Poetry

I. I’ve awed at the Atlantic’s bluest depths, and peered at the Pacific’s deepest blues; the warm blue summer waters of Key West, and cold blue winter on the Charles, too. I’ve watched the moon rise up above the Thames, the stars upon a Minnesota lake; I’ve seen the morning...

Lay your hand in mine dear, ___Lay your hand in mine; If you will lay your hand in mine We shall like eager, fruitful vines ___Intertwine: Then I’ll be yours ___And you’ll be mine. Place your lips to mine dear, ___Place your lips to mine; If you will place your...

Ye boundless vaults of heaven without an end, __Thy silvery fields of azure stars unfold Above the earth, and verdurous spruces bend __Toward the western halls of mellow gold; There, through their branches, amber rays illume __The resting place of an old gothic tower ____That once stood firmly rooted ‘gainst...

I Taught a Lesson to My Toes I taught a lesson to my toes, They’d overstepped the mark, Escaping time and time again From nylon prisons dark. I warned them of the consequence Should they destroy more socks - I’d bare them to the public gaze, Like prisoners in stocks....

a rondeau Cape Disappointment, battered and distressed, Besieged, beset, by brute-force waves hard-pressed As broad and deep Columbia collides With Chinook-whipped Pacific Ocean tides— Leviathans unchained, their fury unsuppressed. Above the windswept surge of trough and crest A sentinel’s cyclopic eye turns west, Revealing what the fading daylight hides; Cape...

Left to Write It isn't difficult to find __the works the masters left behind, and others too have written verse, __some for the better, some for worse. So can there still be ground to break, __and are there chances yet to take; secrets that haven't been revealed, __emotions that remain concealed?...

. Written: March 27, 2022 A Wedding Sonnet To those true cultivators of Zhen Shen Ren,* There is no common form we cannot take: The vows of love said by the finest men Know of no finer sound than what we make. We know the greatest love flows as a...

My Wife Is Clad in Cloth From Head to Foot My wife is clad in cloth from head to foot. How deep her eyes, how vast and sane her eyes. As we leave, I drink her clear brown eyes Then she walks behind me by a foot. The buggy that...

  Things shifted for them suddenly From seeing their folks in the morn To mourning their folks in the sea.   Mike Ruskovich lives in Grangeville, Idaho. He taught high school English for thirty-six years. He and his wife have four children.

Three Loves in One We've gathered Love, but only insofar As we have reaped a crop from seeds we've sown. Those hours we cherished our beloved are The most rewarding times we've ever known, Which bears a certain similarity To what occurs through strangers we behold: Each freely-given act of...

a Petrarchan sonnet Highlighting midnight across darkened skies flies the Supermoon hidden in all of its glory; though sightless and somber, a maker of stories soon reaching its perigee, near us it flies. Celestial body whose mystery lies in a facial expression now laden with quarries to whom we confess...

A Life Well Lived a rondeau A life well-lived begins and ends surrounded by the love of friends. The air breathed in and out each lung are signals that songs should be sung, for life’s a blessing God intends A person who can make amends, his honor and his name...

. https://youtu.be/9h-79BVeByw . Open Heart Surgery The best day of your life; a child is born! Start out happy, but get ready to mourn. You'll try to keep them from all of life's danger, "Don't eat that and don't talk to a stranger." You read them the same ridiculous book,...

  Riddle XXXVII From small beginnings I grow great, just keep up the heat and wait, help me become the thing I am, give me all the heat you can. Let me transform the gathered dew and I’ll transform the world for you. Tend me well from hour to hour...

Nobody came today to ask me questions, nor has anyone asked me for anything this afternoon. I have not seen a single graveyard flower In all this merry procession of lights. Forgive me, Master; how little I have died! —César Vallejo (Agape) 1918. Yesterday I heard the Catalan tongue, Some...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Venezuelan Woes by Lud Wes Caribee As Socialist experiment Venezuela sinks into far greater depths, a plunging country on the brink, Maduro, striving for an orderly recovery, has pegged the bolivar to petro cryptocurrency. He has increased the minimum wage sixty-some percent; the problem...

This villanelle is a tribute to the Rust Belt, and all the communities devastated when corporations close their American plants in pursuit of cheaper labor abroad. Where silhouetted sentinels silently stand in vain bleeding shades of layered shame on blight-lined highways below, their ghostly shadows remind us of dreams we...

  “Let glorious acts more glorious acts inspire, And catch from breast to breast the noble fire!" —The Iliad, Homer, Book V, Pope translation First Prize: $1,000   Submission Fee: None   Submit: One to three poems. All together, the poems should total 108 lines or less. The poems should...

Musical Comedy or Doggerel for Dilettantes The Sonata Like a Classical sonata, our day opens with a theme, Whether thrown from bed by thunder or lulled softy from a dream. With our breakfast comes a second theme, which contrasts with the first, And includes both toast and cereal and juice...

Canto 3 is the third canto in the sequence of the English Cantos, the first two of which are available to read on the SCP website. James Sale is attempting in this poem to emulate Dante, and this begins, initially, by descending into a modern day hell. Whilst the poem...

