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Bellowing Ark Poetry Journal

If light is in your heart you will find your way home - Rumi

Bellowing Ark Poetry Journal

If light is in your heart you will find your way home - Rumi

April

Poem by Natalie Kahn

Individuation

I sought the Taster

And the Apple

The wide expanse

And steady rise of water

Past my hands

I smoked the flesh with

Nothing but this earth

I danced beside her open veins

Pregnant

With the thought of death

In this jungle

Cat was born

I named her Breath

I turned into a wolf

And played the music –

Drummed and dressed

Each story is a layer, which

I drink from like a breast

I listen

To the rolling thunder,

Lightning,

Slow and serpentine

I look onto my body and

I slip along the

Open hands

Of meaning

Medicine – moments like these

Moonlit caves of

Quartz and bone

And there she shone, she said,

I miss you

And she kissed my crown –

Now I am home

Poem by Flora, age 8

Poem by Natalie Kahn

Poppy’s Bloom

The days grow old

Living on secrets never told.

The beauties wilt and fade away

Taking color day by day.

Winter comes, frosty white

Snowy wind give a fright.

Then comes spring

Secrets untold

Colors beautiful, bright, and bold.

Poppies come, colors bloom

Life goes on like all life does

Bringing hopes, joys, wishes.

And above all Love.

Poem by Mike Dillon

Poem by Natalie Kahn

Poem by Michael L. Newell

April

Earlier odysseys led to this.

And so when she, a flaxen-haired

spear dove from a high rock

through the skin of a still-frozen lake

deep down into the cold, dark world

beyond the sun’s tapering finger

and rose to shake out her hair

beneath the kindled sun

the last frozen hill paths thawed.

Poem by Michael L. Newell

EVENING AMBULATORY REVERIE

sheets of wind shake rattle and moan

through bushes tree and shrubbery

I lift my face into the blast and shift

my gait into a rolling stroll full

of sass vim vinegar and attitude

all due to wind swirling with vigor

of Sonny Rollins roaring with freedom

or the mighty Trane uplifting the world

with A Love Supreme and walls thrum

in the gale like drums unleashed by the might

of Elvin Jones the dead have risen in the world’s music and my aged limbs swing

and sway

clumsy out of step but alive alive-o and I am more alive than I have been in months

I find myself scat singing and ignore passersby who stare I care only for the wind and its

bone-deep music music music and the rapidly approaching gloaming which bears a fine mist

to sanctify the few out and about in wind rain and oncoming night and its deep peace

Poem by Jacqueline Hill

Poem by Michael L. Newell

Poem by Jerry Austin 1987

To Ayden

Grief is a river,

Grief is a broken oar,

Grief is a wave of eternity -

Pulsing and pulling the weight

of the world, into its womb;

then back out again -

Grief is the mountain,

the bone, the lung,

the heft we all carry -

In our blood,

in our hearts,

And under our skin -

Grief is our brother

and sister, our mother

and our father -

And a basket made of reeds -

It is what will never be,

and what we will always be -

Pulsing through generations,

moving through the blistered sky,

or glowing like the moon on a dark night -

It is the petal picked and its fading,

the brief moment of holding,

and the stabbing pain of letting go -

But some grief, like mine for you,

is pure, is beautiful, and a celebration

of having carried something holy -

Something pure and valuable,

through the valley of Life and Death -

Holding unto it in every cell, in every

fiber, until all the weeping parts cleanse

what there is left to cleanse, so in the end, Grace can enter, like an old man,

And hold steady everything Life has to offer.

Poem by Jerry Austin 1987

Poem by Michael L. Newell

Poem by Jerry Austin 1987

Image Homage

Here is a mountain bluebird,

who sits on a rural fence post

and warbles as you walk

towards him on a brown dirt

road. His deep blue wings,

May blue breast, and jovial

weedle (which is far from twaddle

[and innocent of Molly Coddle])

have flittered and chirped

In through your ears and marbles;

and the blue bird now flutters

pleasantly in and out of the sunlit

barn window of your brainwork.

About Bellowing Ark

Founder of Bellowing Ark

Bellowing Ark Poetry Journal has been in print for almost forty years.

Robert Ward started the journal in 1984 and continued to published it quarterly, until he passed in 2018. His endless search for truth, light, and his incredible life force will always be remembered.

His wife, Paula Milligan, was an amazing poet and seeker of light. Sh

Bellowing Ark Poetry Journal has been in print for almost forty years.

Robert Ward started the journal in 1984 and continued to published it quarterly, until he passed in 2018. His endless search for truth, light, and his incredible life force will always be remembered.

His wife, Paula Milligan, was an amazing poet and seeker of light. She will be remembered for her loving kindness, intelligence, and courage.

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Mission Statement

Founder of Bellowing Ark

Bellowing Ark has built a reputation as a poetry magazine that celebrates life. Our mission is to foster poets who understand they can help heal the world, by first healing themselves.

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”

Joseph Campbell

MastHead

Founder of Bellowing Ark

MastHead

Editor: Jerry Austin

Operations: Natalie Kahn

Publisher: Jacqueline Hill

Bellowing Ark Poetry Journal

Bellowing Ark Poetry Journal

the Power of Words

April

Poem by Natalie Kahn

Poem by Natalie Kahn

Poem by Natalie Kahn

Poem by Flora, age 8

Poem by Natalie Kahn

Poem by Natalie Kahn

Poem by Mike Dillon

Poem by Natalie Kahn

Poem by Michael L. Newell

Poem by Michael L. Newell

Poem by Michael L. Newell

Poem by Michael L. Newell

Poem by Jacqueline Hill

Poem by Michael L. Newell

Poem by Jerry Austin 1987

Poem by Jerry Austin 1987

Poem by Michael L. Newell

Poem by Jerry Austin 1987

“Truth, especially, must be repeated,” Ward