Creative Writing Commons^™

Benision Before Your Venison, My Dear, Gordon Mcdermott

On Earth As It Is

Quello infinito e ineffabil bene

What continues from that leastless

yeasty body, that sunny-

science in the bleb of the ‘that’,

no, —the that—

which is directed, like light, to a loved body

inductivly, indelably, and reductivly

rendered to be that

which had once meant who

as in ‘Our Father which

art in Heaven’

—which body was bread

The Prayers Of Saint John Of The Cross, Adrian Sobol

On Earth As It Is

Saint John of the Cross went to God to weep. His hands, he noticed, had aged. God told John, Age is but a signpost, a ticket on the light rail to the Kingdom of Me. It was easy for God to say, the Ageless, the Endless, the Unbound. John went to Saint Teresa for her succor and her wine, which she fermented from the blackberries growing in her garden. Soon, they were drunk and haughty. He sang a blues tune and Teresa accompanied. They recounted stories of Christmases together, of their fathers, who would argue incessantly. Fistfights were a …

You're Asleep, Stephen Mead

On Earth As It Is

I think

On automatic pilot

In a commuter plane.

Flying at night is the most peaceful thing.

These lights are our own Tivoli,

A cathedral of sky. Going so deep

While floating as if through glass

As it forms, is to apprehend

How significant smallness can be,

Meaning us in this vast cavern,

Meaning those spires,

Those good window faces—Look—down there in the dark.

Guru, Amy Minton

On Earth As It Is

It has come to my attention through the wisdom of Guru Jaua Opi that directly behind my navel exists a terrifying labyrinth of decaying gas pipes, one of which is leaking a weak blue flame.

The Guru says, This is your life force. Or I think he said that. His accent is very heavy and the screeching war planes overhead mute all sound for a minute and a half, but he keeps talking. It holds the fire, I think he says. He pounds his own navel. What does your flame look like?

Three Poems, Victoria Bosch Murray

On Earth As It Is

The doctor asks where it hurts.

With the tip of a borrowed pen you trace the absent rib,

that Biblical scar, tickle the edge

of the raised ridge, a vacant dune between

land and sea just below your left breast—

like asking where pleasure starts,

where whiskey settles, when you first knew

his hand in your heart.

Prayer, Jake Ricafrente

On Earth As It Is

Our state—of books, condition, the body politic—

Is disrepaired, or worse, and wanting light to spill

Past veils, the banks of secrecy (chadors, Swiss laws,

And airy fabrication: all the latent bric-

A-brac of want), I probe the minor predicated clause,

Some ancient honey fungus, a continental shelf

For aims, designs. The world is tired of itself.

Poems, Alicia Jo Rabins

On Earth As It Is

DEAR LORD

I’m embarrassed by my love for You

and by the ugly cries

that escape me at night Worry birds

circling overhead, looking for You.

Summer's almost over, but

the tree’s single bud

has not opened.

Acts Of Reparation To The Virgin Mary, Brian Oliu

On Earth As It Is

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Of course it would be to you—you, dark-haired, you, an image of you on the forearm of a girl that I loved for a second or three, some time between the nights by the ice counting rotations and the time the girl called me from the house of a woman she met while jailed. She would talk to higher men in exchange for a sheet to pull over her arms, over her shoulders for a few nights. Of course we did not count the rotations. Of course she ignored you on her arm despite my constant …

Serve And Volley, Micah Riecker

On Earth As It Is

It’s Sunday and You’re inundated but I’m not asking for anything except a few moments of your time. Your eyes, Lord, and an ear, if I may.

December 17, 1977, Mattox Roesch

On Earth As It Is

Lord, the storm woke me tonight, at least, that’s what I remember.

The Santa Who Laughs, Chantel Tattoli

On Earth As It Is

There are faces of toast bearing your visage on Ebay. MARY IS MY HOMEGIRL tee shirts. A flash drive in your image Mary marketed for its capacity to keep 512 MB of data en womb: “Oh Maria, keep my data safe” engraved on your halo and your LED heart red-blinking while data transfers over. But you are too much a saint to mind it. Or maybe you’ve learned to take cruel jokes. That?

Center Of The Universe, Joe Sullivan

On Earth As It Is

Raining this morning, and

she’s sick again, lying

next to you, as a

mini-you. I’m putting

my clothes on in the

dark again, about to

leave, about to wonder

how your day will evolve.

