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Volume 5 January, 2010
Volume 6 April, 2010
Volume 7 July, 2010
Here are some excerpts from poems published in 2009. These six poems were nominated for Pushcart Prizes in poetry.
YOUNG STUDENT
...
She's not in the least important,
crossing and re-crossing her long black stockings,
trying to concentrate, trying to be good.
But she's so much better than good.
Her smile drifts down time like a child's boat,
made of fallen leaves,
drifts down a creek going nowhere.
Her breasts snuggle in her warm pullover
waiting for history to be over.
Under her breath she whispers names of the living,
names that make her blush.
History doesn't know how to be happy
and she doesn't know anything else.
Julia Vinograd
Berkeley, CA
2008
From “America is Hiding Under My Bed”
WAZIFA
A Poem based on the Sufi Meditation called Zikr
that repeats a sacred phrase (Wazifa),
usually: La illaha il Allah
(literal translation: there is no God, except Allah)
But most Sufis would tell you it means:
There is nothing, but God.
“Often it is our perceptions of God
that keep us from experiencing God.
-Meister Eckhart (paraphrased)
La illaha
There is no God brooding
on a heavenly throne
about the state of creation below
La illaha
There is no God waiting
for just the right moment
to throw most of humanity
into eternal torment
for the simple crime
of trying to get through life
without any clear idea
of some universal plan
La illaha
There is no God preferring
Masculine over Feminine
Muslim over Christian
Hindu over Buddhist
or Jew over Pagan
offering a free pass
through the pearly gates
if you just say the ‘right’ prayer
or follow the ‘right’ religion
La ilahah
There is no God that can
be confined to a laboratory
or the understanding
of a single human mind
labeled, categorized,
and sanitized for our protection
providing easy answers
for why six billion
short lived primates
clutch tightly to a ball of dust
spinning through space
Il Allah
There is a common ground
found through the doorway
of the hearts true religion
where hatred, doctrine
and the need to be ‘right’
quietly melts away...
Marc Kockinos
San Francisco, CA
2000
the Poet
was surprised they
knew his name
he wasn’t
too happy
about it if
they knew his
name they
might know
where he lived
if they knew
where he
lived they
might visit ...
Les Cammer
Santa Barbara, CA
2009
Deflected Treasures
Casting frugal wishes upon your dreams
Destiny Collides, forcing you to realize
The enigma is only that it seems
Always believing that you aren’t trapped by the webs
Only to fall crashing on the bed of underlying scenes
The causes for your torture, can be found
Amongst the abandoned dumps, heaped over
Haunting the ego with ruthless shadows
Never escaping only claims us as victims
Which prey on any chances that our "being" offers...
Katharine Page
Ledyard, CT
How it is to glide outward with you into trees and the creatured night
some goddess or other painting us with her red lacquered kiss the road
moving at once forward and back our eyes into the dark headlights peering toward the undreamed of teaching us the great lotus lesson of being small yet opening together with the sweet young deer feeding at our margins turning sideways as we pass into where they're gazing: that primal narrowing fleshed with inky leaves. And the miraculous speeding wheels and the little dials measuring our progress in the sleek and shiny dash the burning of sensation against memory trying with all of their might just to encapsulate for us this one last and lasting time...
Doreen Stock
Point Reyes Station, CA
8 April, 2007
From “Riding the Lotus”
Start with a blank universe
On a blank page It's cold outside
And it would be foolish to answer emails
That inquire if you exist or not Of
Course you have memories There was
The time you could start ... mention
Baseballs or kisses beneath the apple
Tree Or how this morning you claimed
Maybe even exclaimed into a bowl
OfCheerios that Eve (as mother) a mere
Nanosecond ago bit the fruit and started
Our trek into visibility It's basically
How the brain feels or perhaps the will
Or even the soul You know that you're
Writing and fantasize that another treatise (on
Anything) would be just the right thing now
Like it's so incredibly instantaneous and
Disturbing We don't get along and
Seem to enjoy talking over this fact
As in the following example My god is
Blue and belongs to the hierarchy of
Clouds & tremendous raindrops While
Yours is into statistics and once
Claimed the bell
Curve of stars rings
Like the ears of
A strange inventor...
Richard Martin
West Roxbury, MA
From “Living in a Coherent World”
Out of Our
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San Francisco, CA 94133-1302
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