Mending the World

by Sandra Kohler


Tikkun olam - to mend the world.

it is our duty, as prophets, rabbis, sages,
saintly teachers spelled out over years,
decades, centuries, to use ourselves,
our powers, our hearts and hands, to
heal the wounded world, and so to be
a part of its Creator's work, creation.

On this autumn afternoon, soaking rain
pouring down, dusk beginning to fall,
I come to my window, chair, to this
unearned blessing of a safe existence
in a world cruel, unyielding, barbarous,
and wonder what I should be doing

with my pen, words, my mind, fears,
my imagination to change this reality.
If we could imagine a better world...
we can, do - and yet we don't, can't.
We cannot make it exist by force of
will or mind, by heart or hopes.

I am sitting here in a chair built by
love, by the hands of a man who loves
me. I am safe only because of luck,
the good fortune of being who I am,
living where I do now, at this moment,
for this day. But as I am writing this,

in Gaza right now there is death and
suffering beyond my imagining being
inflicted in the name of the faith of
my ancestors on other inhabitants of
that land who have been cast beyond
the pale, the obligation of mending.

Over centuries, those ancestors were
both oppressors and oppressed. How
can we acknowledge a darkness we've
refused to see in ourselves, our past,
souls? Only by looking at it will we be
able to turn away, freed from its grasp.

I need to invent a prayer that can sustain
me, despite all I know of how I will not
be sustained. Sitting here now, I feel
the embrace of a love which I know can
not live forever, as the man who loves
me cannot, as I cannot, except in this

moment of being here, seeing this, of
writing this. It is not enough to mend
the world. It has to be. All I can do, here,
now, is mourn what I cannot mend.


* * * * *

"Mending the World" was first published in Dissident Voice,
https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/11/mending-the-world/, then The Raven's Perch
https://theravensperch.com/mending-the-world-by-sandra-kohler/

Sandra Kohler’s third collection of poems, Improbable Music (Word Press), appeared in May, 2011. Earlier collections are The Country of Women (Calyx, 1995) and The Ceremonies of Longing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003). Her poems have appeared in journals, including The Beloit Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, and many others over the past 45 years. In 2018, a poem of hers was chosen to be part of Jenny Holzer’s permanent installation at the Comcast Technology Center in Philadelphia.

Letter from the Porch

by Anastasia Vassos


This morning’s mist coats
the air past the stairs, obscuring
the birch across the street, its outline
smudged against almost-gray —
say, unwashed silk & a chickadee’s
saffron streak rushes to rip
into the birch’s canopy. 
Storm clouds to the west.
Suddenly the wind picks them up
the sky a furious rush
a cataract in the drenched
eye of the world & all self-pity
washed clean in the deluge.
The chickadee lands
on the handrail
leading up to the porch.
A message, I think.
Our shared presence
that swells after the storm
in the sun’s radiant lip.

Today’s the day
you died five years ago—
I still feel the weight
of your absence, proportioned
to—what? Maybe to the idea
I can’t fix what we broke
when you were alive.
The wind a cool hand
a kind of augury
nudging my shoulder.
See, this street could be an ocean
how it shimmers after rain
& absorbs it. Sometimes grief
is my favorite color.
I wish you could have seen
the birch, the chickadee.


* * * * *

Anastasia Vassos is the author of Nostos (Kelsay Books, 2023) and Nike Adjusting Her Sandal (Nixes Mate, 2021). Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets. Find her work in RHINO, Whale Road Review, Thrush, Lily Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Off the Grid, and elsewhere. She is a reader for Lily Poetry Review, speaks three languages, and lives in Boston.

Letter from Your Unwritten Poem

by Anastasia Vassos

  
I’m your last thought
your head on the pillow
your first breath
when you wake
having forgotten me—
 
the metaphor mislaid
when you’re lost in traffic
when you miss
the turn at the library.
Oh, I know—I vanish
 
if you don’t write me down
right away—that’s my magic.
I mean, you’re reading
this now, aren’t you?
I lurk
 
in the quiet shadow
behind your eyes
in Ratushinskaya’s
bars of soap,
the Gulag,
matchsticks carving
her words
before she washed
her hands—
 
in Emily’s
apron pocket
pencil stub
torn envelopes
at the ready.
 
Tell me what
you’re afraid of.
I am everywhere.
 
