Culture

  Through sandy, muddy, rocky creek, Silted, crudded, hard to speak, My heart was heavy, worn, and cramped, I needed someplace I could camp. Nature spoke, I took the chance To venture out with shield and lance A trek that took me into night Parched and filthy, sworn to fight...

I. Anxiety and excitement, a strange mixture Saturated me as I attempted to picture Two days alone crossing China’s famous Silk Road Aboard a train, the local transportation mode. I envisioned Genghis Khan, the bold conqueror, His hordes creating chaos, dismantling order, The reverse of Marco Polo, who united east...

  Record the past and gift-wrap the future Explain the rules of classical culture Listen to the stories plaintively wrought In candlelit taverns for the heroes that fought In wars long-forgotten except by the brave And mothers that weep and pray at the grave - Of each and every valiant...

Originally Featured in Woodland Poems Near a ridge where far recedes the frozen Forest into valleys wide, Scoouwa’s chin In despondence fell.  Faint and overcome With brow perplexed, he searched the wood for crumb Of hickory-nut, or the fleeting track Of roaming herds, until his slumping back Could take no...

As I was flying high and looking down    the lonely regent of my tiny crown in one-dimension’s cold and breath-thin air    anxiously intent on prey down there I’d had enough of limit’s lonely plains    the flat dimensions where my kingdom reigns the mumbled tastes and smells I’d feel and ‘see’...

  The Goddess I. Black breeze On white foam hands Held high, lifting freedom: Shinning fast Her people’s torch in His eyes. II. Thunder Rolling on dawn-- Tanks over Her hands break; Her people shattered in the square Long gone.   When Man First Looked Through a Telescope A pin-burst...

Wanderer's Retreat I Across the dive bar floor strode a figure, Tall but slightly slouching, wearing a cloak. His facial features, save nose and chin, were Submerged in hooded shadow as he spoke,    “Bartender, Olympus Ale, please.” He plopped    On a stool like a lifeless body dropped. Most strange the...

  One Summer Day An allusion to Beethoven While walking through the woods one summer day, he glanced along a river, clear and bright, saw bubbling notes like dappled fish at play, and dashed them off that night by candlelight. Meandering down coniferous-scented trails where chickadees and tree frogs made...

  The River Wye Your stroll beside the stream has stayed with me, Has left me in my loneliness with strength Enough to face the world, to somehow see Within its depth and width and wandering length The Truth that Keats and Coleridge saw with eyes Romantic yet as real...

Goodbye, sweet fetal child— for you shall die, Because a mother’s love is also dead: The hallowed place of nurture where you lie Shall soon become the ground where blood is shed. The battle to reject the womanly, Or motherly, for ‘me, myself and I’ Shall forfeit noble care of...

Thoughts after Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) By Bud "Weasel" Rice Everywhere curious, articulate, perfect and inimitable ... nature does ... leave a space for the soul to climb above her steepest summits. As, in her own dominion, she swells from herring to leviathan, from the shelly hodmandod to th' elephant, to...

Observations both Literal and Inferred on The Course of Empire, 1833-36, by Thomas Cole   The Savage State THE foreground is dark, sublime, and savage. Storm-clouds roll up towards the right. The ledge reflects the setting or the rising sun. The turquoise waters crash; the storm's not done. One bounding...

I saw a grand palace as sculpted by the Genie of the Lamp, adorned with lights so golden, as if it came from within. I saw great achievements under the sky of glass, soared to extraordinary heights: a modern Tower of Babel, raised again! I saw a celebrated elm, stood...

for E.E. Club Saw Reid   I. Priam, Returning to the Ramparts He’d never say it to my face and yet I sense that Hector senses I’m washed up: too old, too soft. Not that he is the pup that sees for the first time his dad beset with something...

  Shadow of the Laogai In the Laogai’s shadow, the ghosts of China stir, Unseen by dreaming eyes as golden currents blow Across the sea. Our compassion seems to falter In the Laogai’s shadow. As the Red rope tightens, prices fall like Harbin snow Upon the Western coast. What need...

He Kept On By Erisbawdle Cue He kept on striving to attain an ideality connected to the good, but grounded in reality. He kept on working to achieve perfection in the act, pragmatism on the run with satisfaction's fact. He kept on pressing to combine both ecstasy and truth, to...

Youths' Sonnet They view the world through filmy innocence, these youngsters who now hear the future call. Into that forest bountiful and dense, some travel slowly, wary of the fall. With nurturance and guidance young ones need and patience to sustain and keep them strong, they labor long and hard....

The British are coming! The whole fourth estate Must wear what is smart For William and Kate. The British are coming! Men, watch how you dress: A jacket and tie Should lead to success. The British are coming! So, ladies, look nice: A suit, pants or skirt, Would likely suffice....

French Suites Each keystroke is precise, clear as a verb Untouched by modifiers. Sharps and flats Are reliable as death, the light trills All mapped out. This strict staff allows no room For cadenzas. Play it as he wrote it. Still, out of all that, out of each note hit,...

Courage I saw a tiny spider spin a web Within my humble hut between two beams. He tried to throw a thread across, it ebbed Away.  He did not have the will, it seemed. And then the tiny spider tried again, Again he failed to reach the other side. Five...

