Awaken my soul
Shake off the shackles which
Fetter my mind
Sweep the cobwebs of laziness
Far from me
Thrust complacency to the
Bottomless pit
Energy, flow through my
Living thoughts
Permeate every fiber
Of my being
To rise above tedious doldrums
Of senseless acts
Unite me to the Eternal
Ring of truth
Raise hallowed mankind
Ever higher
Until transcendent thought is
Only the beginning

Lizette Luke is a seeker of truth. She studies quantum physics, meditation, religion, spirituality and philosophy. She is finalizing a technique that incorporates quantum mechanics and spiritual healing into a practical, applicable technique. She is writing a book that illuminates this technique and explains quantum-related insights pivotal to human transformation.

Each morning as you do your meditation
Facing the rising sun in the east
You receive the distinct impression
You’re not alone in the silent room.
There are others present
Of an astral nature
With their circular hues
Dancing about this inner sanctum.
Which brings you comfort
Knowing you’ve created
Such a quiet ambiance
Drawing light body silhouettes.
Who augment an atmosphere
In its pristine innocence
Amplifying an effect
From a singular,
To a collective consciousness
Once initiated by one
Like a soft voice in the forest
Then becomes symphonic,
By those with a similar affinity
Adding their tones to a harmony
Attaching to a wind
To instill a meandering peace.
That winds its weaving way
Filling in the hollows
Such a flow once commenced
Will revolve on a cosmic axis.
You opened an airway
Through which sound and light
Found a channel to emerge
Along these lines sparkles inundate.
A ritual evolves to a tradition
A legacy with no limits
In you was so found
The means to release scintillations.
When merged with many vocal chords
So conveys a synchronistic harp
To expand, then elicit
To culminate in promising horizons.

Alex Chornyj is a reiki master teacher. Alex has been published in White Mountain Publications, Articulations, The Tower Journal, The Canadian Federation Of Poetry, online at www.artistsforabetterworld.org and in many Blog Talk Radio spoken word programs such as “Shaman’s Hand” and “Poetry Super Highway.”  Alex currently resides in Canada.

One day you will open a window, that opens to a field, that opens to a
sky, that is big enough to hold the stories you’ve been told. So you
will no longer have to carry them, like a bundle of splintering wood
for a fire that is always either hungry or spitting bitter. Instead,
you will throw out unencumbered arms like dusty shutters, inviting
Spring or Armistice. You will laugh, a weightless avalanche of
relief. It will tumble: your laughter will erode whole mountains of
regret, and you will watch how it all falls down. Falls deep. Seeds
itself in a legion of embryo pods. You will watch yourself begin
again, again. Embers and pebbles and rusty screws, cocooned as they
are orphaned. You will no longer parent them, as you leave them
glowing there, like some nuclear apology. You will give up, and give
in. You’ll go running through a whole sea of wild faces, nodding yes,
on a million stalks that bend and stretch like so many thin green
necks.

Elaina M. Ellis is en route to receiving her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She teaches at Bent Writing Institute in Seattle, and is published in Push Magazine and in two chapbooks, Kind of Animal and Poundcake. Learn more about Elaina’s work and worship at www.tumbleme.org

Today I visited many places
A mosque, a battlefield, a brothel, and a palace

Today I touched many faces
A man’s, a woman’s, a child’s and a eunuch’s

Today I saw many races
Blacks, whites, browns and the poorest of the poor

Today I wriggled out of the mazes
Of wealth, status, lineage and gender

Today I was summoned by my long-lost soul
Who dwelled on the seashore and had feathers of gold

Today my soul held me in an eternal embrace
And together we flew off to a far-away place

Today I saw the Earth from a different perspective
Where past, present and future were one; time

Today I witnessed strange unions
Of knowledge & wisdom, youth & age and crime & remorse

Today I tiptoed on the sharp blades of time’s ruthless knife
Today I was a king, a pauper, a courtesan and a wife

Today I prostrated to the God, a Buddha, an idol and the sun
Today I offered ablutions in milk, honey, blood and dirt

Today I mounted the clouds, became the dew, and the nectar of the reddest rose
Today I became the trampled ground, the polluted air and the raped nature

Today I was a suicide bomber, a martyr, a priest, and a politician
Today I became the bed of lovers, the lust of an aggressor and the nipple of a nursing mother

Today I was a guest of the constellation, the moon, the galaxies and the depths of ocean
Today my soul made love to me in all the ways I had imagined

Today my soul kissed me and awakened a consciousness of a highest degree
Today I discovered true piety lies not in religions but in love for humanity

Sobia Fayyaz is a communicator by profession and a freelance journalist by choice. She has a master’s degree in mass communication and postgraduate in corporate communications. She is an internationally published writer and her poems have been featured in Pulse, Global Woman Magazine and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

At the core, uncontrolled
fires melt metallic dreams
neither realized nor remembered,

So rapidly are they rendered
amorphous in the flaming furnace
of the dreamer’s subconscious mind.

Beyond the biological determinism
of deoxyribonucleic acid, dopamine,
and molecularly imprinted memories,

Does free will exist or is it merely
a conceit that science will dismiss
with other dated dogmas, Cartesian
dualism and the pope’s flat earth?

Am I sitting beside you in blissful
contentment at the dictate of genes
and neurotransmitters, or do character and
love transcend molecular machinations?

Smiling you reply that relationships
shape us and I should not lose sleep
over the number of neurotransmitters
that might dance on the head of a pin.

