October - Poem 30

Explain This to Me,  / Lilly Frank

We are shaped by the horrors of which we are exposed to. Completely unsuspecting of life itself, we’re tossed into a world full of dirty, dirty crimes [this world is indiscriminatory]. As products of our environment [this is a truth you cannot run from], we’re left with what we decide to make of these events. Do you heal this wound? Do you tear out the stitches? Do you light yourself on fire to feel bright? Who are you when it all goes dark? In the bottom of the early hour, alone [in company or not: alone] who do you become? 

When does it start to feel like I am not a sum of my parts, but instead, just whole? [Can I fix this?]

A Cento in Gratitude ​/ Anna Ojascastro Guzon

Greater Mysteries / Kathryn Johnson

We, who are seated
between service and
mercy, no longer
fear death. We gather
the purple iris
and hyacinth while

we hear, we see, we

learn. We wait for our
fasting to be met
with a blessing, our
silence to welcome
wisdom, our grief to
usher in joy. Joy

like a rich robe
scattered with gold. 

In The Sky of This Season Where I Belong / Kimberly McElhatten

This evening
a yellow aspen leaf
drifted down from a white sky

and relaxed in
a heap outside
my condo door.

The fluted edges of the leaf like a
puzzle piece rested with
saffron and scarlet of

maple and oak
making an autumn
mosaic before it

lifted back into the sky of
this season where
I belong

where everything sooner or
later settles and takes
flight again.

GEOMETRIC MAGIC  / H.T. Reynolds

O halo of salt,
O delectable taste of enshrinement,
may you unburden this fool
from his fidgeting fingertips—
needlepoint tent stitch
holding her image
smeared in greasy reds,
lilac venous blues

a ring wedded to a body
to a wrist
to a palm,

a knuckle dragging
over forehead—licking open
tissue like a lover consorting
with formaldehyde—his heart
foaming—raving—furious glass
shards showering to the cellar floor
raising God, tracing his chin
before the dimming of the light

 O halo of salt,
O binding sanctum powder,
may you unburden this fool
from his fidgeting pulse—
his ragged dreaming