Poetry by Noeme Grace C. Tabor-Farjani

BY NOEME GRACE C. TABOR-FARJANI

The mountain beckons

The mountain beckons so does this task at hand, the work waiting and waiting. The mountain is not far to behold but it calls, so leave my slippers and staff, and stare at the fire that turns air into tablets. I pray, please turn my breathing into ink.

I only feel the malty mint, the days gone by are back. The barefoot hours, stage the dance of trees in front of me. And I think: they are still there, the earth’s still here.

There are no memories of wind, but there is one that blows desire, wrapped in fresh silence. Almost a fulfillment of longing of some unknown home, or romance, or power. Vague as the clouds, gray and shapeless, moving into uncertain spaces, telling no stories but whispers the quiet moments.

I no more count the hours for nameless acts. It’s just air blowing cold. It’s just rain that looks like it will fall. It’s just what they call a gloomy day, perfect for a song and maybe more of the wonder of the eternal now.

In stillness, solitude, and surrender, all of earth will sing with my desire.

The road hides from a busy highway

The road hides from a busy highway. Those who look not for magic is lost. Trees lined, bowing to majestic dusty pathway. Those who look not for magic won’t see the silver and gold in the cobblestones. The disappearing grass, playing hide and seek with the skies.

This season, we made fires from branches who ask to make love with earth. Those who seek not magic won’t hear the stories of the clouds. Surrounded by the sea, the sky, the mountains. I sit by the wall and sing my songs until Faith cascades down to the stillness of sand, letting go of waves.

Those who seek no magic won’t ever be still, won’t dance...

See the sun, the sky, the sand, the sea, the breeze, the trees. Only they know our spells, the secret of our days. The roof is a bed the stars shelter many dreams.

Those who look not for magic is lost.

The requiem

I.

Steady the hand as not to drip the soup from that spoon: it has battled long enough in the wild, held a sword, a stone, an arrow, a knife. Now it is time to be a wife.

Soothe the trembling that wants to travel through your skin. To kill is not a sin.

Steady the hands that are unsure. If it wants more of a fill: here’s some meat, roasted well some seconds for some sweets? Does he really want to eat?

Steady the tremors from your hands as they run to your heart. The images of battles on your tables: Kitchen where spices scatter, the meals eaten by whiners, the cluttered desk, the empty screen. Maybe you let an enemy in?

Steady the thoughts and capture them. You do not divide to rule and win. You serve, you love, you write. You feed those with trembling hands. You clean the cluttered tables. You fold the fitted sheets. You fill the blank white sheets.

I tell him, let’s kill this. To kill is not a sin.

II.

When their visit wake you up

at 4, you barely have enough sleep.

They gear you up for a battle

that is not yours

and you try not to engage.

There you are with an armor

that drags you down,

a shield you can barely lift.

And the questions come

like a colony of red ants,

a swarm of wasps in your heart.

What do they call them?

●

The food is ready,

My feet are up on the porch bench

We are waiting for Iftar.

The past 29 nights

are dizzying movements

in the kitchen.

But my body is not tired.

The summer rains

are a miracle tied to the curse

of the season.

I watch the birds play

under the drizzle,

filtered by dusk.

I thought birds hide

for cover when it rains.

Twilight nears.

The earth seem content

with the caress of showers.

I bath myself in the breath

of the sky and trees.

A long time has passed,

Have I been missed

By these creatures of mist.

The Earth quietly blankets

herself, settling

in the bed of night.

The way I embrace a faith

foreign from mine.

Iftar is here.

Noeme Grace C. Tabor-Farjani has authored Letters from Libya, a chapbook of short memoirs about her family's escape from the Second Libyan Civil War in 2014. Her works have recently appeared in Your Dream Journal and Global Poemic and forthcoming in Fahmidan Journal and Rogue Agent. In 2018, she successfully defended her PhD dissertation in creative writing pedagogy. In between gardening and yoga, she teaches literature and humanities at the high school level in the Philippines. She is currently working on a chapbook of poems on spirituality and the body. 

Poetry & Photography by Ingrid M. Calderon-Collins

demons

—Summer,   is in the high winds—
grapes and graves   pendulate
hopeless \  drained
swooping men into their elixir, 
women / bee-stung / swollen 
stolen
glances,
sanative—
venom/
what’s yesterday stays, 
an onset
of what the night brings—
sit here, sloppy and free
eat
drink
unfasten
run from your shadow, 
a beast of your pastselves bred to breed more of what mauls,
leave it to die.

