Hymnal of the Heaven-Stormer | Connor Khalil Marvin

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Image: Adismara Putri

Hymnal of the Heaven-Stormer

I.
When God looks into the marble slab of me,
She sees Herself. Chisel and hammer in hand,
She is the One who shapes me, chipping away
all that is not Her.

My insides have grown tired
of this furtive distance.
She’s so close, that’s why I can’t see Her.
Closer to me than Myself.

My throbbing wound, oh my gentle perfection,
dots on a grid. Lines between dots. Rippling,
all glowing, rippling. A single jewel
in a 350 degree mirror. Looking like a net.
I’m caught, gasping for water
as She pulls me from the ocean,
into the blinding light.
There is no such thing as “eventually.”
It has already happened.

I strain the kingdom’s rock.
I lift myself in two.
My armor pales in comparison
to my Self. I’m a pit-mine,
stripped-down for change. I’m wheat seeds,
ground to flower by the millstone of the stars.
When it’s i that speaks, it’s really I that speaks.
Say My Name. Ir-Rahman. My breath
breathes through every living point.
My particle wind, My immaculate gravity.
My hammer made of kindness
meets my chisel made of wine.

Feel yourself baptized,
chisel’s kiss
met
drunken shrine.

II.
When I lay down to sleep I pray my heart stays awake.
Gabriel come and tear my heart from my chest,
replace it with a holy vinyard, so all might drink
and become quenched.
Home is where the heat is
hear the bells ring forest bliss, my God
please hope my supple sin and
consecrate my wand with light.
My God! As who, what voice, where from,
drenched in Sunday, stuffed with lion-blood,
tackled to the brine with fishnet gravity.
Give me gravity. Bring wine to orbit me.
Bring thrones to bow before. Bring doorways
arched filigree, gilded dew. My God!
I remember when Dionysus swarmed.
I remember the ivy on my head. Thyrsus high.
I am a hole in Krishna’s flute
that the Christ’s breath moves through.
Listen to this music.
I am a concert from the mouth of every milkmaid
singing with the myriad chorus.
My aura is drunk. My wake is oblivion.
My tenderest melody bruising hearts.
Make me a vine, make me a grape,
make me a press, make me a cask,
make me a cup, bring Yourself to my lips
so Your taste might stay forever
on mine. Pass me around
this squalid wasteland of Puritans
until reveling takes the night
and lights it on fire. Let the howl
of the Maenads, the Gopis –
frolic and playful, gasping and wild-eyes –
tear down the black curtain
and shred it forever.

Connor Khalil Marvin is a poet, instructor, and ritual specialist based in Golden, Colorado. He currently works as a house witch at Ritualcravt. He teaches contemplative and spiritual practice through his own platform as well as through the Ritualcravt School. He is also a professional Talismaner as Merlin’s Workshop. He has represented Denver at the National Poetry Slam championship four times, and was the Mercury Café 2017 Grand Slam Champion. His first full-length poetry book is out on Albion-Andalus Press, available at most online book retailers. He tries to avoid opinions and welcomes the annihilation of belief by direct experience.

Again, The Blue Moon | Anne Iverson

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Image: Haylee Booth

again, the blue moon

If you need to move past the past
and have it absent in the present

then ride on the big blue bulge
of the blue moon

wafting cross
the great lake of sky

find absolution in stars
hand pick them

peel back their skin
taste of heaven’s fruit.

Anne Iverson is a writer and artist.  She is the author of  five poetry collections: Come Now to the Window by the Laurel Poetry Collective, Definite Space and Art Lessons by Holy Cow! Press; Mouth of Summer and No Feeling is Final by Kelsay Books. She is a graduate of both the MALS and the MFA programs at Hamline University. Her poems have appeared in a wide variety of journals and venues including six features on Writer’s Almanac.  Her poem “Plenitude” was set to a choral arrangement by composer Kurt Knecht. She is also the author and illustrator of two children’s books.  As a visual artist, she enjoys the integrated relationship between the visual image and the written image.  Her art work has been featured in several art exhibits as well as in a permanent installation at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital.  She is currently working on her sixth collection of poetry, a book of children’s verse, and a collection of personal essays.

The Fertile Tree | Diana Kurniawan

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Image: Joshua Cotten

The Fertile Tree

On barren land at the corner

—————————of a long constant highway 

The Good Samaritan guards 

–————————-a tree of sparse green leaves

A most desired nesting point 

————————— for the American finch across

this homeland of Colorado

– ————————–A mother of homeless avian

The unmarried tree stands tall

————- – — – —–despite the dry gritty street

Finches flock to this virgin mother

————————- the kindling of all avian children

As the single woman without

———————– – –true love nor a loving partner

The tree reminds of the strength

————————- of women with dignified values

Preserving those around her life

—————- – – – —-with a fecund heart and soulful tears

Valor of hopeful spirit undefeated 

———- ——— —– Spiritual Mother of all children forever

Diana Kurniawan is a poet and writer based in Berthoud, Colorado. With by lines from Denver Life Magazine and Longmont Times Call for non-fiction journalistic pieces, she also previously served as Community Journalist for Denver Voice, a newspaper for the homeless. Recent publications include Twenty Bellows and Sortes Magazine for fiction and Ridgeline Review of Eastern New Mexico University and RawLit for her poetry in Spring 2023.

An Abandoned Dance | Chandrama Deshmukh

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Image: Jeremey Thomas

An Abandoned Dance

We have directions
Of a lost map
That leads nowhere
A miraged universe
An omnipresent pause.

Someone once told me
You are your own prison
And since then
I see birds everywhere
Sleep-walking
Chasing delusions 
Shrinking into coherence.

I tore my map 
wrote poems on it
And made paper-boats
That glow in moonlight

Now
My existence whirls
In an abandoned dance
And the ink-stained wings
Are drawing 
Their own astral map.

Chandrama Deshmukh is an author, poet, playwright, theatre artist, storyteller, screenplay writer and performance artist. She has four books of poems published. A Teaspoon Of Stars and Moonlit Monochrome in English and two books in her mother-tongue Marathi. Chandrama has done close to 100 poetry performances in Bangalore and continues to play her role in giving this art-form the appreciation it deserves. To Chandrama, poetry is the streak of silver lining amidst the chaos of life. The moon is her muse.

The Ghost of Texas Guinan | LindaAnn LoSchiavo

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The Ghost of Texas Guinan

“Mr. Guinan, I’ll bet your little girl Texas was born
  in the saddle and cut her teeth on a six-gun!” — — Buffalo Bill Cody

Since Texas Guinan had an appetite 
For wild, her feet detached from Waco's mud,
Wound up in Omaha. Auditions had
Begun for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

  				 	Pale horse, pale rider — — hastening sunset.
  					If I keep robbing her of rightful rest,
  				 	Perhaps her death will never saddle up.

The time warp points to 1899.
Dawn broke as if it's roping scattered light.

A rifle shot by Annie Oakley grabbed
Attention — — but to Texas it translates
Brash promises of never hearing no.

When films were silent, heroism was shown
By how much good and evil fought onscreen.
Frail victims needed cowboys saving them.


But Tex rode roughshod over this belief,
Which scored new contracts in 1918.
For her they penned “Gun Woman.” She portrayed
The cowgirl sent to handle rescuing.

Before she mounts Bucephalus bare-backed,
She'll buckle up her gunbelt, knowing girls
Will take the reins by watching how it's done,
Strong knife arms swinging out to sever old
Restrictions Hollywood's boys' club imposed.

On camera, she'll hand roll smokes between
Two fingers, like scout's honor, execute
Her own stunts, thank you, and win back the ranch.

Refusing to play victims on the screen,
Be foiled by bullets, brave like Annie — — but   
On horseback — —Texas Guinan blazed a trail
Through celluloid, always maintained a voice
In how she was portrayed, unique this way,
A heroine in every interview.

As organ music swelled, the silver screen		
Replayed her derring-do, subtitles on.

  				 	If I deny The Reaper came to wrest
  				 	Control at 49, will she wake up?

The time warp points to 1933.
Westerns are not the way you left them, Tex,
When you starred in “My Lady Robin Hood.”
Once talkies had caught on, cowgirls were gone.

Producers wanted men as brave, rightful
Defenders of vast untamed prairie towns.

  					The hour of her untimely death reared up,
  				 	Then flung her, dazed, distressed, lifetime compressed.
  					Pale horse, pale rider — — uninvited guest.




Her spirit hovers over Hollywood,
Where she's their only female shooting star.

Greenwich Villager LindaAnn LoSchiavo, a Pushcart Prize, Rhysling Award, Best of the Net, and Dwarf Stars nominee, is a member of SFPA, The British Fantasy Society, and The Dramatists Guild. Elgin Award winner “A Route Obscure and Lonely,” “Concupiscent Consumption,” “Women Who Were Warned,” FirecrackerAward, Balcones Poetry Prize, Quill and Ink, Paterson Poetry Prize,and IPPY Award nominee “Messengers of the Macabre” [co-written with David Davies], “Apprenticed to the Night” [Beacon Books, 2023] , and “Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide” [Ukiyoto Publishing, 2023] are her latest poetry titles. Twitter. Youtube. Website.

LoSchiavo’s books can be found here:
Messengers of the Macabre: Hallowe’en Poems
Women Who Were Warned

Breaking | Lucas Zulu

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Image: Daniele Levis Pelusi

Breaking

For your curiosity sake
I wasn’t hatched a flightless korhaan
surely I was destined for the blue skies
like a bird of ancient thorn trees
Sorry, I can’t live in the cage of your fears
and still be fed your unfounded fears
or wait to be traumatized by your fears
Like a baby bird in the nest
muffled up in comfort
and sheathed in cozy feathers
shielded from trying hard
show me a partridge
that scratches for another
Slowly, I break out of this chrysalis
a butterfly daring to unfold its wings
like a red-crested bustard
plunging into the Kalahari red dunes
I rise above a dust storm
that swiftly dries up your wet courage  

Lucas Zulu is an award-winning poet, his poem has been published in many local and international literary journals. He lives in Kwa-Quqa, eMalahleni, Mpumalanga Province of South Africa.

