I Want To See A Moon With You

by Helen Bar-Lev

1.

I want to see the new moon with you

the moon that is almost invisible

so thin only a diamond could have sliced it

so wispy a slight wind could blow it away

this is a moon for women

a sliver in the heavens

an outline more brilliant that the whole itself

it supports the weight of its darkened globe

squint your eyes to see its fullness

blacker than the black that surrounds it

it is a portal for new beginnings

ancient man was pulled to it too,

recorded it on the walls of caves

carved amulets in its shape

from the beginning of history and before

women have celebrated it, worshipped it,

danced in its dimmed light

spies have applauded it

2.

I want to see a half moon with you

lit as if to conserve energy

tip it to your lips like a silver goblet,

drink in its shine

it is a sphere split in the middle

like an orange, a watermelon

suspended in its forlorn orbit

no awes for this unfortunate orb

its other half is hidden

it will spend a month

gradually being reunited with it,

its completion, its reason for being

this is an insecure moon,

doubtful of its ability to reunite

with its twin soul

we empathize with this moon

reach up to touch it

to reassure it

that it will be whole again, soon

3.

I want to see a full moon with you

surreal and sensual

a holy day moon, a mood moon,

it guides dreams and tides

this is a masculine mood

watch it rise silently,

pale to yellow to silver to white

illuminating this mountain

casting an aura around us

surrounding us with a cloak of light

attractive as an actor

it has everything in its favour

it has been praised in poems, howled to,

described in so many ways that it’s become a cliché

proud, bold, noble,

a counterpoint to the sun in the afternoon,

it commands attention,

will never bore nor be ignored

4.

I want to walk on a carpet of dew

on a mountain that looms above all discord

paint on a canvas that renders the mundane ethereal

and love eternal

I want to view

all the phases

of the moon

with you

* * * * *

© 6.2017 Helen Bar-Lev

Helen Bar-Lev was born in New York in 1942. www.helenbarlev.com  She holds a B.A. in Anthropology, has lived in Israel for 46 years and has had over 90 exhibitions of her landscape paintings, 34 of which were one-woman shows. Her poems and artwork have appeared in numerous online and print anthologies. Six poetry collections, all illustrated by Helen. She is the Amy Kitchener senior poet laureate. Helen was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2013 and is the recipient of the Homer European Medal for Poetry and Art. Helen is Assistant to the President of Voices Israel. She lives in Metulla, Israel.

The Poem I Call My Life

by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

                     

A woman must love herself

or who will do it for her?

All day long I have sat within

the loose walls of this poem

waiting to give birth

In this my delivery room

as thin as air

as fibrous as melons

I feel the contractions of time

ebb and flow of breath    like tides

my spirit knows no gender

In this season

I have no name

I refuse definition

I am only a traveler

and I carry my landscape with me

Tonight I am learning

to move through

slow syllables of ancient dark

like blood without a blueprint

I am learning to speak the language of trees

the alphabet of stars

Last Winter my thoughts were stillborn

They ran through invisible fields

where the unspoken words of dead men

are scattered    like rain or tears

They never learned to scream properly

with their mouths wide open

Tonight I will try again

I will close my eyes tight

I will push down hard against the sky

and I will bear myself

unreasonably luminous   and whole

like the full moon rising

In this poem   I call my life

where birth is the process

as well as the outcome

everything is possible

especially love

* * * * *

Widely published, Antonia Alexandra Klimenko's work has appeared in XXI Century World Literature (in which she represents France) CounterPunch, The Original Van Gogh’s Ear Anthology,  The Rumpus, Levure Litteraire, Big Bridge, The Opiate, Strangers in Paris, Occupy Poets’ Anthology (in which she is distinguished as an American Poet), and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washinton, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the Writer/Poet in Residence for SpokenWord Paris.

