Beauty

. The Stonechat Listens at the Asylum Window I fear I might mistranslate what you said And lose the very essence of your words. May I record you as I do the birds: The warbler, shrike and wren, red’s wild-combed head Who can’t fly straight because his wings are strained...

. Note: Burns Night is when Scotland’s most important bard, Robert Burns (1759-1796), is celebrated, usually with the recitation of Burns’ poems, the eating of haggis, and the drinking of whisky. It occurs on January 25, Burns’ birthday. . An English Sonnet for the Scottish Bard for Burns Night Tonight, I’m...

. The Problem of Good a Petrarchan sonnet If there’s (the armchair philosopher maintains) A God (most likely writing in his blog), Then why’s the world in such a dismal fog Of evil will and endless human pain? Each day the whole thing just gets more insane And sad. No...

. . On Alma Tadema’s Coign of Vantage Flora peeks over the marble parapet, a dizzying perch above the azure Aegean. The Roman fleet is returning. 'Tis the season to flirt, to catch a lover in her net. Julia and Livia stand close, her bosom friends. Tomorrow they’ll break their...

. Ever Flowing Upon the rushing river’s bank I stand, deep water, ever flowing as it goes. The turbulence of my life it reflects as if my mortal pain, it truly knows. I close my eyes while cruel heartache builds and boils. It swirls and churns from deep within, akin...

. John Adams in Heaven John and Abigail Adams are being guided through heaven by John Milton. He takes them to a villa in the Elysian Fields, where they meet a famous Roman who shows them a vision of their political ancestors. Near spartan fields that nurtured simple roots, A...

. Bats at Sunset The monster is rotund, vile, enormous, three-muzzled, and barking ---Vasily Trediakovsky, after Virgil The woods are lovely, dark, and deep ---Robert Frost Last night the bats were flying so low that I could see their faces. Each of them looked like a Soviet relative of mine,...

. The Calendar You are the festive dregs of January,you liven February with Valentine’s.You are the March that gives spring sanctuary,you are the splashing rain April confines.You entertain the shaken buds of May,then are the shining June that bronzes all.You’re endless July---every holiday,you’re balmy August thwarting autumn’s pall.You are September’s...

. Moments from Dante’s Inferno Prepared to travel, if the gods allowed, I saw the woods were dreary, dark as death. I chose to heed a blessing there endowed, before emerging spirits took a breath. And that was Virgil, orator and font of god-like wisdom. He began to speak: "The...

. Banish the Thought Who are you? Not me, I know You creep and crimp my edges fray, An apparition of Dickens’ play--- Who are you? Not me, I know. Push and prod and now you’re in, Little sprite you always win--- Who are you? Okay, I know Like tug...

. Swimming with Dreams and Memory My childhood dreams and memories remain through adulthood and old age. My doll speaks. My toy car surfs that tidal wave, again. I’m still afraid of darkness, and the creaks and groans of our sleeping house at night. My mother, long-dead, beckons from a...

. Gloucester in July A thousand silent saints and angels Hewn from vertex, plane, and angle Raised by blow of mason’s hammer Raised from stone to watch the faithful Underneath the sinners stammer Pray and weep, confess and clamber The thousand faces, gray, unblinking Witness judgement’s heavy hammer Saints and...

. Beatitude Be glad and smile, for they revile, The Truth they mock and put on trial, The Beauty they do not possess, The Good, they curse, and will not bless, For Christ foretold this world’s own bile. Sit back and watch your mirth beguile, A culture which has no...

. El Pescado They gloat: the age of Pisces, it is over. They chant to call Aquarius’ forces in. In the deep labyrinths we sought the sign, The two-stroke fish, walls clammy, glittering. The old Mass book fell open in my hands: The prayer for government, prayer for the king,...

. The Christmas Story An angel of the Lord, Came forth with joyful news, Of Him Who is adored, Messiah of the Jews. The angel hailed the one, A Virgin pure and bright, Who chosen for the Son, Would crush the serpent’s bite. “Oh Favored one behold, Thou shalt conceive...

. The Wind Listen, listen! Do you hear it?  It is on the march tonight--- The incessant winter wind that blows throughout the wood and glade. Like a spectral army passing through the night in grim parade--- Do you hear its restless movement where no moonbeam sheds it light? Do...

. Worth Disguised The hammer lifts, the anvil rings, The room with screaming noises brings __A torture, here inflicted. The bellows pump, the fire smokes, A prodding chisel pries and pokes. __This trial seems unscripted. The flames blaze hot, the subject melts, No pain like this has e’er been felt...

. Bingo Ladies Gray-haired gals meet twice a week, Have their luncheon with the clique At the Wendy’s in Coppell. After they have talked a spell Off to northwest part of Dallas To the Giant Bingo Palace. First they greet the Palace guards Then select their lucky cards. Thirteen at...

. This Side of Eternity I. Imagination, you’re a two-edged sword, The universe your oyster, opened wide; Conceiving all the boon life might afford In dazzling display: what may be tried, Perpetual possibilities, outpoured Before the casual confidence of pride. Infinity thus beckons, but we err Who hope to taste...

