I’ll obey your order –
shake my booty,
sway my naked hips
until the drunk guests moan.
I know what a woman’s body’s for.
But not alone.
Husband, drop your robe
and join me, your lined skin
and paunch becoming handsome
as we move together in love’s light.
Take my hand and start to shimmy.
Then I’ll dance.
Spring was lost to lockdown. Now it’s summer,
the air thick with humidity and fear.
Returned to work, we sweat into our masks.
The scientists are taken off the air.
I AM NOT A RACIST, the racist yells
while bodies pile up like bags of gold.
Cars honk for protestors carrying signs.
The ground trembles when stone generals fall.
It’s always about who has the power.
Years ago, at Ellis Island,
my grandfather, but not his name, allowed
to enter. Boats of Jews turned back to die.
What does it mean
to be American?
Official fireworks banned, my neighbor
provides a noisy, low-budget display.
Zimmerman autographs bags of Skittles.
Fake stallions watch through moss-covered eyes.
Spring sticks to the lesson plan –
blossoms, brash light, gaudy shades of red.
So much new life multiplying,
but the virus has its own math.
Subtraction, division, bodies
in freezer cars waiting for graves.
Close to a school, I used to hear
the children’s recess cries, but now there’s only birdsong
and sounds of this sudden storm – an odd flipping
between hail and sun-streaked rain –
that drives me inside to screams
from the TV and yowls from the cat.
I want to howl my own prayer
or recrimination, but to whom?
The men in charge are deaf
to voices pitched like mine, and the wind
that shakes my windows isn’t God.
…has published seven full-length collections, Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award.
The weather’s moody
as a middle-schooler—storm and chill,
then unexpected warmth.
Unsure whether to hunker down
or pack a picnic lunch, we ride
the wave, pretending it’s a “normal cycle”
that will right itself in the end.
What season’s this supposed to be?
my daughter asks. Sometimes
disaster happens for no reason we can predict.
The car’s brakes fail, the baby’s
heart stops beating during birth.
Other times the future’s obvious as car exhaust
against torn sky. Still, we’re all tired
of the polar bear on her melting raft, wide-eyed
and white as a bride.
Holland’s been preparing—
building roads that rise
when the dikes break. Here politicians
spoon smooth lies into our eager mouths.
What will we tell our children as earth blares
her angst, and we have no dikes, no Watcher,
Dreamer, or Sleeper to keep
the water-wolf from our door?
If you lack character, lean on money.
Homeless folks lack the hygiene of money.
Wendy O showed her nipples, grabbed her crotch,
licked a sledgehammer. Said, What’s obscene is money.
One sister got soft being loved. The sick
one craved pity. The third grew mean from money.
Stop drinking, cut carbs, sweat in saunas,
juice kale. You can’t get clean from money.
Scrambling, hungry, poor from birth. Too many
live under the guillotine of money.
Not the chartreuse of sunlit leaves, turquoise of
Florida waves. His eyes were the green of money.
More ego-boosting than sex, a stronger
upper than amphetamine—money.
A tunnel, then light, at the start. Thickening
dark at the end. In between—money.
Scarier than vampires or demons,
he dressed on Halloween as money.
Vital to a baby, milk. To a
child, love and play. To a teen, money.
Shame worms nibble my life, won’t let me
forget what I’ve done and been for money.
Loving it’s the root of every evil,
Chaucer said. There’s no vaccine against money.
Though he begged, Stay the night, Alison, he
had no books, just one magazine—Money.
I knew what was coming.
He’d pawned the stereo, sold
Mama’s rings. Slave
to the twist in his guts,
the insatiable craving.
What chance did love have?
Seen through pain-mad eyes,
I wasn’t even real.
The first one was a fisherman—sour
beard, wide-knuckled hands.
I left my body behind.
Again and again Father sold me,
stuffing the cash in his coat
and rushing off to feed,
while I prayed myself
into a mare or bird.
Each time I swore
would be the last.
I heard the ocean’s call,
planned to leave at dawn.
I couldn’t run.
Daughter-training tethered me,
my devotion limitless
and futile as his struggle to be full.
…has published seven full-length collections, Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award.
When my neighbor’s tree
crashes through the roof,
allowing storm water to flood
our kitchen, his insurance company
has to pay nothing. Though
the tree’s roots tunnel through his soil
and the snapped trunk stands
on his grass, the part that broke
had leaned across the property line.
I’m a therapist—I understand
where we end up matters
more than where we start.
A friend of mine married
her one-night stand. Another
wed her “soul mate,” lawyers
got the house in the divorce.
Today on my couch a woman,
incest survivor, squelched wife,
tells me she feels in her body
strength to leave. Her thin arms
lift as she speaks, fingers
reaching toward the light.
This is our new dance, my mother calls out,
suddenly unable to walk, as my father
half drags, half carries her down the hall.
Once she dressed for dancing in big
earrings, clingy gowns. I watched her twist
her thick hair, then paint
her suddenly mysterious face.
