Beauty Secrets, by Jenna Boston

Sometimes we look to much,
Sometimes we look too little.
The mirror becomes a source of our worth,
and we forget to discover the beauty outside of the mirror.
Dip your feet into the ocean,
the milkshake of the earth.
Mixed together an abundance of life,
unseen until we look deeper,
Rays of sunlight illuminate colors,
they take your breath away with every glance.
Taking off the buttons,
revealing this earth,
we begin to take our eyes off of our face,
we begin to embrace,
beauty that has been freely given .
A beauty that runs, that soars,
that flows together with a certain sort of harmony.
We walk red carpets,
and admire these "beauty queens",
then with much time and effort,
we begin to believe that we are pretty.
But see the trees the flowers,
in need of no beautifying effort,
they live simply and humbly.
Beauty is not make up art but what lyes
in the heart, the soul.
When we believe our soul is well,
We can see the beauty that we are simply connected to,
nature.
Our connection and our true mirror,
reminding us that we are nothing but BEAUTIFUL.

Vitamin E, by Rachell Summers

Vitamin E

Vitamin E!
I look in the mirror for the tenth time today
The mirror that is in the hallway
Soft lighting is best and this hall has it.

You wretch! I say to myself out of habit
But then I remember.

Vitamin E!
I look closer and see that it is working
Scarlett O’Hara always believed
A clear complexion could vanquish fate
How I’ve longed for one, scars all gone.

Vitamin E!
A miracle topical salve straight from the capsule
No one knows about this but me
My own secret beauty secret, Vitamin E!

Wings, Emily Bording

Wings

Silence shivered
through the forest
and between my toes

staccato beat
of rubber soles
clopping over snow

a single droplet
slips under robes
and through the crack

Father said,
“Be like me”
Mother said,
“you were born free”

Roshi’s koan,
“Who were you
before
you were born?”

When parents spoke
I listened for
what was unsaid

Their gene pool
divided
into swimmers or sinkers

His strong teeth
given to me
like a zippered purse


Her strong will
pulled me
like an ox drawn cart

“Keep sitting, more zazen!”
snowman in the sun
“don’t waste time!”

Roshi’s wiry brows
quoting the silence
between his words

Roshi, mother, father
blowing out
as I breath in

Like the winds
that lift both wings
off the ground

Bottom Dwelling by Pamela Papas

Bottom Dwelling events of my life

Parents arguing
Me in back seat of the car
Alone
Stop bickering please
Even at this age it’s bad
Am dropped off at the airport terminal
Their voices acrimonious still in my head.
I am 49 years old now, old enough to…..what?
Not let it bother me?
Be able to maintain serenity in the midst of constant family quarrels and chaos?

I walk to Southwest airlines
Oh, I should mention I had flown to see my parents shortly after 9-11
Shortly after a massive layoff
Shortly after a bizarre school reunion

No matter
I walk to Southwest airlines gate to fly back to San Francisco

I get in line, wait
A male flight attendant tells me “you’re in the wrong line, you’ll have to get in that one”
He points to my right, a line that snakes forever.

Something snaps
I dive under the rope, and tell him to his face “Fuck you”
And tromp down to board the plane
Almost get inside
When men, five, six of them,
Yell at me to step back
They’ll call the police
Where’s my ID
Tall big men surrounding me
Yelling

I am not allowed on the plane
My luggage leaves without me
I’m to catch the next plane as punishment.

I go to another gate. Sit down. Begin to cry

“Are you alright?” a lovely Indian woman next to me asks.

Words are insufficient. All my life I’ve swallowed my rage, anger
And now when I do assert myself
It’s at an airport
In front of strangers
Shortly after 9-11
Brilliant
What was I thinking?

Other bottom dwelling events in my life…

Took a statewide licensing exam – numerous times – to fail by a hair
I didn’t want to work in that profession anyway
But beat that dead horse was all I was capable of
At the time
Family pressure does that

Just moved to a new place – the San Francisco Bay Area
To start a new life with a new job
Four months into the job there is an accident at work
Someone’s dog clips me
My kneecap breaks, I fall down.

You know, writing about hitting bottom, I think I don’t want to do this
Why?
“Smile” says our American culture
“The past is ashes” say the self-help gurus on the Huffington Post
“Who gives a rat’s ass?” say the late night comedians.

So why do I listen to them? Fear, I think.
Deep down, inside out fear. Black, it’s just black down there
Maybe drop down and pretend I’m Alice in Wonderland a big black hole, the Mad Hatter, the Unbirthday party, the Cheshire cat.

Couped in a hotel room with my mother in Chicago
for a cousin’s wedding
After three days I fly back to San Francisco, climb down from the plane and cry nonstop for one day? Two? I can’t remember.
The worst kind of jail, that, sharing a hotel room with my mother.

Pamela Papas, September 2011

Brian Bielefeld's String Figures Poem

String Figures

what do you do when you want to learn something
and there is no one to teach you?

I remember from the grainy shadows of my youth
two girls passing a string back and forth
a string formed in changing patterns, cat’s cradle.

the cavernous anthropology section of the university library
row upon row, stack upon stack
I run my finger along the book bindings
not looking down I stumble
reach out for support
grab a book as I fall
“Aboriginal String Figures and How to Make Them”

That book became my teacher
I tie a length of string together
and go through page by page
“Jacob’s Ladder”
“Apache Door”
“Many Stars”
Follow the words
do opening “A”
step one
step two
drop the string off the little finger
insert the thumb
now do a Navajo Leap
So easy, but then I get to step five and I have to turn the page
I look at the book
then at my hands
the tangle of string trying to make a getaway
open my mouth
stick out my tongue
and go onto step six.

