracked with archeological age.
Spires and minarets sigh celestial aspirations
above mosques adorned in arabesque and awe.
Shields of David speak their symbolism
from synagogue stones, geometric gateways
to the ark-enshrouded Scroll.
Crosses with right-angles in linear ascent
sit enthroned atop Russian onion orbs,
glittering a stately sense of spiritual superiority.
God of the Holy City seemingly split asunder;
tribal prisms of the Spirit in Semitic schism:
Allah versus Yahweh
while the Persons of the Trinity
sit sulking on steps
to the dome-covered Rock,
uninvited Witnesses
to Mohammed's steed-speeding ride.
Impassioned zealotries unaccustomed
to acquiescent silence wrangle over real estate
as rival monks, robed in habits
black with attitude, stain their Sepulchre
with echoes of sanctimonious squabbling
loud enough to raise the dead.
Surreptitiously, the Shekinah slips away
from the secular Jew, taking refuge
beneath Sufi swirls of whirling dervishes
while the muezzin sings his burning soul,
reminding a city to pray.
II
Melchizedek, priest-king of peace
missing for millenniums from his citadel,
the mount of holiness
now bereft of its touted legacy;
a place for pious pilgrimage pockmarked
by the acne of hostility and hatred;
modern backdrop to history's "holy" holocausts:
struggles between sword and scimitar;
massacres, mayhem, bodies and blood;
grotesquely artistic, the arterial flow
on pavement running red with religious rage.
Ishmael still cries for justice from Isaac,
bad blood between brothers bound to battle;
young Palestinian Davids
with slingshots and street-stones
having stood their ground against military might,
cautiously taking aim
at a tank-lumbering Israeli Goliath
as Intifada restored integrity to resistance.
In Arab visions of apocalypse,
the spirit of the swastika,
blue with six points on white,
flies unfurled over bulldozed orchards
casting Nazi shadows
upon crumpled olive branches.
Ever seeking opportunity, Evil,
rushing in where discretion fears to tread,
harvests frustration's bitter vintage
from the winepress of wrath;
fruit of twisted, mutant vines
dripping its distilled desperation
into the dregs of bitterness;
dangerous intoxication for oppressed minds
obsessed with the triumphant taste of oblivion,
their suicidal martyrology
a testimony in murderous artwork
accentuated with mutilated steel;
bus guts spotted in brightly glistening flesh
exploded the color of carnage,
bleeding on beige.
III
Underscoring irony, sculpted
structures of Spirit separate the sanctified:
mosque and minaret,
wailing wall and vacant tomb;
the cost of Divinity dissected
into raging demons of religious certainty,
desert dust clouds sand-scraping
ancient cities hunkered down,
wind-whipped by blustering intolerance,
choking in the convulsive clash of cultures.
Forgotten remnants of faith
take refuge in a garden watered
from the Shepherd's Well
beneath the barren shadow of Golgotha;
a shelter for Sharon's Rose,
resurrection lilies,
pomegranates wine-blushed
by the word-raptures of Rumi.
Lush plantings from Eden
still sprout between cracks
in Zion's conflicted collage of quarters,
their fragrance a linen-fresh crispness
brushing the mystic's senses
with sharp scents of starting over,
for flowering Wisdom still remains:
resolution found in revelation,
new eyes to see the old differently,
bringing visions of Sabbath-rest
free from strife, settled in security
when followers of the Prophet
rise early to recite the Shema;
when Jewish knees feel at home
on Muslim prayer rugs;
when rabbis intone a Berakah
with priests blessing bread and wine;
when Passover celebrates Palestinians
delivered from Hebrew bondage;
when hope reassembles
scattered sparks of faith
into a single flame, illuminating
the Holy lost within us all.
Copyright 2005 by Shadwynn.
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Letter to the Editor: Cherie Staples (skyearth1@aol.com).