. For Sophie Pakaluk Barrows based on The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God by Michael Pakaluk in pie quebrado meter Before God made her soul and mind, Before her parents’ genes entwined __To start life’s spark, To them each priest and doctor bade That no more children should...

. Be Gone an angry teenage daughter to her absconded mother What irritant incited you to leave And not come back while I was left to grieve? Was it the man you wed, the girl you bore, Your dispositions? Tell me: Why? What for? I learned to live without you...

. The Fluctuations of Modernity and Antiquity a pantoum __Something is ahead, A solemn note on open sky, __It rises from the dead, A whizzing plane of time gone by. A solemn note on open sky, Reminds me of the shopping mall, A whizzing plain of time gone by, A...

. Queen of Jubilees A Queen there was, revered, of global fame--- Elizabeth the Second was her name. For three-score-years-and-ten she ruled the roost and gave us Brits a self-assuring boost through walkabouts and bric-a-brac that bore her likeness. She was loved by rich and poor who visited each town...

. Elegy for an Unremarkable Man Poor Niel is dead. He’d been off sick since May. Cancer, they said, as if we couldn’t guess, And, since we didn’t know what words to say, We stayed away. If pressed, we might confess We’d turned our jellied backs to his distress, Acting...

. Thorns Grow with Song It’s time to rend our hearts and look inside The chambered will, into the voices in The vein: thorns grow with song. A hope applied With mercy calls the tuner of the tidal Pull of the soul, brings rest, denying sin It’s time. To rend...

. Mourning Louis XVI We must not say in public that we mourn--- Sit still, Brigitte, and listen to your père! If we disclose our grief we court the hate Of France’s revolutionary swarm. These days are bleak for those of us well-born. Hell take that bloody butcher Robespierre, Whose...

. The Departing Year This night shall stand and stare with wintry rage Through half-closed windows stained in loss and gain; To measure all astounding feats and fame Against those bitter tears in blinding rain. The memories shall never wane with sight, Nor lend to coming days a newer tone;...

. The Babylonian Exile At first it cut much quicker to the bone: The loss of all, our world brought to the brink. But by and by you slowly start to think That maybe your concerns were overblown. Their gods are gods of appetite and prone To drunkenness from bouts...

. The Sky with Birds Just Lately Born Sometimes there’s a sadness in my heart. A stone, a thought, a fearful start. Yet I rise and see the morn, The sky with birds just lately born. So brave they try their early wings And taste wet crumbs of earthly things....

. . A Broadside Drawn up before us, proud and sure, Costumed in their haute couture, And sporting all the best coiffures, With colours purple and azure, Loom the powers of disarray, Armed with bromide and cliché, With which to tar or to gainsay Whomever pines for yesterday. Though theirs...

. A Holy Picnic A small child had a vision in the light Of day, while sitting square upon the rug. It seemed as if she rose to a great height, And there, her senses gave a mighty tug As if to warn her there was more to come. And...

. Dark Sky Back home, the dark is overborne By a billion busy diodes Emitting artificial light, Thence seeping out into the night. But, up here, there are auroras, Constellations, and nebulae--- Or so the motel owners say: “Last week, we saw the Milky Way.” So, we wind through wooded...

. Calendar Poems by Margaret Coats January loves what goblets hold, And February complains of cold. March plows the fields with furrows new, And April nurtures each flower’s hue. Dew on the grass, and leaves above, prepare May’s beds for sylvan love. June produces its fresh, sweet hay; July makes...

. Same Old New Year   I bid adieu. You shuffle out. A new you shimmies in--- A you without the frown and pout, A happy you of zip and clout, And once again I’ve little doubt You’ll make me rich and thin. You’ll bring me zing. You’ll make me sing....

. Two Empty Chairs “We did the NFP bit for awhile ... and have felt revulsion over it ever since. During that time we might have had at least two more children.”  ---Letter to the Editor, Seattle Catholic, 2002 Two empty chairs, each in its place— The kitchen table’s vacant...

. “Where Ever-present Joy Knows Naught of Time” ---Dante, Paradiso, Canto X, D.L. Sayers translation a rondeau redouble Where ever-present joy knows naught of time, The music of infinity is sung In full-toned harmony and richest rhyme, In higher speech than any earthly tongue. Outside the bounds of days or...

. Villanelle for Timothy When chains of cold resentment in the end Entangle souls and circle ‘round to bind, There’s freedom in forgiveness, my dear friend. When grievance woos the wounded to offend And “justice” justified is anger blind, We’re chained in cold resentment in the end. To slay the...

. On Attending a Holiday Ensemble with My Wife We’re gathered in a colleague’s home, Invited to this performance; Watching musicians’ fingers roam, I’m taken to when providence Crossed mine with Dr. Miller’s part, He not just wakening my muse, Stirring a love of every art--- But off to concerts...

. Wisdom When young I dreamed of someday being wise, And pictured brilliant input holding sway. But via jolts of life now realize, There’s wisdom also in what you don’t say. . . No One Fully Measures Up No one lives life precisely by my standards. No one does just...

. St. Joseph's Hymn of Praise Matthew 2: 10-15: “And when the Magi were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word:...