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
September 2010 Silent Lotus’ Selected
Poets’
Margot Farrington
and her guest Carol Peters
Saliba Sarsar
and his guest David Sten Herrstrom
Margot
Farrington
Wild Ducks
Dissonant music of come-hither recalls three I’d
forgotten: decoy carvers named Heissler, Fitzpatrick,
and English. Men honing shapes to spells to lure down
hen and drake. Look how the flock lowers, as one
body will seek another. Love is part cunning,
part care. Does a decoy carver destroy or
preserve? Yes, says a voice. And Yes.
Have you heard the landing song? In air it skirls
and in water fizzes. Notes of olive or yellow.
Red notes, maybe. Or black. Whatever color, the
skimming feet make bevies of bubbles: eyes
infinite and wise and I think they imagine me blissful,
buoyant in the womb before I’m put through my
history, before I stand in front of stones to read my
parents’ names in granite. Their graves close to those of
Heissler, Fitzpatrick, and English. Names of makers.
Names whose linkage brings me wistful music.
And I wonder if you’ve heard the
fluent dead speaking Brant? Did you get the
letter in Merganser? Or was the translation lost?
Today the guns are silent. Across the pond
comes longing. Listen. Your
name is changing shape. At times sunlit
and solitary, at times dark and among others.
Watch water brim, see it silver and
shiver and touch both shores.
Azure
The sky hides a puzzle. You must be a
missing bit. Dropped by heaven-hand to
beguile and lead me astray.
Where are we going? White violet, you say.
Why haven’t I lived my life
riveted to your flutter? You beat as if you
knew my heart by heart. Memorized every
second that every gave me joy.
Where are we going?
Old field cinquefoil, you answer.
Yellow, yellow, yellow, calls a bird
intimate with the plan. You rise, dip towards
shoreline where sea enfolds sky. Jut of
coast cuffed with stone and
sleeved by blue: wild flag in bloom.
Was there a thing called winter?
Sorrow-kite, break string and fly.
I am an iris among irises
lofting into butterfly and we are
firmly under sail and I have left two feet
ashore. Farewell, faithful servants who
carried me thus far.
*azure – a small blue butterfly common in the
Northeast
| Margot Farrington’s second collection is “Flares And Fathoms” (Bright Hill Press). Farrington was a recipient of a Norton Island fellowship in 2009. An interview and reading of her poetry recorded early in 2010 may be accessed via Art On Air International Radio. |
Carol
Peters
| Carol Peters reads & writes, walks & bikes, adores the outdoors, loves family & friends. Read her latest book: https://sites.google.com/site/apobizpress/books/sixty-some-2. Visit her blog: http://carolpeters.blogspot.com/. Carol lives in Hawaii & Charleston, is moving to Argentina. |
Saliba
Sarsar
WE
The cool hilltop air
caresses our soul.
Our warm embrace
elevates us to
the golden crescent as
we drift blissfully
into the blue sky
of tomorrow.
Wailing sirens
in the far,
barking beasts
in the near,
halt our ascent,
our dream.
Love and peace
await…
another night,
another day.
TRANSFORMATION
for Jacob Landau
To a relentless fire I awoke,
awoke to touch only wet ashes,
heaven’s tears cleansing souls
in fear and awe
ascending Jacob’s ladder.
Toward liberty’s cross, I rushed
rushed to freeze hammers, nails
piercing flesh, blood stopping
mouths of dry skulls
crying out for justice and peace.
With angelic joy, I soared
soared with prophets leading away
from stumbling, dark pits, and
satanic wheels
toward the New Jerusalem.
When will you learn
to seek shelter in the shadow
of God’s wings
 | Saliba Sarsar is Associate Vice President for Global Initiatives and Professor of Political Science at Monmouth University. In addition to his scholarly works on the Middle East, he is the author of two books of poetry. The first, titled Crosswinds, was published by Mellen Poetry Press. The poems included impressions of a teenager experiencing Jerusalem under Jordanian and Israeli rule, and maturing in a land of “between war and peace.” The second, Seven Gates of Jerusalem, was published in Haifa by Kul-Shee in a bilingual (English/Arabic) edition. It speaks with a trans-communal voice meant to rediscover the essence of the human condition and direct its energy toward understanding ‘the other’ and the environment of which we are all a part. His individual poems have appeared in a variety of venues, including the Monmouth Review, Upstate Magazine, Voice of the Shore, The New York Times, This Broken Shore, and the Asbury Park Press. |
David
Sten Herrstrom
HOW LIGHT FINDS LAST NIGHT’S LOVE
The moist body of light that loves nothing
touches down on a black-furrowed field.
Fanned out, wings slow the body from flight.
We are like that as we slope through love.
Just wake wake to one state of the world:
light bathing naked in the black shallows of a field.
And all things look at us. We have made love
like light continually used up in making the world.
Discovered by a brief bright providence
we can say it truly we live in Paradise.
| David Sten Herrstrom, a resident of Roosevelt, NJ, is a poet, writer, and lecturer. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines, such as Columbia: A Journal of Literature & Art, Nimrod, and US1 Worksheets, and his hypertext poems are available on the web at The New River: a Journal of Digital Writing & Art. He has published two books, including Jonah’s Disappearance, a sequence of poems with drawings by Jacob Landau. In addition, he wrote the libretto for Mark Zuckerman’s opera, The Outlaw and the King: David and Saul, A Tragedy, which has been performed in concert version at Rutgers University. Recipient of a Poetry Fellowship from the NJ State Council on the Arts and a Nimrod prize, his poems have been selected for the Columbia 40th Issue Retrospective and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has given readings in many venues, including the Dodge Poetry Festival and Monmouth University. Since moving to Roosevelt in 1975, he has served on the Board of Education and was a founding board member of the Roosevelt Arts Project, serving for over 15 years as President. He is also president of the Jacob Landau Institute. He holds a doctorate in English literature from New York University, has taught at Queens College, and is currently Adjunct Professor at Monmouth University. |
Poetry Corner Monthly Archives
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