HERE ARE OUR PAST WRITERS
JULY 1, 2021 – JULY 31, 2021
The In Between
At times, to be alone with my thoughts
can seem a terrifying thing. You see,
my mind’s inclined to go recursive
with thought. Worries or doubts, yearning,
they way memories can overwhelm me.
And so, I approach the hour-long float—
sequestered, silent, alert—hesitant. I close
the door to the tank, turn off the lights,
and think about not thinking. My body
goes buoyant. My musings start to ebb.
I tip my head back to water’s lap and let
proprioception slip from me. It feels womb-like,
the mild warmth, how I hear my own heartbeat.
Time drifts. How to put it? Not a dream-state,
but close. Like those edge-of-sleep moments,
liminally conscious like you could
will yourself awake if you’d wanted but instead
you hover in the in between. Total calm. Ease.
After the soft lights come up, I carry a bit of bliss
with me, how the float has soothed me, body and mind.
Bio
After working at technology start-ups for seven years, Kelsey Hennegen mustered up the courage to abandon the safe trajectory guaranteed by Silicon Valley and embrace a path of creativity and curiosity. St. John’s College brought her to Santa Fe, where she has lived for three years. Her academic studies span Liberal Arts and Philosophy, Eastern Classics, Sanskrit, and Literature. Her poetry has appeared in Narrative Magazine, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Whitefish Review, among others; her work has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is currently an Artist in Residence with the Historic Santa Fe Foundation.
JUNE 1, 2021 – JUNE 30, 2021
Molly Boyle is an arts and culture writer for The Santa Fe Reporter, Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico magazine, and other outlets.
There is a body of water where I only exist
if everything else does too, or if a DNA bead of ancient minnows or cavers once too
looked up at these regenerative fuzzily pinging embers, spread out in this bathysphere.
Temperature is no longer temperamental but collective, based on the will of the masses in the bath-ez.
Ekphrastic is an ick phrase for floating in a neon tin can. But shut your eyes gently now plz and you too can see the salt
slurp up the legs, slurry in the ears.
It’s been years.
APRIL 1, 2021 – APRIL 30, 2021
C.J. Thomas is a new copywriter in town. Smoked out by wildfire, she picked up her belongings( everything that could fit in her car) and moved from the valley of Southern Oregon to the sanctuary of Santa Fe. Her life of loss and rebirth has landed her in a place of constant evolution and while her journey has been shaky, she has no regrets, as she’s grown from it all!
This entrepreneur on the edge of 30 makes her living elevating others so that they can elevate the world through the use of healthy marketing techniques that bring organic growth and sustainability for health and wellness businesses.
You can find her shining her light and teaching others how to shine theirs on Instagram @heyitscjthomas and you can follow her business, Simply Healthy Marketing LLC @simplyhealthymarketing
Poem:
Float by C.J. Thomas
Into the water…No feelings inhibitions or cares.
No gravity.
Legs rise, give weight to mystery.
Synthetic stars twinkle up high.
And my eyes gently close.
You drift over me.
You grew me in your hips.
Calmed me with your lips, and whispered lullaby.
I can’t deny that sometimes at night when the moon kisses my skin like slicks of cold silk,I don’t think of you.
Couldn’t kiss the tears dry so I let them bloom.
Petals scattered in the absence of dark and light.
Dripping burdens and inhibitions at the threshold of my heart’s door.
Once more I let go of fearful holding and trust in you.
Shari Cross is a 35 year old writer and teacher who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. When she’s not living in her head with her fictional characters, you can find her teaching first grade, reading, or cuddling with her husband, her baby girl, and her dog.
The Void
By Shari Cross
What will you feel when you lose me? When you reach out and that tether falls into a void instead of finding me on the other end? It will happen. This dance between us is not sustainable.
How will it feel to get nothing back but your own echo, laced with a breath that used to be mine? Will you feel that loss? That ghost of my presence standing over your shoulder, within arms reach, but never tangible.
Will you regret then? Will you wish you had offered more during this dance of ours? Led me down a different path? One that ended with us jumping into the void together, not knowing where we’d land but hopeful that it would be in each others arms.
There were no promises in the void, but I would have explored it with you. Tied my tether to your lips, where your words and breath filled me with life.
But those lips aren’t mine to be tied to. Your words aren’t only for me. They could be. I believe there’s a part of you that wants them to be, but you also know that words are often nothing more than a ruse. So you won’t offer me yours and you don’t believe mine.
That’s the irony; that when the music fades away it will not only take the lyrics we wrote with it, but also the ones we kept inside. Neither of us will ever know the full truth, the real depth of it all.
And now the dance is coming to an end, the music fading into a distant melody; and it’s taking you with it. The tether pulls, telling me to look back and find you, to wrap it around you and hold on with all I have. But I know that if I do, another dance will start, only to end more painfully than the last. The push and pull of thirsting for something so much that you fear when you give in, it will only drown you. So I won’t look back. I’ll cut the tether and let you fade until your song becomes my past; the melody of what we could have been in harmony with the reminder of what we lost.
William Curtis began typing poems on 14th Street in New York City in 2006. He was turned on to the art of street writing living with artist & friend Zach Houston in the Bey Area in 2002. Since then William has traveled widely with Poem Store, from Miami, FL to Seattle, WA. Recently living in Nevada City, CA & now warming the hearts of the Southwest.
William was a subject for a King 5 news story, working the farmer’s markets in Seattle in 2014. He has been written about by the Associated Press and featured in the LA times.
THE DEEP SELF
“Cosmic Love is absolutely Ruthless and Highly Indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like them or not.”
John C. Lilly
enter the void.
let go & float upon a tiny ocean.
rest in a cradle
beyond memory, beyond civilization.
travel through realms of deep sleep
to placid waters of introspection.
eternal night of eyes unseeing.
closed yet opened up
to the brilliance beyond the physical,
beyond the sliver of so-called reality.
In the living field of dream & image of belief.
In the roots of the subconscious waters
sending forth the manifestations of our lives.
surrender & float past the known
into vast space of deep silence,
of presence…
of mind’s thoughtless ripples…
smooth, silky, salty & clear.
hear the song of total silence
& you have touched the root of speech.
let us speak our truth.
true, authentic being sprouts forth form non-being.
let us find comfort in non-being.
the more we know this place
the more we know our true selves.
let us find peace & rest In the void,
then we may know good honest action
springing forth joyfully into the heart of matter.
be familiar with the substrate.
know grey matter &
bring forth the
brilliant colors of your own life.
your own way,
your own expression of pure being.
float in your own spectrums,
in your own frequencies,
in your own sunsets.
return to the temperate climate,
the original waters of the womb.
where air & water sit in perfect harmony
to dissolve us.
oh sweet dissolution,
oh blessed Phoenix.
let us surrender to be born again
…and again, and again.
then rise…
weightless & buoyant warrior,
unburdened by the past.
that we may take up the true
responsibility of our humanity &
finally claim our divinity.
WC
© William Curius 2020