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

Decem­ber 2010 Silent Lotus’ Selected
Poets’

Heather Sul­li­van

and her guest Lawrence Krips

Dou­glas Shawe

and his guest Kent Agee

Heather
Sullivan

UNDER THE ECHINACEA
for my daugh­ter Page, age 4

She lays the moth down
upon her sacred patch
of mossy earth, beside the spin­ning
hot pink pinwheel.

This is where he belongs,
now that he won’t wake up.
He won’t wake up now,
even when she pokes him, shakes him.

But she knows the angels
will swoop down to find him dream­ing
under the petal umbrel­las
of Echinacea.

They will make him bet­ter,
and he’ll fly off; he’ll fol­low
the light­ning bug path
back to the danc­ing moths’ forest.

She kisses her index fin­ger,
touches it to his fuzzy cheek
just once; shim­mer­ing rain­drops
form in her eyes. In the morning,

he is gone, and she says, “I knew
they’d come.” Again, I melt
into her realm of ten­der faith.
Each time she rescues

another fallen insect, each time
their frag­ile rice-paper wings
reflect the moon­light on my palms
(after I’ve tucked her in bed)

I place them else­where:
a dif­fer­ent gar­den, under the shel­ter
of a sunflower’s heavy head,
those leafy hands outstretched,

beg­ging Time
to let her keep believing.

SNOWGLOBE

Nature ignores my emotions.

Tonight
the snow erases
brit­tle grass until the stub­ble
is no more, until the elec­tric
siz­zle of so many land­ings,
flakes like sliv­ered glass
against laven­der sky,
despite my
woes.

Tomor­row
the yard will look like a pho­to­graph
some­one else took and hung across our slid­ing glass doors—
even my neighbor’s neglected shed will trans­form into frosted
gin­ger­bread
and ice-prismed trees will glint the morn­ing light,
until I’m sure the world is
this beautiful.

HEATHER SULLIVAN is an active mem­ber of Ocean State Poets, a group whose mis­sion is to give voice to under-served pop­u­la­tions by con­duct­ing work­shops in pris­ons, nurs­ing and group homes, addic­tion recov­ery cen­ters, The Insti­tute for Non Vio­lence, and alter­na­tive learn­ing envi­ron­ments. Ms. Sul­li­van is also the founder of Pray­ing Man­tis Press, a non­profit ded­i­cated to show­cas­ing and pub­lish­ing the works of these indi­vid­u­als. In 2007, Heather was appointed Assis­tant Cre­ative Direc­tor of the Rhode Island Writ­ers’ Cir­cle, where she vol­un­teered her time until 2010. In 2007, she served as a panel judge for Barnes and Noble’s State-wide Maya Angelou High School Poetry Con­test. Heather holds an M.A. in Eng­lish and won First Place in Writ­ers’ Digest’s 1999 Com­pe­ti­tion in mem­oir / per­sonal essay cat­e­gory. Sullivan’s work has appeared in Bal­anc­ing the Tides: A New­port Jour­nal, The Writ­ers’ Circle’s 2008 & 2010 Antholo­gies, New­port Round Table’s Walls and Bridges Anthol­ogy, The Prov­i­dence Jour­nal, The New­port Daily News, and She Shines Mag­a­zine. Her essay “Com­pas­sion” aired on Rhode Island’s National Pub­lic Radio’s This I Believe series, and she has recorded her poetry for Insight Radio for the visu­ally impaired. Email: [email protected]

Lawrence Krips

A Soul’s Way …
to be free is to release the imprisoned

Within con­crete walls,
cen­tered in a cell
of san­i­tized dirt
lays an iso­lated one.
Sequestered in this dingy prison
for crimes of the heart;
found guilty by abun­dant evi­dence
a child gath­ered
on an ingen­u­ous jour­ney.
Con­demned to life,
con­fined for life,
never to be freed
to be amongst decent ones.
Unre­quited cries for mercy;
pleas to higher courts;
reverse the sen­tence,
give pro­ba­tion,
regain those years.

Liv­ing in our human mosaic
of these jux­ta­posed com­part­ments
few know of the oth­ers,
and even fewer know of the escapes.
Few know of the free­dom attained
when one unlocks fleshy gates
by releas­ing the only pris­oner
the war­den can.

By pro­claim­ing free­dom
to those remain­ing,
another child may live again.

Lawrence Krips is a recent immi­grant to the shores of Rhode Island after spend­ing most of his life in New York City and envi­rons, A Souls Way is from his book , A Soul’s Way … Soul­s­peak, a col­lec­tion of fifty poems cur­rently avail­able on CD. Larry is now work­ing as an empow­er­ment coach and as a per­for­mance artist in his poetry/music group, “Mouth­peace.” He began writ­ing poetry about nine years ago. His newest off­springs join his orig­i­nal poems, daugh­ters Valentina and Mon­ica. Email: [email protected]

Dou­glas
Shawe

“RAIN FALLS”

     WE SHARE THIS SILENT ROOM
     SILHOUETTES IN CANDLELIGHT
     WE’RE NAKED AS THE MOON
     WORDS ARE ONLY WASTED TONIGHT
          WE ARE
PERFECTLY LOST IN EACH OTHER
          WE ARE
SHADOWS FOREVER ENTWINED
          DRIFTING
DEEPER WE DANCE
          WE ARE
LOVERS IN LOVE WITHOUT TIME

               THEN
THE RAIN FALLS
               AND
ALL THE WORLD IS STANDING STILL
               THEN
THE RAIN FALLS
               OUR
LOVE IS RENEWED…AGAIN

