Joan Beebe (left) and fellow contributor Michael Robinson
BEAUTY
We who live in this world and behold the elegant works of nature that enhance our lives every day are very fortunate.
There are days when we are in awe of the striking brilliance of the sun. On a dark and rainy day, we hear and see the dazzling beauty of sparkling raindrops.
When that storm is over, we often see a colorful rainbow arching across the sky and, at times, it seems to be never-ending.Did you ever wish upon a star? Sometimes the sky is filled with twinkling stars and it is an awesome sight.
Many days we observe different kinds of birds who are arrayed in colors of beauty. Sometimes, we see flowers of many kinds reaching out to a nurturing sun.
As we enjoy the these visions of nature, it brings sense of peacefulness to our soul. The animals on this earth are many so we can love and enjoy and be thankful for the gifts of nature.
I grew up in Canada, where the Rocky Mountains meet the Great Plains. I love badland landscapes with knobbly stone hoodoos and deep ravines. I love forests with pine boughs mounded with snow and deep silence. I love the Himalayas, whose peaks defy gravity as they fall upward into the sky.
When I was about twenty, I met my spiritual master, Sri Srimad Bhaktivedanta Narayana Goswami Maharaja. I’ve spent the last fifteen years or so studying bhakti-yoga under his guidance, mostly while living in India.
I’ve loved creating and hearing stories all my life. Now I’m working to infuse my work with spiritual experience. I pray you find these stories deep, exciting, challenging and hopeful.
Darkness where the swells pick up,
flatten in white spits of foam.
Underfoot, hard plastic caps
bright blue, red, orange.
We walk the beach
in black homicidal cheer
thinking our own sad thoughts
dead love stories
we heard as kids
the path ahead unfurling
like a hot pink tongue
lapping up our future.
Everything that is necessary
cannot be otherwise.
The night moves, stars traveling
in sync, cold, long dead
while the sea drags its hinges
rusty and old, full of trash
it coughs up on shore.
The sliver moon browses
the shoreline for shells, other
treasures tangled up in detritus,
the dark tumbles around us,
frosts the rich cake of the earth.
Everything that is necessary
cannot be otherwise.
Beside you I want to come loose
of myself I am haunted by that
part of me, the young self that left
all kinds of others
in all kinds of weather.
Flee the rough waves,
let go of deep roots.
But here comes sunrise
a heaping mound of juicy peaches
and your warm hand will lie flat
across my sunken breast.
It cannot be otherwise.
Old
Man Wild
He let the farm go
back to the garden,
further than that, back
to when nature revealed itself
not as coping but preference
for the wilderness.
He let it all go
absent the trap of theory,
the limits of observation
wilding the land to a land
before pioneers, plantings
fields of grain or corn
barns of cows, ponies, goats
to the prehistoric lush
of ancient forests
In came the luminosity
salted brine from sea
air, the rush of wind carry
insects and fungus, mushrooms
popping through rich leaf-strewn
dragonflies, butterflies, dizzy bees
drunk on golden pollen
In came songbirds and rats
the hawks, owls, snakes
raccoons, boar, wild deer
moles, voles and mice
creatures large and small
feeding on weeds and vines
the luxurious nameless green
blooming everywhere
He let it all go
like hair, beard, nails
thicken, grow and spread
an elusive transformation
in a striking change
in a long slow glide
a slide toward ruin
like an old man
in decay and overgrowth
aging, wizening
hundreds upon hundreds
of wild, wild years
Points
of Entry
“Slaves,
let us not curse life.”—Rimbaud
When he enters the port of misery
and clogs the path to victory,
traffic behind his parade stalls
for hours of miles.
On his sleekest horse
he rides high, dead set
on reining all the cities
the weak citizens, the babies
eat only dust, thus
raising him up
like a brilliant banner or trophy.
He escalates up the road
to the castle behind the seawall
where he will dine the rich
write bullied sentences
rage against those who elevate
rage against those who do not.
A civil war within him
sheds darkness on the world.
He is not a prisoner
of reason but of largesse
punishing the herd of lowing cattle
he looks down upon
from his gilded perch.
Under cruel moons, a bitter sun
he sits tall in the saddle
full of his own vagrancies
his ambiguous face a twist
of warping reflection
and in that sad mirror
poor animals
see themselves
the farce we must live
unless a fat blue wave from a hard-boiling tide sweeps him out to sea.
Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Project XX, a satirical novel about a school shooting, was released in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. Newest release is What I Did for Love, a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books UK, 2019). Her chapbook the disappearing self is due from Kelsay Books in March.
Water buffalo, cows, dogs, goats, roosters, and chickens
wander across and sleep in the streets.
Masses of people – women in beautiful flowing saris with
dabs of paint on their foreheads and men wearing clothes of every conceivable
style from leather biker-jackets to loin cloths – walk, run, push carts loaded
with lumber, bricks, or raw meat.
Street vendors point at their goods and shout as we pass by.
Shop owners gesture enthusiastically or doze, and beggars hold
up withered limbs or a malnourished child.
We pass men shaving and women washing their long black-hair
in buckets of water right beside the street.
Road surfaces vary from stone, brick, pock-marked pavement,
or rutted dirt.
Odors of incense, spicy foods, diesel and auto exhaust,
sewage, and body odor assault us. Horn blasts, shouts, conversations and
arguments in a polyglot of languages, bleats, barks, bellows and clucks of
animals, and the grinding gears and strain of rickety vehicles on the verge of
collapse create a surround sound you’d never hear in Indiana.
Our car pauses beside a bright red rickshaw. Its driver
stares at us with dark perplexed eyes, then opens his almost toothless mouth
and laughs as we pull away.
Thick head, sleepy foot on stair thud. Gronk he jumps high out of chair hearing too high bang. He’s in no hurry to get where she is or isn’t in most cases. Sweet but slow foot to mouth brain. Annoying cave dweller mountain climb take flashlight see the way no more to her only slow talk out of think head gone. Forgot underwear and didn’t find her under sofa either only the journal to keep him warm. Don’t fall through cavern crack spelunk boy, go only as far as your sofa will allow. Keep those feet up high on pillow heart on ice light feet on stair maybe you’ll get there in time next. Soon.
