…wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking.
– Antonio Machado
Photo: Great Salt Desert, November 1972
to blossom
the time that is given us
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” –-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
with love
I have decided to stick with love, for hate is too heavy a burden to bear.
– Martin Luther King Jr.
Photo by Jens Johnsson on Pexels.com
to make a window
The house without a window is Hell:
to make a window is the foundation of true religion.
Don’t thrust your axe upon every thicket:
come, use your axe to cut open a window.
~ Rumi
photo: Assisi, January 2005
Winter Psalm by Richard Hoffman
Photo by Lloyd Freeman on Pexels.com
Boston snowbound, Logan closed, snowplows
and salt-trucks flashing yellow, drifts
tall as a man some places, visibility poor,
I sit by the window and watch the snow
blow sideways north-northeast, hot cup
in hand, robe over pajamas.
You have made me to seek refuge
and charged me to care for my brothers.
How cruel. That could be You out there
howling, cracking the trees, burying everything.
What could I possibly want from You
that would not undo the whole world as it is?
what I read this morning
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
Isaiah 58:6-10
Holy Moley!!!
The response to the first issue of Hole In The Head Review has been positive!
Holy Moley! I’d call this an auspicious debut, but that would be one very weak adjective. I’m usually very reluctant to contribute to Inaugural Issues. Now, I’m sorry I missed the boat.
It’s easy to create a website; blog a bit when one has time. Takes a lot more vision and ambition to launch a literary/art review that has inspiring poetry by noted poets, compelling art and a muscular intelligence. I highly recommend Hole in the Head Review. Take some real time, nourish your mind, eyes and heart… and enjoy!
Sometimes we need more professional sports like we need a hole in the head ! Thanks Hole In the Head Review. (written during the Super Bowl)
I really enjoyed seeing the first issue! Congratulations!!
Very excited to have my poem appear in Hole In the Head Review’s first issue alongside some very great poets and artists.
To my pages-and-words mates, I am so proud to be among you, and to rediscover, especially right now, the joy & comfort that craft and companionship have to offer. And so we persist.
Congratulations! This new litmag IS what we need right now. Cheers to Hole In The Head!
…graphically beautiful and full of engaging work!
It is truly, truly beautiful. The music of the many poems, the different tones, points of view, levels of emotions, differences in location and voices—cannot believe you made this art so quickly and elegantly.
Please take a minute to tell us what you think. We’d love to hear from you. http://www.holeintheheadreview.com
Rilke, from Stundenbuch (translated by Robert Bly)
In this town the last house stands
as lonely as if it were the last house in the world
The highway, which the tiny town is not able to stop,
slowly goes deeper out into the night.
The tiny town is only a passing-over place,
worried and afraid, between two huge spaces –
a path running past houses instead of a bridge.
And those who leave the town wander a long way off
and many perhaps die on the road.
Life is tragic simply because…
Life is tragic simply because the earth turns, and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death – ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. – James Baldwin, “Down at the Cross,” in The Fire Next Time.
(photo: Grindstone, Maine)
Edge of Atlantic 