For the inner ear, the voice of the ves­sel of silence is an embrace
felt by an infi­nite num­ber of scribes.

It is my wish to offer here an oasis of present day poetic
pens.

Each month i shall invite new poets to breathe with, and they in
turn will bring guests of their own.

Poetry Cor­ner at TIFERET has evolved out of Donna Stein’s
enthu­si­asm to nur­ture the spirit of beauty in all its forms.

silent lotus

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May 2010 Silent Lotus’ Selected
Poets’

 

Mil­ner Place

and his guest Larry Jor­dan

Ivan Granger

and his guest Eliz­a­beth Reninger

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Mil­ner Place

cora­zon paz and the weath­ered virgin

bunches of dead and dying

flow­ers lay on the hill

at the feet

of the wooden lady

brought by tired shoes

laboured breath­ing

a gaudy array

propped against the knees

by con­cha

donna eulalia’s criada

cora­zon paz came panting

knelt

before la virgen

placed a water lily

picked in el pozo escondido

its stem

between the toes

through scar­let lips

she berated

the lady

for tak­ing her two children

demanded

that she give them plenty of tamales

an ice cream

each fiesta

went down the hill

with brisk steps

an extra swing

to her hips

cross­ing the plaza
pozo escon­dido

you must approach

with slink of puma

through whis­per­ing grasses

past vig­i­lant crows

guard­ing thorns

where a tunnel

will open in magnolias

and the sun

is a far fire beyond

imag­in­ing

only then

will you hear the voices

of deci­sive macaws

smell the lichen

of soli­tude

dis­cover the colours

of all the faces of water

in the deep pool

bathe

with topaz-eyed

horses

where a moon floats

among water-lilies

beware

you must approach

with slink of puma

 

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Mil­ner Place, born Eng­land, Yorkshire, 1930, led a wan­der­ing life for 25 years in many coun­tries, includ­ing 11 years as a skip­per of work­ing sail­ing ves­sels and yachts. His first poems were writ­ten in Span­ish, and a small col­lec­tion pub­lished in Spain in 1977. Set­tling in Hud­der­s­field (UK) in 1987, he started to write again in Eng­lish. He has had 10 col­lec­tions pub­lished, is widely rep­re­sented in UK mags, done innu­mer­able read­ings, and pre­sented his poems on radio and tele­vi­sion. He has fre­quently worked with musi­cians in performances.His broad expe­ri­ence gives him many and var­ied back­drops for his poetry. An essay by the late Todd Moore on his writ­ing can be seen at:http://outlawpoetry.com/2009/09/01/the-sea-the-poem-and-the-house-of-all-possible-myths-the-poetry-of-milner-place/ He is cur­rently one of the edi­tors on Poetry Cir­cle, a forum for con­tem­po­rary poetry. http://www.poetrycircle.com/

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Larry Jor­dan

As Close as That

Mirabel sweeps up

lit­tle puffs of dust

into remark­able shapes

of clouds with her strides

up and down the avenues.

I can fol­low her on sunny days,

the wisps furl­ing to steeple height

then pose and bow—nothing idle

in their come and go.

She swirls balloons

as bulging jowls full of wind,

snap­ping the ends of a mane.

The gal­lop is westward,

beyond the headlands.

Hushed to not dis­turb her

I sit behind an oak

and lis­ten to her talk

with the fish in the creek.

She speaks of her father

and the other side of the world

say­ing noth­ing of the sky.

The air gets cool as the light

pales from a pass­ing cloud.

Her voice wavers,

diesels balk, the swallows

shud­der in the leaves.

Though still curious,

I too must look away.

 

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Larry Jor­dan sur­vived 33 years of the Postal Ser­vice end­ing his career as Post­mas­ter of Colum­bia, South Car­olina in 2002. He has been writ­ing poetry for 15 years. His work can be seen in the online jour­nal, Millers Pond and is cur­rently an edi­tor for an online poetry forum.

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Ivan
Granger

The War­bler Knows

The war­bler knows

only dawn’s shaft

of light

on her breast.

For­get­ting false future

suns, she sings

in no voice

but her own.
Every Shaped Thing

Sigh­ing,

every shaped thing

turns

heav­en­ward.

Your altar

can­not seat

the thou­sand thousand

idols.

Hold­ing them,

what do you have?

Each gilded god

says:

“I am

impov­er­ished

by the sun.

I can only

point

up.”

 

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Ivan M. Granger is the cre­ator and edi­tor of the Poetry Chaikhana web site, www.Poetry-Chaikhana.com.  He grew up in Ore­gon and South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, and has lived on the island of Maui. He now lives in Col­orado with his wife.When asked why he writes poetry, Ivan says, “Poetry has an imme­di­ate effect on the mind. The sim­ple act of read­ing poetry alters thought pat­terns and the shut­tle of the breath. Poetry induces trance. Its words are chant. Its rhythms are drum beats. Its images become the icons of the inner eye. Poetry is more than a descrip­tion of the sacred expe­ri­ence; it car­ries the expe­ri­ence itself.”

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Eliz­a­beth Reninger

Reflec­tion

dusk is a pink

glow through mist

(soft as the belly-skin

of a newborn)

pencil-thin traces

of moun­tain ranges

flirt here with a quiet

blue tapes­try

a saphire crown

of stars approaching

min­gle with the pink

hori­zon with

some­thing eons

in the making

– del­i­cate

as lace

i call out my

name yearn­ing

for an echo: silence

takes us all

beyond what beauty

has ini­ti­ated…

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Eliz­a­beth Reninger is a prac­ti­tioner of the Taoist arts of acupunc­ture, tuina, qigong and poetry.  Her first col­lec­tion of poems, And Now The Story Lives Inside You, was pub­lished by Woven­Word Press in 2005, and can be ordered at http://elizabethreninger.webs.com. She cur­rently resides in Boul­der, Col­orado, and can be reached via email at [email protected]. About her poetry, Ms. Reninger writes: “My poems most often have their ori­gin in the delight and mys­tery and wis­dom I find within the nat­ural world … and how these processes, these move­ments of the ele­ments, can be mir­rors to the sort of intra-psychic trans­for­ma­tion described by the world’s great mys­ti­cal tra­di­tions (Yoga in its Hindu, Bud­dhist, Taoist, Sufi and other vari­eties).  It is through poetry that I explore the play­ful rela­tion­ships between mind and body and spirit and world … with the hope of — in some small way, through the view that my work offers — bring­ing to them a greater bal­ance, clar­ity, and freedom.”

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