  Please bring the wine cuz I'm flat broke, I couldn't even buy a can of Coke. But once you smell my heart's sweet rose, you'll only wish you were all nose.   Robert Klein Engler lives in Omaha, Nebraska. He is a writer and artist. His many publications are...

in tribute to James Sale and in memory of Joe M. Ruggier (1956-2018), who first published this poem in The Eclectic Muse (December 2017) Those Thracian hordes who grabbed your garment’s hem— Were they mere slaves to Bacchus’s command? I rather think your song incited them. Your love was one...

Paradox as Explanatory Paradigm in Norman MacCaig’s ‘Summer Farm’ by Phillip Whidden   Summer Farm Straws like tame lightnings lie about the grass And hang zigzag on hedges.  Green as glass The water in the horse-trough shines. Nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines. A hen stares at...

A Question of Faith The crowd cheered on their betters’ masquerade, Emotions seethed as memes were hatched and grew; Elijah watched as Ba’al’s prophets prayed. Reporters for the 70’s news were paid To write an ice age might be overdue; The crowd cheered on their betters’ masquerade. The press says...

  I like to write, and writing's free; Liberates mind of memory. I take a chance to be creative; For daily stress, a palliative. Not modern work, you understand; A failure when I tried my hand Composing verse of latest fashion; Trending styles that leave me ashen. I like to write,...

I See a Friend I see a friend, pull up a stool to talk to this old stupid fool. Both he and I at an impasse and left upset like sharpened glass. Much wisdom spouts from this buck young as liquid warmth does loose the tongue. Our quarrel grows and...

Meaningful. Active and interesting. Strong. ___Simply not counting the days, as if stray, ______dreary, unworthy, but making them count, serve, be remembered and blest all along. ___Challenges ought to be faced on the way, ______obstacles scattered for us to surmount. We would meander through deserts at length, ___probe the abysses...

  They stood on the porch, Eyes over the land. The young and old man, Making their plans. The old man spoke out Between his long spits. Tobacco and words Spilt from his lips. “I reckon I’ll cut Those trees over there. They’re blocking the view From Grandmother’s chair. Cut...

  Exodos, Prologos to the Class of 2018 In times uncertain, ask your truest friends For counsel, and take all they say to heart— But know that we are bound for different ends, And none but you can learn and play your part. Some friend may say, “To thine own...

The silent seeds in wild wastes germinate; The gardened apple trees dripping in bloom. Creation calls and hears, each for its mate; The ice thawed and I bled — my womb has room. ____So let us do what God wants us to do, ____Let us both make someone like me...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0BeEHXjXIM   The Ghost of Phil Ochs by David Paul Behrens When you see homeless people on the street, When you see people, with no food to eat, You can thank your lucky stars, it's not you. The luck of the draw, it has pulled you through. There but for...

  Island City: Auckland I’ve grown to love this place of sea and noise Where buildings have assumed a regal poise As high they stab on sultry summer nights Daring to dim the stars above their lights. The neons flicker brazen into sky And tinselled posters twinkle at each eye...

  Ode to Cole’s “The Titan’s Goblet” O Grand Enigma! Tower of Life! Thy lofty scene ___Is but the glimpse of that eternal mystery, For in thy cup amidst the twilight’s gloaming sheen, ___There whisper softly chords of immortality, Resounding tones of universal harmony ___Which herald all the endless peace...

This poem is dedicated in memoriam to Ms. Wang Lixuan. Because she was raising awareness about the repression of peaceful Falun Dafa practitioners in communist China, she was unlawfully arrested and detained, alongside her small child. On November 7, 2000, they were both tortured to death at Tuanhe Forced Labor...

The constancy of change is to be wished; To find a partner and to settle down, To build a life, where new routines exist, To memorize her breathing, in and out. These all seem like regression to the mean, And you may think it looks boring as sin, But only...

Thank you to everyone who participated and made this a great year for rhyming riddles! —Evan Mantyk, Judge First Place ($100): Monty Phillips, France I’ve never been exactly sure How long I’ve been on this old earth; It sometimes seems it’s not much less Than Man himself has held tenure....

  Pentadactyl 5-foot dactylic poem with a truncated fifth foot on the odd-numbered lines. With apologies to Pterodactyls. Dactyls are terrible lizards that fly at the mind pounding their emphasis boldly, Jurassical pelicans dipping through breakers, the roaring of others behind, beating Tithonian wings like the rotors of helicons Such...

The Ballad of the Poor Troubadour I’m past my prime __and I’m out of time— I never made a dime from a rhyme. There ain’t much worse __than an empty purse— I suffered from the curse of the verse. I am no more __but I leave this score— The Ballad...

An earlier version of this piece was published in The Epoch Times By Evan Mantyk When Jon McNaughton released his new painting, “Crossing the Swamp,” on July 31, he probably wasn’t expecting to get as much attention as he did, including over 14,000 Twitter comments, 20,000 likes, and news coverage...

  ‘Leonardo the Great’ was a painter sublime, Never rushing to brush while to-do-lists claimed time; As commissions part-done, lay about, gathered dust, His attention distracted (to patrons' disgust). For he was a man prone to seeking precision, With theories to ponder, sfumato revision, Study of waterways, left-handed cross-hatches, Theatrics...