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

March 2011 Silent Lotus’ Selected
Poets’

Kevin Jack­son

and his guest Shari-Lyn McArthur

Jose­Mar­Guerr

and his guest Gabriella Garbo

Kevin Jackson

Back to the war

When all is done
Night­mares seen square
Wounds repealed
Shat­tered words reformed
And silence overcome

That blasted oak
Still sticks up proud
And young faces
Leave to die again

Silent danc­ing

More gripes in my stom­ach
say pill time,

tug dad back
thirty seven years,
bring­ing hos­pi­tal fin­gers stiff
with duty,

Mum’s urgent eyes.

Two fixed bod­ies.
Him cen­tring a world I was too young to know,
me, seed­ing a galaxy with origami.

It’s said they’ve seen two black holes dance.

Slow ages chafe
laugh­ter, rose-buds,
sum­mer waves, walks watch­ing ball flip dog,
draw­ing light that quick­ens a uni­verse,
till it fal­ters, falls,
dis-remembers, relin­quishes, sep­a­rates,
fades.

We two, strangers these num­ber­less years,
pull closer now,
tensed each by each.
Silent.
Dancing.

Kevin Jack­son is a trainer, per­sonal coach and edi­tor. His poems have been pub­lished in jour­nals and online, most recently in the Tip­ton Poetry Jour­nal (Fall 2010). He has work upcom­ing in a US anthol­ogy by Poetry Cir­cle. His poem “Pass­ing by” was short-listed for the Can­ter­bury Fes­ti­val Poet of the Year 2010 and he is pub­lished in the recent UK anthol­ogy “On the Line”, avail­able from Ama­zon. His blog http://kevnjacksn.wordpress.com offers poetry/reflections on diverse themes.

Shari-Lyn McArthur

Ped­a­gogy

My dis­ci­ples lis­ten
when they should be speak­ing;
worry when they should be doing.

They buy my water from beside the river
when I ask:
Why is the river muddy?

They dine on my mar­row
as I go hun­gry;
dwell in my house
instead of build­ing;
anoint my feet
with snake oil and then

when my dis­ci­ples should sur­pass me–
I am a prophet.
　

Shari-Lyn McArthur was born in the 1960s, in Vic­to­ria, Canada. A grad­u­ate of Car­leton Uni­ver­sity, her for­mal train­ing is in Human Fac­tors Engi­neer­ing. After a time engaged in cre­at­ing intel­lec­tual prop­erty for a cor­po­ra­tion in Sil­i­con Val­ley, she returned to her Island, where she resides by the sea, sur­rounded by the sto­ries of her ances­tors. Shari is a co-founder and edi­tor of After Lit­er­a­ture, a col­lab­o­ra­tive port­fo­lio devel­op­ment site for writ­ers and artists. Some of her pho­tog­ra­phy can be found at flickr. An eager pro­po­nent of cre­ative col­lab­o­ra­tion and pro bono endeav­ours, Shari can be reached at [email protected]

Jose
Mar Guerr

At the edge of pasturelands

All I have to do is smoke
and dis­abuse myself.
Rigor car­ries all last hurrahs.

I’ll not pay for it
come morning.

I’m to the end of my poke
and I don’t want to be seen

hob­bled in withdrawal.

I’ve never seen a u-haul
behind a hearse.

Pre­gunta

Como puedo saber
Que mañana regresa
Como puedo pro­bar
La miel de tu boca
O tocar tus ojos verdes
Llenos de fan­tasía
Vacíos de penas
Abier­tos como el cielo
Como puedo saber
Que tú querer
Es el árbol de vida
Como puedo saber

Ques­tion

How can I know
That tomor­row returns?
How can I taste
Your mouth’s honey,
Or touch your green eyes
Full of fan­tasy,
Empty of sor­rows,
Open like the skies.
How can I know
That your love
Is the tree of life!
How can I know?

While Death Comes To Take Us Home

Our can­dle flick­ers
as the sea­sons descend
their knot­ted rope.

Flow­ers smile at first bloom,
life at first breath.
Shorter days compress.

We will gasp when rooster’s call awak­ens
the nap­ping morn­ing dew.
We will rise with­out flu­id­ity
and with a lit­tle more rigor
sur­ren­der to the last
stroke of a freshly cut broom.

José Mar­cial Guer­rero (Jose­Mar­Guerr) was born and raised in Laredo, Texas. He ended up trans­planted to west TN through the Navy’s relo­ca­tion pro­gram. He is a retired US Navy vet­eran. A writer of poetry with a Mexican/ Amer­i­can cul­tural twist, Jose has been pub­lished in Poetic Voices with­out Bor­ders One and Two (Gival Press). He was also pub­lished in Ahani: Indige­nous Amer­i­can Poetry, Vol-9, (Fall of 2006) by way of Poetry Enter­prises, Depart­ment of For­eign Lan­guages and Lit­er­a­tures, Ore­gon State University. “Per­fec­tion can only be achieved through an open heart.“ JoseMarGuerr

Gabriella Garbo

Spirit Guide

“I found eter­nity nes­tled in the iris
of a bro­ken man.
His depth of indigo was swathed in star­dust,
gleaned from some intan­gi­ble land.

He was a vagabond of dusty wing
employ­ing saga­cious wiles,
and he kicked his heels with gusto,
invoked me with a smile.

He shook a shaggy head
at my dowdy thoughts of des­tiny,
and swept his hand in a great wide arch
that cleared a road before me.

“No time to seek where you already stand,“
His husky voice pro­claimed,
A gruff kiss to send me on my way,
I finally know my name.

Gabriella Garbo is the voice of Amanda Trow­bridge who is an Eng­lish stu­dent study­ing at the Uni­ver­sity of Phoenix. Amanda leads a small, local writ­ers group called the South­west Ten­nessee Free­lance Writ­ers Guild where she tries to help new writ­ers (includ­ing her­self) with devel­op­ing their poetry and sto­ries. She hopes to some­day teach cre­ative writ­ing, and to pro­mote writ­ing as ther­apy for psy­chi­atric patients. Until such a time, she uses poetry to express her young, spir­i­tual perspectives. Amanda Trow­bridge Pres­i­dent Free­lance Writer’s Guild http://fwg.yolasite.com http://almalatinacafe.org http://dogs2ndchance.org

Poetry Cor­ner Monthly Archives

POETRY CORNER by silent lotus … FEBRUARY 2011

POETRY CORNER by silent lotus … JANUARY 2011

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