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

Feb­ru­ary 2011 Silent Lotus’ Selected
Poets’

Rick Stans­berger

and his guest Michelle Beth Cronk

Lisa Starr

and her guest Cole­man Barks

Rick
Stansberger

CASTAWAYS

I lis­ten to your search
for ances­tral music
the rhythms that
make your heart dance.

The sound
removes the scar tis­sue
from my fore­head
rules of tran­scen­dence
etched into the soul.

This is not a gui­tar
that your spirit plays
it is the bones of
your child­hood
singing for freedom.

And I come to you
on these shabby knees
await­ing your charm.

IMPRESSION OF WILL – DOCUMENTARY LOST

You promised me
you would teach
me about death
nei­ther
accept­ing or reject­ing
but to embrace
like long lost love

That I had to face death
to live life when eclipses
felt like manslaugh­ter
and spirit reigned over stars

This is what you told me
a fort­night ago
when you thought
you rec­og­nized me
and I rel­ished your Wicca rit­ual
like returned saint­hood
redis­cov­er­ing our Mesopotamia

You remem­bered how we
lived by the Caspian Sea
bor­row­ing Russ­ian names
for a life­time of demonic passion

You reminded me of where we
met some­where along the Nile
the sands still glis­ten from
our love­mak­ing
the sweat of a life­time
built on eroge­nous faculties

And now do you find me
so repul­sive
you return calls
with syl­lo­gism
not the love of desire

I pack my cares care­fully
in lay­ers of tis­sue
aban­doned
from your gifts

Now it seems
as if you no longer
rec­og­nize me as friend
as I assume alter ego
of fright spanned relic
an ancient mem­ory
wished forgotten

You promised
you would teach me
about death
I know what
it feels like now

Larry Jaffe Bio The New Offi­cial Anti-Bio Jaffe is an inter­na­tion­ally known and an award win­ning poet he writes from the heart and soul with great clar­ity and under­stand­ing. He impacts audi­ences and read­ers with a rich emo­tional range, mas­ter­fully crafted. He has read his work in such dis­tin­guished loca­tions as the Japan­ese Amer­i­can Museum, the Ham­mer Museum, the Museum of Tol­er­ance, the Jew­ish Museum and the Museum of Lit­er­a­ture in Prague and the Dylan Thomas Cen­tre in Wales. He uses the uses the aes­thetic power of poetry to bring under­stand­ing to the world espe­cially in the area of human rights. To reward this com­mit­ment was appointed Poet Lau­re­ate for Youth for Human Rights and United for Human Rights. Jaffe was the recent recip­i­ent of the Saint Hill Art Festival’s Life­time of Cre­ativ­ity Award, the first time given to a poet. http://www.larryjaffe.com http://www.facebook.com/larryjaffe

Nathalia Handal

Even

Noth­ing is even, even this line

I am writ­ing, even this line I am wait­ing in,
wait­ing for per­mis­sion to enter

the coun­try, the house, the room.

Noth­ing is even, even now

that laws have been drawn and peace
is dis­cussed on high tables,

and even if all was said to be even

I would not believe for even I know

that noth­ing is even — not the trees,

the flow­ers, not the moun­tains or the shad­ows…

our nature is not even so why even try to get even

instead let us find an even bet­ter place

and call it even.

Nathalie Han­dal is an award-winning poet, play­wright, and edi­tor. She has lived in Europe, the United States, the Caribbean, Latin Amer­ica and the Arab world. Her work has appeared in numer­ous antholo­gies and mag­a­zines, and she has been fea­tured on PBS The New­sHour with Jim Lehrer, NPR, as well as The New York Times, The San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle, Reuters, Mail & Guardian, The Jor­dan Times and Il Pic­colo. Her most recent books include: Love and Strange Horses (Uni­ver­sity of Pitts­burgh Press), an Hon­or­able Men­tion at the San Fran­cisco Book Fes­ti­val, and the land­mark anthol­ogy, Lan­guage for a New Cen­tury: Con­tem­po­rary Poetry from the Mid­dle East, Asia & Beyond (W.W. Nor­ton). Her work has been trans­lated into more than 15 lan­guages, and some of her awards include: Lan­nan Foun­da­tion Fel­low, Hon­ored Final­ist for the Gift of Free­dom Award, Recip­i­ent of the AE Ven­tures Fel­low­ship, Short­listed for The Agnes Lynch Star­rett Poetry Prize, Win­ner of the Menada Lit­er­ary Award, and Win­ner of the Pen Oak­land Josephine Miles National Book Award. Han­dal writes the blog-column, The City and The Writer, for Words with­out Bor­ders mag­a­zine. http://www.nathaliehandal.com

Eliz­a­beth Thomas

REVELATION

His T-shirt says, “I am God”.
I think — My lucky day!
I’ll run over,
shake his hand,
ask for an auto­graph.
I might never have this chance again.

But, as God sits there
wait­ing to step into
the Vice Principal’s office,
I look closely –
at his faded T-shirt
two sizes too big,
sneak­ers older than he is,
thin legs swing­ing
barely long enough to reach the floor,
dirty hands mas­sag­ing a dirty fore­head and think –
This is not God.
This is a lit­tle boy
who maybe swore in the lava­tory
or tus­sled on the play­ground.
A child who prob­a­bly for­got
to eat break­fast,
did not expect a good-bye kiss.
When he gets home from school today
he’ll let him­self in
with the key
that hangs around his neck.
He might help him­self to Twinkies
and a glass of Coke,
a micro-waved pizza in front of the TV.