Agnus Dei, Magdalena Montagne, June 10, 2011

Agnus Dei

My mother taught me fear
which began on Sundays, the first day, in the Church.
Agnus Dei, Lamb of God.
A forbidding Father we could never lose.
No place unseen. Unheard.
Still as tears after falling.
Agnus Dei, she would implore.
Take away all sin.

But worse than sin,
there were bridges
and cars and trains.
Escalators and elevators
that could take her children
all the way to the top
of the Empire State Building.
Trolley cars in San Francisco
Buses out of Newark, New Jersey
Subways under Manhattan.

But worse than bridges,
there were boys.
Boys who would become men.
Boys like our father,
who would grow to despoil us.
Agnus Dei, she would mutter
as she saw our own father
enter my sister’s room nightly.

And I,
left to consider fragments of Italian stardust
found relief
from swelter of heat
and passion
the godliness of chaos
a disordered universe
I stretched to see
the cold night sky
from my window
wild, inexplicable.
Both darkened by night
and illuminated.

Something Someone Taught Us, Rodney Warren, June 10, 2011

The music of how we feel as the sun falls.
Aka celestial spectacles


Words flow freely from my pen
Without discipline or purpose

After getting prompted from the muse I find
Structure and logic falling into the words on the page
Much like the music I feel as I witness the sun fall at the end of day

The reds, yellows, and mauve shades
Listen to the global sigh
In anticipation of the approaching blanket of night

With my mind trained on the memory of this spectacle of light and color
I abandon myself to the darkness of the night
Knowing, as I have learned to know
That tomorrow the light will return

Faith is like that...
Knowing that the light will return
And my artistic spirit will wait further
For the return of the falling sun
With new celestial spectacles
Ever changing
Yet always faithful to return
Return new
Always new

Can we be prescribed
Such spectacles from our optometrist?
Thankfully no
This is a gift for the living
Given freely by the Great Creator
Faithfully orchestrated on a daily basis
For all that care to witness it's splendor

Fathers and Sons, Rodney Warren

Fathers and Sons

The word cahoots comes to mind regarding this relationship.
These two strong male figures stand side by side with with secret memories of fishing and hunting campaigns.
Fears and excitements held in a common experience.
Each remembering the details of their own sights and smells from times together.

And even though there may be conflict in the retelling of the tales
Thay are in cahoots
Thay have their secret understandings, and allowances, for embellishment.
For this is the soil of their relationship.
They can allow the tales to grow in this fertile trust.

And know that their vision of the past will not be questioned
No conflict will rise from their inaccuracies
Only joy and laughter will come from their conversation
Because they are in cahoots
With a language all their own.

Secrets as Images, Rodney Warren

Secrets as images....
Life is filled with secrets
Moments tucked away from the sight and earshot of others

Often I find these memories and events
Colored in shades of deep brown and sap green
Varnished with a yellowed and aging film
Not allowing the full image to be revealed
Due to the reflection of light upon the surface of their support

This is often an important aspect of the secret
The fact that it is not clearly discernable by the casual observer
One needs to examine and live with a secret to truly know all of the hidden bits discussed behind the glare of external light

And then that same light
Obscuring the image over time allows the holders of the secret to forget, forgive, and remember differently the events that made up the images
Put to the support of time

Go Home, by Tru Dillon, 4/13/11

You can never go home
I tried and Failed and was Flayed and Faltered
Forgot myself, My name, Who I had become

Daddy you mean old Bastard Can you never change

Who used to untie your shoes (those giant black work boots)
When you came home from work, dirt caked and crusty
Who did you beat with your belt
and try to beat some more with your words
though she is now a grandmother twice over

See, verbal abuse still counts in California
still hurts in California

You can never go home
I tried and died and was buried
in my postage stamp backyard
No one came to visit My grave sat empty of flowers
My sisters forgot to grieve
or they had to go shopping for the boys
or pick up cheap beer for some other dead people.
One was busy One was drunk
We are not close now Not even in death
can we cross the bridge of understanding to The Land of Love

You can never go Home
And if you do
You will meet your ghost (weeping and wailing)
On every street corner
and every overpass
at every high school parking lot
and forgotten rose garden
and the one you used to love
and the ones you will never love

You will see the Failure of Family
as you will not be able to escape to Arizona or Colorado or New Mexico

You have sealed you fate
So when The Tsunami Strikes
you will all float together yet separately
to some island off the coast of Alaska
Frozen in fate Separate not equal
Lost to each other Forever

Kay Clark: "A poem about home" on 3-12-11

I couldn’t wait to leave my home
In Kansas, where tornadoes and other
Strong winds sweep the vast
Empty plains even emptier.

The whole country of Germany is the same
Square-mile wise as Kansas is
Except instead of space they have moss
Covered bridges around every country curve.

Some Kansans I know would object
That miles full of nothing but flat
Rolling dirt provides residents with little
Save the strong urge to escape and search the
World for safer and pleasanter abodes.

This Midwest refugee roamed around for
Twenty years seeking water, grass, trees,
Hills if not Mountains, and a happier place where
People grant wider worlds for living.