Beauty

Ode on a Children’s Cemetery Plot 1. Behind the soul-gorged cemetery ground, We discovered a plot of yet more dead, A trim, verdant patch cradled all around By a low brick wall, like a toddler’s bed. Sunken in the grassy earth, broken lines, Glossy black, marked where all the children...

When You Have Reached the Bottom By R. Lee Ubicwedas When you have hit rock bottom, you have nothing left to lose. You gain experience and wisdom that you now can use. You have a choice how to react when you have fallen down. Forced to confront the hard things,...

The Apprentice of the Dead He painted the lines of the country road. He painted the leaves: saffron and gold. He painted the canopy, round the mere, all rubicund this time of the year. He painted the trees, without any bark. He painted the swamp, pickerel-dark; the cattails, herons, the Berkshires east, the Katerskills west,...

  The warmth of daylight’s veil is cherishingly cast Upon the sacred walls of ancient Angkor Wat, Whose temple towers show grand myths from ages past, With timeless lands of gods to fading matter brought. Enthralled by its distinct yet unassuming grace, The heirs to transience, while on the sixfold...

The wind was high that horrid day. The wind blew long and high, and I heard three strange women hum-humming as they came through the harvest rye. I watched them in my childish way. I watched them with surprise, their sighs sent cold into me thrum-thrumming that day the wind...

The God Morpheus vs. The Little Baby Kuppy You'd think in such a fight - no contest To be sure - immortal gods happen not To happen, but have always been best And around to give humans their best shot. That's it - perhaps complacency, the sense That once in...

The White Stag By Bard Eucewelis I saw it long ago; so long ago it seems as if it was a dream, a white stag in the wood. Reality is ever fading through time's seams. It's odd to say so; but its sighting was so good. Although it was at...

The Golden Mean By Aedile Cwerbus Right living's hard, the ever-urgent prow pursuing storms or pressing up against life's dangers, tricky shoals and shores. The golden mean is perfect, but hard to achieve. It lies between th' abodes exciting envy and those men despise. O, oft it's pine or tower,...

A Sonnet's Beauty A sonnet’s beauty’s mostly in the planning, Not in the writing, reading, even saying. The builder knows it’s in the careful laying Of foundations ‘fore the brutal sweat of scanning He finds his glory, Xanadu, still standing. But watch, the towers' walls have started swaying, Bricks bursting,...

It’s called “the magic hour” Before the sun sinks low When everything is bathed In a warm, golden glow Colours look much richer Flowers, more velveteen And a country garden Is a haven of green The dragonflies hover As light glints on their wings Tree frogs start their chorus And...

. . Farm Air and Poplar Before the air be clearly cool, In Georgia, Monticello, see, Be one precursor of the rule, That lower heat - humidity - Be gaining ground and holding sway, Embryonic, slight and small, Be indicating potency, In Autumn, on a sunny brae. (hill) As Uncle...

Winter Smoke Winter smoke and little houses Drawing blinds against the dark The cold, the crying wind Against a stark White moon Winter smoke. Wispy phantoms Casting a ghostly veil Of patterned, ancient symbols Against a pale White moon Sweet-scented turf recalling Times more pleasingly mellow Winter smoke reaching the...

Dawn on the Shore An hour before the dawn of day, I walked beside the tranquil bay, Along the sandy shore. The air was still. The wind had ceased. The planet Venus hung in the east, In the west the moon sank lower. The tide was down, the sands outspread;...

  Your spirit’s eyes, now opened, see The timeless steps of stone ahead... Old debts weigh down your weakened knee, Each step, a human burden’s shed. While slogging up the sacred blocks, This trying but fulfilling climb Casts off the sinfully wrought locks To your soul’s roots sealed off in...

Game Over With my friend P. Modernity, We played a game of strategy. Sipping our hot cups of coffee, We spoke over a game of chess. Most of our chat was mere bs, But then the game turned serious When my friend made a move untoward: His bishop straight across...

Rare Dreams I'm looking through the window of a plane in which I've never been, nor ever will; staring beyond a wing that is not there into a sky I've never seen nor care to see again; above clouds strangely still, dropping a soft and steady soothing rain upon the...

