Culture

  Faust Foresees His End Now, as holy darkness falls And curfew reigns within the walls, To each gatehouse troops a guard. Behind their doorways locked and barred, Where warm domestic shadows creep Men take themselves to honest sleep. The wakeman sets off on his rounds; Down cobbled ways his...

  The Pinnacle of Poetry Well under one percent acceptance rate, Submitters wait a year to learn their fate. Yet some who scope its pages think they see The naked emperor of poetry.     Absence of Consequences The world is replete now with scammers and thieves, Endless crimes---and the...

  Poem 1 by Sappho (circa 630-570 B.C.) translated from Greek by Bruce Phenix Immortal Aphrodite, richly throned, wile-weaving child of Zeus, receive my prayer: do not, my mistress, overwhelm my heart ___with pain or care, but come here, if at any other time you heard me, at a distance,...

  Look Away “Look away, across the fabled sea,” Our fathers cried, with voices loud and clear, There’s a place awaiting you and me, And all who’d live in hope and not in fear. “Look away” from servitude and chains, From tyrant greed and realms of dark decay, There’s a...

  Sunday Morning in Canada By all accounts he was a thoroughly Unpleasant man. His wife divorced him and His children held him in contempt. Once he Got ill his son would finally shake his hand. On Sunday doctors then will coalesce And grant the man his sorry fate, While...

  Bean I found you in a shelter, cold and wet, your dark, expressive eyes fixed on my own. They told of yearnings unfulfilled as yet; I knew without a doubt I'd bring you home. You snuggled close, my wool coat wrapped within; The start of many happy years with...

  The Gravedigger I garden to acquaint myself with graves. Accompanying death with every turn, my spade exhumes pharaonic tombs, engraved by earthworms’ hieroglyphic gnaw and churn. I learn the scrawl that’s written on old bones, trace epitaphs inscribed with mold. I read the spider-weave in leaves. My trowel groans...

  When Asked: “What’s Your Favorite Season?”   ---a villanelle I can’t decide which season I like best; they all have hallmarks that I love—can’t pick. Whichever time of year I’m truly blessed. There’s spring, when birds begin to build their nests, and all can once more go out for...

  The Perpetual Battle   I From Arad north to Hazor acrid smoke Rose from each cyclopean citadel Of Canaan---altar-fires gelt priests would stoke To burn the blood of children slain to quell The unrelenting, gluttonous demand Of Baal and Moloch, snarling lords of hell--- Till others at another God’s...

  At the No-Win Inn The room for error is across the hall, Between the storage bin for grave mistakes And padlocked doors to closet space where all The skeletons are kept. The rattlesnakes Are on the floor below, along with ranks Of spiders, scorpions, and rabid skunks. Piranhas wait...

  When the Phone Rings I can’t still be excited when the phone rings, I was for decades, but no longer am. The joy of wondering just who that sound brings, Has been replaced by likelihood it’s spam.     Two Types of Talkers Of those who tend to talk...

  The Poet's Plight I sit at dusk and bear the scorn, sarcastic talk Of friends, and brood upon the metric skills of mine; They praise their sugar coated art as deep, refined— So smooth, concise, unbound by rules to fall in line While poets lie forgotten under hoary rhyme;...

  Forest Fire Fantasy ---a trenta-sei The smoke from summer fires filled the air, A lightning storm had been the cause of most. Entire forests went up like a flare As ecosystems were turned into toast. To fight the flames came men with skill and pluck, With air support and...

  An Excerpt Get up and amble through the city of the massacre, then lock your eyes, and, with your hands, touch what you’re passing there, the clots of blood upon cooled brains, dried on tree trunks and rocks. Go to the ruins, gaping breaches, fences, hearths and walks. All...

  Murder at the Stocker Mansion A Poetic Noir Whodunit   ---San Francisco. 1948. 1. Prologue The Stocker mansion sits upon a cliff Which overlooks a rocky, wave-tossed shore; Victorian---and derelict as sin. Within the parlor---could there be a whiff Of something sharp which wasn’t there before? A touch of...

  Barabbas They named their chosen one and set him free. They picked a thug who reeked of others’ blood. He bore the stain their wayward hearts could see--- Familiar ground might serve some greater good. They knew the cutthroat path the rebel took, The street where shadows veiled each...

  Out of the Box Round and round the mulberry bush The monkey chased the weasel. The monkey thought ‘twas all in fun, “Pop!” goes the weasel. ---Children’s traditional Around and around and around she goes… But where she stops nobody knows. Our life is a gamble created by chance;...

  Who Do You Think You Are? You don’t know me, nor do you know my friend. You’re ignorant of us---yet you intend To write to her, purporting to be me? No, I don’t want your “help”---I’ll never send A phony letter. You don’t understand (Why am I calling you...

  Unexploited Providence “Why am I here?” I was afraid to ask, While walking—half asleep—this land of wonders. So, stumbling on, I took myself to task And totted up my many glaring blunders. Creation offered me its very best To satisfy my least advertent leaning, But tendencies of wastrels never...

  Pigeonholed The box they shove her in is small and dark. It skews all views and leaves her little space For launching thoughts that rise with daybreak’s lark. Dawn’s rays no longer shine upon her face. They say this box is where her ilk belongs – It helps the...

