Image (Copyright © 2009 Tammy Ho)
Winners of the 2009 Numinous Magazine Poetry Prize:
1st Prize – Tina Simpson’s “From Here”
2nd Prize - Mary Belardi Erickson’s “As A Leaf”
3rd Prize – Annie Finch’s “Goddess”
plus New Work by:
Issue 4
In Issue 4, Winners of the Numinous Magazine Poetry Prize, announcements on October 31, 2009 at 8:00 amTina Simpson
In Issue 4 on October 31, 2009 at 7:59 amA Dreamscape
At a pinnacle, crown in space–
in a closed room,
of only mirrors.
We admired the reflections all around.
Watched them split and roll,
split and roll themselves
again and again.
There were many mornings looming,
and even-tides breaking
by guiltless, divine aggression.
Still there was Grace, and Mending.
Frequencies lilting–
One billion tiny pulses weaving light.
An instant entrancement off swirling zephyrs–
Jade to violet, to cerulean, to gold.
Like many kaleidoscopes bleeding,
churning and seething
with sweet scent of dew,
and demise.
At a pinnacle, crown in space–
in a closed room,
of only mirrors.
We admired the reflections all around.
Watched them split and roll,
split and roll themselves
again and again.
Save the words to tell us
because we already knew,
These–
Our Silent Mind Skies Eternally Streaming
along to a cadence felt identical
in our veins.
We knew–
This was making Love,
and sinking.
Surrendering,
and rising.
This was war,
and acceptance.
Laughter,
and mourning.
This was arrival,
and departure.
A Wildflower’s efflux,
and death.
And when we awoke,
we were flooded with warm refulgence–
A new learned endearment
toward these fragile bodies,
trying to contain.
From Here
I saw it writhing. I saw torches and kings.
I saw it learn beside itself,
I saw it beside its own dank pit of polished reason–
to never become another apathetic groove in a modern thimble.
You speak of the storm assailing you, always
how the remorseless squealing steals inward
through breaks in the squalid coop,
where you stay, where you curl–
one inverted feather on your back,
twitching codes between the skies.
I watched you blend into your Want– like blood of black tar.
I watched the Want as it crept over your peripherals,
dimming your heart and window senses.
I watched the shadow spill forth a mephitic companion
to all your days.
Then mania–
stirred by some sacred bond to your compass,
and giant stethoscope placed to every rip of the earth.
My Dangerous Angel, my Sempiternal Love–
I never made such a promise,
claiming righteous filter to the Wind
and I have been long unreasoned by a twin flame–
by a single finger gliding down my vertebrae
stopping to press the hollows
stopping for time, untold.
and the slides of ever-running iridescence,
and the gorgeous cavalcade
soaring eons behind the glint– the glint
the single violent split
reflected always in our eyes now, a yellow blaze.
Were our entire lives to be just as subtle
as a scintilla dwelling in the intersection of All Remembrance,
accepting the simple, but golden ‘hellos’
from older, now brighter friends?
and can we–
can we leave our doors open throughout this night,
fear not the loss of these senses,
and fly off with the collapse of poles?
Says a red fidget rising through all quiet things
nothing chased will fill you, nothing cupped will ring.
*1st Prize Winner of the 2009 Numinous Magazine Poetry Prize
Jupiter
Jupiter is visible tonight.
People are busy walking, counting minutes,
crunching minds,
while a vagrant in the park
with a golden-painted face
and feathers in her hair
climbs the bronze wing of Minerva
crosses her ankles, then curtsies slowly
keeping her eyes fixed
on the white-blue gem in the sky.
She elegantly, knowingly extends
her arms above her head
like two hollow reeds–
the white-blue pours through them
and welcomes her to becoming.
The four Gallieans
make Love at two and ten.
Love Me Better by Silence
All of these things, and covetous Lovers
they leave my hands ashen,
and starved.
Do not pour your name into me.
Love me better by Silence,
with me.
Do not go roaming in my ruins,
with intent on tracing me there–
that tiny coal city deserted and charred
where I once wickedly blazed.
Do not go searching for the thing blackest in me,
so you can face it toward the sun
or hold it tight to your chest as if it were yours to have.
It will hiss,
and scatter to the wind
leaving your hands ashen,
and starved.