Hands | Jessica Mehta

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Image: Jorge Lopez

Hands

The delight I take in watching my hands
age—endless. They are my grandmother’s
ridged veins, branches I thought long
gone to mill-dust. Slowly, dorsals
become paper, a crinkling of tissue
crepe marking birthdays. So, Doctor, tell me
again how Restylane will plump
them back to beauty. Make them youthful, dewy
again. Erase my years, the dogged
ones of clawing in & digging up, out,
free. Doctor, explain once
more how “hands don’t lie”—
you think I don’t know that? These hands
speak everything, flutter just truths.
They say, These lines
are wages earned, liver spots bonuses
clocked, tendons popped
with wisdom. In these hands are carried
the entirety of me: my cells cupped
by my mother, her mother, the whole
trail-weary tribe from Oklahoma and Cherokee
rose roads back. Doctor, you want
to rewind these hands with yours?
I handle my own unraveling,
shaking arthritic thumbs and all.

Jessica Mehta is a multi-award-winning poet and author of the Oregon Book Award finalist collection “When We Talk of Stolen Sisters.” As a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, space, place, and ancestry in post-colonial “America” informs much of their work. You can learn more at www.thischerokeerose.com.

my ghost considers music | Ashley Howell Bunn

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Image: Christina Deravedisian

my ghost considers music

now so often twinkling between the walls of my home
—————–moving and stopping abruptly, a dance and fall

when embodied i almost didn’t notice
——————how it changed the vibration in the air ——poetry moves the tide of emotion
=======================================================-this, i noticed

===========–for my body was water —— adherent

but spirit
spirit

is this other element without ground or liquid or oxygen or heat
——————spirit is
but ether
ether ———————is my best bet
———-as i let my ghost consider what moves through me

there are notes like cold rain, sleet in early spring
——————and campfires in late summer
cool autumn mornings with golden aspen coins

——————and there is heartbreak, the thought of him leaving
my father’s hand softening ———– the strands loose from her braided hair

something about flowers —–and how long they last

Ashley Howell Bunn (she/they) completed her MFA in poetry through Regis University and holds a MA in Literature from Northwestern University. Their work has previously appeared in The Colorado Sun, Twenty Bellows, patchwork litmag, Mulberry Literary, Tiny Spoon, Champagne Room Journal and others. She is an experienced yoga guide trained in a variety of styles. Their first chapbook, in coming light, was published in 2022 by Middle Creek Publishing. She leads somatic writing workshops and writes a monthly Yoga, Tarot, and Astrology column for Writual.They are a founding member of The Tejon Collective, an inclusive creative space in Denver, CO.

a worm | Yuu Ikeda

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Image: Ivan Ivanovič

a worm

lethargic hope
is limping in the bottom
of my mind,
like a worm is creeping
on the floor.
it never allows me
to give up on everything.
it leads me to dawn
again and again.

Yuu Ikeda (she/they) is a Japan based poet. She loves writing, reading novels, western art, and sugary coffee.She writes poetry on her website: https://poetryandcoffeedays.wordpress.com/. Her latest poetry collection “A Knife She Holds” was published from Newcomer Press. Her Twitter and Instagram : @yuunnnn77

Two Poems | Andrej Bilovsky

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Image: Bruno Mira

Factoring

I did not see the naked man on King Street.
He was one of those “Nudes for God.”
Instead, Jacob slides in like a snail on pink slime.
wailing, as high-pitched as a gibbon.

He rubs his puckered eyes roughly.
And his jelly-mouth ripples in the clock face.
Five in the morning detaches itself from time.
His kiss unties me though it smells of dead cologne.

I am only here so I can be here when he’s here.
My secret life continues it existence in him.
But he’s kin to a decomposed insect.
I squeeze his innards into a likeness of myself.

Well-Spread

There are parts of me everywhere.
Like curled up on a park bench.
Or preaching the dead cult of sex.
Or naked and looking for work.

I deserve breeze but reap the stillness.
My gloomy fire begins as ashes.
In the reading room of the public library,
that’s my head opened wide at page 3.

Herman Melville spits in my ear.
I follow a handsome man into a doctor’s office.
I slink into a movie theater, drink out of an army boot.
Snow or gay bar, the flakes prove inconclusive.

Andrej Bilovsky (he/him) is a gay poet and performance artist. Former editor of Masculine-Feminine and Kapesnik. His poetry can be found at the Quiver and Down In The Dirt.