from Amanda DeAngeles

TIME

A fake me stumbles around

It's a me I want to blend with

When I'm still she's fast

When I'm fast she's still

We reach out to each other and miss

But we are the same thing

I know it for sure

We have the same laughter

We have the same tears

We love to tickle a little girl

Rock her like the babe we remember

Till we both sleep and  dream

A vortex of yellow-white fairy lights

Spins slowly, as big as the universe

My feet are pulled toward its core

As I lie in bed with raised feet first, the other me stumbles around

Me pulls me back to her

She says, "That clock gives us a hell of a time, Mummy."

by Gina Riley

THE CLOISTER GARDEN

Water-lilies.  Another day running on 

                                      spinning webs.

In the heart of the garden

           - a sculpture -

     its fountains of water.

Mossy sunlight

on  a bowl that is held

 four bronze hands that hold it

         a woman who bends

            a man reaching upwards.

It's not passing summers

lavish with flowers

    laden with clouds.

Nor a loud organ, a cathedral

too stern in the shadows

nor so called blessings 

in a world of disquiet, that allow

a bleak sadness

to enter the garden

At a glance

its symbolic thirst

and a splash of bright water

       a man reaching out

           silver thread in bronze hair

                     as a woman leans over.

the dependence of both

on the care of the other.

Eden's hard give and take

(so easy in bronze.)

Or truth

never set in its ways...

moves a stray tourist

   to tears in the Cloister.

Poem 233

by Caroline Salthouse

ME

The space I think of in my head

is full of thoughts unbounded

Who am I? and what am I?

I'm regularly confounded

They tell me I'm a human

and it's sometime since my birth

and for all of it I've lived upon

a planet called the Earth

If I shut my eyes it disappears

though my other senses know

that to the Earth I am still bound

Well, where else would I go?

There are billions of beings here

all different from me

I'm not sure how they found that out

I could be one of three

Well! who would know?  My other selves

might stride 'cross desert wastes

or live in interstitial spaces

in rocks in outer space

They might exist right out of time

in anti-matter form

In fact I might be really odd

and they might be the norm

Philosophers have mused for years

and still they've not found out

just what on earth (or other place)

this life is all about

So, I'll keep my thoughts a-spinning round

in the space I call my head

and work at being a human being

until the day I'm dead

Poem No 234

by Nick Hancock

OXYTOCIN

A poem dedicated to JG

who prefers my poetry to my prose

After my last howling contraction

it is love at first sight.

You shine under your whitish film,

miniaturised and bejewelled.

And as I draw you to me,

flesh to flesh,

we are a bow string

loosed after long battle together.

'We must clean her up,' says the midwife,

hands advancing towards you threateningly.

Shaking my head, I tighten my grip with one hand,

draw up the sheet with the other.

'You'll have a fight on your hands,' my eyes say.

Hers glaze. Confrontation is clearly

winding up behind them. Then she shrugs

and bustles out into the next ward.

Tenderness grows between us

like an invisible flower

bending, tracing the curves of our bodies,

deep into my loins and yours.

Love at first sight.

Oxytocin is a hormone released during labour or lovemaking

by Antoinette Loftus

ADVENT

Christ comes

Let's look away

For where's the conquering king

we hoped to see one day

Christ comes

No - on this day we feast

With wine-warmed hearts

in heated homes

 Christ comes

Near now not far away

He gazes out from news T.V.

in haunted eyes of every refugee

Christ comes

Quick shut the door

The bitter wind bears messages

we can't endure