The mind is rustlingclothes, sound shadowsand deadening echoes. The feel of her proximityand the wall when a blindman is walking too close. Like black panthers, all of usfind our way by vibrations, when the night gets too dark.And in the morning, the mind isa patch of parsley green moss onthe white flesh of birch trees. The ones my daughter […]
George Cassidy Payne
Mobius Strip
To forgive is to release. To let go. To be held.To arrive at where we want to end,we grasp for it. Without knowing how to hold our own hand,we cling to it. Where we came from,Jesus and Buddha are there. Let he who seeks remain always seekinguntil he finds, and when he finds he will be troubledby the face of who he longs for. […]
After Breathing
I notice.Everything. How the inkon my paperhas more thanone color of blackand feels delicate as silk. The hard plastic wheels of a stroller scraping the gravel. Like crackling embers,the stillness of a solitary pineneedle sighing in the breeze.An eternal thing, like bloodflowing for its own sake. That spring taskof bringing life again. Or the neighbor’s Calico […]
Bread
Contained in a kernel of wheat,bound by unseen chains of patterns,each branch comes alive with waterand heat. Alive with the digestionof the universe. So we pray: Give usthis day our daily bread, and forgive usour trespasses, as we have forgiven those who trespass against us, notknowing how we were made to rise. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work […]
Stillness
Mindfulness is noticingstillness, how the ink on my paper has more than one color of black and feelsfluid as silk. It’s noticing the stillness of a solitary pine needle pulsing in the sighing wind. Andthe acrobatic foraging of a squirrel jumping from limb to limb withunhesitating spontaneity.It’s the neighbor’s Calico slouching,preying, lifting each paw as a ninjawould around a corner, while abovethe […]
The Life Waiting for Us (For Joseph Campbell)
You are not living unless youhave at least one crisis beforebreakfast. The crisis of adventure. The crisis of receiving supernatural aid. The crisis of not receiving it. The crisis of meeting with the Goddess and being spit on. Or being embraced likea child. The crisis of faith that is not knowinghow much faith is enough, and whenfaith becomes its […]
A Pandemic of Hope
As fast as the virus and then some, Love is spreading. In the hands of doctors and nurses, it spreads. Through the central nervous systemof the species like an electric shock. Love grows with invisible power.Love is spreading. Everywhere, in more places than the virus could ever be, Love is taking over. We are on lock down andLove is our warden. […]
Chi
It felt like cupping a shapelessbubble, delicate as a stolen Robin’s egg,yet weightless and resting in nothingness. I should have known it was within me. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 […]
Full of Noise
the call often comes when we refuse it.On some mornings it comes as an orange sitting ripe on the table.
The Call
comes when you are waitingfor the shower and disinfection,and when you reach the bottom of the sinkwithout clothes, shoes, or even hair. The call comes when you are baptized with a number. The numbers told everything.For they told the world, in particular, how yourefused to let yourself live without its sorrow.A blessing that comes when you refuse […]