Culture

. A Ballade to Becoming .. I. Conceptio You may have fame, be well to do, And live beneath a constant sun; You may attain all you pursue And be a friend to everyone. But, without fail, a time will come When all your efforts come to naught And all...

. The Vision of George Washington based on the story by Wesley Bradshaw, published in 1880 . I. Message Disclosed What you have heard of Washington is true. At Valley Forge, in those dark winter days, Our freedom-fighting soldiers suffered so I’d see the tears course our commander’s face. He’d...

. Cyprus  July 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the invasion of part of Cyprus by Turkey Land of my birth you’re blessed with gifts divine Of loveliness and beauty hard to find, Where Aphrodite from your sea did rise To taste the nectar of your air sublime. Cyprus, where the...

. My Vacation Trip in Verse by James A. Tweedie One of the comments in response to the recent “On the Meeting of Poets” post read: “A diary in verse. It’s original and interesting. I’d like to see more.” Since I journaled in verse that recent trip my wife and...

. Freedom of Speech vs. the NBA The CCP has raged and seethed, oh joy! Daryl Morey was not playing coy, He spoke the truth, a gun then to his head: “Fawn now! Or else your hoop dreams are all dead!” Even Ted Cruz and AOC allied; When evil rises,...

. Dementing Torture of Benign           Drugs against Malignancy His life came to its End.  Smell of the medicine Departs chillingly.                                    ---Dakotsu The faint, faint fragrance of the cancer...

. Fire Lurks I recognize, while watching ghastly nightEncircle statesmanship revoltingly,Bright bursts of a spangled pyrotechnic star.America! No star, a land’s lost light.Companions, look and say if you can seeThe common faith that made us what we are. You patriots intrepid, rise and tryTo tell what blasts your households must...

. The Trail of Hate Amid the upbeat crowd a sudden blast Of noise arose like fireworks kissing skies. Fallacious musings struck then swiftly passed When crimson dripped before the saucer eyes Of those who saw the bullet-bitten ear Of Trump who dodged then dipped down to the ground As...

. Storming the Bastille from eyewitness accounts July the twelfth, the City of Light was filled With brigands bought by dimes and dismal speech; How cheap to buy a riot in this heat— Yet hard to rouse Parisians so soft-willed. Louts rant of bread withheld, but within reach, Shout massacre...

. Gunfight at the Oatcake Corral There’s an old English town known as Fargo, In the dark, rugged hills of the west. Where they say, there was many a gunfight, But this one was one of the best. Old Homity was the Town Sheriff, A man to be trusted and...

. A Town The difficulty of describing how This town was then, may only be because So little happened there, compared to now, Though what occurred (the bustle and the buzz) Filled every room in each small house and more To overflowing with the acts of people Engaged in vicious...

. The Red Carpet There's nothing left to tease imagination When so-called starlets, vying for attention, Sashay the carpet practically nude; And you don't have to be a total prude To know when something isn’t right. Here You have these women wearing "dresses" sheer Enough to clearly see their breast...

. The Expert Class “Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see” ---Benjamin Franklin The experts with professorships are filled with such great certainty. They warn us that the point that tips our world into catastrophe, is right around the corner and, though they have erred...

. Houses Made of Stone Masvingo, southern Africa’s the place; a backwater, land tired and over-farmed, where army ants cut underbrush and race trimmed morsels to their hills. The air becalmed and hot as Hades. Here a ruin lies called Great Zimbabwe; houses made of stone ‘Zimbabwe’ means in English;...

. Promises Made, Promises Kept... Give Me a Break! We know, because they promise us their virtuous intent when allocating funds is always currency well spent That supersedes all arguments of basic common sense— despite the fact the cost accrued for every buck they print Adds, of course, another layer...

. The Lord of His Castle Setting: King Stephen’s siege of Newbury Castle, England during the English civil war known as “The Anarchy.” The year is 1152 A.D. Strategic though this castle is to me I would we had avoided Newbury Where I have been outwitted and outmanned. John Marshall!...

. A Hurricane by Any Other Name... The lights went out in Mexico today. A fury hit Cancun with no remorse. With death upon her breath, she makes her way To Lone Star shores. She's on a fiendish course. The Yucatan sapped ire from her eye And now she's sucking...

. It Goes Without Saying "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." ---the Declaration of Independence Self-evident truths were once taught in...

. . Battle Hymn of the Republic The Lord doth come; the grapes of wrath are crushed! Behold His fiery sword of Victory. He heartens those whose voices have been hushed To loudly shout our rage: “We shall be free!” America, rise up! Look to the light. Sing Glory Hallelujah,...

. American Dream Where Did You Go? American dream, where did you go? Visions grand that I loved so? Land of opportunity Heading toward disunity. Politics that once were regal Neuter the American eagle. Merit thrown out of the window Makes of us a sickly widow, Ignoring all the present...

. Miss Jewell’s Suicide ---from a story by George Gissing The chipped and mismatched crockery,Two boiled eggs and tepid tea,A single slice of buttered toastWith marmalade—a dab at most—And oatmeal porridge barely warm:Such is breakfast’s pallid normHere in a low-rent boarding houseWhere lodgers live sans friend or spouse. Miss Jewell...