Find me in the sound
of waves stripping
the shore, the expanse
where grain fields bend
and groan in the wind.
 
I remember it all:
your parents
how they lived and died
the rhythms of your body
as you blossomed and aged
the time you drove drunk
the time you quit smoking
the day you got the diagnosis
those nights you gave up on me
nights you couldn’t sleep
worried about some bull shit.
 
Yes, don’t look at me like that
I know how to swear.


* * * * *

Anastasia Vassos is the author of Nostos (Kelsay Books, 2023) and Nike Adjusting Her Sandal (Nixes Mate, 2021). Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets. Find her work in RHINO, Whale Road Review, Thrush, Lily Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Off the Grid, and elsewhere. She is a reader for Lily Poetry Review, speaks three languages, and lives in Boston.

Beyond the Reach of Time

by Ann Christine Tabaka


Black crow
          sings a song
unknown to man.
Forest awakes,
          answering back.

Vestiges of life
          fall from the sky           
like winter snow.
Existence comes into being.

Dawn bursts forth,
          day enters.
Stars blink their goodbyes.
So it is said, so it is done.

The guardian steps forth
          as light emerges.
Time lapses …
Burgeoning worlds converge.

The sky is alive.
          I hear his song.
Black crow flies off,
Beyond the reach of time.


* * * * *

"Beyond the Reach of Time" received the Third Place Award in Vita Brevis January 2018 Best Poem of the Month Contest

Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 & 2023 Pushcart Prize in Poetry; nominated for the 2023 Dwarf Stars award of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association; winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year; featured in the Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2020 and 2021. Selected as a Judge for the Soundwaves Poetry Contest of Northern Ireland 2023. She is the author of 17 poetry books, and 1 short story book. Her most recent credits are: The Phoenix, Eclipse Lit, Carolina Muse, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, Ephemeral Literary Review, The Elevation Review, North Dakota Quarterly.

Disorientation

by Ann Christine Tabaka


The whistle of a distant train pierces the night.
Loneliness swallows the darkness.
Unspoken words consume the mind.
Strange thoughts invade reality as walls close in.
Time painfully creeps by until almost at a standstill.
Slowly strangling the will of its ability to resist.
A disoriented half dream world,
where corners of the imagination
shatter into vibrant fragments,
in the eternal plight of sleeplessness.


* * * * *

"Disorientation" was previously published by Ariel Chart and nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry.

Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 & 2023 Pushcart Prize in Poetry; nominated for the 2023 Dwarf Stars award of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association; winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year; featured in the Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2020 and 2021. Selected as a Judge for the Soundwaves Poetry Contest of Northern Ireland 2023. She is the author of 17 poetry books, and 1 short story book. Her most recent credits are: The Phoenix; Eclipse Lit, Carolina Muse, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, Ephemeral Literary Review, The Elevation Review, North Dakota Quarterly.

AUTUMN MELANCHOLY                                                 

by Brenda Mox


The sea works gently
at the shore,
its halo of waves
wash over her
barnacled rocks,
floating seaweed,
sun mottled sand
and soaked, fallen leaves.

As autumn’s pervasive melancholy
drips translucent veils
that few can see
on trees that hide
in the folds of the land
near the sand
where seagulls grieve.


* * * * *

Brenda Mox is a poet, visual artist and MFA graduate from Old Dominion University many moons ago. Her work has been published in Wingless Dreamer, Bewildering Stories, Blaze Vox, Ariel Chart, Down in the Dirt, Neo Poet, Discretionary Love, Corporeal, Heart and Mind, Edge of Humanity, Poetry Pacific, New Myths, Poetry for Mental Health journals, Eber and Wein Anthology. 

Autumn

by Laura Ann Reed


Beyond a window, a stone’s certain surfaces
are dark with shadow, and each of the three
white blossoms on a rhododendron stem
opens to the wind in a different direction.
From between gray clouds light shines
on a crow’s wing as I turn and turn
in October’s yellow weather.


* * * * *

"Autumn" was first published in ONE ART: a journal of poetry 2023.

Laura Ann Reed, a San Francisco Bay Area native, taught modern dance and ballet at the University of California, Berkeley before working as a leadership development trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the United States, Canada, and Britain. She is the author of the chapbook, Shadows Thrown (2023). Laura and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest.