Letting Go
Ego surrenders
palms open
silence saturates
circles dissolve
thesis weds antithesis
spawns synthesis
new mind
new heart
no mind
no heart
only breath
A Glimpse Inside
Inner voice
muted by biography
distorted by decades
defying extinction
alive for nanoseconds
moments of magic
lucid awareness
reveals pristine prison
equipped with
Jacuzzi and bidet
cell carpeted
door unlocked
length of stay
optional.
Judy Shepps Battle has been writing essays and poems long before retiring from being a psychotherapist and sociology professor. She is a New Jersey resident, addictions specialist, consultant and freelance writer. Her poems have been accepted in a variety of publications including Ascent Aspirations; Barnwood Press; Battered Suitcase; Caper Literary Journal; Epiphany Magazine; Joyful; Message in a Bottle Poetry Magazine; Raleigh Review; Rusty Truck; Short, Fast and Deadly; the Tishman Review, and Wilderness House Literary Press.
Today’s featured art was contributed by Ryn Holmes.
An award-winning poet and photographer, Ryn Holmes originates from California (Southern and Northern) and now resides along the Gulf Coast of Florida. She is a partner in K & K Manuscript Editing, an editor with Panoply zine and a published writer with works appearing in the Emerald Coast Review, Syzygy Poetry Journal, Four and Twenty zine, Indiana Voice Journal, as well as Longleaf Pine and others.
I am seldom a fan of minimalist poetry, but Judy Shepps Battle focuses insightfully on two subjects that interest me- the process of “letting go” as well as the topic of our inner voices. She got my attention with her first lines- “Ego surrenders
palms open.”
Instantly, I thought of how my wife told me that as a college student she successfully used the technique of putting her hands palms-up on the bar to attract the barkeepers attention with her vulnerability. I could easily then visualize what the poem offered to convey
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