The point of daffodils 🌼

I’m sorry
I’m sorry
I’m sorry

I yawned love in all the shades of pastel you own/
I want to paint your infinite so spread your legs,
Show the world how deep you go, you said—

There is not enough paint or sky to hold me, I sigh/

He laughs as he begins to sprout his wings

It’s all in numbers
How we end and how we begin

An angel laughs—but he sings
I’m sorry
I’m sorry
I’m sorry

Apologies are endless and unnecessary
if you’ve already learned that forgiveness can be silent
I’ve seen
You’ve seen a chiseled hand sculpt you into something/mouth gaped open
Not to speak
But to hold the plague of his snake

Skid slink into my feet
My brain/
A music box of screams
Tucked neatly where I bled

I carry traces of my poetry in the morning
as I eat
And in the dusk when I’m asleep

I salivate for food as if I’m starving
Full belly tells a different story
I wonder if the lessons that you taught me come in handy
For when I want love to see me in my shadow
For when I’m dressed up like a clown with rainbows of beige and browns
I don’t eat fruit because it feels too good
Sugar is the same as when I cry and smile and taste the
salt lake house you left me in

I am an old one because you the ancient were inside me
You implanted all your heart and now whenever I love
I wonder if you love it too

I’ve regrown all my teeth
I’ve shoveled out the dirt
I’ve planted all new trees
I am a garden in full bruise

Artist’s Statement on the photos: The pictures are from the Full Moon on December 11, 2019. They were taken inside Joshua Tree National Park.

---

Ingrid M. Calderon-Collins is an immigrant from El Salvador. Her work has been featured in Thimble Literary Magazine, Rabid Oak, Moonchild Magazine, and FIVE:2:ONE amid others. She was the hostess of a monthly poetry reading series, “They’re Just Words” featuring poets from all over L.A. County from 2017-2019. Currently, she runs a literary magazine called “RESURRECTION mag,” where she encourages poets, artists and photographers to show the world their joys and their sorrows. She is the author of thirteen books. She lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband, painter John Collins.

Poetry by Olaitan Humble

BY OLAITAN HUMBLE

Hope Against Hope

& then we watch as our new year prayers morph into

cries & wails of lost loved ones—the ones who

used to hold our tongues together with fine threads of their

sanity but what can a prayer do than to cause

coincidences to or not to happen? a bird's flight

draws my mother to the sky but it is dangerous out there

now she turns to her gadget to fuel her fear with pictures

painted by __________ here in a multiverse where

help is nigh where nature is not buried under whispers of

different languages where paradise is a few blocks away

from home where loving is a civil responsibility where the

night sky still casts a shadow

The Map of my Country as a Portrait of Woe on a Landscape

Here is where we build castles in the air // we start

by calling our forefathers bastards for keeping

us away from a world of distorted songs. We were

told that there is a paradise below our soil // an

unnoticed picture on the map of our country by the

other side of the wall they built before eloping

with their shadows into deep waters // somewhere

along the contour lines on our map there is an

unheard voice calling for the wrath of the gods.

There is a letter waiting at a post office written

by a sender that never was // those who were born

dead & buried into the night sky smiling.

& all the nights letters like this are read // woe

in form of killer bees pinch our wrist & then

we say the same words our fathers did on the day

they lost the fight to the motherland & died // & now

we wake up to listen to the irregular rhythm of the cries we

chant as anthem // we listen as they blow with the cold

winds illustrated on our map within a landscape.

Olaitan Humble is a Nigerian poet and pacifist who likes to collect quotations and astrophotos. He won the People's Choice Award at EW Poetry Prize Awards 2020, March edition of Loudthotz Poetry Open Reading 2020 and JustDeen Poetry Contest. Poetry Editor at Invincible Quill Magazine, his works are featured and/or are forthcoming in Dreich, Crêpe & Penn, Wine Cellar Press, The B'K, Words & Whispers, Giallo, AGNG Mag, CỌ́N-SCÌÒ, Periwinkle, Doubleback Review, The African Writers Review, Ngiga Review, Cultural Weekly, EroGospel, Konya ShamsRumi, POEMIFY, the QuillS, The Wanderlust Literary Journal, First Gong Anthology and Boys Are Not Stones Anthology II, among others. He is a Features Editor at Urban Central and tweets @olaitanhumble.