stillborn

by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

you are always with me

even when you are not

Life's full empty room

Breath's bittersweet sigh

             

color of Nothingness

                transparent as angels

color of darkness 

                perforated with light

color of tears       

                fallen 

from the dotted blue blanket of Sky          

                   

you are always with me

even when you are not

suspended like the crescent moon

the alphabet of stars

the space untraveled

between us

as if 

inextinguishable

presence and absence

relinquish their names

surrender themselves to the Invisible

as if

       only

without holding

may we trembling  feel 

the infinite nearness 

of our immense 

aching 

              fragility                      

i marvel

at the innocence 

of your tiny unopened fists

how

butterflies  still 

fly from your lips

how mine drown   

in the drool of gurgled silence 

             

how  

even as  the umbilical cord 

untangles around my neck     

my voice     so far away

                   is trying to reach you--

buried so inexorably

in your muffled lullaby

i am always with you

even when i am not

* * * * *

"stillborn" was first published by Levure Litteraire.

Widely published, Antonia Alexandra Klimenko's work has appeared in XXI Century World Literature (in which she represents France) CounterPunch, The Original Van Gogh’s Ear Anthology,  The Rumpus, Levure Litteraire, Big Bridge, The Opiate, Strangers in Paris, Occupy Poets’ Anthology (in which she is distinguished as an American Poet), and Maintenant: Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washinton, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the Writer/Poet in Residence for SpokenWord Paris.

I Don’t Want a Lover

by Cesca Janece Waterfield

I want a buccaneer, I want

a pirate ship rocking

in gale force winds, I want
to plant my feet on deck and cry,
                                                   land ho

as the tallest mast you ever saw bends over
in spray and salt. Somebody get me

Vasco de Gama so I can say,
                                       You looking for spice?

I'm talking the kind of fellow
who just thinking about him makes me feel good,
so I think about him some more,
and on second thought keep finding him
the least resistible idea I ever had.

I want to sit with this man in a restaurant

and have absolutely no doubt we have

the dirtiest minds in the room. We'll split

that scene and climb inside a cab and I'm talking

this guy will tongue me all the way

downtown, right to the edge

of the sea. We'll stand and look out over

the water, hips facing west,
turning east, till Vasco roars up, planks groaning
with Chinese silk, Madagascan cinnamon, French caramels,

and then we’re gonna get on that heap and sail.    

* * * * *

"I Don't Want a Lover" was previously published in Cesca Janece Waterfield's first collection, Bartab (Two-Handed Engine Press, 2010). 

At the Table

by Julene Tripp Weaver

A son who listens to his mother

sits quiet at her kitchen table

in the dark, in silence, with a cup of tea.

He listens to her day talk

the minutia of a housewife.

She is surrounded by sons,

a husband.

A mother who gives her life away

talks to this son about nothing.

This one son sits still, listens,

the night air hushed around them

the dishes put away

the chores done

the other men of the house asleep

or off in the world gambling.

A son who listens to his mother

asks nothing when her tears come

quiet in the dark where it is safe

with this one son.

Not like the other sons, or certainly

the dad, who has no time to sit still,

not man-like to sit quiet

with the woman who spends her life

on them. Tears come quiet in the dark 

without question. 

This son a solid block 

of soft wood, he absorbs her grief.

He is unlike the other men

able to tear

able to sit quiet in the dark

with his womb, her womb united.

This son her gift to this family

this special seed, so different,

so un-man-like, that he walks with other

un-man-like men. His brothers and his father

demand he leave, knowing full well

their mother will suffer

her heart will break.

So they sit in her kitchen

one last time.

They sit until their tears drain, 

and he is able to say goodbye 

to her womb.

Take his womb elsewhere

create a new family

walk un-man-like into the world

forced to gamble, he will find his truth

leave his mother’s fate behind

pray she too may find her way.

* * * * *

Julene Tripp Weaver is a psychotherapist in Seattle; she worked in AIDS services for over 21 years. She has three poetry books, Truth Be Bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS (Finishing Line Press, 2017), No Father Can Save Her (Plain View Press, 2011), and Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues (Finishing Line Press, 2007). She is widely published in journals and anthologies. Her poems can be found online at: Anti-Heroin Chic, Riverbabble, River & South Review, The Seattle Review of Books, HIV Here & Now; a creative nonfiction piece is published by Yellow Chair Press, In The Words of Women International 2016 Anthology. Find more of her writing at www.julenetrippweaver.com.

