Beauty

  In Frenchman bay, near Otter Point, the sea Against an ancient rock comes crashing down. This grey-clad cliff protrudes its stony knee Into the swirling surf, with horny crown. Sometimes the thundering waves foam violently Atop this shelf, its face to thus obscure. Sometimes the water withdraws most reverently...

The New Year The fields stretch out, bare, icy: __Wide, blank, yet-unetched slates, Tabulae rasae, waiting __The chisel of the Fates, But deep beneath their starkness __A mighty force has stirred, The germ of the becoming, __Unknown, unseen, unheard. Its course is set in motion __That none may stop or...

  I am the raging tempest tossed upon the fretful sea; you are the calm and quiet gale that steadies me. And yet I am the raging sea as well as all its roar; and you are even, still, the sure that calms the shore. And I am blackened night...

  The sun sinks deep into the hill Behind the town that perches still. An amber fog prowls through the street Of cobbled stone and stonewashed chill. Dark navy night skies come compete With primrose twilight in retreat. The fog’s her shroud, her wedding veil, For wedding nightfall in defeat....

  Moth, Angel of the Night Emerging from a rich cocoon, you shed off your old husk– with legs outstretched and wings unfurled, you head out in the dusk. O harbinger of sunsets-- O twilight angel true! The time has come for you to fly out in the midnight blue!...

Surveillance, Twenty Twenty I never thought I'd live to see my TV looking back at me!     One Nation, Divisible How long have I heard about ______their lies? How they weaponize and ______polarize? How they demonize and ______patronize? How quickly now I can ______recognize And how very much I...

  It seems the art world all but missed the dart Hurled ‘cross the continent when Hassel Smith Called Jackson Pollock’s paintings “restaurant art”; Or else it put it out of mind forthwith. We learn, “It’s not that Pollock dripped, but how.” How patrons prize his mast’ry of technique— The...

Cumæan  Below, beyond the tiles now cave’d down, Up from the rubbled earth arose a sound Shrieking in a pitch strung to sting the ear, Some spirit of a hag command I hear Of the low, ruined place that was her home, The Force, the Glory, the Empire, Rome. “Scan...

Bees Are Spectacular When people talk of “bees” it well could mean Two things: the sum of separate insects or A colony—some workers and a queen— A score of several thousand bees or more. In some important ways they are the same: Each single bee acts like its colony; The...

On the occasion of New Year's Day 2020, two poems by Damian Robin, a writer and editor living in the United Kingdom.

  ‘Tis late now in the balmy eve, without the slightest stir, When lighter than a hot balloon cuts through the humid air Such light through dusk that becks the dawn like some dry burning fir, Streams freely, past high up the noir chalkboard, from rockets’ glare. Mock lightning sparks,...

  Three Hundred Spartans In twilight’s ash three hundred stars await As blue-black thunder roars with battle drums, Three hundred voices murmuring of fate, As odds and armour stack in fearful sums. Oh watch, my brother, watch your patient steel, And wield it knowing valor keeps you strong, And feel,...

One Last Candle The angry storm approaches in the night, Its curdling howl is heard for miles around. The trees all flinch in fear of nature's smite, Then cast their sobbing leaves upon the ground. No soul dare venture out to face the storm, For nature's wrath is not so...

Palimpsest ...written in their hearts... Romans 2.15 We try, but cannot fully scrape away those ancient words engraved upon the soul. We would instead compose upon the scroll of our morality that which today appeals, although we understand that too will overwritten be at some point soon enough. Whatever pleasing,...

Come to Bethlehem / Silent Night   Song and Poem by James A. Tweedie Come to Bethlehem, come and see God stripped bare of majesty. Fragile as a flower; Emptied of might and power; Come to set God’s people free. Jesus Christ is born. Born into a family. Died upon...

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA_UsvwgdQ8 Our nakedness was swaddled by the night, With Eden’s worn-out dust our feet were shod, When heaven opened and a being of light Announced that earth had just received its God. And we beheld what angels had foretold: The Patriarch, the Virgin, and the Child. The barn was...

The Feast of the Nativity ‘Twas the night before a brilliant star They roam the desert near and far, When they happen upon the city of light The City of David in all her might. Greeted, they are, from here and from there, Yet nowhere to lay their heads so...

Carol They come slowly—loiter, you might say, Some with olive oil splashed on their bums, Others with enormous crooked thumbs, All full of holes like sculptures on display. Broads… up to their elbows in sweet cake; Widows…clad in blizzards of mock snow; Ladies… so thin that their skeletons glow; Tarts…with...

by James Sale Alessio Zanelli is a fascinating poet, and probably a fascinating man as well. This is his sixth collection of poems and part of his well-publicised and unique charm is that he is an Italian who writes creatively in the English language. This is an extraordinarily difficult thing...

  For many, the gifts are the be-all and end-all: the big screen, the tablet, the Barbie and Ken doll. For me, gifts I get are like ice in the sun. I cannot recall them. No, not even one. How did I find a true way to remember the import...