A Poem by Peg Aloi

BY PEG ALOI

The Apples

The apples my father brought were large

perfect, juicy, crunchy and sweet

red, delicious

in purple cardboard egg carton boxes

that he bought for clients

his generosity a beacon

amidst our constant struggles to make ends meet.

The apples my mother made pies with were grasshopper green

big and round, super tart, Northern Spy

baked to mushy sweetness

spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg

filling the afternoon with a warm fragrance of love and care

that rose above

the damp lingering sadness and fear of the morning.

The apples we picked in the local orchard

by the horse farm that smelled faintly of manure

and strongly of fresh-cut hay

were burnished by sunshine

red and green and yellow

Macintosh, Golden Delicious, Jonathan, Cortland

tumbled into bushel baskets

riding home in the back of the station wagon

like treasure, like gold

shining autumn days

when we learned what farms were

where food came from

what happiness was made of.

The apples my witchcraft told me of

were shining like round red planets

cosmic throbbing pomes

the color of blood and roses

their plump poisonous seeds bursting

with fairy tales, myths, secrets, curses and wishes

their crisp, fragrant, juicy flesh

tasting of this moment, and of immortality.

Peg Aloi is a freelance writer, film & TV critic, professional gardener, traditional singer, practicing witch, and lover of apples and orchards. Her book The Witching Hour: How Witchcraft Enchanted Popular Culture, will come out in 2021.

autumnal beloveds day 6: Esoteric Poesis

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

A gift from a good friend, this anthology of esoteric poetry — Datura: Explorations in Esoteric Poesis, published by Scarlet Imprint and edited by Ruby Sara — this collection sits beside my bed, waiting to be picked up on nights of ritual, contemplation, and big full moon energy.

It’s not a new collection; it was published in 2010, its intro written, “on the cusp of Imbolc/Candlemas, the season of poetry and fire, when the Pagani lean their hearts toward Bridhid, that goddess and patron saint of poetry….” (Fitting, I think, as I share this in early Autumn, the nights getting colder — more of us turning toward art and the sacred as we close the proverbial and literal door to the outside world).

Including 26 poets’ work (and many essays) from writers across occult communities, this really is a conjuring of that which stirs within us — that cosmic inspiration, that invisible Spirit o creation, and that holy drive to channel that which comes from some realm we cannot see.

This is a book of literary prayer and magic — a holy text in my temple of wordcraft — for poetry conjures the liminality of spirit and spell, and the high, rich emotion of devotion and sacredness.

Here are some snippets of the work included. I recommend you find the book and order it.

Autumn Beloveds Day 2: The Art of the Occult by S. Elizabeth

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

For the entire month of October, I will be posting daily to Luna Luna about all things magical, witchy, spooky, and spoopy. From books and tarot decks to films and random research or rituals I happen upon, I’ll be offering up a little taste of the shadow.

Today, it’s the Art of the Occult: A Visual Sourcebook for the Modern Mystic by the mega-talented S. Elizabeth.

I’d love to share a few things before I get into the book; I’ve admired S. Elizabeth for a while now for plenty of reasons; her Instagram itself is a curatorial delight of idea, curiosity, esoterica, and art — a veritable treasure-trove of pleasures and ghastly bits and beautiful things that remind you that being alive is an act of deliciousness.

But it’s her writing that truly gets me. S. Elizabeth’s digital diary (a literary garden of glory) Unquiet Things is a space I’ve found myself sifting through over many, many a night in bed with tea. From scent magic to autumnal soups to lullabies and darkness, she writes with such depth and fullness about everything; because of this, there is no doubt that any book she puts together will be a well of wonder and research and shadowy goodness. Oh, and you can also find her magical words at Haute Macabre, Death & The Maiden, and more. She’s also the co-creator of The Occult Activity Book Vol 1 and 2.

The Art of the Occult is a visual journey through time’s spiritual, magical, and otherworldly art and experiences.

