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

Octo­ber 2010 Silent Lotus’ Selected
Poets’

Tiko Lewis

and his guest Stella Read

Steve Toth

and his guest Sheila Helden­brand

Tiko
Lewis

Mon­day

walls
of win­ter
salt

air
of chicory
and musk

i see
no trees
or leaves

side­walks
or sideburns

no hands
in hands

no lips
pressed
to cheeks
or to pass­ing
car windows

morn­ing
has come

we remain
unadorned
and
wingless

Her Red­woods

the for­est
tow­ers
above shadows

and shores
where mists
lurch

over
dust of
for­got­ten
prayers

and
timbre

unknown
by men

Tiko Lews lives in Hous­ton, Tx. besides writ­ing, he enjoys cig­ars, cook­ing, and sin. he’s mar­ried to a girl he met in the 10th grade, and they have two not so lit­tle ones. Tiko is also an edi­tor at Poetry Cir­cle. http://www.poetrycircle.com

Stella
Read

Patch­work

October’s palette, umber
and cherry

blocks of colour
daubed and con­trasted
with saf­fron or rust

adorn­ments torn
and trans­formed
into a crack­ling shroud

leav­ing bare
the intri­ca­cies of
bark and bone

Cana­dian poet, Stella Read, lives in Ontario with her hus­band and daugh­ters. She is the pri­mary care­giver to her elderly mother who suf­fers from Alzheimer’s. Stella’s love of nature is often reflected in her work. She is a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor at Poetry Cir­cle. http://www.poetrycircle.com

Steve
Toth

Voices

The voice of expe­ri­ence said
don’t let them touch you
intru­sion is a func­tion of dis­tance
Haven’t you heard about the peo­ple
who develop pic­tures & how
they some­times get depressed
because all the faces & poses
are so much alike?
One life ends in a blur
& another begins in one too

The voice of the heart said
haven’t you noticed how some of
the nicest peo­ple are also
the sick­est & because they are
the sick­est you see them more often
& get to know them bet­ter?
From then on I felt myself work­ing
in imag­i­na­tion to ease their pain
& to heal them silently
with a dis­charge of will power

Trans­planted

Com­ing in with our shovel & buck­ets
hav­ing trans­planted four crowded fuch­sias
& one light starved gera­nium
Upon clos­ing the door we look out
the win­dow at our handiwork

We see a hum­ming­bird ia already
hov­er­ing in the empty space
once occu­pied by the largest plant
rotat­ing on her axis in many direc­tions
as if cal­cu­lat­ing the miss­ing mass

Where the gar­den wears a vacant look
she hangs as if in utter amaze­ment
as if some­thing incred­i­ble has taken place
What’s this void doing here?
Plants don’t just walk off by themselves

Then she darts about the gar­den
check­ing for other dis­crep­an­cies
where real­ity is at vari­ance with actu­al­ity
& the vision is at odds with the visu­al­iza­tion
Obsessed with how the imme­di­ate is rendered

It’s as if the hum­ming­bird
has a three dimen­sional image
of where every­thing impor­tant goes
& that image can only be changed
by direct experience

Steve Toth was born in north­ern Min­nesota where they have one month of spring, one month of sum­mer, one month of fall & nine months of win­ter. Grew up, went to school & got mar­ried in east­ern Iowa. Now liv­ing in north west­ern Cal­i­for­nia where the moun­tains, ocean & red­wood forests come together. The words speak for them­selves. Steve has two books that are still in print….. Still Mak­ing Love Not War & Rewood Dreams. His poetry is fea­tured on All Spirit http://allspirit.co.uk/ and he posts reg­u­larly in the Sacred Poetry Forum at Poety Chaikhana http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com and in the yahoo groups Sufi Mys­tic and War­rior Poets.

Sheila
Heldenbrand

Three Women

A Group of Peo­ple decide to go for a ride in the car. The front of
the car is sunk into the road to the top of the bumper. I start to
drive, but the only seat left is the pas­sen­ger seat, tend­ing the
baby. My prac­ti­cal Tau­rus sis­ter dri­ves. A bull. She tries to drive
away fast, but can hardly keep ahead of the bull. She stops at the
dri­ve­way and I get out to get the mail. A voice says, ‘Let some­one
smaller do it.’ Two women imme­di­ately jump out and race to the
mail­box. The bull beats them back to their seats, steps in, and
says, ‘Drive on.’

Sheila Hilde­brand was born in 1951, Year of the Rab­bit, and grew up on a farm in the Mid­west suf­fer­ing from asthma. Lived with my grand­par­ents until I was five, watch­ing TV, not allowed off the sofa. Learned to read and read late at night, sleep­ing in class. Bach­e­lor of Gen­eral Stud­ies in 1973, Uni­ver­sity of Iowa, with three areas of con­cen­tra­tion: Writer’s work­shop, archae­ol­ogy, com­par­a­tive reli­gion. Four dream prose poems pub­lished by Leonard Sea­st­one, Tide­line Press, 1976 after a read­ing at Epstein’s Bookstore–though my work­shop fic­tion writ­ing grad-student instruc­tor, later Pul­tizer prize win­ning author, Tracy Kid­der, said that dreams were not a valid cre­ative medium. Mar­ried Steve Toth and worked as a book­keeper in rub­ber cane tip man­u­fac­tur­ing and qual­ity assur­ance data in aero­space for the Depart­ment of Defense for over twenty years in Los Ange­les. Retired early because of health prob­lems to the Pacific North­west after acquir­ing mul­ti­ple chem­i­cal sensitivity.

Poetry Cor­ner Monthly Archives

POETRY CORNER by silent lotus … SEPTEMBER 2010

POETRY CORNER by silent lotus … AUGUST 2010

POETRY CORNER by silent lotus … JUNE 2010

POETRY
CORNER by silent lotus … MAY 2010