Culture

Investment Strategies At work we studied many charts and graphs With due attention to the bottom line, But had we dwelt upon our epitaphs We would have spent our days decanting wine. First published in The Flea.   Mosquitoes I’d gladly give a pint or two a year— extracted gently...

I. The Evacuation of St Kilda The remote island community on St Kilda had existed for thousands of years in considerable hardship until, from the 1890s, tourists began to visit in large numbers. The wealth of these visitors introduced the St Kildans to another world far more affluent than theirs...

When our new park enticed me to a walk I saw a dandelion on the trail. Its yellow bloom hung on its broken stalk And it appeared to call me with a wail. Was it a she, or rather she a he? I was bemused: can flowers have a sex?...

I'll never own a leaf blower, I'll never rake with noise, Or drive away God's tiny mole By blasting at his tunnel hole. I'll never own a leaf blower, I'll never scream my task, Or trample over village green, With monster-wicked shit machine. I'll never own a leaf blower, I'll...

  My father woke the day that he __Was in the forest born To find that all gentility __Was from his nature shorn. A base unwilled enchantment laid __That jealous fairy scorned. For in that tale of sleeping maid, __My father was the thorn. His portrait on the cover of...

These Nice Guys after Gwendolyn Brooks NICE CHRISTIAN MAN. A DIME A DOZEN. These nice guys. They forfeit the prize. They get pushed around. They carpet the ground. They exist for others. They strengthen their brothers. They doubt their worth. They inherit the earth.     Joe Spring lives and...

Haiku   When a newborn cries, locked in a room by itself, does it make a sound?   Fog enshrouds the night. Woven in the heavy mist, a thread of fireflies.     In Time - a Limerick When a beautiful moment transpires, In the midst of the smoke and...

Evening Stroll by P.C. Boutens (1870-1943), written in The Hague in 1909, translated by Leo Zoutewelle We wandered much too late today! __Nearby the final bridge, There where the trail just fades away __We turned back toward our ridge. Behind us rose a whitish fog __Over the dusky lands. In...

  This is a tale of sibling rivalry from the 1812 Brothers Grimm collection of Children’s and Household Tales. Similar stories exist in Danish, English, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Slovinian and Swedish folklore and perhaps is related to the ancient Greek myth of Meleager and the Calydonian Bear. The peasants’ fields...

  The Moon, torn from the Sun, her only lover, Rose, starry-eyed and weeping beams of light, A mourning widow left to wisp and hover, A torturously pitiable sight, Wan from the strain of sobbing out her eyes, Now crater-like and dark from sleepless grief, Still hoping that the Sun...

all poetry by Bruce Dale Wise The Captive Caesar by Aedile Cwerbus Though it was many years ago, millennia, in fact, it seems, like yesterday, when Caesar's ship-trip was attacked. He had gone off to Rhodes to study rhetoric, it seems, with Apollonius Molo; the Roman had his dreams. When...

The Devil at Woodstock I was a mere sixteen that Summer day We all piled in a beat-up car and drove To Woodstock, or someplace we had been told That a great spectacle was to occur— An earth-shaking event where all the stars That lit a generation’s sky would be...

Beyond Scientism Old wives’ tales, humble kin of ancient lore, Like road signs carved in stone are durable. Traditionists are deemed incurable By bright authorities who can’t ignore A single variance with “fact,” yet Science Is but a construct based upon the shared Beliefs of narrow thinkers unprepared To entertain...

Gray I feel a certain loyalty to gray. Gray days, gray sweaters, cars - gray everything. Gray soothes and calms. It doesn’t boast, or fling itself before you like some shades do (they know who they are). Gray broods, as if to say, “Let’s wait and see. Don’t get excited,...

  One interesting question is ‘why poetry, specifically?’ I am currently writing an ‘epic’ called The English Cantos, and I have chosen to write my epic in terza rima. There are many forms of story-telling in the modern world, so why write poetry, when in real terms, it is such...

Faith I'm pond scum, someone said today. Some soup primordial, in a bay was struck by lightning. Oh, I see I'm wrought by electricity... then, look! it’s a bacterium who, in a deep delirium, decided he would rather be a worm that crawls out of the sea. From there it's...

Ned’s Revision Ned Kelly was an outlaw, of humble Irish stock; Born to Australian parents who farmed a rural block. Assault at fourteen years of age drew police attention, And further charges followed, too numerous to mention. His downfall was a shootout which earnt him lasting fame For donning home-made...

An ode to Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Sebastian: from Greek “venerable” I touch the pages of your music. Then My thoughts transport to times and distant sounds Where you once dwelt. I think of you and when I do a flood comes up from me, abounds An all-consuming longing, yearning,...

https://youtu.be/Mgo1YAUIglg https://youtu.be/zhbwPHKXU-c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5XvAB3keVo&feature=youtu.be https://youtu.be/bFQnvh-pJ4Q

  From A Gallery of Ethopaths Ethopaths fear, as much as cancer, A straight, unvarnished, simple answer. They love the euphemistic chatter That clouds up an essential matter. Seeing things clearly and addressing Their substance with no elaborate dressing Strikes ethopaths as plain immoral. They’d rather take a dose of...

