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.

About B.T. Lowry, from his website.

Hi. I’m B.T. Lowry, aka Venu Gopal das.

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.

The Deterministic Necessity

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.

Read more of Mickey Corrigan’s work here.

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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.

the year that was

January

The world watches in amazement

Longest shut down in history

Watching it all in Korea

contemplating escaping the cold winter

February

World watches as North Korea and the US

Walking back from the brink of war

escaping the cold winter blues

revisiting Vietnam after 15 years

March

The chaos president continues his chaos tour

the world begins to ignore his constant insane tweets

heading back to DC inspecting property

seeing old friends glad I retired

April

the chaos King’s policy remains a shamble

as the Mueller team closes in

in Korea I write a poem a day

and begin to become a publish writer

May

watching from afar

the chaos in DC and the world

traveling to DC to inspect property

celebrating my wife’s big 60

June

the President walks away

from a non deal with the North Koreans

I am back in DC

end up cruising to Alaska

July

watching the insanity in DC

while visiting Alaska, Seattle and Yakima

visiting my father’s grave in Yakima

communing with family ghosts

August

the dog days of summer the world is consumed

wars, rumors of war, trade wars

retuning to Korea

surviving the August sauna like summer

September

The whistle blower sets off a bomb

the president lies no quid for quo perfect all

trying to avoid watching the news

hiking in the Korean mountains with old friends

October

the President flitters about my crisis after another

the UN diplomats laugh at him national humiliation

returning to DC yet again more property blues

celebrating my 64th year orbiting the sun

November

the House starts formal impeachment hearings

watching fascinated by the impeachment drama

entering my third NoVoWrMo competition with Timeless Love

ending the month sudden surprise trip to Okinawa

December

the year ends on a high dramatic

President Trump becomes the 3rd impeached President

hiking enjoying the late autumn like weather

contemplating my wealth at the end of the year

the Terrifying Teens

2010

The dark days of the great recession

Begin slowly to fade away

Ending my Barbados experience -the best job in the foreign service on high note best labor officer award

2011

the president and Congress locked in battle battles

glimmer of hope as economy comes back to life

Studying Spanish arriving in Spain

worst year ever part of three years bad luck

2012 

the US re-elects the Black President

rejecting Romney entitlement mentality

I leave Spain my last foreign posting

buying new property in the fall

2013

In the US the religious right

loose the social Battling gay marriage, legal pot

Starting a new job as an evaluate program evaluator

ending my six month wandering the halls of State

2014

The Obama presidency

The tea party rebellion on the right

Moving to Capitol Hill

My sister’s sudden death rattles me

2015

The end of the Obama era

Was this the beginning of the end of America

Beginning the year with a new job

resolving to retire, enjoy life while I still can

2016

American voters and at the madness

Elects the mad would be king President Trump

We traveled across the country 10,000 miles

To celebrate the end of my foreign service career

2017

the year of the chaos president

Fast and furious disruption to the norms

Went to Oregon to renovate property

becoming wealthy in the process

2018

the American public woke up

Send a blue wave to clean up the mess

Moving back to Korea

Blogging up a storm

2019

in the end of the year that was

The house races up and impeach is the president

I travel to Vietnam, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Okinawa

Dreams

Dream what may come

Recalling past lives lived

Every fantasy comes to life

All night long

More nightmares to come

So many worlds to explore

 
Fate

Fate has a way

Always catching up

To you embrace your fate

that is what’s up

at the end of the day

Endless dancing away

 The Oyster Speaks Up

A diner sits down

looking forward

to eating oysters

it was their season

after all

just as he was about

to pounce

on the oysters

the head oyster spoke up

saying

hey human what the hell

do you think you are doing

you think you have the right

to eat me?

that’s violating my human right

don’t ya think

the diner laughed

said to the oyster

shut up and accept

it is your fate

to be eaten this date

just let me enjoy eating you

and you have no human rights

as you are in fact

not human don’t ya know

eating the complaining oyster

shutting him up

as he ate him up

Welcome to Kathmandu 1995

Where are the traffic lights and street signs?

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.

Cars, busses, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, rickshaws, tuk-tuks, and animal-drawn carts flow chaotically by.

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.

 Egg Hard

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.