My father watched the clock.
Fumbling with buttons, she tried
to sooth him, Soon, I promise. Soon.
He grumped out to wait
in the car. I helped her raise
her zipper, clasp a strand
of pearls. Her hands
shook when he honked the horn.
Days of couch to bathroom, chair to bed,
the living room and back. Despite bursitis
he maneuvers her, my mother wrapped
in a bathrobe, scarves and wig discarded,
apologizing, This is too much for you.
Step, pause, shuffle, shift of weight,
step, step, turn, my father
watching her, his movements slow and tender
as though they had all the time in the world.
Every life needs edges.
I protect you from the meadow’s
wanton splendor,
passion running amok.
Lean against my law
the way a child lets go
into a father’s arms. Pruned
and tethered vines bear stronger fruit.
Defy me
if the sobbing
of jailed innocents
grows louder than rain.
Kill me
when the names
for animals and sky
replace the animals and sky.
…has published seven full-length collections, Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award.
Words aren’t swords, or bombs,
gunpowder, rifles, dragons.
Not a scaffold with a waiting noose.
Words aren’t religion, airplanes,
torn-out panic buttons,
flagpoles or fire extinguishers.
Not a zip tie. Not a wick.
Just the flame.
*
Rioters climb through the broken glass.
Just one bullet, roses blooming
from the hole in one white throat.
*
From mad rush to single-file
when they see the velvet ropes -- some instinct
or manners turns the mob obedient,
gives the prey essential
seconds to escape.
*
A rioter brags his sharpened flagpole
is for “someone special.”
Others yell for Pence, Pelosi, AOC,
their “hidden” offices
circled on maps.
*
Praise to the officers, outnumbered and battered.
Praise to the clerk who thought to grab the votes.
Praise to the selfie-posting killers’ desire for fame.
Praise to crews who soap the shit-stained halls.
*
Woman with a Don’t Tread on Me banner
trampled to death.
Rioter tasers himself in the groin.
Though reporters mock the fur-clad people
as cosplayers, my daughter corrects,
That’s live-action role play.
*
Blood and feces scrubbed away,
already the story’s changing.
Lies fester in the aftermath.
Rage-filled gun buyers prepare for the next round.
The horned one eats organic food in jail.
Say, mind on your new job, you change lanes, don’t signal,
And a cop sees you, his skin white and thin,
N-words stashed in his heart the way a perp hides
Drugs. Asked to snuff your smoke, you know your
Rights. Question history about how far that gets you.
Ask the holstered gun.
Because there are no witnesses, we’ll never
Learn exactly when or how
A plastic bag that shouldn’t be there finds your
Neck. A tragedy but not a crime, they say. You can’t
Disagree or finger anyone.
Skittles, iced tea, unarmed. Seventeen years
old. Looks like he’s up to no good…he’s just star-
ing at me. Though cops tell Zimmerman to stay
in his truck, he gets out to find a stre-
et sign. Fox News anchors rave
about gold teeth, suspension, drugs. Show Trayv-
on pose tough, blow smoke. Never vary
the message. Mock Rachel Jeantel, her tart
tongue mumbling, That’s real reta-
rded, sir. Dangerous. Dumb. Thug. The strate-
gy works. The dead kid’s guilty. The defense can rest.
…has published seven full-length collections, Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award.
Warring nations mingle in my blood—
Russia, Germany, Ukraine, all the great-
great somebodies who boarded ships
pulled toward America’s promise-paved streets.
Their passports all stamped Jew.
My heart’s a non-fungible token,
encrypted. Needing heat.
My eyes hold boat rides on rivers
through glittering cities.
My finger’s locked as though stuck on a gun.
Daily, my legs take me the same loop—
kitchen, bathroom, office, street.
The mountain dwarfs me as expected.
My hands reach for passing dogs.
Clients tell me their dreams—
wolves, staircases, snow, an open window,
terror jumbled with desire. Symbols giving form
to need. Outside, premature crocuses
open dumbly, unaware of the forecasted storm.
The news offers its collection of horrors.
How easily beauty is bombed into meme.
What are you doing about it?
the first spring birds chirp, and no matter
what I stammer, a fat brassy crow
caws not enough.
Chill
Outside our thick locked door, the air grows cold.
Fall plays songs of loss. For an encore, cold.
Cascade of tangerine and neon pink–
The dying sun departs in splendor. Cold
nights for the too-long married. The furnace
breaks. More than metaphor—the air grows cold.
Poe writes his dead love back to him, despite
the tiresome raven’s Nevermore, cold
and final. Waves swallow the sand. Sun sets.
How long will stubborn swimmers ignore cold?
The power of love versus the might of
power. Who’s stronger, Venus or Thor? Cold,
hot, cold, hot—Our wounded planet revolts.
Flood. Drought. Plastic-filled whales wash ashore. Cold.
Grandma’s crooked fingers, Cossack-blue eyes.