Sara's Prayer* Take me beyond all thought and word, where only beauty can be heard. Then silently, before Your throne, I'll dance, Dear Lord, for You alone.   Claire* She dances like a flowing vine that has the most exquisite line drawn by the hand of the Divine on this...

  Cradled in my country’s corn-rich plains, North of the river, good and fertile land, There is a certain wood, that, when it rains, Exhales a breath of life not meant for man. That wood has given mouth-to-mouth to me. A certain path meanders through the trees, Soliciting and shameless...

Childhood Conjugation Our mother tongue’s a mile-long smorgasbord where children eat for free. With giggling ease they wolf down words that grown-ups can’t afford and guzzle grammar like soft strings of peas. One day I told my three-year-oldish kid the hour had come to clear her breakfast plate. “I amn’t...

The Lonely Ghost Speaks Each night, upon the creaking stairs My footfalls make no sound As, sad and slow, I climb with no Connection to the ground. Each day, I walk incessantly through every room and hall, But like the air, my presence there Is noticed not at all. For...

  The Winter of Our Contentment Without the winter there would be no spring, No snowdrops, crocus, scilla, daffodils, Or any other bulbs that need deep chills To send up flowers. Almost anything Would be preferred to missing these bright blooms, And so it is, we dream the reindeer hoof...

Intruders Beware If you but knew what weakness lies concealed Within this adamantine outer shell— What woes, what worries I'm too proud to tell; If you but once should tiptoe past this shield, Sidestep the anger I so fiercely wield In my defense; if you should break the spell, Subdue...

An Aussie Christmas That joyous time has come to pass When summer’s heat warms man and beast, And wheaten fields burnt burnished brass Cannot compare, not in the least, With star of gold upon the tree— A pointer to Epiphany. Excited children wake and run To take delight at gifts...

Hating Life after Ecclesiastes 2 Within my heart I said, “Come now, and I will test your soul with mirth.” For surely, so I thought, the man who would be wise must try out every pleasure, so that he can know all sides of life. But this was vanity. I...

  In Canto 8 the poet and Dante, accompanying him, encounter the next-door neighbour, Peter, who brutally murdered his wife for money. Escaping from there, they enter a lower hell where they are about to meet a famous Western political mass-murderer of the C21st who is forever condemned for his...

’Twas the Night Before Christmas ’Twas the night before Christmas and all through the malls there was widespread confusion and hot, frenzied brawls. Many shoppers were wanting the same bloomin’ gifts. Desperation resulted in feud-level rifts. There were four grandmas fighting for one preschool game. Their ferocity made angry pit...

. Rosemary, Cypress, Cedar, and Pine Rosemary and Cypress, and Cedar and Pine, Green waxen needles and skin of like kind, Deciduous Cypress asleep in the cold, Like Cedar, a hardwood to build a stronghold. Rosemary and Pine are the two you can eat, Her needles, plus garlic make butter...

Morning in England Morning in England: web and dew. The county matters not in name, nor distant city hid from view, for this is Albion in her fame; Who—whether solitary lane, or verge astride the emerald rows, transplants herself from northern rain to southern downs—the whole land knows. Such land...

  Rain, lapping at the windows fast, falls cold and ceaseless, painting lines of marble on the silvered glass while clouds cast dark and thunder whines; but these walls will not let it pass and through a cloud-gap sunlight shines. I watch it from the darkened room, for I am...

  My Adventskalender in Germany made Of paper and glitter has Heaven displayed Through twenty-four windows. Come open with me Each miniature vision of things heavenly. Behind the first window are rabbits who dance. The second, a glittering snowflake enchants, And third, there’s a cat lying down with a mouse...

  Perhaps the color of your world was dun, And you sank in your couch when work was done, To calculate injustice, add the sum, Saw all was brown, but rays of silver light Which sent you out to locate evil, fight. You were a fighter with a dark, harsh...

  There lies a way to heaven by that lake. My sickness gone, I fear no chilly mist; A redwing calls me, dawn is now awake, The fragrant autumn air I can’t resist. There is my home far from this cottage small, Where honeysuckles with gold aspens mate, And purple...

  From cradle to the grave, From womb to musty tomb, The sanity I crave Is in a dining room With family gathered there: Thanksgiving, on a chill November day—no tare Subtracted, if good will Shall draw us ever close. Libations may besot, Yet rare the overdose Where blessings are...

  There Is a River There is a river that I know that flows through quiet meadowland Nearby a row of cottages which by a levee quaintly stand. I saw that river long ago, when one day, to amuse myself I built a jigsaw puzzle which my parents kept upon...

The Plight of Animals The plight of animals, how must it be Ordained thus, either by a just God or A merciful? By nature meek and poor, They have no hopes, no future can they see And all they own their living now as we. No retrospect, their past is...

  As I was strolling in a glade of green And paid but little thought to anything, I hardly knew what vistas filled the scene Of birds intensely hast’ning on the wing. What forceful aim possessed them, but not me, In migratory flight with purpose clear, Whereas my thoughts were...