Culture

Why Live This Long? The thought presents - Why live this long? What more to do, Once sung my song? The arch of life Made sense to me. With work in hand - While serving Thee. Great tasks complete, Hills have been scaled. Success achieved - Opponents failed. I turn...

  Potpourri Take leaves at first, curled crisp by autumn’s cold— Crush them to crumbly powder in a tray To make a simple palette of decay In varied tints of brown and red and gold. Next flower petals, multicolored, bold In stark chromatic contrasts—dry and bray Them in a mortar...

Epistle to a Celt Where, o Celt, mayst thou be found Upon what all was once thy ground? Art thou of thy majestic race The last to bear a mortal face? Thy speech and runes thou scornst to learn, Which memory can scarce discern. In splintered nave, the Celtic Cross...

  It could be a horse thief, or maybe a rustler, A card shark, a pimp, or a sleazy-eyed hustler. A finish on wood that can add to its luster Or moisture on metal that causes some ruster. A Crème Brulee, or a Bavarian custard, French sauce delicious with finest...

Post your patriotic July  4th poetry in the comments section below. by Usa W. Celebride "The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American." —Thomas Jefferson The 4th Day of July, America, hey, celebrates! with fireworks and flags, the birth of these United States. Traditional Americans sing patriotic...

It's Best to Be a Giver It’s best to be a giver, not a taker, Or else how could you ever face your Maker? When time is due and Judgment Day is here, You look in your Lord’s eyes, and have no fear, You know your heart is pure and...

  Three children stood below a tree That sprouted fruit abundantly; They sought to seize the luscious fruit, These hungry children in pursuit. One child could reach the middle height, One the lowest, to her delight, But one, alas, stretched up in vain— The prize was too high to obtain....

Poem for a Birthday Say that the year is round, and on its top March lighted candles in concentric rows. They drip their wax, which hardens on the heart As birthdays pass, and most of us suppose That all we ask is just some time to stop, Regroup, remit the...

Inspired by the Ashland, Oregon, Shakespeare Festival Narrator: William Shakespeare—Shakspere? Shaksper? Shakespear? Shackespeare? Shake-and-Bake-speare?—died but did not Go to heaven. Sent instead to town called Ashland where, in purgatorial shame, Was forced to spend eternity in watching Every play that bore his name replayed, Replayed and played again in time-looped glory;...

  When dusk settles, the oxalis Stands taller and sweeter, As if to say that all of this Is just Nature’s theater, The butterfly-shaped purple leaves Are an actor's costume, Which fans out in royal sheaves And is soaked in perfume.   Julia Geaney-Moore is a Psychology and English major....

The Muses we understand from Part 1 of this article are the daughters of the future and the past, and more specifically of memory, light, truth and beauty; they are essential for the ‘good life’, and we understand as well that because they are goddesses, they cannot be summoned by...

. . What Rumor, What Word? On the featured photo above What rumor, what word, O Cloud from the sea? Cumulus, Nimbus: what sayest thou to me? But human and man; the simplest I be, And found ruminating, mine interest would thee, O quench, with thy speech, and earnest me...

27 November 1976: Fort Eustis, Virginia By Usa W. Celebride It is an autumn Saturday. I sit amidst the scree, of dry, brown, crackly leaves, against the rough bark of a tree. The Sun casts out long shadows. It's a time of purity, of rest, of realism, grandeur and simplicity. I...

  Déja Do you remember when a piece of art Held truth or meaning in its oil or stone— And beauty even?  Paintings would impart Aesthetic truth and not just some sweet tone Of glowing like a Rothko, luminous But void like Close Encounters of the Third Kind’s shimmer.  Artefacts were numinous Like...

  Taking a Gambol A rabbit’s life’s a gambol, A fortunate existence; Giving time enough to spare For frolics in the bramble, Bunny-hops from here to there, Some chewing for subsistence. But in dreary contrast we Refuse to twitch our noses At sweet treasures given free - The perfume of...

Penelope’s Postscript Uncounted days, wrung dry of tears— Lost wanderers do not return: So much for the departed years. Heap up my mangled hopes and fears, Leave Ithaka to mock and spurn Uncounted days. Wrung dry of tears I shut from my importuned ears The suitors’ pleas. How could I...

Tipton County, Tennessee, 1917 My great-grandfather cut down huge black oaks Whose stumps his two young sons helped him uproot, Each some Yggdrasil yielding to the strokes Of manic axes in their mad pursuit Of Paradise providing ample fruit, A man with two boys made to work as men, Their...

Ephemeral Constant With hued music, beautified page. His spheres were thinner than gossamer, Only to beauty, did Keats defer. Was omni-sensory, ahead of his age, Gifted synesthete; few could gauge. Lines between realities could he blur, With Psyche, or nightingale easily confer. Complex were stanzas, of youthful sage. ‘Cockney’ image...

  Sonnet IV. Edward the Confessor Edward, the Cross no more on England’s shores Thy people blesses. The light of faith is gone. From stolen thrones the foes of Christ wage wars Against thy sons, and not one sword is drawn. Thy Westminster, by pagan rites profaned, Where thy pure...