Gold chai she always wore. The air grows cold
near gravestones. Too late to learn her secret
Anatevka dreams. East wind brings more cold.
Ukrainian bride strips off her wedding
gown, puts on the uniform of war. Cold
metal in her hand. Poets sip the Green
Fairy, enter delicious stupor, cold.
The old unfold chairs and umbrellas. Teens
sprawl tanning on the sand, all languor, cold
beauty. Truckers wave swastika flags. Books
are burned in churches. The hungry implore cold
gods. In Stone’s empress daydream, two laws: Have
mercy. Plant seeds before the air grows cold.
Russian Soldiers Plant Landmines in Ukrainian Cemeteries
Despite landmines, mourners visit the dead.
Strategy is a cold, barren thing.
Which commands must be obeyed, which ignored?
An army is made up of people.
Strategy is a cold, barren thing,
measuring success in numbers of stopped hearts.
An army is made up of people,
some generous, some mean. All want to live.
Measure success in numbers of stopped hearts.
Count the empty places at tables –
Some generous, some mean, all people want to live.
Children starving in basements eat their hope.
Count the empty places at tables,
the houses bombed to blood-streaked rubble.
Children starving in basements eat their hope.
How inconvenient is the call to help?
So many houses bombed to blood-streaked rubble.
Despite landmines, mourners visit the dead.
How inconvenient is the call to help?
Which commands do we obey and which ignore?
…has published seven full-length collections, Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award.
Johnis a British writer, poet and musician—a multi-talented gentleman self-described as a “Family man, Grandfather, Occasional Musician, Singer, Amateur photographer and Film-maker, Apple-MAC user, Implementation Manager, and Engineer”. He has been a participant in the d’Verse Poet’s Pub a player in New World Creative Union as well as a being a ‘spoken-voice’ participant in Roger Allen Baut’s excellent ‘Blue Sky Highway‘ radio broadcasts. He’s been blogging since the beginning of 2011. He is also a member of The Poetry Society (UK).
Recent publications are anthologies resulting from online collaborations among two international groups of amateur and professional poets. The first of these is The Grass Roots Poetry Group (Petrichor Rising). The other group is d’Verse Poet Pub, in which John’s poetry also appears The d’Verse Anthology: Voices of Contemporary World Poetry, produced and edited by Frank Watson and The Gospel According to Poetry edited by T. Cole Jenkins.
jsburl, MFA, is a hemorrhagic stroke survivor who lives in Northern NY. She loves her family, the mountains, gardening, writing poetry and stories, oil painting, dragons, and animals large and small. She lives with her partner and her dog Tippy, and has just finished her master’s degree in Creative Writing. She was inducted into Sigma Tau Delta International English Society, and The National Society of Leadership and Success. She has been a journalist and won state and US competitions, and has two children’s books slated for release this year. The stroke took her mobility, but not her creativity. Her favorite thing to tell people is “Make every day an extraordinary day.”
A poet, fiction writer, & photographer, Michael’s writing, art, & photographs appear in print & online. His poetry has won international awards & been translated into several languages. His poetry has won international awards & been translated into several languages. His latest poetry collection, Nothing Remembers, came out from Finishing Line Press in September 2019 & received a Feathered Quill Book Award for Poetry.
He has a chapbook, Breakfast at the End of Capitalism (Locofo Chaps, 2017) and a full-length flash fiction collection, The Palm Reading after The Toad’s Garden (Is a Rose Press, 2016. Previous poetry books: War Surrounds Us, Midwest / Mid-East, & The World Behind It, Chaos… He co-edited Voices Israel Volume 36 (2010) & was managing editor for arc-23 & arc-24. With producer / director David Fisher, he received an NEH grant to write a film script about Yiddish theatre. He is the former chair of the Israel Association of Writers in English.
Of Reflections on Being, Healing, and Wandering was a weekly contributing writer for “Gratitude Fridays” at Beguine Again. Chrysty says, “I am a student of theology, people, and life. About a year ago, I decided to incorporate a public element to my private prayer life. I believe that prayer, at its best, can be ministry and expression as well as it’s traditional elements. I have learned from studies that gratitude is a window into the world as it could be. So I tweet a gratitude every day. Nothing grandiose. Just ordinary moments in an ordinary life with an extraordinary God. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @AuntChrysty if you would like to experience an instant of gratitude each busy blessed day.”
Dragonkatet ~ Regarding the blog name, Dragon’s Dreams ~ The name comes from Corina’s love-affairs with both Dragons and Dreams (capital Ds). It’s another extension of who she is, a facet for expression; a place and way to reach other like-minded, creative individuals.
On her blog and in The BeZine, Corina posts a lot of poetry and images that fascinate or move her, because that’s her favorite way to view the world.
Corina posts about things important to her and the world in which we live. She champions extra important political, societal and environmental issues, etc. Sometimes She waxes philosophical, because her blog is a place where she feels she always learns about herself, too, by interacting with some of the brightest minds, souls and hearts out there. It’s all about ‘connection(s)’ and I don’t mean “net-working” with people for personal gain, but rather, the expansion of the 4 L’s: Light, Love, Laughter, Learning.
