A Chinese Scholar’s Garden

by Judith Meyerowitz

Out of the mist, a clearing slowly comes into view.
A secret scholar’s garden inked into a mountain.

Amid the craggy rocks, green splotches, hints of evergreen, smell of pine.
Around the trees light bends
Is it all illusion?

In the gazebos student scholars gather
They unwrap the silk cocoon of ancient writings
Silently let the narrative landscape materialize
Scrolls unfurl, rolling, rolling, unrolling. Calligraphs spill into the skies.
The thickly inked brushstrokes crash into boxes of red seals.
Colophons cascade like waterfalls down the steep ravines.
Poems tell the story of a
secluded scholar artist
relaxing at his back gate in bare feet
His robe unfurls like the leaves of the scrolls.
His Buddha belly soft in contrast to the hardness of the mountains.
He looks at veins of green foliage between the thighs of fleshy prominences
Lines of art and poetry in intimate harmony

Judith Meyerowitz has published both poetry and prose in Voices. She began to write poetry after participating in LP2 groups.

Napoli

by Charles Troob

Look darling a lava pizza
bubbling and overflowing
a change from pepperoni
and heartburn

Nero’s bad press was earned
but we all do regrettable things
and Nero smelled nice
when he wanted to

though maybe I’m thinking of Marcus Aurelius
or Nebuchadnezzar
I’m not good with names

the pizza is ready
peel away the magma
and plunge in with me

Pizza and a volcano crater–once you associate them in your mind, it’s hard to unsee.  I have fond memories of a study group on Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, but the real inspiration is probably “That’s amore.”

Cordillera Oriental

by Mireya Perez Bustillo

 

Verdigris      lianas       spruce

 

moss       olive      emerald

 

lime      pine    grass    clovers    palms

 

helechos       peacock       mint

 

parrot     lettuce    cabbage    capers

xxxxxxnot

vermillion    ochre    terracotta    sienna

xxxxmy   xxxAndes

 

Mireya Perez-Bustillo writes poetry and fiction in Spanish and English. Her poetry appears in MOM’s EGG; Caribbean Review; Americas Review; Dinner with the Muse, IRP Voices, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press,2020), a Latina coming-of-age story, is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.

Bed

by Mireya Perez Bustillo

A woman filled with the gladness of living
Places clean fragrant sheets
Lavender sacheted
On the bed
Which hold the orange blossoms of her wedding
The rose petals he places there
After she returns
Covered with jasmine oil
Ready to please him
Putting there softness caresses
Sighs of pleasure
Next to the timelessness
Of her beauty

Mireya Perez-Bustillo writes poetry and fiction in Spanish and English. Her poetry appears in MOM’s EGG; Caribbean Review; Americas Review; Dinner with the Muse, IRP Voices, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press,2020), a Latina coming-of-age story, is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.

A Cow Jumped Over the Moon

by Mireya Perez Bustillo

To see what she could see
To know her name beyond the number
xxxxxdangling from her ears
Rumors she’d heard of cows resting in Swiss pastures
xxxxxand others nearer feasting in grassy fields
xxxxxwith mountain views at “The Farm of Happy Cows”
There was talk of Tartine, a brown and white Holstein
xxxxxwho relished in her daily head rubs
xxxxxand her sister heifers mooing at massages
xxxxxfrom large round hanging brushes
xxxxxwhile they marveled at their clean hooves,
xxxxxthe fresh straw, the milking twice a day
Some say she was moved by a yearning for a cowbell
xxxxxor that she longed for Govinda, the divine cowherd
Others heard her wish for the eternal return
xxxxxto her original Maasi herd
xxxxxor maybe it was the stench of the chopping block
We only know that on Wednesday
xxxxxshe hoofed it out of the Musa Halal Slaughterhouse
xxxxxhooves darting down 109th Avenue
xxxxxdodging cars, cops, butchers
xxxxxcutting through the Drake’s driveway
xxxxxbusting the Farley’s fence
xxxxxcornered, lassoed, tranquilized
xxxxxshe learned the rumors were true
xxxxxNow she eats, sleeps, ruminates all day
xxxxxat ease from horns to tail
xxxxxdeep in the countryside
xxxxxfull in her cowness
xxxxxshe moos at the whiff of lilacs

Mireya Perez-Bustillo writes poetry and fiction in Spanish and English. Her poetry appears in MOM’s EGG; Caribbean Review; Americas Review; Dinner with the Muse, IRP Voices, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press, 2020), a Latina coming-of-age story, is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.