Tina Simpson: For as long as I can remember I have let fragments of my mother’s telephone conversations or snippets from someone’s lost shopping list waltz around my mind until they became golden, secret codes for the magic that this world possesses. I spent almost the entire summer after my twenty-first birthday in the seemingly enchanted St. Francis Woods behind my mother’s house releasing words to the wind and listening for their echo to return, revealing new meanings and richer realms of existence. I began working them into poems and short prose pieces, sometimes filling an entire notebook in just one week. By the end of that summer I craved the inspiration of the city and enrolled at Columbia College Chicago where I currently major in Creative Non-fiction, and minor in Poetry. I am fascinated by human consciousness, energy work, and cosmology. Through the process of writing I am able to explore my spirituality in connection with nature, and an aching passion for the unknown.
Martin Burke
In Issue 4 on October 31, 2009 at 7:58 amThe April Navigations
April. April’s silence. A mile away the river turns.
Will the bell ring and the sailor return?
Will the harbours be safe or full of flotsam?
Who can say? Time and history await the fated moment
As birds circle above the boats but to what, to what intent?
Who might answer the cry of the gull?
Who might answer the cry of these times?
Alpha Christ –you are the bright star our longing turns towards
Yet we must also wait the fated ringing of the bell.
April. April and silence. The earth is fallow but not yet ripe.
I strike the gong of the sea and watch the water shudder.
Ships turn on the tide.
Gulls swivel and swerve but the harbours are unsafe.
There is no passage guaranteed a destination
And on the sea they travel by the old negations.
What now might we say?
What are the offerings we might bring to healing altars?
What are the words to guide us safely home?
The nets are cast in hopelessness and hope
So what song shall be sung?
Sing the dirge of the sea or the lamentation of the heart
As it turns with the tide that is turning.
O may the tide bring all sailors home and make all harbours safe
For we turn with the tides yet do not know
The flow from the undertow
Will there be faith in this time?
Will the bell ring to wholesome ends?
And will there be singing of the Gloria?
Alpha Christ –you have woven this harsh fate.
History comes with claims and needs and we are meshed
Between the singing and the wailing of this time.
Yet if not into your open hands,
If not into your healing glance
If not to these things to what can we turn as the tide turns
And calls all sailors home?
O we are those sailors in unstable ships
Of which the keel is long since broken
As are the shanties we sing to your name
While flames flare the rigging of the mind
Will the bell ring and the sailor return?–many ask.
Will there be that hope for which all long?
Will there be the healing and the grace?
Alpha Christ, only you can say,
Only you can bind the wounds of intemperate speech
And make our mouths whole.
The bell rings and the sailors wail
Though we no longer know the language of the sea.
We no longer know which wind to trust or which to turn away from.
Alpha Christ – if the boats return to wholesome harbours
Will there be singing and pennants flapping in the wind
Or will the cold silence of the world cover all again?
The river turns and so I turn to where it turns
Having no option but to go where voyagers go
Having no map beyond the maps of longing and desire.
Time and history sing the desolation of the world,
Time and history –allies and enemies,
Alpha Christ – this is the harsh fate you weave.
It is April and there is silence in the world
Yet on all things no healing balm
While the child that was born in December cries and cries.
What language do we speak that confuses our hearts?
What language might help us face the turning?
What pennants flap in the winds of this time?
Time and history . Time and all the desolations of this time
And history writing the script of our lives.
O who would claim to be the one escaping from the flow?
Alpha Christ, all turn with the tide but to what do we turn
When silence conspires with time and history?
Yet you remain our bright star of hope.
We kneel at broken altars.
We sing the psalms of desolation.
We pray –if that is what these words can be called.
The buoy-bell at the harbour mouth is ringing,
There is a thick and swirling mist upon the water,
Guidance seems withheld -we are an abandoned generation;
The undertow is faster than the tide that turns,
The undertow brings a weird music to the world.
And many, many sing it.
Yet to escape such flows and tides,
To walk in the clear light of a given morning in April
And sings the psalms of Gloria
Yes, this is the wish that the heart longs for
And this is the altar it kneels before saying
Alpha Christ you are out bright star of hope.
Songs across the waters of night
As the flames flare the rigging of the ships
O I would sing –I would sing as if healing came into the world
And all was granted ease from sorrow and pain,
Or granted at least a harbour to rest in
While the buoy-bell rings the approaching storm.
April. April and silence
I strike the gong of the sea and watch the water shudder.
The tuning fork of the world has been struck
And this is a harsh history.
Son of man, if you do not weave a gentle fate
Then what will our fate be?
I strike the gong and watch the water shudder.
I strike the gong of the sea.
Martin Burke: I have published nine books of poetry in Ireland, UK, USA, & Algeria. My plays have been performed in Belgium and the USA. My new book, due next month from the Utter Press, Ireland, is Exiles & Redemptions.