  I hope your life will offer you new opportunities, that you will find contentment in the choices that you seize. Remember family's important. You can count on us, especially when the way of life is hard and mountainous. Remember to believe in goodness, when you're down and out. Remember...

Untitled Savants like to arrange their stars and push their poets into piles: marble-misers who assign the jars according to the artists’ styles. They line them in their fusty den when they deem an era’s past, and deign to burp them now and then, but work to invent a ‘new’...

The Commissars Oppose Falun Gong They were old, had lost their youth, So, like the old, repressed the Truth. They fumbled, rigid in expression, So stiff – they lacked Compassion. Their purpose was interference, Lacking right Forbearance. In all this, all they had lost: Truth, Compassion, Forbearance – No Tao,...

In Rembrandt's scene of 1653, Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer, there is much that we can see amidst that musty sett(l)ing of gold dust that balances upon the old and new, upon the dark and light, upon the dead and living, giving forth beams of the true and glimmerings...

The allegory of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne isn't flawless; yet it is, in places, good. The A itself does signify adultery, able, and angel, as well as in the hornbook phrase, "in Adam's fall, we sinnéd all." I also think it represents America, a nation married to the...

  A miracle, how else to say it then? At first, but ground, absolutely nothing there, A river meandering by, some cattle, gorse, Nettle and herbs whose use proved no sure cure. Then, as if by magic, he stood majestic, by – Conjured from out thin air his being gainsaid...

  The Glass Bottle Tree When the wind blows through, the tree shakes. The glass bottles tip their sunlight Over a stiff hearth of twilight; Sealing its glow as night awakes. Two silhouettes do gives and takes In drums of waltz down blue moonlight. When the wind blows through, the...

Poems from the Hungarian Poetry Reading 9/19/2013   Twenty Years Later By János Vajda (1827–1897) / Translation by Zsuzsanna Ozsváth and Frederick Turner Like snow on Mont Blanc's distant crest, That neither sun nor wind may harm, My unvexed heart now lies at rest, Inflamed by no new passion's charm....

Imagine that you were lost in a wilderness and had to find your way out. Fortunately, you have with you a number of things, or tools if you will. In the first instance you have a kitbag, which is itself useful. Within it are various articles: a bottle of water,...

Seasong I heard the wreathéd coral horn That Triton blew, and less forlorn Did suddenly I feel: I heard the sirensong afar I launched a ship and tracked a star How soon my heart did heal! I saw the shade of Hy Brasil, And what delight within me filled To...

  Our ends and deaths sit with us all the time defining executioners and crime; and though we try to keep them from our door, many killings lie within the Law— are even processed as a human chore. Killing resonates a moral negative, but it’s a soldier’s job to take...

Coastal Shingle There, totem-stacked in paratactic charm, The words cascade: Hay.Shavings.Piglets.Straw. I had not sought a sign from Salt Marsh Farm, But since this was the only one I saw, I turned from what had been my course till then, Meaning, while sun was shining still that day, To give...

Zhen-Shan-Ren: “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance,” the three main principles of Falun Dafa Zhen-Shan-Ren, Zhen-Shan-Ren… Hear the Truth that sounds like “Zhen,” Rhythm that can vanquish lies, Self-deceptions vaporize: Zhen-Shan-Ren, Zhen-Shan-Ren… Hear Compassion for all men That can make our hearts ascend, Make the Good a splendid trend: Zhen-Shan-Ren, Zhen-Shan-Ren… Hear Forbearance in the...

Updated January 10, 2020 Ascending the Phoenix Terrace in Jinling by Li Bai (701-762) Here phoenix roamed four hundred years ago, A sign of the enchantment that once thrived; How empty now, where no more feathers flow, A lonely river is all that’s survived. Lush garden of the grand Wu...

  Cynthia Moon Go drag your white skull before blind seas That tumble dazed to your mono-eyed magic Go string the treadmill tides around the poles And make all starry lovers pale and sick Go tell Neptune when the night is through Charm him too with your waxing and waning...

Waiting, Sadly For Keats I'm waiting, sadly, for a guest to come: What hour defeats me and how I don't know. But come he will, like some ghost to his own, And when he knocks I'll answer him and go. The door will open, and the warm air out, Such...

The Fallen Vestige The fallen vestige of her foliate time: Browned leaves beneath; coarse needles of old pine Once green and pungent; when her nests in spring With peeping chicks, and swaying boughs, would sing. So splendors fade, as does the daily light; Of seed and growth and birth and...

  Ode to Alexander They say he cried, the great king, when He marched upon his journey's end. To live but once, and yet to know There's so much further man could go. I'm sure twas no one could console That mighty, strong, and broken soul. When worlds and worlds...

  This Autumn Evening These words of Bashō I cannot claim as my own, but they appear again and again in poems I try to write this autumn evening. Three simple words I am unable to match, unable to live up to with my own words this autumn evening. As...

I dreamed again last night, of waters, raging, That break in waves across the Thunersee, Where mountains coldly climb, fir-clad and aging; Impervious to the rain against the scree; Of ramparts there that guard a fort forgotten, With walls where torches burned and moss now grows Where rooks now wrest...