A Hot August in the Sistine Chapel

Shoulder to sweaty shoulder they stand

Eyes focused upward, seeking the perfection painted there.

A naked Adam, perfect, muscular, and beautiful

Reclines on a cool, verdant slope

His left knee bent, supporting

A hand that reaches out

His finger gently touching that of the Creator

Unpainted, but implied, a spark leaps

Giving birth to the human soul.

Below, the sweltering crowd stares

Their gentle murmer growing in

A crescendo of wonder.

“Silencio. “ An Italian bass booms over the crowd

Too unruly for such a sacred place.

They quiet, wondering when they will be prodded back into the August heat

To make room for the next pilgrims.

They wait, struggling with this demand for reverence.

“Silencio.”  Again, the sinners are chastised.

They have failed to be worthy of such beauty.

© Carolyn Brumbaugh, 2013

 God Creates Adam, from Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling
Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Upon Seeing Trout in a Plate

We caught them,

                     all three,

victoriously,

with tight lines,

and flying water,

                and the stabbing,

dodging

end of a rod.

And they fought,

each for its life,

desperate in struggle,

with splashing glory,

and the pain of survival.

But now,

with their heads gone,

I wish we could do it again.

© Peter Hartwig, 2013

Lithograph by Edouard Pingret
Wikimedia Images, from the
Bibliotheque municipale de Toulouse

After Show Aches

The cold chokes my throat igniting immunity with energy warmer than an oven of convection.

Vibrations still rattle rocked ribs, repeating rhythms, pulsing through fingertips; I am alert with agreeable adrenaline observations.

Playing stuck songs backwards and forwards, mandala hemispheres chatter with excited interpretations.

Laying my head upon thumping shoulders I shimmy in chilly acceleration.

Driving back to padded cage with pulsing hips still crying out for ambulation,

I mentally marvel at composition that continues to expose a mass to an accumulation of acculturation.

Still skipping I step into a wet jungle heat, rinsing sweat and feeling the saturation

of sweet streaming rivulets; oxygenation creating the perfect negative ionic sedation.

Stretching, sleepy articulations crack, pop, and snapple, as muscles create compositions out of yogi positions;

releasing restricted tensions, limbs curve in evolutionary arches of emancipating elevation.

Excited for ethereal fantasies, equilibrium turns exhausted orientation into disorganization.

Restful slumber permits the reclamation of youthful rejuvenation,

as peaceful dreams dance wildly to harmonious beats of ecstatic revelation.

© Sarah Bordeau-Rigertink, 2013

Dancing Moghul women. From Auguste Racinet's Le Costume Historique, originally published in France between 1876 and 1888.
from Wikimedia Images; in the public domain

Wink in Time

Good company.

How I love music

That moves the tears in my heart

To my eyes!

I couldn’t do that if I tried!

And that is why 

I believe in the truth of feeling

Above the power to reason my way.

I wish I could cry every day--

And map the course of my tears

So when I feel lost

I could find my way clear,

To get back to my soul--

To that breakaway moment of unity,

Of certainty, whole.

I feel the edge of myself now

Like a curtain of light--

Satori is not so far away, 

Just a wink of that self-in-time--

I am, and you are, divine!

I want the company of those

Who stir up the river of tears I’ve stored

To flow and flood down all the years 

Unto the bliss

Of always.

© Gerry Sackett, 2013

Curtain of Light ~ Aurora over Haja
Photo by Frank Olsen, from Wikimedia Commons

They Hate

They hate holy laziness,

Salubrious sloth, ecstatically

Motiveless frenzy.

They hate beautiful strangeness,

Undogmatic freedom,

Delicate strength,

Nervousness transformed into courage,

Impossibly hidden music,

Inexplicable unslavish unlabeled sweetness.

Maybe they hate the animal

That is exquisitely least 

And most animalistic.

They hate a casually outrageous survivor

Who survives tactfully without trying.

They hate a chimera who is paradoxically pure,

An animal that is all animals, all elements--

Earth, air, fire, water, rodent, snake, bird, flower.

They hate hypnotically unpredictable love.

They hate dignity that is not obsessive.

They hate unkillable wonder

That is supposedly commonplace.

They hate an animal who owns

Both porphyry palace and alley of ordure,

Unfazed by either.

They hate the being that floats like a wafted petal,

Or that decides to be curvaceously steadfast as a rock,

Or that decides to sparkle or become utter shadow.

They hate this finally benign dependable voyeur.

They hate the hugeness of its gemlike gaze,

Or when it makes Buddha-eyes--wise, calm, half-closed.

They hate to be judged, but theirs is the judgment.

They hate the intimacy of its mythic aloofness,

Not knowing the politeness of its deep charm.

They hate this elegant peace,

Even more elegant speed.

They hate this reality.

They hate this metamorphosing surreality,

Regal silliness,

Suave magic.

They hate cats.

It is wrong to hate cats.

They don’t know how to interpret.

They don’t know how to touch.

It is wrong to hate cats.

They hate cats.

© Stephen Margulies, 2013

Kuniyoshi Utagawa, "Okabe," c. 1844

Image from Wikimedia Commons

A cat at a temple could be a witch in cat form, as shown here.

There were those who despised cats because they were said

to be the only animal not to weep when the Buddha died.

The Old Man Wakes up Early

Coming suddenly awake before dawn,

he gets up, mouth dry as ashes.

He eases to the kitchen,

dippers water down his throat and splashes his face

before he feels the coolness blowing in.

From the porch he watches the stars–

like his mother’s colander turned upside-down–

but in his bones he feels the front stirring.

By nightfall it’ll be here

and maybe his corn will make.

Two years out of five you lose it all,

his father had said, and break even the others.

He steps off into wet grass and through trees

with antique names–Smokehouse, Albemarle Pippin,

Sops of Wine–his grandfather’s favorites:

remembering his mother’s caution

about dew sores on bare feet;

how he learned to break in new shoes

by walking in dew till they were soaked,

then drying them on his feet,

and the baseball glove he’d wet with dew

and tie up with a ball in it to shape the pocket;

a hayfield glittering in morning light–

silver beads sliding down a rusty wire.

He looks down at his skinny feet

and long, bony toes splayed on the damp earth

in the moonlight, pale as clover roots.

Slowly digs them in till they disappear.

Feels himself start to grow again.

© David Black, 2011

"Barefoot"
Photo by Lorenz Kerscher
from Wikimedia Commons

Passage

In colluvial dreams 

we poke at the edges

of the thin membrane that separates

us from God

as though there is a weak point

that we might pass through

The back and forth of the whip-poor-wills 

ping-pongs through the canyon

and the wind plays the walnut leaves like a xylophone

Somewhere beyond our limits a bobcat cries 

and the rain begins to fall in large drops 

that seem to rest on the rocks forever

In the narrow floodplain, a deer exhales

as the sun pushes its light over the low ridges

Once again the night turns us over to the day and we rise,

slowly, toward morning

                     

                          Smoke Hole Canyon, 7/7/2011

© Jeff DeBellis, 2013

South Branch, Potomac River
Smoke Hole Canyon, West Virginia
Photo by Jarek Tuszynski, Wikimedia Commons