Cross Street: North Shore Road

by Cesca Janece Waterfield

You're expecting repentance? Maybe you think this will be about a burden lifted, a great truth realized, cheap cigarettes and coffee in Tuesday night church basements. This is not that story.

This is about the woman who stepped outside the cab at the appointed hour, in hose that would run, on shaky skinny heels. Her lipstick had no answers. She looked up at the window and saw it already: the gaunt-limbed pack, this grant, that engagement, oh, the envy. Going up the escalator, only it ran down. The same steps over and over. (She thinks she knows it all, this woman, a wiseacre, a real stitch.)

She hated hose. Stilettos weren't her style. She figured, Why bother? When she already knew how it ends? Precisely, she answered herself. (She always answered herself.)

So she whistled to the cabbie who'd been very conveniently idling at the red light all this time.  She climbed up front and bummed a cigarette, resting her hand on his thigh. "Do you like whiskey?" she asked.

"I love whiskey," she answered herself.

She decided to call him Newman and told him to swing by her place so she could put on denim and her favorite blunt-toed leather shit-kickers. (That's boots to you girls climbing upstairs to the party.)

When she came down the steps she said, "Newman, move over. I'm driving now." She rolled down the windows and turned up Aretha. Maybe it was Joni. She smelled good. Suddenly her lipstick did have answers. In fact, it started telling dirty jokes, then opening wide like hope to laugh real hard. And loud.

She grinned and started saying things like, "my secretary," and "postgraduate," and "orgasm."

She said, "Newman, you could lose a few pounds."

* * * * *

Cross Street: North Short Road was previously published in Cesca Janece Waterfield's first collection, Bartab (Two-Handed Engine Press, 2010). 

How A Baby Resembles A Head of Lettuce

by Regina O'Melveny

As I hold you on my lap

you scan the room from

left to right, right to

left, just because you can,

sweet round boy with

morning-blue eyes.

Then on to the next room

and the garden with grass

and hedge and baby

lettuces that crowd the planter

with plump roseate faces

until they bolt into stalks that yearn

for sun and moon with all

their bright yellow eyes.

We yearn for, learn the world

this way by leafy compass and

blooming arc. Unlike

the mother once

in a Grimm’s fairy tale

who craved lettuces within

an enchanted garden and

had to exchange her baby for

the theft of greens, no small offense, 

the child whom the witch

aptly named Rapunzel

(lamb’s lettuce in German).

Though I’d retell the story

as correspondence,

lettuce for baby, baby for lettuce.

We’re speaking about the pull of

fertility here and the witch

who wisely knows

how to plant a garden.

In my version there’s no high wall

forbidding entry.

The witch is a grandmother

with earth under

her fingernails, who holds

the mysteries of seed, leaf and

and milky stalk with awe, holds the hand

of the woman, her daughter with love

deep as a taproot to the earth’s core, holds

both the ripe baby and

the bountiful head of lettuce

in her lap with delight, holds

the wide, widening gaze.

GRATIA PLENA

by Beate Sigriddaughter

All prayer in the end is gratitude

without exception shells wait to be sand

as life recycles poems at my feet in purple

moist exuberance while seagulls practice solos

with wings made transparent by sunrise

yes in the morning the crows fly west

and east again at night I love that

everyone is so busy being alive heart-breaking

even the sound of water on pebbles receding

click click turning stones into music

a heron fishes precise in his hunger

he takes no more from the sea than he needs

though the lush orange and yellow maple leaves

some larger than my hand whisper there's more

and a flower flickers white behind a vine

if life has petals that large what can it

possibly not do despite the wars we conduct

or tolerate or do not speak against or not loudly

enough afraid of miracles we avoid the eyes

of all angels we try to nail down death first

rather than open hands to life the uncharted

the unfamiliar the patient courtship that begs

to listen to pray with each footfall to praise

and to believe it possible to change the world

by trailing a grateful hand in water   


* * * * *

"Gratia Plena" was first published by Hawai'i Pacific Review.

Reasons Why The Word Crawl Has Awe In It

by Regina O'Melveny

  

At first it seems

a small move from

all fours rocking back and forth

to left arm forward

right knee

then right arm forward

left knee.