Click here to read Part I. Montague (That afternoon, on the outskirts of Verona, at a Club, getting in an afternoon’s worth of pheasant shooting, having needed to get out of town and “think about things;” although presently eating peanuts and breaking at the bar… Capulet is also there.) O...

  “She vanished to the wood,” they said. “Forget her—that strange and sickly child.” A child? Your face was no more childish than mine. And yet not a proper prospect. The Queen defiled my kingdom’s sight who saw you as a waif with reddest lips and whitish skin, no queen...

  Golden Opposite of Grave Beauty The Buddhist, Yuezun, saw light like gold Above the blistering sands.  The desert blight Of Taklamakan gained no stranglehold On shimmering beauty.  There above cliff height A thousand golden Buddhas sang and danced With heavenly maids, celestial in strength And rhythm.  Yuezun had only chanced Upon this...

  Heaven Smiles for Falun Gong O you who stand so strong through wind and rain, So like those statues lasting through the years, Impervious to time’s assaults and pain, Unfazed by human doubts and crippling fears. With hearts of gold and wills of diamond made, With fliers in hand,...

  A Sonnet for the Sonnet-Maker You know the beats and rhythms, the iamb Which pulses like a crippled-legged walk; You, with the force of one who said, “I am That I am,” in iambs you will talk Of truth and beauty, pain and sorrow, all And nothing, touching Heaven...

Jutting out of a mountain their stone faces peer out with their notice crucified in stone. Crafted to demand a nation’s reverence visitors would mediate and atone. But who can expect more than imperfection now that their sullied reputations bark from static news chatter and journals that sit higher up...

  Rising unbidden, a fury unspent, I hear the high keening of tribal lament, Of ancient injustices never forgiven, Never forgotten, rising unbidden. Where are the horsemen who raided our village, Came without warning to plunder and pillage? Who are they now, in what lives are they hidden? An old...

  Steel Masks King Henri II of France was accidentally killed in 1559 during a festive tournament when he was lanced in the eye by Gabriel Montgomery, seigneur de Lorges, a member of his Garde Escossaise. A young Italian nobleman named Luigi Corbinelli witnessed the event, and was so profoundly...

Monsoon Dance In Quintets Go back, O' spry peacock, go back into thy dense coppice! The sylvan clock did spell a sly lie! Monsoon is far… ah still a tear in summer's eye! With stars, the sky is clear! Restless our yeomen are staring at sky. The deer and bunnies...

Written upon watching this video. Note that May Day is the international day honoring workers.     Mayday on May Day By Damian Robin and Evan Mantyk With their pins and strings and force withal And gloves as white as pus, Like Marxist carpet wall to wall They raise appalling...

  A Villanelle My grandma smiled as I walked in the door pretending to overpower her pain because I came ... to see her once more. Black-and-blue I.V.-bruised arms, stiff and sore, rose to greet me, and despite the strain, my grandma smiled as I walked in the door. With...

Yes, I admit I seldom write, Or even think of you, But not, as you suppose, Because there's someone new, But rather that I do not choose To let you slip away, Or let the passage of a year Seem more than half a day. Because I will not think...

For Our Children “The sum is greater than its parts,” or so the saying goes. And now the two of us can see the proof as each one grows, Distinct but similar in code, the perfect mix and match Of you and me but with a little extra in each...

To a Red-Winged Black Bird on the Advent of Spring For some a robin heralds in the Spring. Others: a crocus or a daffodil. My old man claims it’s when nightchirpers sing. The farmer cites the rain, the barnyard rill. I sense it when the maple-lines come down; when pruning-ladders...

  Riddling Away What slips and squanders, and has no matter? Leaves one to ponder, and rarely flatters? Is never enough to go all around, and often too rough when finally found? And where will it go long after I’m dust? Another will know and hopefully trust. Announce its calling...

By Sandeep Kumar Mishra and Evan Mantyk English poetry has a rich history dating back at least 1,400 years. Looking at poetry today, it is easy to get trapped into thinking that the flurry of poetic movements of the last one hundred years or so are incredibly important and represent...

Note: The brown-headed cowbird, Molothrus ater, rather than raise its own young, lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, which may or may not accept them or the nestlings that emerge from them.   How long it took to think of such! Since mothering has proved too much, My next egg goes...

Verification What further evidence will now be needed to assure Us that behind the strictly physical there’s something more, And that the natural world is clearly ordered from above, Than seeing how the normal parent cannot help but love A child?  Though some may raise the specter of “the selfish gene,”...

  "For even in the beginning, when arrogant giants were perishing, the hope of the world took refuge on a raft … for blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes."  – Wisdom of Solomon, 14.6 They’re at it now: hear them – sabres rattle, And hush – the whoosh...

Posting atop the hill beyond the field in rain so thick he barely saw the bodies, the General tilted back his hat and sat, shaking his head. His horse shifted a foot and whinnied, a grazing wound across its haunch still oozing blood, an equine service stripe its tail would...