Lorraine is a poet-translator-travel writer who has works appearing in over 300 journals on six continents and 23 collections of poetry–including the upcoming In the Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2022) and Caribbean Interludes (Origami Poems Project, 2022). Her writing has been nominated for the Best of the Net. She journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.
JOSEPH HESCH (A Thing for Words) is a writer and poet from Albany, New York. His work appears or is forthcoming in over a dozen venues, including Cossack Review, Frontier Tales Magazine, Pine Hills Review, the 2017 Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Anthology, as well as the anthologies Petrichor Rising and For the Love of Christmas. His poetry collections, “Penumbra: The Space Between” and “One Hundred Beats a Minute” are available on Amazon.com. He’s currently working on his first collection of stories, all based on his fascination with the American frontier, whether it’s upstate New York in the 17th and 18th Centuries or the Nebraska plains and Arizona deserts of the 19th. You can visit him at his blog A Thing for Words. He can be found on Twitter at @JAHesch and his Amazon page is Joseph Hesch, Poet and Writer.
TERRI STEWART (Bequine Again* and The Bardo Group Beguines), resident Cannoness of The Bardo Group Beguines. I am a monk disguised as a passionate prophet. My true loves are God, family, and the creative arts. And maybe just a little bit of politics too. I come from an eclectic background and consider myself to be grounded in contemplation and justice as embodied in the United Methodist tradition.
I am the Director and Founder of the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition, which serves youth affected by incarceration.
As a graduate of Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry, I earned my Master’s of Divinity and a Post-Master’s Certificate in Spiritual Direction. I am a contributing author to the Abingdon Worship Annual.
My online avatar is “Cloaked Monk.” This speaks to my grounding in contemplative practices and the need to live it out in the world. The cloak is the disguise of normalcy as I advocate for justice and peace. You can find me here or at http://www.twitter.com/cloakedmonk. To reach me for conversation, send a note to terri@cloakedmonk.com.
* Bequine Again is an interfaith effort offering spiritual support through inspirational posts, daily spiritual practice and prayer, and community. Beguine Again and The BeZine are affilated sites.
Alison Stone…
…has published seven full-length collections, Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award.
NAOMI BALTUCK, emerita, (Writing Between the Lines)~ is a Contributing Editor and Resident Storyteller. She is a world-traveler and an award-winning writer, photographer, and story-teller whose works of fiction and nonfiction are available through Amazon HERE.
Naomi conducts workshops such as Peace Porridge (multicultural stories to promote cooperation, goodwill, and peaceful coexistence), Whispers in the Graveyard (a spellbinding array of haunting and mysterious stories), Tandem Tales, Traveling Light Around the World, and others. For more on her programs visit Naomi Baltuck.com.
Naomi says, “When not actually writing, I am researching the world with my long-suffering husband and our two kids, or outside editing my garden. My novel, The Keeper of the Crystal Spring (Viking Penguin), can be read in English, German, Spanish, and Italian. My storytelling anthology, Apples From Heaven, garnered four national awards, including the Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice. I am currently working on a contemporary women’s novel.”
JAMES COWLES, emeritus, (Beguine Again) is a weekly contributing author to Beguin Again. Married to Diane for 32 years, no kids. I retired in 2010 after 30+ years as, at various times, an engineer, software developer, and software development manager with the Boeing Co. Diane works as a librarian at the Beacon Hill Branch of the Seattle Public Library system.
I have a master’s in math from Wichita State University, a master’s in physics as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow from Tulane, a master’s in English literature from Tufts by way of Harvard and, as a Council of Europe Fellow, Oxford (Exeter College … same Oxford college as JRR Tolkien), and a master’s in theology (MAPS) from Seattle Univ.
My main current interest is constitutional history and theories of constitutional interpretation (my area of specialization at Tufts / Harvard / Oxford was postmodernist / deconstructionist interpretation theory). I’m currently auditing a class in advanced constitutional law at the UW law school, and plan to audit another class on the First Amendment next quarter, plus take a Coursera non-credit course in “con law” from one of my heroes Prof. Akhil Amar at Yale Law early in ’14. I am a “born-again” skeptic / atheist / agnostic (depending on what I ate for breakfast on any given morning) and equally “born-again” progressive who believes that anchorman Will McAvoy’s rant against the Tea Party as the “American Taliban” in the first episode of “The Newsroom” — which, if you don’t watch, you should — was far too charitable to the Tea Party and an insult to the Taliban, who are much more enlightened than, e.g., Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann.
I believe that the “minimal state” as advocated in Robert Nozick’s “Anarchy, State, and Utopia” is a fine goal — but only for “minimal people”. I also believe the greatest threat to America’s tradition of ordered liberty under the US Constitution is the Christian fascism of the religious right, and the 2nd greatest danger to that tradition is the unintentional, in fact, almost knee-jerk, nurturing of Christian fascism on the part of progressives in the name of “tolerance” (see Sam Harris’s remarks on same early in “The End of Faith”). The latter group, especially, would do well to read John Milton’s great defense of freedom of speech and press, “Areopagitica”, with careful attention to what Milton says about the moral limits of tolerance.
