Poetry

Tipping Point In our millenium's first dozen years, they say we’re headed for a tipping point -- a disastrous sum of many fears when Nature herself will crash and disjoint. It’s not the Mayan calendar that’s cause, nor the Sun’s circumstantial alignment, but our careless consumption without pause and our...

By Julie Catherine Vigna Sonnet III:  Beginnings In bare and dusty feet she wields her broom With none save cat, and creatures of the light To break the days spent work-worn in the gloom Or twilight by the cinders, black as night Her clothes just rags, and meagre scraps for...

Carrying a Torch for Rhyme Rhyming is out, some poets say You can’t express yourself that way For when you try for perfect rhyme With metered words and rhythmic time It’s writing to a metronome You lose the essence of the poem A poem that you can understand They say,...

By Loetta Meister   Virginity Tender petals Tightly curled Make a rosebud Not unfurled Tender hearted Little girl Petals waiting To uncurl Lovely woman Perfect rose Given to the Man she chose   Spectrum I'm pink with joy green with envy, I'm blue and sad, my colors many. The spectrum...

Enough There is a God sized hole within the innermost regions of every soul. Its dark, and it is deep, its shadows are weeping with the gnashing of teeth. We try our vain restraints to fill its desires, trying to compensate things that take us higher. Vestiges fellowship, forever searching...

Chasing the Devil I’m losing sight of what I want. I’ve lost the things I need. Danger one step ahead of me, I can’t help but proceed. Why am I drawn to such a life that brings me to my knees? Where is the strength to stand up tall, Deny...

By Neal Whitman The reckoning at end of day. Upon a bench two minstrels meet to split the payment equally. The reckoning at end of day. Some beef and stout for each in play. (The old guitar is known to cheat.) The reckoning at end of day. Upon a bench...

A Cold Truth If Love can move mountains I could move the Earth My Heart as a fountain We would never thirst If your Heart were the Sun I'd never be cold Away, I would not run With you I'd grow old Alas, it's not the case I'll accept the...

Seed Pot Seed corn, broodmare, hen: Half the earth is green, half brown. Man must plan for planting in spring to live    off the land, must harvest the rain to nurture his young, must save enough grain to reap what is sown from pots shaped like cones with holes, held...

Postcard Gallery Thumbing through glossies gleaned from countless trips – Old Master paintings, drawings, and prints reduced to four-by-six impressions – we’re induced to walk through pictures. Unmoored, the mind’s eye slips through memory’s gilded frame and into halls of house museums, sets sail down chapel aisles, funiculates up hilltop...

Below is an excerpt of the last ten stanzas of Lord Byron's ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,’ published originally in the 1810s. It may be read as an ode to the ocean, or perhaps an environmental poem.   CLXXVII. Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my...

Dawn Drums They march again to war, Sniffling, shuffling, voices muffled, Through dawn's uncertain door Youth and man, rich and poor, Through campfires' smothered smokes They march again to war, From college, farm and store They carry loaded muskets Through dawn's uncertain door Damp drums tapping, four by four, Meadow...

Villanelle Vows All that is in this delightful garden grows, Should happy be, and have immortal bliss.       Edmund Spenser, Faerie Queene, st. 41 Have immortal bliss. Bride and Groom: “Dost thou?” And now you may kiss. We to bear witness two to make a vow. Have immortal bliss. Nothing...

Street Idyll Calm is she who sits in white Because the source of her delight, Wherein the street relucts to sound Its violence, is so profound. Her subtle philosophic sense Of something new and near and tense Inspires, in her concentration, Promises of stimulation. But cavalcades across the street Of...

Poetry For The Common Man No wonder poetry won’t sell, Since authors write it for themselves; And most of it would fare as well On dark and dusty warehouse shelves. Such work is crammed with metaphor, Emboldened narcissistic pap The poet world claims to adore, While others claim it makes...

Into The Mist This shadow life passing away, mute requiem of falling snow, a prayer to end the mortal day; then to a far sweet place I go: to beating wings of startled heart, not mansions grand or streets of gold, not angels wrought of worldly art, what earthly eyes...

By A. Michaelle Yarbrough The music of the crescendo plays so sweet As she moves across the floor so gracefully To a soothing gentle blossoming beat Her motion paints pictures of love lost painfully He’s just a prop to accompany in the duet A place of joy and pride stretched...

By Damian Robin In view, he made a start. Filling up his cart, He flogged his horse apart And made a mess-age: "art." With few horse hairs of doubt He fanned his ego out, Used skills of nearly "nowt," Stored bugs in sauerkraut. He keeps his heart in kind And...

HEAR the sledges with the bells -- Silver bells ! What a world of merriment their melody foretells ! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night ! While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight ; Keeping time, time,...

By Xuanzang (Translated by Lan Hua) After unstinting effort Of the human frame To reach this mountain shelter Where a few words Suddenly discovered Exceed the poetic realm In a holy sutra Inscribed in stone The spirit's music is performed In the half empty mountain air Composed In Western Paradise...