Practice, Ray Vukcevich

On Earth As It Is

Meditation is hard. You try, you fail. There is that straight spine business, and the folding of the legs, and the breathing -- in and out, in and out, and the way words just keep poking their noses into your mental tent, dragging your attention away from the movement of air through one nostril or the other, sometimes both, all the aches and pains to ignore or embrace. Yes, it's a struggle, but the rewards are great -- the control of time itself, the wonderful realization that all the moments of your existence don't necessarily occur in any particular order. …

Blazing The Real: Writing By Indiana Children, Susan C. Adamson, Julie Patterson

Anthologies

I got my first camera when I was in third grade—a Brownie Hawkeye flash model with a snazzy little camera case. The instruction manual provided six simple steps for taking successful pictures.

Hold the camera steady, supporting it underneath. Then, with the sun behind your back or over your shoulder, locate the subject in the finder. At the instant of exposure, hold your breath and press the shutter release with a gentle squeezing action (Brownie Hawkeye Instruction Manual).

The camera came with two rolls of film, each with16 frames. I eagerly used them up and sent the exposed film off …

Two Poems, Nancy Scott

On Earth As It Is

The glue holding the kitchen chair legs

is gone; dried in some season

I didn't see coming or going

and the windows need washing again.

For You, Adam Jordan

On Earth As It Is

I checked the bush. I tried the sky, the crickets' legs, soccer fields, and apples' cores. I stoodunder thunderclouds, kitchen counters, catechism teachers inside superstores. I studied Crusoe's isolation after Harold and the Purple Crayon.

After Eden, Tracey S. Rosenberg

On Earth As It Is

Why are you laughing as you send me away? I'm not done.

There are fresh grasses I want to roll in,

buzzing fizzing fairies to chase like a spring kitten

(I promise to set them free, every last one).

When you let me come in, there was no one else you wanted.

Two Poems, Danniel Schoonebeek

On Earth As It Is

The word for what you want from me is novena,which means

nine days I will shave your beard and tell you: what falls

wants to rest with what falls, which is why your beard

wants to rest with the leaves in the trash bag, and why

when the leaves fall, what you want is to rest with me.

Grace, Brooks Sterritt

On Earth As It Is

At the table, ready to eat. I hope they don’t ask me to bless the food. They do. “Be present at our table…” Nervous. Can they hear doubt in my voice? Everpresent, effervescent Lord, we beseech thee to pencil us in for a brief moment of conscience-assuagement and dietary protection. “...be here and everywhere adored...” How great thou art: here, there, and everywhere, hence it should be effortless to come down, enter into my consciousness for a yoctosecond.

Dear God, Barbara Shoup

On Earth As It Is

Dear God,

Okay, first, full disclosure: I don’t believe You are a You.

Of course, if I’m wrong and You are a You, You already know this—and everything else, for that matter. And if You really are the all powerful You so many people imagine, the one with long white hair sitting on a throne in heaven (wherever that is), maybe You’ve got Your finger raised right now, pondering whether to unleash that lightning bolt and smite me for being insubordinate.

Five Ways To Pick A Charity, Jeff Rasley

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Article published in several newspapers about how to pick a charity.

Western Pilgrimage, Jeff Rasley

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Article for Real Travel Adventures about the author’s trip to the Badlands National Park and Wounded Knee.

Must Be Nice, Bryan M. Furuness

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

No abstract available

Excerpts From Two Lists, Bryan M. Furuness

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

No abstract available

The Wonder Of Geese, Bryan M. Furuness

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

No abstract available

Trekking In Basa - Khmujung Nepal, Jeff Rasley

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Article for Real Travel Adventures about hiking in Nepal and working with Basa Village.

Bryan Furuness Is Writing An Essay On Facebook Status Updates, Bryan M. Furuness

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

No abstract Available

The Eye Of A Whale In Tonga, Jeff Rasley

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Article for Real Travel Adventures about kayaking in Tonga and encountering whales.

Mastering The Digital Age: How The Liberal Arts Can Turn Technology Into Progress, Caleb Hamman

Kristi Schultz Broughton Liberal Arts Essay Contest

2010 Topic: "The Importance of the Liberal Arts in a Digital Age"

The immediacy and ease of publication is fraught with pitfalls and potential issues that provide new challenges for the next generation of readers, writers, and thinkers. Consider the place of your liberal arts education in this mix and write an essay in which you analyze how that education has better prepared you as a consumer of, contributor to, and critic of the texts that flow from new media outlets.

Lord, Ken Baumann

On Earth As It Is

ConAgra, bread-keeper; save us from our misery.
The stores dried up, people float in and out as if in a dream, wandering empty aisles and pushing imagined carts, checking out their bounty, self-scanning.
May you please render us saved.
And the farmers in Portland and Studio City and Brooklyn, with their small hands and meager yields, their rooftop stalks, they have been taken and put up in cages.
Make them free.