Culture

. 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...

My Wife Is Clad in Cloth From Head to Foot My wife is clad in cloth from head to foot. How deep her eyes, how vast and sane her eyes. As we leave, I drink her clear brown eyes Then she walks behind me by a foot. The buggy that...

  Things shifted for them suddenly From seeing their folks in the morn To mourning their folks in the sea.   Mike Ruskovich lives in Grangeville, Idaho. He taught high school English for thirty-six years. He and his wife have four children.

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...

. https://youtu.be/9h-79BVeByw . Open Heart Surgery The best day of your life; a child is born! Start out happy, but get ready to mourn. You'll try to keep them from all of life's danger, "Don't eat that and don't talk to a stranger." You read them the same ridiculous book,...

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...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Venezuelan Woes by Lud Wes Caribee As Socialist experiment Venezuela sinks into far greater depths, a plunging country on the brink, Maduro, striving for an orderly recovery, has pegged the bolivar to petro cryptocurrency. He has increased the minimum wage sixty-some percent; the problem...

This villanelle is a tribute to the Rust Belt, and all the communities devastated when corporations close their American plants in pursuit of cheaper labor abroad. Where silhouetted sentinels silently stand in vain bleeding shades of layered shame on blight-lined highways below, their ghostly shadows remind us of dreams we...

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...

  Please bring the wine cuz I'm flat broke, I couldn't even buy a can of Coke. But once you smell my heart's sweet rose, you'll only wish you were all nose.   Robert Klein Engler lives in Omaha, Nebraska. He is a writer and artist. His many publications are...

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...

A Question of Faith The crowd cheered on their betters’ masquerade, Emotions seethed as memes were hatched and grew; Elijah watched as Ba’al’s prophets prayed. Reporters for the 70’s news were paid To write an ice age might be overdue; The crowd cheered on their betters’ masquerade. The press says...

  I like to write, and writing's free; Liberates mind of memory. I take a chance to be creative; For daily stress, a palliative. Not modern work, you understand; A failure when I tried my hand Composing verse of latest fashion; Trending styles that leave me ashen. I like to write,...

I See a Friend I see a friend, pull up a stool to talk to this old stupid fool. Both he and I at an impasse and left upset like sharpened glass. Much wisdom spouts from this buck young as liquid warmth does loose the tongue. Our quarrel grows and...

  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...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0BeEHXjXIM   The Ghost of Phil Ochs by David Paul Behrens When you see homeless people on the street, When you see people, with no food to eat, You can thank your lucky stars, it's not you. The luck of the draw, it has pulled you through. There but for...

  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...

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...

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...

An earlier version of this piece was published in The Epoch Times By Evan Mantyk When Jon McNaughton released his new painting, “Crossing the Swamp,” on July 31, he probably wasn’t expecting to get as much attention as he did, including over 14,000 Twitter comments, 20,000 likes, and news coverage...

  ‘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...

On the recent and coordinated banning of Alex Jones' media outlet Infowars.com by Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Apple by Seer Ablicadew They come for one, they come for all, we see it on our phones. The media elite is coming after Mr. Jones. They come for one, they come for...

  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...

καὶ κραναᾶς Βαβυλῶνος ἐπίδρομον ἅρμασι τεῖχος καὶ τὸν ἐπ᾽ Ἀλφειῷ Ζᾶνα κατηυγασάμην, κάπων τ᾽ αἰώρημα, καὶ Ἠελίοιο κολοσσόν, καὶ μέγαν αἰπεινᾶν πυραμίδων κάματον, μνᾶμά τε Μαυσώλοιο πελώριον ἀλλ᾽ ὅτ᾽ ἐσεῖδον Ἀρτέμιδος νεφέων ἄχρι θέοντα δόμον, κεῖνα μὲν ἠμαύρωτο † δεκηνιδε νόσφιν Ὀλύμπου ἅλιος οὐδέν πω τοῖον ἐπηυγάσατο. I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Crossing the Swamp by Jon MacNaughton by Caud Sewer Bile "If freedom of speech is taken away...we may be led, like sheep to...slaughter." —George Washington The boat of freedom of MacNaughton follows Leutze's pic of Washington upon the Delaware, grave, foggy, thick. Don Trump...

In the Poetry Writing Workshop “Milton conceived the Paradise Lost as a whole before he executed it in portions. We have his own authority also for the Muse having ‘dictated’ to him the ‘unpremeditated song’, and let this be answer to those who would allege the fifty-six  various readings of...

—from A Gallery of Ethopaths* The computer is a simple tool— It cannot change an arrant fool Into a brilliant, thoughtful scholar, Although the damned thing costs top-dollar. It cannot help someone to write Whose prose is just a total blight Nor delineate a topic For someone naturally myopic. It...

Sonnet on the Death of Teeth I’m amused by a brush with Death In the depths of my bathroom mirror. His grimaces shrink into grinning, His ruthlessness fades to bad breath. His rot had once fogged me with terror; Now his gnashing is rootless and blithe; His gargling grotesques are...

. . The Federal and the Doric The Federal and the Doric Combined a stern austere; They frowned upon the quad; They spread a healthy fear. Corinthian and Victorian Looked at the ground downcast; No one liked their whimsies; Their fancies would not last. . . Mars Mars, the stars...

  Pink has become a favored cultural color, more subtle, less primitive than red: black mixed with pink is considered seductive, innocent when used with white and acquired its own name just in the late 17th century it’s commonly read. In the 1940s, blue for boys, pink for girls became...

Aldeyjarfoss If, in some grim sensory exercise In a laboratory, behind a screen Where staunch technicians memorialize Their findings, everything we’ve heard and seen, Or smelled and tasted, or in our hearts felt As hope, an urgency to touch these walls Of snow and ice, as groaning glaciers melt, We...

Translations from Belarusian by the poet's son Ihar Kazak.    The Explosion May mayhem never strike our good Earth; The fertile one deserves tranquility and gratitude, So that on earth where in ruins weeds give birth, There would be no malevolent attitude. But evil— an explosion… Again a wormwood* spill....

  Out of the crooked timber laid by man, No straight foundation may ever be built. While Reason clinkers on across the span, The tunes of Sin jaunt forward with a lilt. To lie, to steal, to feel in ill no guilt, To follow Peter’s thrice denial there Before the...

“. . .  lest when thou hast eaten and art full  . . . then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt  . . .who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were...