. Ba’al "And they built the high places of Ba'al to burn their children with fire as burnt offerings to Ba'al, which I did not command, neither did I speak nor did it enter My mind." — Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) 19:5   "Destroy another fetus now We don't like children anyhow"...

. Elder Abuse What’s left to us to say? There’ll be no more debates. We know the truth now. Biden is not there--- The president of the United States: A man lost in a blank and vacant stare. They hid this old, frail man away with lies. They sneered and...

.  Soulmate Your spouse ideally is your best friend,Providing love and laughter end to end,Supporting and enhancing all day through,But still at times your soulmate must be you. . . Ultimate Question Some things are unforeseen, unique, and new,Arising like unprecedented seasons.Which prompts the question as they’re all thought through...

. The Pink of Gentle Hermione and White of John Paul II The lodger pauses, as he leaves, to gaze At blossoms in the border at the front— The blooms of roses, saintlike pink—appraise Them as a Monday man might dare confront Such sacredness, such pilgrim pink, and try To...

. Again Sir Charles Hallé plays Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata for Henri–Montan Berton and Luigi Cherubini, Paris, ca. 1835 The two composers sat at rapt attention,listening to Beethoven’s “Appassionata,”and when Hallé had struck the final chord,a moment’s silence ended with “Again.”Hallé obliged, repeating the entiresonata while his listeners’ ears and minds    attended...

. Rending the Night Remembering My Army Service in Vietnam . Flying bullets rend the night, Sleeping birds in instant flight. See the darkness glowing bright. Sleeping soldiers wake in fright. Targets outlined on the screen, Infrared shows moving green, Men in motion flee the scene, Bombs devour those unseen,...

. Spanish Moss A thicket hides the remnants of a grange, An antebellum place of ghosts and rue--- A gothic ruin---tropical and strange Which even egrets shun. The faintest clue Of why is whispered when the trade wind moans Of shadowed secrets from this voiceless void Of cotton grown from...

. Memento Belli _My father had mementoes of the war; _he kept them in a box above his clothes, _where also hung a uniform he wore _when he was someone in that time ago _till trauma came, caused by the weight he bore from carnage, chaos, unrelenting noise and such—...

. The Plagiarising Poet A young lad sat in class—geography— Bored and in a peaceful reverie. The school bell blared, the teach showed indignation, “The bell does not free you!” she yelled in frustration. “You’ve homework that I need you to complete: Some verse on lands that host the parakeets;...

. Reward for How You Live from Italo Calvino’s Italian folktale “Gesù e San Pietro in Friuli” One night, while traveling on a mountain road, two wanderers came upon a small abode. The vagrants, Jesus and Saint Peter, knocked. The house’s occupant then came, unlocked the door, and opened it...

. Some Words to Catholics about Bergoglio God only knows what’s left to say— Most Catholics drift from day to day, Like refugees in war or flood, Half-starved, or weltering in blood From wounds that fester with gangrene. Our stomachs turn with what we’ve seen And heard from stupid clowns...

. Periodicity Springfield, Illinois, May-June 2024 All our town has caught cicada fever. Seven broods emerge, the selfsame time. This fluke converts me to an awed believer in nature's odd propensity to rhyme. So curious, insect cycles intersect like a comet's rare traverse across our sun. Last seen 1803, this...

. Sidetracked Life’s troubles come in all varieties,From nagging aches that barely raise a frown,To fearsome packs of deep anxietiesThat, given half a chance, will drag us down. Much worse is when assaults get physical,Break bones, tear muscles, even puncture skin.Expressions on good days turn quizzical;On bad days our complaints...

. Home Run Oh my God the play we made, And, really quite efficiently. We had two billion pawns we’d played, Lost sixty million… two or three. It’s almost none, percentage wise. Well worth the effort---gains obscene! And Post-war, what a nice surprise, These small wars keep us in the...

. Ozymandias after Percy Bysshe Shelley More solitary than an orphan’s reachThat vigil, that the shifting peaks repel,A site of none left even to beseech---Less ruthless now, where only fragments dwellNor murmur but the wind’s “iconoclast”…       IMPERIUM itself before it fell. A calm within his silence as it passedAs in most...

. I Hear the Distant Thunder I hear the distant thunder rolling__Across the nighttime sky.Incendiary lightning strikes__Of fire are drawing nigh.If I can keep on writing, it__May be by candlelight.I must prepare for darkness black__On this sad stormy night. The heavy hail is hitting now__Upon my window pane.High winds are...

. . Driven from Their Homes Deported and despised. Compelled to leave. 900,000 driven from their homes With pain enough to fill one-million tomes--- And yet they are forgotten. Will none grieve? . Morocco, Egypt and Afghanistan Iran, Iraq, Tunisia and others Expelled them with a racist hate that smothers...

. The Universal Horoscope and Zodiac Twelve figures in the blazoned zodiac Set by the gods in their unchanging track Spin in a regulated, yearly round Until an infant’s primal, wailing sound Puts an end to labor’s strained dilation. Transparencies of detail, implication Refract to a single jewel: this hour,...

. In Spring 2024, UK poets Jeff Eardley and Peter Hartley crossed paths with American poets James A. Tweedie and Margaret coats in England. . . The Day That I Met Jim by Jeff Eardley The rain was horizontal on this English summer’s day. He’d flown in from Seattle and...