JAMIE DEDES, emerita, passed away in 2020. She was an accomplished Lebanese-American writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She was a content editor, and blogger, the founding and managing editor of The BeZine, manager of its associated activities and curator of the The Poet by Dayjamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage outstanding but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day was dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights, as is The BeZine as we continue in her memory. See posts Remembering Jamie.
SUE DREAMWALKER, emerita, says, “I am just an ordinary woman, who stumbled across blogging in 2007 and thought to use it to enlighten people a little, to share my thoughts through my writings, poem and art. Having gone through my own experiences of depression, a break-down, and dark days of despair back in the 90’s. My Health was also in shreds, I had Fibromyalgia, among other things, so I set about self healing, using affirmations, meditation and Qi Gong.. Beginning with Louise Hays, You Can Heal Your Life Book; I set about changing my life from one of working in textiles and training for 28 years, to becoming a Support Worker, working with adults with learning difficulties, such as Autism, Down Syndrome and Asperger’s , To Mental health Support enabling individuals to integrate back into the community. Which I did for 11 yrs prior to my retirement I now spend time helping my husband on our allotment plot, and growing our own food. Between looking after our granddaughter, I enjoy writing poetry, short stories for my own pleasure, knitting, sewing, while learning to play the guitar ( Not very well ) but trying.
PRISCILLA GALASSO, emerita, (scillagrace.com), Contributing Editor of The BeZine, started her personal blog to mark the beginning of her fiftieth year. Born to summer and given a name that means ‘ancient’, her travel through seasons of time and landscape has inspired her to create visual and verbal souvenirs of her journey. From personal exploration to designated wilderness areas, her discoveries inform and shape integrated engagement with our wonderful world.
Currently, Priscilla lives in Wisconsin. She considers herself a lifelong learner and educator. She works part time as the Administrative Assistant at Cedar Lakes Conservation Foundation and runs a business (Scholar & Poet Books, via eBay and ABE Books) with her partner, Steve.
RUTH JEWELL, emerita, (A Quiet Walk and Beguine Again) is a weekly contributing author and site administrator to Begine Again. Ruth Jewell recently received her Masters of Divinity from Seattle University, School of Theology and Ministry. Ruth is currently in-care at Queen Anne Christian Church in preparation for possible ordination in the tradition of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She is a board member and volunteer for the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition, which serves youth in criminal detention.
Ruth has a long personal history of contemplative spiritual practices, which have been instrumental in much of her own discernment process. She hopes to pass on her love of sitting with the Holy Spirit.
CHARLES W. MARTIN, emeritus, (Reading Between the Minds) earned his Ph.D. in Speech and Language Pathology with an emphasis in statistics. Throughout Charlie’s career, he maintained a devotion to the arts (literature/poetry, the theater, music and photography). Upon retirement in 2010, he turned his full attention to poetry and photography.
Charlie publishes a poem and a photographic art piece each day at Read Between the Minds, Poetry, Photograph and Random Thoughts of Life. He is noted as a poet of social conscience. He has self-published a book of poetry collections entitled The Hawk Chronicles, A Bea in Your Bonnet: First Sting, featuring the renown Aunt Bea. In The Hawk Chronicles, Charlie provides a personification of his resident hawk with poems and photos taken over a two-year period. Charlie’s joint venture, When Spirits Touch, Dual Poetry, a collaboration with River Urke, is available through Amazon as are all his books.
Liliana is also the author of a novel, Solo-Chess, available for free reading HERE. Many of her creations, both poetry and prose, are published in various literary magazines.
LANA PHILLIPS, emerita, (Beguine Again) is a writer who lives in one of the most beautiful places in the world, the mountains of North Carolina. Poverty is real here too. I see and live it every day.
DONNA PIERCE, emerita, (Beguine Again) is a weekly contributing author for “Mindful Mondays” at Beguine Again. Over the years, I’ve been a college textbook sales rep, a literacy education professor, a storeowner, a social service nonprofit founder, a stay-home mom, and the caregiver for my parents during the last few years of their lives.
My husband Larry and I recently celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary, and we have two daughters, one in college and one in high school. I engaged the spiritual practices of both Christianity and Buddhism, sometimes leaning more one way, sometimes the other. Christianity tends to guide my life in community, and Buddhism helps me live more easily with myself, though the reverse is true as well.
MICHAEL WATSON, M.A., Ph.D., LCMHC, emeritus, (Dreaming the World) is a contributing editor to The BeZine,an essayist and a practitioner of the Shamanic arts, psychotherapist, educator and artist of Native American and European descent.
