Beauty

Your steps, unequal, hasten, departing from the race Where dust’s all that’s awarded, where just the fit survive, Pursuing trifles, anguished, forgetful of life’s grace. The farther from this downslide, the more you feel alive. Inside the concert hall now, in dimness calm you dive, The yearning for competing is...

Tanka By Ue "Bird Claws" Ee In dim morning light, attracting mates, warning males, dawn's choir's singing— liquid-silver jingling— nature's alarm clock...ringing.   On a Piece of Johannes Brahms By Ewald E. Eisbruc Hungarian Dance Number 5 in F# Minor was not a traditional folksong, but based on the csárdás,...

Creativity Requires a Cave (an Apology for Form and Rhyme) IMAGINE Gretzky “trapped” behind the crease; or Pelé, deking, swarmed before the net; Odysseus before he dons the fleece; or Jordan, bodied, ere he stops to set... It’s in tight spaces, when one is constrained, when one is challenged, tangled, forced...

Winterberry disrupts the frozen curse. My vision's charmed by tiny blobs of red Between fine-toothed leaves, above a thick bed Of snow that baits low branches to immerse In mounds, but they refute its chill or worse, Cold's inference that matter should be dead Or trapped indoors. This brave bush...

The Inward Light Be proof against the eye and ear And every sense that stultifies The inward light, supreme, austere, The keenly sharp, the keenly clear, That by the lucent beam it darts Illuminates the deepest hearts.   Sonnet on Discernment All varied lengths and waves are there:  The ear...

The Cherry Blooms in Central Park In Central Park the cherries now Are hung with blooms along the slough, And stand around the reservoir, Pink and white Spring avatars. Now of my three-score years and ten I’ve outlived many better men; I’m over-the average hill by five.... I wonder why...

  How Long the Night Anonymous Old English Lyric, circa early 13th century AD Loose translation by Michael R. Burch It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts with the mild pheasants' song ... but now I feel the northern wind's blast— its severe weather strong. Alas! Alas! This night...

Submerged in blinding red and blue at dawn, I climb the barren fields to find between the gentle tides of crying clouds, where spawn the highest peak of world in mist unseen. I leap across the steps where fallen sweat will glide and fill the throat of void abyss. By...

. . Bay from Berkeley Slate blue blustered inland sea Water from the rivers be Sea of salt and rain ashore Many waters, oceans roar. Slate green gusted inland sea Berkeley roof, fraternity Rising sun to light and warm Morning of a coming storm. White cap tufted inland sea Windy...

  Through sandy, muddy, rocky creek, Silted, crudded, hard to speak, My heart was heavy, worn, and cramped, I needed someplace I could camp. Nature spoke, I took the chance To venture out with shield and lance A trek that took me into night Parched and filthy, sworn to fight...

The First Day of Spring The first day of spring started rainy and cold, But new greens were sprouting, defiant and bold, And daffodils nodded their bright heads of gold, To make the day not quite as dreary. As I, winter-weary, looked out though the glass And wondered if ever...

  Lines Composed in the Adirondack Mountains THERE’S a little town nestled in the hills, with an old house I call by that town's name; with husks of flies in the chipped window-sills, a metal roof which sheds the snow and rain. I don't even know the address number: Let me pretend that I...

"Orange Persimmons" is a Haiku. "Released" is an American Cinquain, and "Forever Wearing White" is a Tanka about how the Falun Dafa are being tortured and buried in snow at re-education facilities in China.   Orange Persimmons orange persimmons red apples and pumpkin spice snow is coming soon   Released...

As I was flying high and looking down    the lonely regent of my tiny crown in one-dimension’s cold and breath-thin air    anxiously intent on prey down there I’d had enough of limit’s lonely plains    the flat dimensions where my kingdom reigns the mumbled tastes and smells I’d feel and ‘see’...

  The Goddess I. Black breeze On white foam hands Held high, lifting freedom: Shinning fast Her people’s torch in His eyes. II. Thunder Rolling on dawn-- Tanks over Her hands break; Her people shattered in the square Long gone.   When Man First Looked Through a Telescope A pin-burst...

I dreamt I saw him in the queue, A friend I thought had long since died; But we embraced so warmly then; It seemed a dream we’d been apart. And looking at him, then I knew Some different spirit was his guide; Before, as living, false as men, He’d never...

  Salazar Sneed Salazar Sneed was a man of great need Who traded holey shoes for a pocket of beads. With the beads he then went to the market and bought A pancake pan that was cast iron wrought. The pan he then gave with a wink and a smile...

  One Summer Day An allusion to Beethoven While walking through the woods one summer day, he glanced along a river, clear and bright, saw bubbling notes like dappled fish at play, and dashed them off that night by candlelight. Meandering down coniferous-scented trails where chickadees and tree frogs made...

  The River Wye Your stroll beside the stream has stayed with me, Has left me in my loneliness with strength Enough to face the world, to somehow see Within its depth and width and wandering length The Truth that Keats and Coleridge saw with eyes Romantic yet as real...