From the description:

“From theosophy and kabbalah, to the zodiac and alchemy; spiritualism and ceremonial magic, to the elements and sacred geometry – The Art of the Occult introduces major occult themes and showcases the artists who have been influenced and led by them. Discover the symbolic and mythical images of the Pre-Raphaelites; the automatic drawing of Hilma af Klint and Madge Gill; Leonora Carrington's surrealist interpretation of myth, alchemy and kabbalah; and much more.”

SIGH. Even better? It features little-known artists and marginalized artists — people whose names and works aren’t often cited or seen.

I’m waiting with bated breath for this book to arrive upon my doorstep. What a treasure.

Poetry by Lauren Davis

BY LAUREN DAVIS

Little Bean

The doctor tells me he found—

in my brain—something. Nothing

to do, but give it a name. Little bean.

Sparrow’s eye. Lost pearl. It is mine.

I made it. Appleseed, my pale bead.

When I am still enough, it sings.

Brain Growth Undiagnosed in the Month of July

Aberration, you will either be

my everything or my nothing.

Once a man I loved raised his fist to me.

He stood close enough I could

smell him. In that moment I felt

a thing close to unknown.

If you grow, my sweet pea,

you will cut the stream.

Or you might disappear like

dew. I could love you either way.

Today, men set off fireworks

because when this country left

its mother, we were happy.

I think you are maybe a gift,

like when noon creeps in

where there’s been always

winter light. I see everything

now. I see the missed moment

I might have held my palms

to the grass. They call

this prayer. Even in the day

I hear a pop like gunshots

but it’s just children playing

with fire. Some say it’s wasteful

to burn sparklers in the sun

but this is not the type of person

I keep in my life. I keep in my life

you—visitor long overdue.

Little wick, lit.

Lauren Davis is the author of Home Beneath the Church, forthcoming from Fernwood Press, and the chapbook Each Wild Thing’s Consent, published by Poetry Wolf Press. She holds an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars, and she teaches at The Writers’ Workshoppe and Imprint Books. She is a former Editor in Residence at The Puritan’s Town Crier and has been awarded a residency at Hypatia-in-the-Woods. Her work has appeared in over fifty literary publications and anthologies including Prairie Schooner, Spillway, Poet Lore, Ibbetson Street, Ninth Letter and elsewhere.

Poetry by Andi Talarico

BY ANDI TALARICO

After Sacrifice

Catholics believe in magic, which is to say 

Transubstantiation, which is really to say sleight 

of hand, which is to say we

Believe a miracle occurs each time the holy man, ordained, 

offers the water and the wine,

Just like that, from up their robes, they

Conjure the body, conjure the blood.

It is pivotal, the difference, the others who see mass as metaphor.

They are just pretending. It is enough to worship the idea.

But not us, see, watch the hands, use your nail,

scratch Papal and find pagan, 

boiling, just beneath,

Denied and demoted like a bastard born son.

But see how far we’ve come, 

Note we no longer need the offering 

of your firstborn to the fire

Don’t have to hurl your kin into the maw of a pit

Don’t have to cut from the finest of your harvest

Don’t have to let go your plumpest sow.

Here, we’re evolved now, humane, now, let 

this ministered man, 

holy enough to be above you,

let him make his magic happen, 

an alchemy of spirit to body

A glamour for the blind

We’ve made it for you.

A glamour so profound

Wreathed in the smoke of incense

Kept behind the altar

Beyond the pale

Between masses, babies, offered up.

We cry, bring us your youngest, your softest, 

all the sons and daughters of Abraham,

And here is the lamb, and here is the slaughter,

The hunger too great, the appetite laid bare.

The sin of lust made greater by the sin of

Looking-away, the sin of never-asking,

The sin of teaching our young that

Sacrifice is the greatest name for love

Because after all, after all,

This is my body, which is given up for you.

Andi Talarico is a Brooklyn-based writer, reader, and witch. She’s the former host of At the Inkwell NYC, an international reading series. She's taught poetry in classrooms as a rostered artist, been a coach and judge for Poetry Out Loud, and her work has been featured in Luna Luna magazine, The Poetry Project, Yes Poetry, Ritual Poetica, and more. Her work has also been published by PaperKite Press and SwanDive Publishing. When she’s not working with stationery company Baronfig, you can find her dishing on astrology and culture on her podcast Astrolushes, co-hosted with Lisa Marie Basile.