Then I see how all

at once the world careens

open, as hands and knees

on this rare earth,

you lurch forward

risk everything

for the unknown

that offers itself to your

exuberance.

But what really holds me

in awe is your buoyancy

even after you face-plant

or belly-flop.

You wail, but you’re up

and at it again

soon after. Go, go, go!

I even drop down

to play with you

and find that leading with

hands on earth

rather than walking feet first,

propels me toward

amazement.

I begin to understand

why kneeling and prostration

enliven prayer.

Left arm forward

right knee

then right arm forward

left knee.

Palms pressed down

again and again

to all that is sacred

beneath us.

I want to run back

by Joani Reese

I want to run back and back and back, to cup my palms beneath every falling possibility, to unbreak the broken, to teach joy instead of sorrow, love instead of rage, but I can't do that, not today, not ever. I hear a helpless child's wail fall from the sky, tumble down like water that will not stop to cleanse nor sate.

* * * * *

"I want to run back" was first published on Facebook.

FALL

Giving Thanks

by Connie James

Silent we sit on the earth

Faced to the wind, thinking,

now the air will cleanse us,

our bones are bending to it

our hearts enjoy the feeling that we are living

we are alive

Life is in everything and everyone

it is even in the mystery of light that gives us vision

and the dark that gives us rest

Though age comes to the body,

one does not become old

for by the act of giving thanks we are healthy

Brave hearts that try to connect us to each other

plant the treasure that is ready to be enlightened by all that love,

loving souls keeping us living inside and outside through eternity

Blessed be those who give thanks for all that is provided

and remember that the heart is the seat of life

* * * * *

Connie James was raised in the mid-west as well as in Southern California, where she met her husband Bob. They moved to Eugene Oregon in 1955, when Bob got a professorship in the art department at the University of Oregon. Connie raised five children, has helped raise grandchildren, been a docent at local museums, and has been active in her local synagogue. A lover and supporter of art, music, and literature for decades, Connie kept her own work relatively hidden until 2016. At the age of 88 she was published for the first time in May 2016, in the literary magazine “The Elephant”, with her poem “Shekhinah Speaks”. Connie continues to explore her poetic talents, proving to us all that one is never too old to be a poet.

Connie James, being computer illiterate, had this poem submitted for her by her deceased daughter's best friend Amy Ballard Rich.

One Jar of Honey

by Jane Yolen

“'One jar of honey to all the gods, one jar of honey to

the Mistress of the Labyrinth'—clay tablet, Knossos

Here in the Denmark of the year,

where bees move like sleep, like death,

their fruit coagulating in the hive,

we bring storied honey

to the Mistress of the Labyrinth.

Honey is the key unlocking mysteries.

Honey is the sweet disguise.

It paints the lips of the dead.

It is the soft fall of footstep

around the circled path,

The Mistress smiles on our offer,

taking the jar in sweetened hands.

Her tongue snakes out for a taste.

Her praises to the hive

keep us alive in the end of the year.

Little bees lie mostly still in their winter,

wings burring like a snore.

We walk the labyrinth out of solstice

heading toward another spring,

leaving the bitter cold behind.             

* * * * *

                                                             

Jane Yolen, author of 360+ books (actual number) including 8 books of adult poetry. Much of her work is for young readers, but she has a number of novels, essay collections, and pedagogical books for adult as well. www.janeyolen.com

Labyrinth

by Jane Yolen

Dance the maze,

They tell me.

Trace the goddess steps.

Yet there seems

no pattern, no floor.

All is chaos:

A tangle of webs,

twists of threads,

history’s clots.

Stone beneath,

Stone above,

I sink into the grey.

But as I dance,

unspooled life winds

about my spindle.

Now I see the path.

One foot after another,

Till labyrinth reveals.

Then I dance home

to the center of self

and out again.                             

* * * * *

Jane Yolen is the author of 360+ books (actual number) including 8 books of adult poetry. Much of her work is for young readers, but she has a number of novels, essay collections, and pedagogical books for adult as well. www.janeyolen.com