Goodbye, sweet fetal child— for you shall die, Because a mother’s love is also dead: The hallowed place of nurture where you lie Shall soon become the ground where blood is shed. The battle to reject the womanly, Or motherly, for ‘me, myself and I’ Shall forfeit noble care of...

Thoughts after Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) By Bud "Weasel" Rice Everywhere curious, articulate, perfect and inimitable ... nature does ... leave a space for the soul to climb above her steepest summits. As, in her own dominion, she swells from herring to leviathan, from the shelly hodmandod to th' elephant, to...

  Fog in the Valley The fog flows down like a flock of pale gulls and the valley of my home disappears. In seconds, stuff engulfs us. Each sense dulls; cold soggy cotton fills our eyes and ears. And where now is Man’s brilliance and pride? Nature in a moment...

  Winter Storm Watch The sky is still; no flakes appear and yet we know that they will come. Held hostage by our doubts and fears we beat out warnings on our drums. We know, for sure, the flakes will come; we may be buried to our ears or slip...

Observations both Literal and Inferred on The Course of Empire, 1833-36, by Thomas Cole   The Savage State THE foreground is dark, sublime, and savage. Storm-clouds roll up towards the right. The ledge reflects the setting or the rising sun. The turquoise waters crash; the storm's not done. One bounding...

O Thou Fount of Joy, I Praise Thee In my dark night He brought His joy    by an ancient melody. I was young then, did not know that    what He taught me by degree was a way to remain with Him    when the storms of each new year gathered o’erhead...

  Sonnet on the Death of a Friend Throughout our lives we have the love of some Our family, our friends , the special ones Who help us deal with problems as they come And share our joys and sorrow as life runs But one by one they leave, the...

They gathered softly in a field for many miles around to taste in haste the flowers before showers tumbled down upon the clover blooms, the goldenrod, thistles and grasses; never in one place too long as hungry blackbird passes. An undulating wave of black and orange fills the skies. Silent...

  I Saw a Giant Train by Red Was Iceblue I saw a giant train come out of blue and purple light, the colours of its cars, red, yellow, orange, black and white. It seemed gargantuan and powerful, a forceful shape, about to take the World on in one horrendous...

  The Shore Forever lost in the ocean the water seeps into my chest I’ve lost myself in the motion let the fish swim beneath my breast And yet each time I’m pulled under the sun too far to touch my face never does my body sunder and crumple in...

Rose Window Firs at sunset cast golden geometries As myriad needles swarm like bees And burst into sun-kindled flame – A rose window without its frame.   Falun Dafa Fingers curved like willow stems, Dancers bow before killers’ blows, Soldiers whose helmets bear red stars Soldiers whose eyes rage red...

  Where Can I Find You? A girl, with hair the colour of honey, giggled while she chased a little bunny through fields of golden hay and black cherries. Suddenly she stopped and asked a fairy, “Beauty, you only appear to a few. When you’re not with me, where can...

  Vessel No one can insure candlelight; its flame Precisely burns in flickering waves of gas, Ingesting oxygen while fibers pass Through burning into soot, and feel no shame. A stroke of pen or brush behaves the same When we regard them steadily: the mass Remains inert like painted prairie...

The nightingale flutters on its wings And lighting on a branch he sings Voices the song of his spirit Brings joy to all that hear it With pen and paper in my hand I listen to my heart’s command I hope that someday I can be Like the nightingale flying...

Life's Golden Key Like the sparrow, robin and crow sharing in a concrete birdbath, mortals require kindness to grow, pleasantly exploring life's path. Each gifted day, time is borrowed to search and find life's golden key. Somewhere, in dark depths of sorrow, glows kindness for eager hearts to see. On...

In the Shadow of a Mountain In the shadow of a mountain lies a valley, lies my home swaddled by the earth’s embrace in sweet repose – a state of grace in the shadow of a mountain in a valley, in my home where I am blind to turquoise skies...

  Shadow of the Laogai In the Laogai’s shadow, the ghosts of China stir, Unseen by dreaming eyes as golden currents blow Across the sea. Our compassion seems to falter In the Laogai’s shadow. As the Red rope tightens, prices fall like Harbin snow Upon the Western coast. What need...

  The Day the Persecution Began "The year is 1999, July, A king of terror would come from the sky,” The Frenchman Nostradamus prophesized Indeed, the red dragon in China flies. It covers all in its violent shadow, Into detention centers it throws The practitioners of Falun Dafa, The hardworking...

He Kept On By Erisbawdle Cue He kept on striving to attain an ideality connected to the good, but grounded in reality. He kept on working to achieve perfection in the act, pragmatism on the run with satisfaction's fact. He kept on pressing to combine both ecstasy and truth, to...

Just a Dream I. You vowed to descend to the world below, In an agreement that was made. To the mortal world others dared not go, Yet what would happen if you stayed? A promise to save sentient beings, Empowered your hesitant heart. Your compassion for all living things, Made...

Tares in the Wheat "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God,” Luke 9:62 “The sun will burn; the heat will cause you sweat; Dust will choke before the sun is set,” Michael Curtis, -“Novice”- When I recall various seeds...