Danger: Helping Is Forbidden By Aw "Curbside" Lee It's been a month since he's been seen— the Chinese advocate of civil rights— Li Heping. Two, believed to be police, came to his door on the 10th of July, and took him off to where nobody knows, but Communist operatives beneath...

Night and Moonlight What more can be said about the full moon that hasn’t already been said before? The queen of tides, now glaring at the shore, sits on her throne as if midnight were noon; a Janus-faced sovereign the lovers swoon, the ages measure, the rich praise, the poor...

. A trail it stumbled on a door, A doubled one, upon a floor, Some fellow just as you and me, Approached the portal now we see, And unobtrusive might have been, Except he’d shed, down to the skin, Some aspect of mundanity, He’d cast away, like vanity. O was...

The Backwards Romantic “Most of those once common occasions for poetry seem embarrassingly old fashioned now that piped-in tunes and hand-held devices provide the background music for life’s journey.” -Dana Gioia I’m prone to loathe the radio and television, noise from all angles, laptops, iPads, cell-phones— the gibber-jabber of the...

. . Arizona Midnight Strewn across the vault of ink, Runes and constellations link- ing platinum silver fiery space Unfathomed grace, untiring place. Stare until the nod of head There until the plod to bed. Featured Image: "Arizona Sunset" by Alex Izatt. . . Beneath the Rocks Waters, depth, and...

Haiku of Righteous Thought Inspired by Dafa Karma turned virtue Evil eliminated Virtue travels home Foe falls defeated Demon laughter quieted Perpetual peace Heaven earth conjoin Restoring eternity Missions completed   The Hazy Way of Shades of Grey When caught in the haze Inside shades of grey Navigate the way...

  The moon, surrounded by gray lands with floating hills and cliffs of clouds, Spreads fields of light that fade away upon the drifting misty shrouds. The lonely park in stillness waits, its blooming trees in dreams all rest, But now, a gentle breeze comes by to whisperingly greet a...

  Octave By Erisbawdle Cue There's always something going wrong the pessimistic person thinks. One moment one is going strong and then one's on the blink...and blinks. There's always something going right the optimistic person feels. One is alive; one sees the light; one gladly plays the hand fate deals....

Why did lyric poetry die? ‘Cause caterpillars cannot fly And no longer morph to butterflies Pegasus now has lost his wings To logic, not to lyric, clings Concerned solely with words’ meanings Can lyric poetry be restored? Not unless we hear the words They’ll make beauty as they find their...

  The sorrows of many pulls upon heart strings To accomp'ny angelic voices that sing Voices so sweet but pain too intense to soothe Roads traveled so rough only time's sands can smooth No chariot to ride worn feet wear no shoes Seems no choice left to make but still...

The Tears of the Gods An ancient fable tells of how the gods rose from the main Of azure deep of Ocean and all Being they surveyed How Sun he warmed the stones, how the vibrant verdure swayed How tawny bees rejoice to homeward wing with pollen’s stain. The gods...

I. Again the darkling moon is new this night, and cold deserted seas in lunar sleep lay fasting and far from the waxing light; as bright Apollo* flails the unknown deep beyond the threshold of our midnight sun, his bending rays hold back from Latmus* glade, where the shepherd waits...

  Heritage, not Hate Today I watched a group of people wait To see an emblem steeped in hate removed From its unmerited, yet hallowed place - Today we traded racist lies for truth. Today I watched the guards of honor tread, In black and white and perfect unison, To...

. . To a Brother in Paris Like Sun in the woods, or a cold Summer rain, Would trouble make goods, and loss create gain. Then bound to a Lady, and allied to Bro, With the grace of God found, wherever you go. Be wrought and be taught, as you...

Upon seeing "Louis XV of France as a Child" painted by Hyacinthe Rigaud at the Metropolitan Museum of Art   O 'tis the beauty of the art of France To reflect regal majesty in paint, To show the famous French-like pomp and prance; Such beauty history could barely taint. In...

Originally written in Chinese and appearing on Minghui.org.   Straight, dignified and unpolluted by the polluted world; They are determined to reach upwards, step by step; Quiet and humble, bamboo forests cover the mountain; A piece of bamboo, turned into a flute, sings Falun Dafa Hao*   Falun Dafa Hao...

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...