  Leicester Square Concert —A true story. Note: Leicester is pronounced “Lester” I traveled to an intel brief _Convened in London town. The Pentagon had ordered me _(Through Army Staff renowned). Invited by the British branch _Of their intelligence, I roamed the halls of Whitehall first _—Two hours in advance....

  By the Waters of Babylon All faces are foreign here, all streets unknown, and even the sun seems like an alien star, darker and redder than a homesick eye. One hundred miles, ten thousand miles, how far is far away? Laptop and telephone pretend to bridge all distances, but...

  How Septuagenarian’s Cope Past seventy. Age does prevail. _The day is growing dim. I’ve managed through life’s calms and gales— I still can trapse through woodland trails _And work out at a gym. Past seventy. Age does assail. _Our grandkids prove time zooms! Their one-track minds never derail: Just...

  Replication and Cessation Your parents had four children, grand-kids eight. But as for great-grandchildren, they’ll have none. How could this come to be? Was it just Fate? Why would Nature, History, Civilization Choose this hour to forsake this life, love, thought? But who can blame the grand-kids? We’d have...

  https://youtu.be/G9FpJcfCcGw     Back or Bottom? “Your back or bottom?” Dowdy grabbed the switch, a riding whip, from off its rusty hitch that hung upon the wooden schoolhouse wall— a dangling deterrent for them all. “Macree, up front!” the teacher said with joy. Then, inching forward, crept a red-haired...

  Re-shifting in Reverse Alas, I fear the world has fallen prey To well-conceived and ill-intended evil; An armageddon; shattered Tao; decay; A shadow play, primeval, medieval. Society re-shifting in reverse Where anarchy is called democracy. An AI rule-of-lawless-universe; The vanguard of a new plutocracy. For hidden deep behind the...

  The Face At night, surreptitiously, it emerges out of the TV screen, or when the light bulb's put to rest, its wave of horror surges from darkened corners, weakening my sight. It foams up in the bathing tub, assails my morning mind that's fairly free of thoughts. It smirks...

  Snow Foe I’m rather certain snow falls for a reason, Like adding charm to wintertime’s cold season. But after many years of getting pelted, My favorite type of snow is when it’s melted.     A Few Seconds More If there could be one thing about myself that I’d...

  Fireship ---August 7, 1588. The English Channel. Since William’s conquest England has not faced Such danger of defeat---so dire a maze It calls for setting our own ships ablaze. I’ve stowed away, a naval pyre embraced, To steer this burning ship to ram El Rey. I can’t conceive a...

  Tinian Tucked into the corner of the sea, Birthed in fire, volcanic history, A stepping stone across the ocean wide, Battered by the ever-flowing tides, Bobbing on the slow pacific swell, An island which unleashed the hounds of hell. This runway covered up by jungle vines, Was where we...

  Prayer (5:00 a.m.) Some stubborn pain (the world… the past…) Is peeking through the cracks, and all I want is somehow to at last Come home to something steady, fast, (I won’t say innocence, but still…) To something pure and whole that will In me a simpler soul recall....

  The Room Exhaled Before I Did The patient sat before me on the table Clearly hoping that I would be able To return his life to normalcy As I treated his malignancy. The tension in the room was palpable. The worry in his eyes indelible. His voice was barely...

  Mother’s Loom ---after Li Bai's poem "Midnight Song of Wu" The moon above the palace, Reigns bright within the gloom, And mothers seeking solace, Work quietly at the loom. Cold autumn breezes shear Away their fondest tears, "Oh when'll my sons be home From deserts where horses roam?"  ...

  The Sons of Issachar “The Sons of Issachar understood the times in which they lived, and knew which way Israel should go.” ---I Chronicles 12:32 I tilled the soil, and worked and thought, And listened, as the country fought. I walked my furrows, planting seed, My brow not furrowed,...

  Will the Sentence Get the Death Sentence? ---a triolet I write a line, then I decide: will it survive, or must it die? Before I can enter a stride, I write a line, then I decide if it allows my mind to glide. If not, once more I’ll have...

  Mass Destruction Give me a reason to trust in words spoken--- Tricksters have twisted the truth till it’s dead. Decades of pledges are buried or broken. Faith is now riddled with bullets and dread. Bombs are exploding and bombast is blasting--- Slick tongues of silver spin slogans all day....

  Mixed Blessing Our image of ourselves helps keep us grounded, As thoughts and deeds conform to feel well-founded. It also tends to make us less adaptive, Erecting walls inside of which we’re captive.     The Worst Time to Talk The absolute worst time to state a feeling Is...

  The Otherhood of Man “He who is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate.“ ---Jewish folk saying You think your words bless others. Wrong. They curse. But you’re so pledged to liberal ideals You’re blind to their casuistry and cracks. Such questions that you ask!...

On the Ruins of the Ancient City Cumae by Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530), translated from Latin by Margaret Coats Here the far-famed walls of ancient Cumae rose, _Prime glory of the clear Tyrrhenian Sea. Here awestruck questioners came rushing evermore _To hear your oracle, O great Apollo. Here energetic sailors found...

  250 Years of the "Invisible Hand" We should all want to shake the invisible hand, since it knows how to balance supply and demand which creates a free market, so everyone knows their decisions will optimize capital flows. As the hand guides producers, they fiercely compete, then each buyer...