Culture

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...

You’ve not come to a meeting in three years— Within the movement, there are buzzing fears That marriage has ensnared you in its cage. And frankly, I myself have reached the stage Where anger has replaced the old respect. Now don’t get sulky—what did you expect? A happy private life...

On the Protesters Filled With Hate By Bruce Dale Wise And while American airports were filled with screaming hate, Chief Petty Officer Will "Ryan" Owens met his fate, caught in a raid against Al-Qaida's force in Yemen's love. Who gives a damn for him who gave the last full measure...

  Bubbles I swish the stick To watch a spread of bubbles gleam; Free and delightful they float Almost a dream. This pristine orbs, A fragile yet audacious batch Seem hopeless until they reveal A rainbow patch. They move away And occupy a placid realm To demonstrate the physics of...

by Evan Mantyk WHAT DOES THE classic Chinese story Journey to the West have to do with William Shakespeare’s classic play Hamlet? A lot it turns out. Both Hamlet and Journey to the West were written in the late 16th century, one in China and the other in England. Both rely heavily on poetry. Both also are...

Song of Ulysses For greatness and glory’s sake For all things rich and noble In proud ships tall let us make Again where only men are able Tired we’ve grown of glitter and gold Of the clamor of the market place Let us dream of Delphic days of old That...

The "Greatest Show on Earth" Is Coming to a Close By Sirc de Budalewe The "Greatest Show on Earth" is coming to a close in May; financially it could not make it in the USA. The Ringling Brothers-Barnum-Bailey—names will go away, Feld Entertainment, circus owner, has announced today. No longer...

Shin-Rin-Yoku Forest Bathing You stand beneath this canopy of trees, surrender will, hold still.   You close your eyes and listen as the rustling of the leaves and lapping breeze-blown waters tranquilize. Inhaling deeply, you can breathe the smell of dew-damp soil, the scent of pungent pine, organic emanations.  All is...

  Departure Like escaping through a siege, growing older       Hampers itself with hopes of return; So if, over your bare shoulder, Upwind palaces start to smolder,       Let them burn. Woken by ax-hack and sword-clang, at once you knew       Better than to arm for the defense Of gates your foes stream...

  The Terrorists Tears feed the sweeping sands beneath their feet, And blood runs deep into the living ground. The sun throbs down with agonizing heat. The captives kneel, blindfolded, with no sound: Only the jitter of the distant bug, The hum of desert winds above the trees, The spikes...

  We may hear some Bible phrase and laugh. __That book has no monopoly on ‘goods’. Some words clang, we tip its old tin bath __and out rolls “Baby Jesus” with the suds. Like cliqué’d, much-repeated, ringtone rings __whose lyricisms lessen with their use, these old-time, evangelic heraldings __are squeezed...

Water Music Just as white as a blanket of new-fallen snow Is the noise of a waterfall cresting a brim And ebulliently thrashing the basin below. But the sound of a freshet resembles a hymn, Its discrete iterations like chants that were spoke By the guardian spirits of hillside and...

By Evan Mantyk From The Iliad, Beowulf, and Shakespearean literature in the West to the Chinese Classic of Poetry, the Indian Ramayana, and the Middle Eastern Epic of Gilgamesh, classical poetry is the foundation of literature in almost every culture historically. Today, if you can understand, appreciate, and write a...

  Color streams burst brightly in a flourish of elation, Each to soar and cover night's condoning, lofty, canvas – Livening this moment, man-made shooting stars' vibration Emanate our gladness to be living. Will they preface Broad displays of kindness to complete this hopeful painting? Righteous souls endeavor, far and...

For King Charles I of England On the day I asked for a second shirt So my people would not see me shiver In the cold breeze blowing from the river And think me afraid to die or be hurt On that scaffold above the mud and dirt, Or mistake...

  Holiday Horror: A True Story By Lucy Giardino Cortese Twas two weeks before Christmas And all through the house Water standing in puddles Mama starting to grouse Three pipes in the floor Had all busted their stuff Brown shag carpets soggy One would think that’s enough But the calamities...

. . On the Winter Solstice Winter Winter cold and crass Winter Winter old the grass Fast we go across the field Massed the snow and frost to wield Night of rest abed when tired Light and fest and sled and fire . . Caryatids At lunch I sat and...

  Scrabble-ism One night I was hangin’ with Len, Eating and watching t.v. All the pizza rolls gone, I then Suggested Monopoly. “That game is all luck!” he then said, Voice revealing some anger. “Scrabble,” Len suggested instead, To which “yes” was my answer. Scrabble is, no doubt, a great...

By Jane Blanchard On December 5, 1830, Christina Rossetti was born in London to an Italian-English mother married to an Italian poet in exile.  The youngest of four children, all of whom grew up to be published authors, Rossetti became so well regarded for her work that she was mentioned...

  To the Kurdish Women Soldiers With girlish smiles above costumes of war - you dance, sisters; stamp the pallid golden dust to furbellows about your booted feet. Cold light, drab uniforms are aching sweet unstifled by the long black veil of lust, pride and friendship warming at the core....

  Sighs fill the room as Mulan weaves the loom She doesn’t want Father to meet his doom. The Khan needs an army to face the Huns; Father can barely walk let alone run. There’s none to take his place and perhaps die: Little brother’s too young to even try,...

  Obi-Wan Bin Laden RIP Let’s remember what God wants: Killing people’s never right, So Obi-Wan Bin Laden then Cannot be a Jedi knight. To make folks free you face them straight - Backstabbing lacks God’s protocol; So Obi-Wan Bin Laden looks Like something that has lost its soul. He’s...

A rondeau on Shen Yun Performing Arts By Evan Mantyk I love the dance that can exalt The human form without a fault, Demeanor grand, inspiring pose; They’re swift yet seem in sweet repose And all my troubled thoughts they halt. Then when as one they somersault It’s like a...

  Ohio State University Attack By Wilbur Dee Case "If you don't like liberal democracy, go to North Africa, the Middle East, or China. Oops." —Waseel Budecir I'm warning you, America, the post on Facebook states, behind each single Muslim's frown, a sleeper cell awaits. We are not weak. We...

Unforeseen Good Fortune’s Heirs Are We There’s little of the Plague that we can find to celebrate except for this small gem – when those who died left property behind it often changed their family’s lives for them. Their station rose, by education freed from toiling years in poverty and...

  Christmastime Lush green tree, wet pine scent fills the air. Strings of tiny gems, that plump tree, strangle, Children’s handmade trimmings everywhere, Red and green and bells that jingle-jangle. Atop the tree a glowing angel prays. At bottom, gifts abundant, overflowing Spread outward from the base in grand display;...

Who would true Valor see Let him come hither; One here will Constant be, Come Wind, come Weather. There's no Discouragement, Shall make him once Relent, His first avowed Intent, To be a Pilgrim. Who so beset him round, With dismal Stories, Do but themselves Confound; His Strength the more...

The Policeman By Brice U. Lawseed He dreamed there were ten thousand demonstrators on the streets, a nightmare of the vicious mixed with youngsters sending tweets. He woke up in a sweat, but it had only been his mind distressing o'er the volatility of humankind. He watched the television news,...