By Billy Cosby Tonight, whoever watered your fresh sky set the nozzle wide and the evening’s cheeks wear a dark blush with glimmering shoe-flies needling clouds away I hope for weeks because yours are wild stars tonight, mustangs, thousands in Olympic golds and bronzes arm-wrestling for space, enduring pains as...

(Epoch Times) - Torkom Demirjian is the president and founder of Ariadne Galleries on the Upper East Side. He has been a dealer of ancient art since 1972. Demirjian is known in his field for his sense of history, grounding in the marketplace, and aesthetic judgment. ... Epoch Times: How...

NEW YORK—News broke this week that Damien Hirst killed 9,000 butterflies to create his latest piece of warped modern art at the Tate Modern in London. Animal rights advocate PETA bashed the work saying: “Damien Hirst’s quest to be edgy is as boring as it is callous. It does not...

By Billy Cosby The Good Earth is frozen over, dogs, but you two are scalding kilns with glassy stares that beam out in stripes, striking Earth’s white cup: a mug glossy now with silver, icy cares. Um, shut down the heat, pups; let’s power down and be as embers and...

By Damian Robin On a night-lit street, an empty pizza box Staggers against a wall like thrown-off knickers. Its flat and grey insides have darker shapes of grey, Tagged serrated cheese, and snagged tomato skin. Ugly, like the marks on tortured people’s skin. Or awkward stories you may read from...

By Catherine Tufariello Their shrieks careening dizzily between Delight and outrage, the students in the yard Are playing hard, Though they have little room and nothing green In their asphalt pen.  Nothing but fences, bricks, And at regulation height, a pair of hoops From which gray loops Vestigially descend.  With...

By Evan Mantyk Gov. Mitt Romney was absolutely correct when he declared that government subsidies to PBS should be cut. But he wasn’t right because he was paying lip service to some small-government ideology espoused by Republicans. First, to be fair, here is exactly what Romney had the gall to...

By Aubrey Henderson The sweet silence evades me these long days, When I can close my eyes and hear God speak, Without words, He dissipates the dark haze, Occupying my being with the grand mystique. I never wanted to cause affliction To you or any sentient being, Yet in my...

By Michael T. Young Ice is the past tense of water, is verb condensed to noun, pure speed contracted to a stasis of glitter, a brief foam frozen in marble beads, the memories that can’t recede. It is the practice of winter habits, of hibernating inhabitants hoarding the landscape, seeds...

By Dan Skorbach The tired eyes have earned their time for resting The mind won't think and feet will move no more, And when the smallest pillow seems a blessing That's when the night is almost at your door. And as she enters, with her comes the wonders Echoing hum...

Poetry should be metered, because metered poetry is, quite simply, better than free verse.  This is for the same reason that realist art trumps impressionist art and that Baroque music trumps rock and roll and hip-hop. It is because art, in its best state, is not about the experience of...

By Chen Z'iang (Translated by Lan Hua) The orchids birthed Through spring And summer both Such luxuriant growth How can leaf Be so green Hidden and alone In the forest remote The vermillion flowers Hang from a purplish stem Slowly absorbing The light as the Daytime fades And with the...

By Robert Crawford By August I noticed the lack of care, And now in September I feel the despair; The rusting tools, the vanished rows, Reveal an all too brief affair. The hopeful beginning has come to a close As a meeting place for sinister crows And devious weeds planning...

In the picture above, a Chinese citizen writes the words "Tui Dang" (literally "Quit Party") signifying his resignation from the Chinese Communist Party. Since the publishing of the “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party” by the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times in November, 2004, Chinese people have been...

By Li Bai  (Translated by Lan Hua) In the rickety tower A hundred feet high My hands could pluck The stars from the sky I dare not speak More than a whisper For fear of disturbing The Immortals nearby   Lan Hua is a writer and translator based in New...

By Dan Skorbach If I could talk to trees and meet with mighty lions, If I could ride the winds and gain the moon’s advice, I’d ask how they command the forces of the wild, And how they see the earthly beings through their eyes. If I could climb a...

By Aubrey Henderson Reluctantly I emerged from natures Soothing womb; forsaking the assuagement Of community, for the dark lament Emanating from the hearts of strangers In a greyhound station.  Countless dangers Swarm from screens like locusts, breeding the descent Of a nation; grief and fear circumvent Reason and compassion, fueling...

By Aubrey Henderson You battle with our demons in the dark. You wake up screaming from your troubled dreams. Memories of the dark day you embarked, On a journey far from the red regime, And left your homeland burning in despair, Cloud your judgment with endless fear and hate. The...

By Evan Mantyk There is a dark and forceful urge to blame The nine-eleven terrorist attacks On religion, on security gone slack, On our country, for all that we feel shame, There’s also an opposite urge not to blame, But to throw our hands up and to step back And...

In this refashioned version of Homer’s Iliad, the mystical hero Achilles’ clashes with the doubting King Agamemnon over a woman, throwing the fate of the Trojan War, and more, into jeopardy. Click here for the Act I. By Evan Mantyk ACT II SCENE I Achilles and Patroclus sit together in...