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Hooves hurl havoc on heathland.
Manes and tails whirl with the wind.
Their wide nostrils snort
As the horses cavort
Plumed perfect as fishes are finned.

They rollick and roll in a whirlpool –
Palomino, pistachio, pink.
They fight with delight
As the day becomes night
And the sky turns from paper to ink.

They rise with the sun in the morning.
They canter and caper and prance.
Not they compliant
These Genoese giants
Whose glee you can see at a glance.

They throb like the waves of the ocean.
They shudder with joyous content.
They wrestle and writhe
So blissfully blithe
Then slump down when evening is spent.

They don’t stop ’til sunlight is over
To retire to their crushed-bracken byres.
But make no mistake
They’ll revive at daybreak
With that furious ferment of fire.

I checked into the same serene cool room where you stayed in, Sugar
Kane
Hotel Del Coronado, off of the coast of California and its glittering
bay
I opened the window to honor your presence among the soft white linen
sheets that you laid your body upon once
I checked the drawer to make sure dust hasn’t settled among your long
lost forgotten ethereal fingerprints that I adore so much
And the beach still looks the same as the last time you’ve been here
The sand’s tender grains brushing upon the soles of my feet, somehow
knowing that I’m here because of your trust in me
The sun gently giving me a hot red smooch on my face, warning me to
not be under its presence for too long if I stay
While I lay, I think about the cold pudding in my room that you used
to order every day from the kind hotel chef who didn’t know your name
And it will probably melt by the time I get back to rest
I walk back barefoot, my sandals in my hands towards the days end
when the sun sinks into the west
I know that you never truly fell in love with anyone, Sugar Kane
That’s why our feelings are mutual on this very day
They stem from the fact that our tropical souls are caught up in the
storms of never-ending pain
That’s why I came here to seek answers to questions that you couldn’t
find
I’m still searching for them to understand why and how
And for anyone who came after you, stuck in the same primordial limbo
of crisis to find existential happiness in Del Coronado
They are no longer here
That’s why I stay in the very same room where you had your melting
pudding drip on the white linen sheets
Where the midnight breeze cools off the sunburn on my cheeks
Where existential happiness can be found not by looking or seeking it
but simply by living
A happy child cannot be sad if he has everything he wants
And that reminded me of the inner beauty that you possessed
The beauty that you didn’t seek but that bloomed like a flower from
within
The beauty that was not recognized in the times that you lived
So, I leave the pudding sitting near the window sill, facing the
beach
The ocean singing a sweet symphony just like you did
The same old musicians playing their instruments on repeat
You are never forgotten just as with others, sometimes only
remembered when circumstances are altered
I checked into the same room where you stayed in, Sugar Kane
Hotel Del Coronado, one pudding to taste

Life is not merely a game of chance,
It’s yours to shape and mold, you can be whatever you want to be in
constant reality if you accept the responsibility
You can stand tall,
Dare not to fall, persist, insist, and you will win,
Use all your tools; get the knowledge for deeper understanding over
and over again.
To you is given the wisdom and the power to decide,
You can’t afford to hide; you’ll eventually be faced with looking inside.
There you will see the divine presence within thee,
And know that you can be whatever you want to be,
In constant reality.
Do you want to be healthy, happy, and have prosperity?
You can! Don’t you see, God is in thee, it’s energy to be whatever you
want to be!

It was July 2021
and raining all-day

I was sitting at my home
Drops are coming my way
Should I go out or not
The confusion stayed

Mind shouts “Oh No”
But heart wins
By the way

I ran downstairs
Alone in the whole
Walking smoothly on the green
Blooming, budding, fresh like snow

My heart pours out
I feel alive
Desire to seize
The moment as my whole life

Smell, feel, touch and sound
I am a rain child

https://vimeo.com/579723154

What I Thought I Wanted

Have you ever wondered who you would be
Without your profession, without your role
Without a position in life that holds
The you, that you know to be in this world
The you, who you think is important
The pearl
That is singular?
One and specific?
Identified by name and position?
Even if sometimes less than terrific?

When I was young
I thought I wanted to be a doctor
Until, one day, I tried it out
Imagined myself clad in white
A stethoscope hanging
Proud
Around my neck
My gait would flout
Essential place
In the ranks of humanity
Curing sickness and other calamity

I imagined the feeling of being equipped
To help in an instant
While life could just rip
The weakest and strongest
Right out of your midst
Interrupting the flow of expected unfolding

And then I would rush to the scene
Bag of tricks that was holding
The cure, or a balm for the suffering and pain
Irrelevant if I knew the ailment’s name

It seemed as a doctor my life was essential
Even in the face of disaster potential
Yet then
A sense of entrapment arose
And my dream turned bland
Before my own nose

So I thought why not try this, once again
But this time choose the wildest game
Irrespective of required skills
That would allow me to fit the bill
Of any, most desirable, exotic profession
Maybe nuclear physicist would be
A suitable passion?

I tried it out, imagined my brain
Amazingly filled without restrain
Understanding the laws of this world
Unimpeded
To know this reality?
What else could be needed!
And then?
Once again the blandness appeared
An inner straining against a role
I feared
To be held inside and somehow defined
By a something that was not the truth of my mind

Again, I proceeded to the next excursion
To define myself with speedy incursion
Into what must be the truest calling
Tried out the most cherished, enthralling
Exciting endeavour
I became a pianist
Inhabited music
However
To my greatest surprise
The same constriction appeared to arise
Maybe painter, composer, or artist were right?