Nobody Goes There

by Mary Padilla

Nobody goes there
who plans on coming back,
because nobody who goes there
ever has,
and there’s no reason to suspect
that you would be the first,
or rather the last.
So better plan
as per usual
and know what it is
you’re risking,
– not even risking,
because this is a sure thing –
so what it is
you’re willing to give up
in exchange
for seeing for yourself
what no one
who’s been seen again
has seen,
or heard,
or experienced,
because
to know what it is,
it seems you need
to give up
what you know
in exchange,
without knowing
what it is
you will gain.
You could just lose
if it isn’t even
a zero sum game,
and the odds are
– well, you can’t know
what the odds are
until you play the game –
the chances are
– well, the house usually wins,
so it’s more of a wager
than an exchange,
a roll of the dice
in cosmic terrain.
You don’t know
until you try,
and chances are
you won’t get a chance
to try again.
But knowing
what you would know then,
what would be the chance
that you would?

Mary Padilla is interested in experimenting with using sound and sense to explore felt experience.

Letter to You

by Mary Padilla

You are free to say anything
to anyone
– even to me –
about anything.

You have 15 minutes.

I didn’t make it up.
I got it from a book.
No, it wrote itself.
I’m not responsible.
I don’t know what I think
until I see what I write.
It’s all been said before.
There is nothing new.
What is there to say
when you have said before
what there is to say?
I get what I like.
I like what I get.
Are they the same?
Are they not?
And then, what?
Where do we go
when we must go?
Where is there to go?
Where else?
Is there any there?
Why did we think
there might be?
Might there still be?
There might not be.
How would it be
if that were so?
When I say
what I mean,
do I mean
what I say?
Why or why not?
You must choose.
Must you choose?
Why must you choose?
Why not, indeed?
Because that is how it is.
Isn’t it?
How so?
And all this time
how could I
have thought so?
Did I ever
really
know?
No.
Did you?

Mary Padilla is interested in experimenting with using sound and sense to explore felt experience.

Joy

by Mary Padilla

Joy is what
sneaks in
through the cracks,
not something
we can plan.

It isn’t anything.
Actually that’s it –
it’s not a thing,
a concrete noun.

It’s more of a verb –
something that
just happens,
and exists only
in the moment.

It’s just a bubble
whose essence lies
in the immanence
of the “pop.”

Mary Padilla is interested in experimenting with using sound and sense to explore felt experience.

Improvising

by Mary Padilla

If we’re too busy codifying,
we can’t also be improvising,
not making it up as we go along,
or being the only ones deciding.

We can’t know just what we think
until we write it down or say it.
We don’t know what it is we see
before we draw or sculpt or paint it.

We can’t know where our step will go
until we’re almost ready to take it.
We don’t know what our sound will be
before we actually begin to make it.

The only true way in for us
lies in our trying not to try,
because it represents the key
to the how that underlies the why.

Mary Padilla is interested in experimenting with using sound and sense to explore felt experience.

Ode to Sylvia

by Judith Meyerowitz

(In Memory of Sylvia Brill)

Tall woman, classical smile
You sweep me into poetry
It is your voice that takes me
hushed, sultry.
I want you to read forever

You bring me into the poetry group
Via black holes and reminiscences of Chicago published in Voices

We walk to Thirteenth St.
I slow down to meet your cane
Soon we are chatting in that hole of a West Village restaurant
With the warmth of home cooking.
Blackened pots and pans lined up for our review.
You had soup.
You told me of the Vermont house with garden, now sold
Of your small apartment with renovated kitchen
Your love of Rome
You sound young
I imagine that we are undergraduates
It is still the sixties
We are excited by poets and writers
I wish I remembered more the films you liked, the study groups you led.
But the warmth remains

You say goodbye–not yet
Chat about poetry for a while.
The cane out of sight
I walk on
Your voice stays in the air
And carries me

Judith Meyerowitz has published both poetry and prose in Voices. She began to write poetry after participating in LP2 groups.