Michael lives and works in Burlington, Vermont, where he recently retired from his teaching position in undergraduate and graduate programs at Burlington College. He was once Dean of Students there. He also had wonderful experiences teaching in India and Hong Kong, which are documented on his blog. In childhood Michael had polio, an event that taught him much about challenge, struggle, isolation, and healing.
This piece is part of a series of experimental writing I worked on in 2013. This hybrid-flash has a relationship to surrealism, automatism, Robert Bly‘s leaping poetry, and chaos theory. If you want to explore some of my tangential associations, hover your mouse cursor over the links in this post and see what pops up—follow the links if you wish to engage in a hyper-text non-linear reading. Don’t forget to come back! Such a reading might be determined by initial conditions, and thus fit chaos theory very nicely…
Michael Dickel’s most recent book, The Palm Reading after The Toad’s Garden, which collects series of experimental writing and some more “conventional” narrative, all flash fiction, that I’ve written over the last few years.
This originally appeared on Michael Dickel’s blog in 2013.
“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it…” The Art of Living, Wilfred Peterson
December 15, 2018
A Life of the Spirit is a many-faceted jewel. Some of our contributors interpreted the theme for this month as Spirit (Being, the Ineffable, the Divine) and others more as spirited, strong. Some find Spirit and courage in the great love of their life or in their art, in their religion or spiritual practice. Others find it in an inspiring parent or grandparent. You will see that nature plays a role for nearly everyone.
I don’t think I’ve ever used as many hankies in pulling together an issue of The BeZine as I have with this issue. Contributors this quarter speak intimately from both joy and heartbreak, which is perhaps not surprising given the theme.
Our contributors have also rallied their spirits to speak out against gun violence and to speak up for the LGBTQ community. Violence and cruelty are not an absence of Spirit but a lack of awareness.
c 2018, Anjum Wasim Dar
My country – America – has a gun violence history that is notorious but firearms are ubiquitous on this Earth and complicit in wars and conflicts, hate crimes, terrorism, suicide and accidental shootings. Death by fire arms is grotesquely common in South American countries, Jamaica, and Swaziland.
Gun-suicides: I’ve taken the liberty of including a poem about my big sister, Teresa Margaret, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. She was twenty-seven. I was fourteen. Fifty-four years later, the trauma remains. The questions remain: Why? Where did the gun come from? Who taught her how to use it?
“Although the USA ranked fourth in the world with 12,400 firearm-related homicides, that figure pales in comparison with its 23,800 gun suicides. None of the other 194 nations and territories [ … ] came close; India ranked second at 13,400.” USA Today HERE
Easy access to firearms is cited by experts as one reason for the prevalence of their use in suicide. Another may be that guns offer an effective means of suicide.
Since there is history, culture, identity, and ethic involved in gun ownership and use, attempts at doing away with guns are not feasible at this time. Complicated core issues need to be defined and addressed first. Will we ever come to a unified place where we agree that murder and torture are not options? How then would Spirit play in the garden of material life?
Thanks to The Bardo Group Bequines team and to our guest writers for helping us put together an issue that is honest, artful, and inspiring, one that walks “with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground.”
As you read, we hope that you will leave your “Likes” and comments behind to let each contributor know they were read and appreciated and to enrich the experience for others.
In the spirit of love (respect) and community,
and on behalf of The Bardo Group Bequines, Jamie Dedes Founding and Managing Editor
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How to read this issue of THE BeZINE:You can read each piece individually by clicking the links in the Table of Contents.
To learn more about our guests contributors, please link HERE.
To learn more about our core team members, please link HERE.
They thought death was worth it, but I
Have a self to recover, a queen
Is she dead, is she sleeping?
Where has she been,
With her lion-red body, her wings of glass?
excerpt from “Stings” by Sylvia Plath
*** ANTHOLOGY “HER WINGS OF GLASS” *** “I’m completely wowed … the most important anthology for decades,” John Killick “tremendously inspiring,” Moniza Alvi
“an amazing anthology,” Pauline Stainer “It’s a magnificent anthology (and I’m not just saying this because my mother’s face peers at me from the cover!),” Adam Horovitz “I’m impressed,” Anne Stevenson
Second Light Network of Women Poets (SLN) does many wonderful things for women poets of a certain age, but among the loveliest is the production of poetry anthologies. SLN’s latest anthology is Her Wings of Glass, the title taken from Sylvia Plath’s poem Stings in which she uses the life in the hive as metaphor for her own life and feelings.
When we consider all the elements of an apiary with its oddly flipped sexual structure, the momentary life of the parthenogenic queen juxtaposed against the leisurely life of drifting drones, we appreciate the brilliance of Plath’s using the apiary as an allegory for her relationship with her husband and her conflicted feelings about domesticity and motherhood. The bee community makes for an apt illustration of Plath’s poetic self (queen), her domestic self (drudge), her distaste for other women willing to be drudges, to sacrifice themselves. The poem is intensely personal, has elements of tenderness but ends fiercely. (FYI: You can view photographs of Plath’s worksheets HERE.)
