passage to ephesus

impressionista, Bruna Marchiori

we crossed the strait in the middle of the night on the ferry. slipped out of sleep by the swaggering of heavy machine engines. we leaned against the railing, twisting our toes contently above all the frightened fish and boat rutters.

maybe we will become stars when we dye and be buried beneath the shivering black sky. or maybe when the boat has crossed we will find ourselves at some strange gate or different land all together. i have heard of passages such as these in cs lewis chronicles and hymnals. how wardrobes or death can form a bridge to some new dimension.

these are some of the things i would have told you then if i thought them quantative. complete. or satisfying. but silence seemed fitting. you and i and the great big boat and all our sleeping friends.

A Publication From The Peanut Gallery

words, marc davies

It is with great excitement that I bid you visit the the matthew project website.
There you will find a publication by me called Letter to my Professor's Father.

outsider's sabbath

love me, ally payne

“Something there is that does not love a wall.” -robert frost

You would never know what lyes inside. Not unless you are brave enough for breach the great walls. Walls that fortify the divine and the deep pockets of America’s wealthy rulers. I have slipped my Trojan horse body into this sacred space and lye still as in the belly of a great muddy trench. But my walls can not decieve as the church’s ivory stone or the wooden flanks of cattle. Mine are baked dark from the coffee farming of my African brothers and there are thick smells of trashcan fires and treatment centers escaping from the corners of my lips. During the second hymn my legs would not carry me upwards as the invitation urged. Left behind with the old men beneath the weight of weary sleep and sin. There is no place for me this side of the wall, where Christmas trees crowd out holy saints pulpits and white beards line the rows of pews like Romans going into battle. calvary. the homeless. jesus. Something there is that does not love a wall.

Yesterday. Tomorrow.

playa uvita*

Starting January 4th, I will be pausing my current occupation as a wilderness therapist
in the familiar and now cold mountains of North Carolina and traveling south in pursuit of coffee farms, chickens, and warmer weather.

I will be living here

I will going with this fellow

I will be exploring there until February 16th.


*picture provided by the coffee farm

christmas day.

sally mann, jessie bites

I have climbed the wall of this mountain to perch with the birds on bare branches and wait. Watching the rain pull up the earth and make moats around my feet. Greed gathers hot on my face and parades before me all those I want to take my place. instructors. Ben. the messiah. I am quick and jealous of Josephs and Marys now propped beneath their dry wooden roofs in front of churches and hospitals.

I want so badly to be home again. To be warmed between the fire and my dog’s side. To abandon this nativity scene for something more predictable. gift cards, my uncle’s jokes about conservative politics, stockings.

I listen to the water outside my raincoat and watch the clouds turn to tarnished silver. there are flaming stars rising in the east. Old men with saddle bags full of gold following the stars’ smoke signals. The great primordial movement is violent and surging, threatening a mother’s womb.

Even so, come lord Jesus.