Strug­gling to raise his head
the cir­cles under his eyes
slope toward his chin,
pick up the lines around his mouth
and carry it down as well.
It’s not easy tak­ing care of the world!

Using the back of his hand
he trails snot and tears across his face
into his hair,
which heads out in all direc­tions
as if just lifted from a pil­low.
He looks neglected
like home­work after a long week­end.
This boy ain’t been loved in a long time.

I want to walk over
kneel on both knees,
use my sleeve to clean his cheeks,
tie his sneakers.

He looks up
and in his eyes
I see my own son.
Unable to look away,
I want to say some­thing
make some excuse
beg for for­give­ness.
But, this is God.
What could I pos­si­bly say
he does not already know?

Being Human

I am the man
who will work for food.
At first you would slow down
to get a bet­ter look.
I was a curios­ity.
Now you hurry by
to gro­cery stores and power lunches.
I think I will stand here
a lit­tle bit longer.
I had a job.
I wore a tie.
And when I went to meet­ings
my opin­ion was respected.
My opin­ion –
was respected.

I am the old woman
who looks like your grand­mother
from a cer­tain angle.
Hunched over the K-Mart shop­ping cart.
Walk­ing aim­lessly through the park.
The one you tell your chil­dren
to stay away from.
My cart is full of the garbage
oth­ers take for granted.
The crust from a sand­wich
yesterday’s news­pa­per
a pair of sun­glasses,
one lens and one arm miss­ing.
I had a mother once
and a doll with sev­eral changes of cloth­ing
and pink, sequined high heels.
And I had an older brother
who would pro­tect me
from the other boys
because I was a looker!
On Sun­day morn­ings
we would all go to church
together.

I am the woman-child
you shake your head at
as I stroll my baby down the street.
Our tax dol­lars, you say.
Yes, I made a mis­take
but I’m not stu­pid
and I’m not lazy.
I’m young but I’m learn­ing.
I’m not
who you’re so sure I am.
I’m not the prod­uct of a bro­ken home.
My father never beat me.
My mother’s not a crack-head.
I take good care of my child
and I have dreams.

I am the baby
in that young girl’s car­riage.
My life is just begin­ning.
I could be any­one!
I could do any­thing!
I could make a dif­fer­ence.
Yet when you hurry by
the man with the sign
or hide your chil­dren
from that old woman in the park
or turn your back
on the mother and her baby,
you are teach­ing me about life!
And I am
a quick
learner!

Eliz­a­beth Thomas is a pub­lished poet, per­former and edu­ca­tor. The author of three books of poetry, she has read her work through­out the US and in 2009, pre­sented ‘Poetry as The­ater’ at the United Arab Emi­rates Uni­ver­sity out­side Dubai. Much of her energy and time is devoted to design­ing and teach­ing writ­ing pro­grams to pro­mote lit­er­acy and the power of writ­ten and spo­ken word. As an out­stand­ing advo­cate of youth in the arts, Eliz­a­beth Thomas is a CT coach and orga­nizer with Brave New Voices: Inter­na­tional Youth Poetry Slam and Fes­ti­val. Elizabeth’s I Ask My Grand­daugh­ter was the 2010 win­ner of the Anita McAn­drews award for human rights poetry. She believes poetry is meant to be heard out loud and in per­son. More at http://www.upwordspoetry.com.

Susan Marie Powers

The Touch of Strangers

They touch me with eyes, fin­gers, metal instru­ments;
soothe me with smiles and ges­tures.
I sur­ren­der to the woman who cuts my hair,
anony­mous, deep in the belly of a shop­ping mall.
Her fin­gers brush my ears,
she breathes against my neck.

In an emer­gency room,
clicks and lights illu­mi­nate
the vagaries of life in a body.
There a stranger tells me to
strip, wear a thin robe,
and I obey, give myself up to
his prob­ing hands, his gen­tle smile.

Once in the gar­den,
I felt the del­i­cate, unex­pected weight
of a Monarch against
the thin skin of my palm.
She fanned orange wings:
blessed me.

Here in a world of flu­o­res­cent lights,
rum­bling streets, and crowded walk­ways,
I enter the warm crowd.
Around me peo­ple surge –
full of secrets, full of love.

Susan Marie Pow­ers grad­u­ated from Ohio Uni­ver­sity with a Mas­ters in Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture and Cre­ative Writ­ing. She sub­se­quently attained a doc­tor­ate in clin­i­cal psy­chol­ogy at Say­brook Insti­tute, pub­lished arti­cles in aca­d­e­mic jour­nals, and co-edited a psy­chol­ogy text (Bro­ken Images, Bro­ken Selves, Brun­ner Mazel, 1997). Through teach­ing Eng­lish and Psy­chol­ogy, she has kept her love for both aca­d­e­mic and cre­ative writ­ing alive. Her life’s work has been teach­ing, mostly at the high school level, and her most recent work is a poetry col­lec­tion, Break the Spell, New Lon­don Librar­ium, 2010. http://www.NLLibrarium.com

Poetry Cor­ner Monthly Archives

POETRY CORNER by silent lotus … DECEMBER 2010

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