It’s easy to appreciate just why the women of the ’60s were so enamored of Sylvia Plath, why she is still appreciated for both her observations and her craft. It’s also easy to understand why a reference to Plath’s work would make such a good title for a collection of poetry by contemporary women poets. The anthology, like the poets, poetry and the work in ARTEMISpoetry (biannual magazine) represent a cross-section of A-list poets and a range of themes, subjects and styles.
Issue 14
There’s a good piece by Anne Stewart on HerWings of Glass in the May 2015 issue of ARTEMISpoetry, which focuses on anthologies. Due to the very nature of SLN, many are the poets and poems that might be overlooked by other press as not in line with mainstream literary standard. I deem this an advantage indeed and wish more publishers would take note.
In addition to celebrating poetry anthologies, the current issue also featured Alison Brackenbury, the award-winning author of eight collections, and Jemma Borg in an interesting piece by Kay Syrad: The Illuminated World, A Dialogue Between Science and Poetry. Jemma studied evolutionary genetics and worked as a tech editor among other jobs. She stands at the intersection of science and poetry.
“I tend now to think of science and poetry in some kind opposition because they are such different systems of thought in terms of the philosophical roots and development, but essentially it is this love of what is unknown that is common to both and which forms my motivation as an individual: how can we, and indeed is it possible to, understand this world we are embedded in.”
Susan Wicks selected the poetry shared in this issue, which included these two:
Gift from my Daughter
A pink bag with lime-green flowers
in silk floated
like a lotus as she carried it
down the ward.
We fizzed with giggles over
the contents,
cream laced with sandalwood
and lavender,
lip-salve with lemon,
little bottles steeped in mint
and nutmeg,
a Morpheus spray
to enchant the pillow with sleep.
Outside, the weather slashed its tail
of water-scales
and hail,
and we unpacked the orient,
distilled these gardens from the east.
The homage to Anne Cluysenaar in this issue was warm and appreciative and the thoughts of several poets who knew her were included. I find this sort of acknowledgement and loyalty touching and asked for permission to include Alison Mace’s poem in this blog post. Alison said that we need to read Anne’s Diary Poems to fully appreciate her poem, but I took it at face value and warmed to it, though I haven’t readTouching Distances: Diary Poems. I like Alison’s poem for the gentle way it shows how one poet and her work and life were valued.
from LIVES OF THE POETS ANNE CLUYSENAAR 1936-2014
Alison Mace writes: Since Anne Cluysenaar’s appalling and untimely death, I have meant to write about her, a poem if possible. Anne came, when she could, to our monthly NaCOT poetry-writing group at William and Juliet Ayot’s house near Chepstow. We were so lucky to have her. Her contributions were memorable and heart-warming, both of her own work – several of the Diary Poems that became Touching Distances – and in the help she gave the rest of us with our own poems.
. Anne
‘Wise’ comes first to mind,
then ‘kind’,
and then so many more.
Heartsore,
we count the ways she was:
capable, nurturing,
loving her cob, her cat,
at home with hens and hay,
Mozart and Henry Vaughan;
happy to teach, to learn –
learned indeed – at ease
combining earth with wit,
abstruse with everyday –
and ours: muse, mentor, friend,
bringing her poetry
for us, wanting our own:
probing, encouraging –
all with her gentle smile.
And so it shatters sense
that such a life should end
with terror, suddenness
and wanton violence –
a bleak atrocity.
The distance we would touch
that our intensest thoughts
might wing to her
has widened beyond reach,
leaving us at a loss,
empty, and blank, and still
heartsore.
– Alison Mace
So, another altogether enjoyable read. Another issue to return to with pleasure.
All things SLN may be found HERE including gatherings and classes, remote – or as we in the U.S. would say “distance” – classes, coaching, contests, books, magazine, samplings of poetry and introductions to poets. Much appreciation to SLN Founder Dilys Wood and to Myra Schneider and Anne Stewart and all the other women for their work, their poetry, and their commitment to women and poetry. Second Light Network of Women Poets is based in London and most of the members are in the UK, but membership is not geographically restricted. Of note: Anne Stewart has a site – poetry p f – which makes it easy to pay membership fees and to order books, ARTEMISpoetry, poem cards and other goodies.
♥
Congratulations to Myra Schneider: Goulash from her collection Circling the Core (Enitharmon Press, 2008) was recently featured on Anthony Wilson‘s Famous Lifesaving Poems. We’ve featured it in The BeZine and are all fans. Bravo, Myra! Here it is on the Lifesaving Poems site. Contact Myra for Circling the Core and other books.
Poems, cartoon, cover art are published here with permission of the publishers and authors.
Opsimath ~ Someone who begins to learn a subject late in life or continues to study and learn into their later years, that is a “life-long learner.” I think once “opsimath” was used rather pejoratively. That doesn’t appear to be the case any longer.
