Joslin Horror

The Complex Creature

Voyager Now

A haunting elegy for humanity’s farthest traveler, Voyager Now transforms the cold mechanics of space exploration into a meditation on distance, decay, and devotion. Joslin’s â€œdeep space child" drifts beyond recall, carrying our hopes through the silence between stars

Now And Zen And The Continuum

In this deft philosophical poem, Joslin plays with time and thought, balancing wit and wisdom as she unpacks the elusive art of living in the present. The piece shimmers with paradox, reminding us how easily we lose the now to what was and what will be.

Now And Zen And The Continuum

Were I blessed with
nowness
I could
live in the moment

live in each moment of
minute
content,

conduct each moment's business,
appropriate to each moment's strength,
turn on the moment,
pivotal;
present.

Could I present no object in the way of now,
subject no subject to the scrutiny
of past or future,
that would be being.
That would be blessed content.

For as I worry either side of each event,
life passes by
'til all my nows
are spent.

An Early Encounter with Death

Childhood fear meets mortal truth in this chillingly intimate reflection on the first awareness of death. Joslin writes with stark tenderness, confronting the lifelong shadow of that early question. Does everybody die?--and finding, in the answer, a strange kind of grace.

An Early Encounter with Death

I sensed you there deep in my darkest hour,
Beneath my thought, behind my childhood fear.
I felt your shadow cast upon my soul
As with eyes shut I turned to face the wall.
I felt your icy breath upon my back,
Your strangling noose about my tiny neck.
I've known you since I was just five years old,
When first I felt your finger pointing cold,
Colder than family could overcome,
Too cold for hearth or church or mother's womb.
I had to ask Does everybody die?
And then I had to ask the reason why.
You haunted me so that I feared the night
Although I woke each morning to the light
And have for more than half a century.
Though I admit that you still frighten me,
The answer is that everybody dies
And each day older is the greater prize.