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

April 2011 Silent Lotus’ Selected
Poets’

Ron Kostar

and his guest Judith McNally

Tom Rior­dan

and his guest Sue Lozyn­skyj

Ron
Kostar

Whose Pho­tographs Loved People  

i always thought if you pol­ished one stone until
it became  
clear every­thing would shine, now peo­ple are dying.

the old Czech who grit his teeth while bik­ing his
grand­sons over the
moun­tains is gone. the famous
cen­te­nar­ian who walked along the street

stop­ping now and then to sketch a shape with her cane in
the sand
is gone.   i always thought if you built a big house
every­one  
 
would stay, but now peo­ple are leaving.  Einstein is
long gone.
the gruff patri­arch who drove his car on the wrong side

of the road is gone,  Bibi the black lab who ran cir­cles
around
Sugar and the plumber next door and the printer who lived
next

to him are gone.  vague thoughts, dis­persed, extant
dis­con­nected dust.  love to some, now all
stars want­ing con­stel­la­tions:
 
the artist poet drinker fish­er­man lover embalmed under leaves
in lake ice.
the teacher writer friend elec­tri­cian bril­liant stu­dent father
young mother yoga lawyer  

child framer mal­con­tent doc­tor house painter all gone.  even
the pho­tog­ra­pher whose
pho­tographs loved peo­ple, even him. i was there
when we dropped wet dirt on his grave and wished him
back.
 
if you stay in one place long enough peo­ple die.
is there a bet­ter rea­son to keep moving?

My Sons Take Epic Showers

my sons take show­ers that go on for hours,
they remind me of old black & white movies star­ring
clark gable and charl­ton hes­ton.
my kids’ show­ers take place in the his­tor­i­cal spaces
of their watery imag­i­na­tions
wherein they enter­tain vast migra­tions of peo­ple,
feel high-pitched emo­tions like love, hate and pas­sion 
and become heroes chas­ing
exotic hero­ines through exotic places.
   
and as with all rhyth­mi­cally induced travel,
my kids’ showers include much singing and
foot-tapping.
but while it is uplift­ing to hear your kids
singing in the pri­vacy of their own joy­ful rit­u­als,
is it really nec­es­sary for them to stay in
there long enough
to per­form the entirety of  “Tommy” or
Handel’s “Mes­siah”? 
                      
   
no!  i say in the spirit of brevity,
the mark of our fast and frag­mented time,
a kid’s shower need not drain the well nor
evoke the Odyssey or Bible,
but should be a practicum in effi­cient groom­ing
that lasts no longer than a lyric, at most a mag­a­zine
story. 
eco­nom­i­cal, though never lack­ing for rhythm,
imagery,  and melody,
prac­ti­cal though poten­tially trans­for­ma­tive, a
shower should be:

an occa­sion for col­or­ful reverie with­out being
a last will and tes­ta­ment. 
as sweet as bab­bling spring water, but
as suc­cinct as a pop­u­lar song.

Ron Kostar lives in the his­toric WPA town of Roo­sevelt, NJ. He has been a pro­fes­sor and teacher but now retires in the woods and plays the clar­inet in The Hot Taters, a Dix­ieland band. He reads and per­forms reg­u­larly and has pub­lished poems in sev­eral small mag­a­zines includ­ing US 1, City Mag­a­zine, For Here or to Go, In the Mail, The Prince­ton Review and The Kelsey Review, and he has shown his col­lages and paint­ings in a num­ber of Group and Col­lab­o­ra­tive Art Shows. He has a Ph.D. in Com­par­a­tive Lit­er­a­ture from Rut­gers Uni­ver­sity and cur­rently teaches young stu­dents words. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hot-Taters/231827836374 http://www.myspace.com/hottatersband Email: [email protected]

Judith McNally

The Joie de Vivre Blues
(a talkin’ blues)

Went look­ing for my joie de vivre
Looked under every stone
It wasn’t there
I had the joie de vivre blues

Fol­lowed you around
Look­ing for my joie de vivre
Thought you had plenty to spare
Might even give me some

Then we said good­bye
And you walked off
With my joie de vivre
Or so I thought

I had the joie de vivre blues
All over again
Made a few mis­takes
In my joie de vivre blues

I even wrote to you
Kinda knew I’d never hear back
And I didn’t
I had the joie de vivre blues

Then one day the sun came out
I took a walk
One hand swing­ing free
The other in my pocket

Walk­ing free – found my joie de vivre
And you know what?
It was in bet­ter shape
Than when I last saw it

Turns out say­ing good­bye
Was the best thing
You could have done
I lost those joie de vivre blues
　

Judith McNally, retired from teach­ing Cre­ative Writ­ing in the New York and Prince­ton areas, has pub­lished a novel, Jig­saw (Macmil­lan 1981) and is the recip­i­ent of an NJ State Coun­cil on the Arts Prose Fel­low­ship. Her first play, Bird­land, about Char­lie Parker, was optioned by the New Fed­eral The­atre, NYC. Her poems and short dia­logues – “micro­logues” – have appeared in US1 Work­sheets and have been read widely in the New York and Prince­ton areas. Judith cur­rently plays flute for the Dance Improv, Live! Band in Prince­ton, NJ. Email: [email protected]

Tom
Riordan

player

i don’t know where
wise peo­ple belong
but please stop putting
them in movies.

anna­purna

we pass her every day
cut­ting through the lot
after school in oppo­site
direc­tions as she rifles
her daily bag of chips
so wolfishly they lit­ter
the path. it’s decem­ber
when we notice a flock
of goldfinches waiting.

Tom Rior­dan lives in New Jer­sey in the U.S. with his wife and 3 chil­dren. He gar­dens, has taught Eng­lish most of his life, a writer even longer, cooks and runs the Envi­ron­ment Com­mis­sion in his town. His poetry has been pub­lished in var­i­ous venues in Eng­lish and trans­lated into Viet­namese including: http://www.poetrycircle.com/ http://pigeonbike.blogspot.com/ Eng­lish — Vietnamese http://www.phongdiep.net/default.asp?action=article&ID=12410. http://www.thotanhinhthuc.org/Tieng%20Tho%20Khac/ttk_tom_theyoungman.html

Sue
Lozynskyj

Wrin­kles

Yes­ter­day I ironed your shirt and after I stroked
the creases out of the back, and uncrum­pled
the arms from shoul­der to wrist,
I slipped it on,
front, cuffs and col­lar still wrin­kled.
It soothes my prick­ling skin
while I wait for news.

When the baby cried and I held her
she was quiet, her eyes half a shade darker
than my arms in your denim,
her cheek laid on the shoul­der
where mine loves to lie.

I’m iron­ing your com­bat shirt now,
still wear­ing your denim.
It smells of milk and mother’s sweat
and the damp patch she’s made.
I should wash it,
but I’m waiting.

Sue Lozyn­skyj lives among seag­ulls on the York­shire coast. Encour­aged in her writ­ing by a lively net­work of writ­ers across York­shire and online at Poetry Cir­cle and After­Lit­er­a­ture, Sue believes in the power of words to build a thriv­ing soci­ety, based on lis­ten­ing and speaking. She is pub­lished on the Poetry Soci­ety , BBC Radio Hum­ber­side and Poetry GPS web­sites, in var­i­ous antholo­gies and the Leeds Guide.  She is yet to pub­lish a col­lec­tion. She is mar­ried and works as a Midwife.  Email: [email protected]

Poetry Cor­ner Monthly Archives

POETRY CORNER by silent lotus … MARCH 2011

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