As you already know, I am enamoured of Second Light Network of Women Poets for its committment to poetry education and for encouraging and promoting poetry by women, especially women who come to poetry late in life. It’s “never too late” the saying goes … and Second Light seems to prove that indeed it is not too late to learn, to create and to appreciate beautiful poetry.
While membership in Second Light is restricted to women, the poetry shared is for everyone. This poetry includes works by accomplished – if lesser known poets – and works of well-established poets you may have long admired including R. V. Bailey, Jackie Kay, Mimi Khalvati, Anne Stewart, Myra Schneider and Dilys Wood, the founder of Second Light.
These and other women serve as role-models and also are often involved as judges of competitions, as editors of publications and as teachers through Second Light in workshop settings, through remote education or through The Poetry School, “the U.K.’s largest provider of poetry education.”
Polymath ~ a person with a wide range of knowledge or learning.
Each May and November when my copy of ARTEMISpoetry arrives I’m always delighted with the depth of learning that continues and with the wide range of knowledge, interests and observation that informs the poetry. What follows is an overview of the November 2014 issue and three poems from that issue.
* * * * *
“Nights, I squat in the cornucopia Of your left ear, out of the wind,
Counting the red stars and those of plum-color. The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue. My hours are married to shadow. No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel On the blank stones of the landing.”
The November 2014 issue of ARTEMISpoetryis dedicated to Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), the renown American poet, novelist and short story writer who produced in her foreshortened life a remarkable body of work that influenced her contemporaries and continues to inspire poets to this day.
If you are a fan of Plath, this issue will delight you for the fresh imaginative breath of its insight. If you are new to Plath, this issue will serve as an excellent introduction to her. It includes an imagined interview of Plath by Kay Syrad. Anne Stevenson briefly tells of her struggle to maintain the appropriate detachment when writing Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath and how depleted she felt when she finished the biography in May 1988. The narrative is followed by a quite lengthy and somewhat charged poem, A Letter to Sylvia Plath, which is an excerpt from Stevenson’s book, Poems 1955-2005 (Bloodaxe Books).
The last stanza of Anne Stevenson’s poem ~
“We learn to be human when we kneel To imagination, which is real Long after reality is dead And history has put its bones to bed. Sylvia, you have won at last, Embodying the living past, Catching the anguish of your age In accents of a private rage”
I was happy to see Alison Blackenbury‘s piece on Jenny Joseph. Featured poets were R.V. Bailey and Adele Ward, who is also a publisher. 2014 Poetry Competition winners were announced and their poems published. As with every issue, this one was rich with poetry, reviews, and announcements of events, collections published, calls for submissions and other material of interest to members.
The poems that follow were published in the November 2014 issue and are included here with the permission of both publisher and poets. Enjoy …
Ahead of me as always, you were first
To die. But what possessed you, love,
Trusting a feckless gardener like me
To plant the flowers on your grave?
It’s garden-centre-best-suburban,
Sentimental, pink and blue,
Till in the natural course of things
I come to lie down here too.
Forget-me-nots and lavender –
What rustic cliches. Yes, I know:
I also know you will not care,
Since it was I who put them there.
– R V Bailey
Short Poem First Prize Winner
Second Light Open Poetry Competition for Long and Short poems by women, 2014:
By Heart
Once she had to memorize the chemical elements
of soil, learn how to measure the height of trees
using sine and cosine and how to address a letter
to a bishop – information lost now in dusty
box files in a corner of her brain, with lists
of Latin verbs and conjugations, the Attributes
of the Virgin Mary and which feast days a priest
wore rose or purple. But she remembers maples
graded from cinnabar to porphyry stretching
across the Laurentian hills like reels of Sylko
in a haberdasher’s drawer; the rustle of raven wings
through cedars as an Indian canoe skims the surface
of a turquoise lake; castles carved from blocks
of ice, snow on the windshield as she left.
– Margaret Beston
Commended
Second Light Open Poetry Competition, for Long and Short poems by women, 2014
Pray
Pray for Aurelia. She has a court case pending
and she misses her children. (Prayer Request, Church of Our Lady)
Pray for her.
For God has made her in his own image.
For this image startles her as she passes a shop window.
For she sees a cardigan (sleeves unravelling),
skirt (waist tied with string). Odd socks.
For the name-tag on her coat says Melanie.
For she knows God will clothe her. She’s a lily of the field.
For she has no thoughts of tomorrow.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof
She’s fat with drugs. They’ve stuffed and stuffed her.
She has no teeth.
Her children have been taken from her.
Pray for her.
For she has a first class degree but her mind has betrayed her.
For betrayal is the only thing she knows.
For her father lifts his grand-daughter onto the swing in the local park,
touching her ever so, ever so gently.
For her mother didn’t listen.
Nor her brother, her sister, her teacher, her lover.
She’s a loony.
She’s a swing door.
She’s a bin-liner.
Pray for her.
For God has made her in his own image.
For he is with her even through the valley of the shadow of death
Which is her life, you know. Her one and only. Life.
The BeZine 