     AND AS THE RAIN BEGINS
     I’LL TRACE EVERY TOUCH WE SHARE
     DRAW PICTURES ON YOUR SKIN
     EVERY KISS WILL BE LIKE A PRAYER
          WE ARE
HELPLESSLY DRAWN TO EACH OTHER
          WE ARE
BOUND WITH EACH BREATH THAT WE TAKE
          WASHED
IN TEARS FROM THE SKY
          PURIFIED
BY THE LOVE THAT WE MAKE

               THEN
THE RAIN FALLS
               AND
ALL THE WORLD IS STANDING STILL
               THEN
THE RAIN FALLS
               OUR
LOVE IS RENEWED…AGAIN

                    STARLIGHT,
STAR BRIGHT
                    GENTLE
MOONLIGHT
                    HEAL
ME ‚HOLD ME
                    MIDNIGHT
OWN ME
                    SAFE
WITHIN YOUR ARMS
                    I
KNOW I’M ALIVE

               THEN
THE RAIN FALLS
               AND
ALL THE WORLD IS STANDING STILL
               THEN
THE RAIN FALLS
               OUR
LOVE IS RENEWED…AGAIN

“IRISH EYES”

     SEA-MISTED STREETLAMPS SHINE
     LIGHTING THIS COASTAL SCENE
     TELEPHONE WIRE-FRAMED SPIDERWEB
NIGHT
     WHERE CHILLY WOOD COTTAGES LEAN

     WHEELRUTS TRACK UP TO HER DOOR
     EACH SANDY STEP CRACKS A KISS
     ICE-HARDENED PAINT CHIPS DROP AT THE
TOUCH
     OF BLUE-FISTED HANDS KNOCKING
STIFF

          IRISH
EYES
          WHEN
IT’S COLD AND DARK OUTSIDE
          WARM
THE NIGHT
          IRISH
EYES

               TOO
LATE NOW TO SAVE OUR LOVE FOR RAINY DAYS,
               TOO
LATE
               WHEN
THE SUN SHIPS OUT I WILL BE FAR AWAY
               FAR
AWAY

     COAL FIRE HEAT BREATHES HELLO
     INTO ROBIN’S EGG BLUE CHINA TEA
     WE SAIL UNDER BEDSHEETS QUARTERED AND
DRAWN
     CROSS A FOUR-MASTED CALICO SEA

          IRISH
EYES
          WHEN
IT’S COLD AND DARK OUTSIDE
          WARM
THE NIGHT
          IRISH
EYES

Dou­glas Shawe comes from a fam­ily of painters and show biz folk. Grew up lis­ten­ing to the great song­writ­ers — from Rodgers & Ham­mer­stein and George Gersh­win to Lennon & McCart­ney and Bacharach & David. I’m an East Coast Yan­kee. I’ve lived in Florida, Mass­a­chu­setts, Con­necti­cut, and New York. Also lived in Lon­don, Eng­land as well as St. Maarten in the Caribbean. Twice in my life I’ve lived on boats. I was the right age to be seduced by Rock’n’Roll and began a career as a musi­cian in every con­ceiv­able type of musi­cal sit­u­a­tion. From big are­nas and con­cert halls to pri­vate luaus. Calypso & Soca to Celtic & Orches­tral. I’ve been writ­ing songs since the age of thir­teen. I’ve had songs used in film, TV, radio, records, CD’s, mp3’s, com­mer­cials, even a doll. I’ve had songs recorded in Ger­many, Spain, France, Nor­way, Japan, Korea, Tai­wan, Panama, Eng­land, Bel­gium, Malta, the US, etc. Pretty much every­where in Europe and the Far East, as well as South Amer­ica. Now liv­ing in Nashville, Ten­nessee with a beau­ti­ful wife and two Golden Retriev­ers. But I miss liv­ing on a boat. Email: [email protected]

Kent
Agee

Wait­ing For You

Last night I heard the god of pas­sion
tak­ing giant steps through town.
He stopped out­side my bed­room win­dow,
stood there while the Moon went ‘round.
I could hear his huge heart beat­ing,
pump­ing blood like hot per­fume.
I lay half awake, half dream­ing…
     wait­ing for you.
In the morn­ing there were ashes
strewn across my bed­room floor.
In the ash your name was writ­ten
like some ancient rit­ual.
Then I knew that my desire
was a fur­nace in my soul.
And all that can­not sat­isfy it
feeds the flame
     wait­ing for you.
Give me your for­bid­den secrets,
lay them naked next to mine.
Let me touch what’s hid­den deep­est.
Tear away the bound­ary line.
All the thoughts you try to bury
are alive inside their tomb.
Let me be their sanc­tu­ary.
Can’t you feel them
     wait­ing for you
In the street lights of temp­ta­tion
hid­den door­ways are exposed.
Shad­ows of antic­i­pa­tion
watch with eyes that will not close.
Every foot­step in the dis­tance
is my dark dream com­ing true.
and every face in every win­dow
is my own…
     wait­ing for you

A fourth gen­er­a­tion musician/recording artist, Kent Agee first gained atten­tion as the front man and writer for leg­endary Nashville rock band, Jane His Wife, Kent Agee has since become one of Nashville’s most ver­sa­tile song­writ­ers. He has had songs recorded in rock, pop, coun­try, blue grass, Amer­i­cana and r&b by artists as diverse as Bar­bra Streisand, Rod­ney Atkins, Vanessa Williams, Claire Lynch and Cin­derella, among oth­ers. His debut solo cd, “Fields and Fences” was cho­sen by Robert Oer­mann as one of the best releases of 2004. Kent lives in Nashville, TN. http://www.myspace.com/kentagee

Poetry Cor­ner Monthly Archives

POETRY CORNER by silent lotus … NOVEMBER 2010

POETRY CORNER by silent lotus … OCTOBER 2010

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