Culture

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...

. Visiting the Ruins of Tintagel Castle I wander through a forest deep __in Cornish countryside And think I see some elves asleep __And giants run to hide. The branches gnarled like magic wands, __Green velvet moss on trees, The ivy cloaks around the ponds, __Soft rocks bejewel the streams. I...

If Romeo Had Received the Letter Part I Romeo (in the catacomb, lying down beside Juliet) The friar’s note said: “Romeo she will wake.” Thus here I am now with my life at stake. You’ll resurrect? Or will the potion err? the anesthesia taken on a dare, a hope that...

Blue Star Mama painted calm and clouded landscapes Before she wed, blue-green and grassy shapes, But these went by the board just after she Jumped off into the matrimonial sea. Later, Bach rocked the house and Chopin too, For as we grew up, that was what she’d do, Bringing us...

  Boston Public Garden On Boston Public Garden's willowed shorebank, two little girls are feeding ducks: they prance from beak to beak, arms arcing past their foreheads to farther thrust their crusts. They feel, perchance, how full the cupboards of their lives are stocked: so full they're called to fling...

  “Doing what deserves to be written, writing what deserves to be read, living to make the world a happier place.” That's what Pliny the Elder said. He quoted “In Vino Veritas,” from some older, and wiser, gent, but he put it in one of his gardening books, and so...

White Wolf, Black Wolf: A Cherokee Story A trijan refrain Inside you lives a wolf of white— of patience, peace and love. He is forgiveness, hope and light; a blessing from above. This wolf of white the world will see through all the good he brings to thee. _____This wolf...

After E. T. A. Hoffman "Only connect..." E. M. Forster, Howard's End By Ewald E. Eisbruc The inner structure of the movements, working joint by joint, the way they all are linked together, toward a single point, th' interrelation of main themes, producing unity, beteem each listener to reach a new...

  To me, to rhyme— It is sublime To others But a waste of time To match the sounds Of words, they say Promotes an Aural truth-decay To them I say To rhyme’s the way! To make the words Run, jump, and play Forget the rest To rhyme’s the best!...

The Theater of the Bush To westward the sun seeks a comfort nocturnal, Her warmth slipping under the covers ahead; And daylight soon passes the threshold eternal, Turns on the night-light and settles in bed. Awakens from slumber those creatures encumbered By prisons of sunlight and tethers of day. Possums...

. . Approaching Spring Above the mountain, under the sky, Canadian Geese, you hear their cry, Over the mountain, hear them sing, Man and Wife, approaching Spring. . . Charge to Orion Gird thy blade and tighten belt Spurred unswayed by heights not felt Betelgeuse and Rigel fire Nimble Lepus;...

How much wheat can a woodchuck eat? Or cabbage, carrots, and peas, Spinach, parsley, peppers, and kale, Tomatoes, lettuce, n’ beans? What if he brings his family n’ friends? A party they will throw! So pack your bag and grab your hat— It’s off to market you go!   Connie...

The Rocky Mountain Pines Written in Rhymed couplets of Anapestic Tetrameter. In the mountains or plains, with the pine in the air, I’ll awake to the sun with a chill to compare. When I hike up a hill, with a heart full of gloom, And the trail is lined by...

Dancer the arch of her collarbone a bridge, her legs a throne, the clean and simple lines of her body free of confines. she dances, arms akimbo, hair flowing, and I know that she belongs to the wind, to breathe the free air, skin pale and wide like the sky,...

  Saint Patrick was a green alien, He came from other parts. He was not a native Irishman But was taken to their hearts. On oceans of pre-destiny He made a Christian start With a sense of heaven’s purity And faith in his small part. He sailed the sea on...

The Press is not the enemy, but Donald Trump is right; the Press is disingenuous; they cannot get it right. Left in the midst of overladen, value-judgment words, left in the air, they're like a flock of one-wing, flapping birds. The journalists have difficulty being more diverse. It is as...

or Mutatis Mutandis The mode of most catastrophe is gradually, then suddenly. Time slowly ratchets up the stress in states that tend to stay at rest until some last-straw catalyst, the tumblers’ incremental twist allows locked plates at last to shift; the temblored continental drift frees the long pent-up potential...

All photos by Mark Wyatt / All poetry by Alec Ream Chant of the Wooded Hall Chlorophyll concordant eaves Soaring ceiling, verdant leaves Torah spell my secret sees Worded oracle of trees Beneath a thing be found intent Unsheathing singing, sound and scent Growing shoots a task of me Sowing...

Sonnet for an Arabian Autumn After William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 This time of year you will in me perceive When all things green take on their second growth, The sun at last agrees to a reprieve, And birds return to keep their migrant’s oath. You’ll see a certain lightness in...

  Teaching the Inner Couplets of one Rumi Has left me truly desolate and gloomy. They say he’s great, this Sufi poet Rumi, But frankly, it is most astounding to me That anyone can read the text of Rumi Without becoming gaunt and pale and rheumy. Old Shakespeare might have...

A Million Thoughts Based on the Holocaust testimony of Bertha Haberfeld By Surina Patel A million thoughts are rushing through my brain, The looming gas chamber ahead of me, The sounds I hear and the sights that I see, The mud beneath my numb feet from the rain, Everything feels...

  Console her with the Atheist’s philosophy: ____Never mind! Your grandma’s dead. It’s Nature’s way of denoting an atrophy ____In the muscles, lungs and head. I mean to say her central nervous system ____Was gradually shutting down. You really can’t appreciate its Wisdom? ____Oh, darling, must you frown? For when...

Riven (A Rannaigheacht Ghairid) Once I dreamed Ospreys soared where salmon teemed. Frigid streams and waterfalls Frosted walls where glaciers gleamed. Darkness cowled The moon whenever wolves howled Until hunters fired a torch That scorched the realms where night prowled. Sunlight slew Calves* of glaciers tinted blue, Snowy owls, and...

  Education:  To Be Continued ... There is no lack of opportunity For education in this spendthrift age, And boys who wish to earn a decent wage Must show the general community That they have somehow learned to use their heads For more than just a place to lodge a...

  Says Simon Cowell (A Villanelle) “Which came first, the egg or fowl? This is what I’d like to know.” “Who cares?” says Simon Cowell. (Not so much “says” as speaks in growl) I care, I think, and tell him so -- “Which came first, the egg or fowl? An...

What a Wit is Worth For John Whitworth, poet Oh,  Whitman was a rhymer who enjoyed to play the part Of complicating everything.  It's something of an art To ramble on for pages on the pinprick of a thought, Which makes word choice irrelevant, and form seem overwrought, And chokes the...