Beauty

Death Is the Cooling Night by Heinrich Heine Death is the cooling night, Life is the sultry day, But now darkness settles And I long for respite. Outside my window looms a tree; In it sings the young Nightingale. She sings only of Love— Even in dreams, it reaches me....

For John McCain, Ernest C. Brace, & Alexander Solzhenitsyn I season my pen with the sonnet's blood, And do not reason with a moonless sky, Thus, in durance, we hearken to the wry Whisper of words from the drifting brood Of dreams courting a wistful brotherhood; Ah, now I need...

a Petrarchan sonnet Life’s hills have been trampled since first we met, That mad, magic moment long years ago, When your smile lit fires in the candle’s glow And trapped me forever in Venus’ net. Though with time we’ve mellowed, grown peaceful, yet Your power’s still as potent. Wherever I...

  Pure of any mortal mote ___and boundless (but for sight): The deep dry sky of Autumn ___inscribes the shadows bright. (For what could dusty leaves conceal ___from such an endless eye? What crackled branch could hide the earth ___from all-consuming sky?) Replete with light, devoid of warmth: ___a strong...

  The butterfly, the sea anemone, And snowflake, though possessive of the true Design of grace and perfect symmetry, Seem crude and ugly when compared to you. The stars that line the deep, black sky like grains Of salt, the sun that ripens like a peach, The Northern Lights that...

The Coworker A “need-to-know” it’s called in Personnel and I’m just high enough to need to know she’s going through that quiet hell of watching someone’s life she loves recede. A bit more hollowed every day, a bit more bleakly by his suffering obsessed, she does her work, she types,...

Painted, woody there it stands, this door behind which kingdom fans. Bright with order, calm with ease, a wooden plank with hidden seas. A plight to pick which path is best, the fallen stairs or the door’s behest. I write to you in ink to say, take the path which...

by James Sale Wind in the Cave, Finishing Line Press, 2017 Out of Nothing, Shanti Arts Publishing, 2018 Recently in a poetry review of another poet on these pages I commented that the poet had included 33 poems in his collection and speculated whether or not that had any significance;...

. The Country Club To think about a country club Begun for whisky in a tub, Distilled from fields of golden corn In a town where I was born, For folks to gather, have a blast In golden days, in time long past. . Rushing There is no right way...

Check-Mate by a Pawn for my sons We parry, thrust: This game of wits, Where each pawn must Deflect your hits. My mounted knight Skips overhead, First back, then right; Your knight is dead. But you riposte, With bishop swift, My rook, engrossed, Forgets to shift. And then, I spot...

Sonnet for a Cosmetic Company Ah Youth! To whom each maiden plights her troth To coax and woo each winsome charm to stay ‘Tis difficult to match your coat to cloth So ill designed and irksome in its way. Synthetic paints can never reproduce The artistry of Nature’s first success...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

  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...

  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...

  ‘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...

  Why photograph a fact when you can catch A nightmare, be a Jackson Pollock or A Dalí at his Druid weirdest? Snatch A depth of fanged subconscious and then pour Some paint of guts across your canvas. Real Is boring. Ditch it. Art becomes mirage And mystic queasiness inside...

The Lord: "Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand." (Jeremiah 18:6) Swiftly He kicks the wheel, rotating steadily— Lump on bat, now pressed flat, muddy-slick clay. Spinning the shapeless mess which responds readily Letting the Master frame urn for display. Look! The...

A little baffling it's, a bit insane and funny too, this whole God-farm affair. You sow invisible seeds in ghostly plain and wait for hallowed rains through silent prayer! You wait and wait to reap the grain; but lo one season runs one long lifetime, if not few births more...