Catherine OBrian is a medical writer with a background in academic biomedical sciences. She has over one hundred scientific publications, but is relatively new to creative writing. She is a member of the Poetry Center of Chicago and has a poem accepted for publication at Penny Ante Feud.

Editor’s Note: “Cartesian Doubt Revisited” originally appeared in Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine.

hitchhiking through the landscape of my mind.
thumbs up.
pants down.
wanting to explore new territories. vast expanses.
go north to the cold disconsolate bleeding regions of regret and frozen dreams.
go east to the hot drought stricken lands of past lives and nightmares of blood soaked hands.
go south to the tropical lands of rain, hope and expectations. densely forested and under-populated by desires still felt but as of yet unmet.
go west young explorer. to conquer and explore and ravage lands new to me and as of yet unexplored by my mind’s eyes. lands that are already known and already possessed by far more fortunate souls than i.
explore the northern reaches of my mind.
wander the southern most extremities and walk….
walk away….
walk to….
walk from….
walk with.
blindly traverse questions that have always already been answered. yet still unknown to me. keep asking. keep wondering. keep wondering why. pondering the complexities of life until my skeletal bones have rotted and decayed. dust. leaving nothing of me. leaving nothing of what you were to me. how to create and keep a part of me alive.
immortal.
undying.
for future archaeologists of life and thought to find. the love of knowledge and the search for personal truths will end. i will end. time continues. life continues.
disappointments add up to the sum of my whole.
trying to solve the equations that measure life.
mathematical certainty.
the circle.
continues on.
multiplies.
pi
faith in chaos…..
that no matter how turbulent how seemingly innocuous and random life is. chaos is the only certainty and beauty in life.
the unknown will always be.
unpredicted. wild.
driven by the storms of passion.
if known the probability of change increases in proportion to pain and shattered hopes.
although if changed the beauty that created the pain would be lost and forever missed. to avoid pain would create a life unlived. alone. an invention and a creation and a product of dullness.
stagnation.
fear.
live bravely.
feel freely.
IMPLODE IMAGINATIVELY.

Tanya Marie earned her degree in Women’s Studies while living in the Pacific Northwest. She has written two books, Signifying Nothing and Faith In Chaos. Tanya is an active member of her communities. She has planned the Take Back The Night March, interned as a crisis counselor, and drove for her school’s rape prevention shuttle.

Did you mean to do that

Well, I did it

But did you intend to

I must have

It was me who did it

But do you recall if you chose to do it

I recall

What

Doing it

And how did it come from you

What do you mean

Literally, how did you do it

What was the process

You mean was I angry

I don’t know

Was that it

Did you act out of anger

What was the source of the act

I was hurt

There it is

You acted out of hurt

Why didn’t you just tell me that

I didn’t know

Until you told me

Michael Elliott is a clinical psychologist.  His graduate work was at California State University, San Francisco and University of Washington. His training was in the social psychology of human communication and in clinical psychology. He has practiced clinical psychology for over a quarter of a century. The poems in his book, Waterfalls of Therapy, are about what he has learned from his patients.

Struck, the arteries lose eloquence.
Even the hooded man shudders.
Tributaries of power and change
Spill from the vented block
To the stage of statehood.
Ignorance in brown fields abides.
Disrupted elements congeal
Across the silent morning.

Tell me how your God works, scholar.
If he were the snow alone,

or gold,

Or singularity

focused into concentration,

How should the unsightly,

beheaded

Body of His Spokesman twitch
To a halt before the multitudes?

He answers: how natural to see enlightened
Men court death, appropriate he who loves
The tree should follow, standing
A still, short time among its
Fallen leaves, hastening
To the root.

And here within this peace

There is no fuel for sorrow.
Flaws that mire
Life exist only in outer rings of ages,
Where the feint and storm of empire
Looms,

where brittle destinies

Foolishly contend.

Michael Shorb’s work reflects an abiding interest in myth, history, and the lyrical form, as well as a satirical focus on present day trends and events. His poems have appeared in over 100 magazines and anthologies, including The Nation, The Sun, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Queen’s Quarterly.

I’m not the me
that I can see.
I am the I
behind my eye.

I’m not the me
that feels he’s free.
I am the I
who does not try.

I’m not the me
that seems to be.
I am the I
who does not die.

I am the one
in everyone.
I am the one
and only one.

Peter Bergquist earned a BA in English from Princeton University and an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Antioch University Los Angeles. He is married with two daughters and is currently teaching English, Film and Academic Decathlon in the Los Angeles Unified School District. His poems have been published online, in journals and chapbooks.

where is the soul of you, world?

for, bittersweetly pining, I would

press my palms into the sheath

of flesh that wreaths you,

and like so many other lovers

find some succor in that bending

breeze of compliant skin and sallow

entrancements of your lesser suitors-

to witness so much misled fallout,

the broken bottles and couples’ quarrels

cascading through your rigid veins,

the streets howling of misspent longing!

when will i breathe the soul of you,

savor the sour and salty opening

of you, press my tongue to you,

invite the shock of unfiltered munificence

sweating and streaming from the core of you,

near-bursting, ripe, relentless truth,

to soothe the facade-weary and scare away youth,

to reanimate passions long displaced from misuse?

when will i love, world-

would your consent then extend to me

to touch the elusive heart of you-

could i find a home in you

and could you find the soul in me?

Josefine Cole is a recent graduate of Naropa’s BA Religious Studies program and a practitioner of Tibetan/Shambhala Buddhism.