Culture

Upon seeing "Louis XV of France as a Child" painted by Hyacinthe Rigaud at the Metropolitan Museum of Art   O 'tis the beauty of the art of France To reflect regal majesty in paint, To show the famous French-like pomp and prance; Such beauty history could barely taint. In...

Bound verse, ironically, is quite unbound, For writing it you have nothing to say, Since sense comes after you have sought a sound As line by line you pace your measured way. Perhaps a general notion of a theme Sets off your march across the empty page As your mind...

Your steps, unequal, hasten, departing from the race Where dust’s all that’s awarded, where just the fit survive, Pursuing trifles, anguished, forgetful of life’s grace. The farther from this downslide, the more you feel alive. Inside the concert hall now, in dimness calm you dive, The yearning for competing is...

Is it ISIS or ISIL? I think it is the latter It really doesn’t matter True, ISIS rhymes with crisis Let’s not lose our heads about this But ISIL rhymes with evil And also with the devil So if reason still prevails The devil’s in the details.   Robert King...

Creativity Requires a Cave (an Apology for Form and Rhyme) IMAGINE Gretzky “trapped” behind the crease; or Pelé, deking, swarmed before the net; Odysseus before he dons the fleece; or Jordan, bodied, ere he stops to set... It’s in tight spaces, when one is constrained, when one is challenged, tangled, forced...

Marseille, France In the year 1720, the last great occurrence of bubonic plague struck the port city of Marseille, France, killing half of its citizens in less than a year.   June 16, 1720 The bells were ringing all throughout the day, Announcing to the inhabitants that The thing in...

The Inward Light Be proof against the eye and ear And every sense that stultifies The inward light, supreme, austere, The keenly sharp, the keenly clear, That by the lucent beam it darts Illuminates the deepest hearts.   Sonnet on Discernment All varied lengths and waves are there:  The ear...

Wow! The wind is blowin’, the rain is rainin’ slant across the windowpane – and in the yard whole oceans storm across the grass and make some parts too full of mud to pass. In hours this windblown slop can dry to land as course and granular as desert sand....

  How Long the Night Anonymous Old English Lyric, circa early 13th century AD Loose translation by Michael R. Burch It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts with the mild pheasants' song ... but now I feel the northern wind's blast— its severe weather strong. Alas! Alas! This night...

Trajan's Column By Uberdi Ascweli In Rome, amidst the many structures, gray, peach, white and brown, around it, rising, Trajan's Column, does not stand alone. It was a work commemorating Trajan's victory in overwhelming Dacians in the Second Century. The quintessential type of a compression member, it was made to...

. . Bay from Berkeley Slate blue blustered inland sea Water from the rivers be Sea of salt and rain ashore Many waters, oceans roar. Slate green gusted inland sea Berkeley roof, fraternity Rising sun to light and warm Morning of a coming storm. White cap tufted inland sea Windy...

One (1979) A policy is still in place Which subjugates each woman’s womb. Spin doctors cannot render grace When pregnancy begets a tomb. Before the mother sees a face, Her green is plucked in fetal bloom. The thefts till now are hard to trace When pregnancy begets a tomb. Girl...

From what I see of life’s disgust; The killings, rampant shooting sprees, I’m sure that no one not agrees There’s nothing ‘bout it free or just To take of life, spray the horror; To taunt and gloat of liberty, Yet do harm to humanity; Break through innocent’s very door, Spill...

  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...