It was simply hexed
From deep inside a resistance
Not slight
Nor tame in the least
Arose to fight the beast
Of identity sought in the various items
Offered by life to appease the frightened
Sometimes apparent soon after birth
Irresistibly seductive because of its worth
Because of Truth peeking through
At its finest expression
Its explosive magnificence of artistic passion

So I searched and pondered this question of “me”
Of who I am in the midst of the glee
Of creative exuberance that flows like magic
Sweetest response to life
Even at its most tragic

Do you know what I found
In the midst of this journey
Through the land of bland?
Of following hints of the One Divine hand?

Do you know how delighted I was
To recognize Truth
Suffusing the titles I had searched since youth?
The titles, professions that could not describe
The essence I searched
Underneath all of life
The essence of excitement and blandness as one
Do you know who you are
When your titles are gone?

When retirement looms
Your colleagues cease fawning?
When your roles have expired
Your demise starts dawning?
Are you ready to relinquish
Identity’s myth?
Are you ready to know
The Truth of all this?
Are you ready to face
The Truth of your being?
With nothing left to impede your seeing?

Probably best to check it out
With life in full swing
Search, investigate
Before
On a whim
The quirks of life
Take you quite by surprise
And you find yourself
With doubts on the rise

A wise man once told me:
Beware of the ladder
You climb all your life
Then get sadder and sadder

‘Cause you found
That in search of more and more “me”
The ladder was perched
Against
The wrong
Tree

©2016 Fella Cederbaum

Her last smile, by Mustofa Munir

when the clock of civilization has lost its sense of time
she perceived the world without knowing its malicious darkness,
a lonely young girl died many times
before her death when
she was gang-raped by some beastly men,
suffered many days and months,
she delivered one day a baby girl,
that day on her baby’s little hand
no crescent moon had reached,
no star dropped from the sky,
no one tolled a bell from the distant cathedral,
no song was in the air, no artful flute was blown,
the girl cast her unseeing look at the society
that mocked her, betrayed her!
she smiled at her baby, the God smiled too,
her rhythmic heart blended with a harmony
that brought a perpetual benediction in
an ambience of elysian quietness!
without any anguish her mind was in a festival,
there she heard a hymn with deep allusion
she was longing for,
tears rolled down her cheeks,
she closed her eyes!

–Mustofa Munir

BEST FRIEND, by Debbie Fersht

A child puts her doll to bed. Tell me a story, says the doll. You always say that, says the girl. Tell me a story, the doll repeats. Go to sleep you two, says her father from the light underneath the bedroom door. You’re my best friend, whispers the girl to the doll, hugging it as she falls asleep. The doll grows bigger from all this love, its feet hanging off the edge of the bed. You must stop growing, says the girl, so we can stay friends. I want a glass of water, says the doll. Lights off you two says her father. The doll gets up early, eager to get to work. I’m hungry, says the doll upon arriving home. Let’s play a game, says the girl. I want to go to bed, says the doll. Exhausted from the day’s events, the doll turns off the bedroom light and quickly falls asleep. The girl lies awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. Stop that, says the girl to the doll’s looming shadow on the ceiling, covering her best friend’s body with her favourite yellow blanket. A short struggle ensues. Go to sleep, says the girl. You always say that, gasps the doll.

Read by Val Cole

TENDER LOVING MOMENTS, by Colin Guest

To feel your tender body touching mine
Is a sweet feeling that is simply divine
I love the touch of your arms around me
It makes me feel happy I want all to see
Our tender love is both strong and true
With our never feeling down and blue
Just to hold your hand in mine so tight
Makes everything in my life feel right
When we kiss your lips feel like wine
The feeling from this is quite divine
Just walking along with you, my love
It makes me know there is someone above
No one could ever love me as you do
Whenever I’m with you, I am never blue
We were made for each other, that’s for sure
And I know I will love you forever more

THE CALL OF PAN

© 2015

Barbara Grace Lake

I heard a piping in the wood –

Haunting, calling me

To follow if I dare.

I heard it in the dawn

As misty sunlight gently touches

Tips of trees when first aroused

And leaves are freshest.

Mounds of grassy thickets

Crunch beneath my feet

From laden dew.

Was it a melody I heard?

Or did my ears transform

The play of rushing wind

Through forest harps

Into a psychic sense of sound?

There, again, elusive,

Drifting music almost heard

Above a dancing springlet

Leaping briefly, sparkling

In a shaft of stabbing sun.

There, half seen beyond the trees

Disguised by by gloom and mist,

A presence in the mossy coolness

Of a hidden forest alcove,

An impression of a shadowed form –

Tricks of patterned light and solitude

Upon an urban sense

Unguarded and disarmed?

Or bounding figure, demigod,

Seductive, beckoning?

I followed only to the glade

Emptied of all sense and sound

But that bewitching flute.

Inhibited, afraid of life and love,

The siren pipes insistently

Awakened rhythmic chords.

The man/beast dances, arms caress,

His music quickens, throbs

With every pulsing beat

Responding, yielding, ohhh –

And he was gone.

The silence palpable, pulled down the night.

I cried in lonely grief

Not knowing if I cried

For loss of innocence.

And in the day’s new warmth

I stumbled from the woods

Into the arms of future love.

I simply told a worried face

“I lost my way.”

I’ve often felt his presence

Though his fluting calls me not.

Now are my children grown

And theirs are of an age to question,

Hesitate, take fearful, longing steps.

Beware the pipes of Pan

For on that pathway deep within the wood,

So perilously strange,

The bud will open to return

Unharmed – but not unchanged