A quarterly journal of ideas, art, and faith
A.R. Bossert
You lie through lines and falsely signal hope.
Mechanical imposter—she who spoke
Makes sweeter sounds than what comes through your holes.
Forgive me my accusatory tone—
See, I shall praise thee an angel dear
Who carries her sweet speech when we’re alone.
Then, eyelids closed, she whispers in my ear. [Read more...]
Damian J. Ference
After twenty-three years of Catholic school I can count on one hand the number of lessons or lectures I remember about the devil.
My first bit of formal instruction came in kindergarten. Sister Vincent taught us a song about having joy in our hearts, and if the devil didn’t like it he could sit on a tack. I had a hard time seeing the need for an archangel like Michael, having his way with the devil while wielding a shiny silver sword, if a sharp tack would do the job just as well. [Read more...]
On the Occasion of the 2,757th Birthday of the City of Rome
Apollo shines bright on her dappled stucco walls, Like a vast and blank and gold-spotted canvas Ripe with a possibility as multiform as the City (For there is only ever one City) In which it hangs like a vast inhabited museum exhibit.
“Oh, Nina, you haven’t signed up yet—can you take one of the,” and Dorrie was turning the clipboard toward me with her usual unhappy smile, “morning slots?”
“Sure. Where is this place?” Cigarette. Cigarette. Cigarette!
“It’s a Planned Parenthood on 17th Street. There’ll be a carpool if you want.” Cigarette, dammit! I signed up for 10 A.M. and headed outside as fast as I could. Open pack, fish out lovely lovely cigarette, between the lips and hunt for the lighter and suck and oh, thank God!
Smoky dark gray chemical taste. Already the stress of the morning was falling back into the past. Oh, brilliant, beautiful. Oh frabjous day.
Then, of course, I realized that I’d really signed up for ten in the morning on a Saturday. [Read more...]
The purpose of the imagination is to make us more like God. Sounds like something a serpent might say. But it’s not. That really is the purpose of the imagination. To make us more like God. After all, our imagination is a gift from God. It is perhaps one of the greatest gifts God has given us. It not only separates us from the beasts, it allows us to create new worlds of our own. Our imagination gives us a kind of omnipotence. There is almost nothing that we cannot do within the infinity of our minds. The Creator has made us in His own image. That is, he has made us creators. Our creativity is re-creation. And yes, it is recreation as well. It is restorative and rejuvenating. It is a pleasure. It is peace. It is a gift that we have abused, but perhaps even worse, it is a gift we have left unused. [Read more...]
Katy Willis
Now is the winter of my discontent To be reformed, transfigured into spring? I cannot seem to hold to anything That by this sudden blossom is not rent.
I leave a love behind, unfathomed still; I have a hope before me, waiting yet; And trapped so, where no boundaries are set, I find a faith, an unexpected will. [Read more...]
Seek ye first the Kingdom of the Lord— So I was taught, and hastened to obey; I watched the fields and rivers fall away; Above the soaring mountaintops I soared, Through Heaven-vaults alight with sun outpoured On luminescent golden clouds of day; And far below the sparkling oceans lay, And world-waves, washed forever, rolled and roared. [Read more...]
J.B. Toner
For Bernadette
The townsfolk left their houses to behold Atop the Umbrian hill a shining fire That wreathed and wrapped the church’s starlit spire And speared the sky with red and glowing gold. So, heedless of Assisi’s midnight cold, They rushed upon the conflagration dire To quell the ruin of that blazing pyre Lest God’s own house be razed to ash and coal. [Read more...]
The bitter blend of sweat and blood on her forehead glistened under the mid-afternoon sun as she darted between the mounds of brick and stone on the street. The sky was overcast with towers of smoke that watched like sad sentinels over a dead land that seemed to fade away down below. Now that the guns had been quiet for two hours, Sara could hear nothing except her own heavy breathing pounding in her ears like blows of thunder. [Read more...]
Where are my words? They’re lost and confused Where is my verse? It’s banal, reused. What is my language? Look not to your tongues. What must I do? Don’t speak from your lungs. [Read more...]