  Two Laws In this imperfect world who suffers less: A good man wrongly jailed with conscience clear? Another whose low deeds he can't confess Though from man's laws he nothing has to fear? The first may sleep quite soundly in his cell, With physical discomfort he can live; The...

  Two mass shootings took the lives of twenty-nine this afternoon. Fifty-one (at least) were injured, every life cut short too soon. Exiting a downtown bar or looking for a loaf of bread, Simply minding their own business only to be shot down, dead. How I wish I could ignore...

  Giacomo da Lentini is a Sicilian who is generally considered the creator of the sonnet. This translation is by Leo Zoutewelle.   I’ve seen it rain on sunny days And seen the darkness flash with light And even lightning turn to haze, Yes, frozen snow turn warm and bright...

"Antaeus, the son of Terra, the Earth, was a mighty giant and wrestler, whose strength was invincible so long as he remained in contact with his mother Earth." —Bulfinch's mythology Blessed Gaea, Mother Earth, Brought us forth—gave us birth. If we’re wise, we’ll realize Where a vital tie yet lies....

"Made in China" “Made in China” reads the label— Shattered on the coffee table: Some cheap and broken plastic toys We purchased for our girls and boys— Imports purchased which enable Labor camps that leave unstable Lives in ruin and can disable Limbs…but disregard the noise Made in China. Are...

Poet's Note: These five sonnets and song are the product of a four-week journey taken in June to Ireland and through west central Scotland and the Inner and Outer Hebrides. Unlike the sonnets, the lyrics to the song were not composed as a formal poem. They are simply what they...

Roots in the Sky, Boots on the Ground: Metaphysical Poems C.B. Anderson, Kelsay Books, 107 pages paperback, ISBN-10: 1949229688 2019, $17.00 by Carol Smallwood Smallwood: Joseph S. Salemi commented on Roots in the Sky, Boots on the Ground: Metaphysical Poems: “On the one hand it aspires to a high level...

  The Teacher to His Students The traffic light turns green. Your car won’t budge. You’re either texting or completely blind. And when you do proceed, you’re slow as fudge. You’re still engrossed. We’ve come to know your kind. Or maybe you’re just walking down the street. The sidewalk’s safe...

A Haiku My mirror shatters and what most clearly matters remains to be seen.   You and Me Some sins do not offend Our Lord - in fact with mine, I think He’s bored. But sadly though, I must report that yours are of a different sort. They constitute the...

  Theseus Amazed Around corners through archway and gate Sensing forever the enemy’s mind Poised to avenge the innocents’ fate But a mirror was all I did find.   The Adept A handful of pollen flung into the light A time and a space and sun and night ... An...

  inspired by John Masefield’s “Sea-Fever” (1902) I will go down to the bush again, where the days hang crisp and clear, And cicadas hum their sonorous song from places far and near; Where cockatoos flash across the sky, screeching all the while, And the creek below makes a silver...

  The Woke Man’s Person’s Burden "Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important. Some confuse that feeling with idealism." —Thomas Sowell Take up the Woke Man’s Person’s burden—...

Króliki (Rabbits) dedicated to Tommy Robinson, who was recently sentenced to more time in prison Króliki they called us (Polish having no word for guinea pig)* and so we were: scared, little white rabbits, huddling in fear, dreading our inevitable turn; sure that no guardian angel was coming to save...

Believe It True That you have made my world a wondrous garden Fair with your lips, and glad with your eyes of blue That you have wakened life’s song of gladness Believe it true, dear, believe it true. That I have found within that wondrous garden All passing hours made...

Pablo Neruda on the Passing of Joseph Stalin by Wibele Escudar We must be men. That is the law that Joseph Stalin left. Sincere intensity and concrete clarity are best. He was the noon of man. Let us from this not be bereft. Let's bear these words with pride, all...

  As fiddle lilts its rhymed refrain it harkens an angelic past. If only we could now regain that sweet voice that was ne'er surpassed. Med'eval times, when hearts were chaste and men of honor walked this earth, the words they waxed poetic faced no chiding for such simple dearth....

She Walked in Beauty a tribute to Gao Rongrong* after Lord Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty” She walked in Beauty, pure as light— Like sun and moon and starlit skies Illuminate the darkest night… Such was the brightness of her eyes And shining smile of sheer delight That all would...

Sonnet IV. Cleve Backster whose work on plant perception gained wide exposure in the 1973 publication The Secret Life of Plants. While people claim the fetus has no being Worth enough to trump a mother’s rights, There’s something more our human eyes aren’t seeing: Life’s more, not less, when we...

  The taxi driver took us down From great Mohonk, New Paltz and such; And every mile we got to touch We felt the pull of New York town. And chatting in our easy way— He black, me white, what difference then? Only as humans, two grown men, We both...

—from A Gallery of Ethopaths The bookshops that we used to see Were citadels of literacy. Classics of grace and wit and style Greeted your glance in every aisle. Today, those humane texts are fewer— A bookstore is a backed-up sewer Clogged with the bilge the public guzzles: Health-food cookbooks,...