Poetry

  Georges Danton's Ghost Counsels the Protestors “Yes, America is burning. But that’s how forests grow.” –Maura Healey, Massachusetts Attorney General (June 2, 2020) Georges Danton’s ghost arose from hell And visited the U.S.A. He found a group of protestors And called to them: “One word, I pray— “America is...

  Repeal All the world and all the universe are still, ____All that moves, moves but as God wills; ____All that might be is by God’s grace, Slowing moving through forever at God’s pace. Whatever is, has been as God ordained ____As human will is free enchained, ____As in the...

If I Owned a Macy's by Nancy Weber If I owned a Macy’s or other such stores… I'd tear down the plywood and unlock the doors. It used to be mine, but things change. Now it’s yours--- Men’s sleepwear to rugs, all the 10.5 floors. Fill backpack and bags. Come...

  My father wore his sorrow like a hundred millstone weight. I seldom saw him angry and I never saw him hate. And though he dressed for mourning, I only saw him cry Once in anguish, once for love, and once when Louis Armstrong died. This song is for a...

May 4, 2020 Response is Draconian, As if Napoleon’s Back on the emperor’s throne. Except now with “wanna-bes” Ruining economies, Governing states like his clone. With millions devoid of work, Thousands who’ve gone berserk, Rest trying just to survive, Why do these pretenders Who chose to surrender To hype of...

  The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings,...

I recently discarded some unnecessary texts, and among them were two past editions (the 17th and the 20th) of Len Fulton’s Directory of Poetry Publishers. This venerable publication, from Dustbooks in California, has for decades been an indispensable resource for poets seeking to find possible places for their work. It...

A Riot Limerick by Joe Tessitore The Most Evil has cast the first brick And his antics make decent folk sick. Though he rant and he rail His best efforts all fail--- He’s in fact the Most Impotent Prick.   To the Hong Kong Police by Damian Robin Outstanding. Where...

  Astride the Golden Horn, where Occident __And Orient collide, the silhouettes __of minarets co-mingle with the scent __of spice and sound of drums and castanets. The medieval mosques of Suleyman __And Sultan Ahmet are beyond the pale. __But Hagia Sophia’s lavish span __Is beauty, wrapped in wonder—nonpareil. What next?...

  “London BLM riot: Cenotaph vandalised on the 76th anniversary of the D-Day Landing” –UK News headline, June 6, 2020 In nineteen forty-four, this very day, the barbarous bite of bullets felled our brave. A crimson sea of soldiers paved the way. At Normandy they had the world to save...

  The captain stood amidst his crew, and wiped the bar for someone new. To make them laugh he'd tell a joke and light himself another smoke to cover up the smell of gin, And lasting feelings of chagrin. The captain stood amidst his crew, a round been drunk and...

  Dear Editor, My odes are grandiose and overblown With pudgy gluts of stodgy adjectives In floods of flabby babble prone to drone, All topped with tired, archaic additives. Forsooth, methinks the proof’s before your eyes, But, twixt these lines exists a masterpiece; A svelte and blithesome, lithe, linguistic prize...

  The Dizi Gui (弟子规) is an ancient Chinese text for children that was written in the Qing Dynasty during the reign of Emperor Kangxi (康熙帝) (1661-1722) by Li Yuxiu. Below are excerpts from the Dizi Gui translated by Evan Mantyk.   Disciples rules are what the Sage is teaching:...

  The Director General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom by Sarban Bhattacharya His accent’s weird, his hair is pretty grey, He is too calm to get into a fray. His moustache bears the villainy of the WHO, His pompous mouth suppressed the Wuhan flu. He talked of “global solidarity,” But...

  The room fills with a charming melody— A choir of violins in soaring flight With basses, cellos pulsing—one, two, three— Drum-snaps, flute-trills, horn-calls, rich and bright— A dance of grace and suave gentility. The music conjures up a spectral scene, A world lost long—but not so long—ago, A memory...

Poet's note: This poem is built upon an episode from Xenophon’s Anabasis, in which the Ten Thousand, Greek mercenaries in the employ of Cyrus the Younger, the ambitious brother of the king of Persia, are reviewed in Cilicia, along with the barbarian armies Cyrus raised in Asia Minor. Xenophon, like...

  When reading Irish hagiography, a few instructions should be borne in mind: First, don’t mistake this for the history you’ve read before, or might expect to find in some thick tome. There’s hist’ry here, of course--- somewhere, I’m sure---but it is not the kind you read in high school,...

  Video and reading by Rob Crisell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDEnIR5ziHI&t=8s&fbclid=IwAR1pAlRNwLHVVh1LP0RlZIDMEJslUOhD1MZqoCPCHcvxHQtFK9EwlF8sJt8    

  When You Love When you love The heart of one, Life makes sense With each new sun. You start each day With thoughts of her. You do your best “We” must endure. To be the man She sees in you, You now trust this--- With her, can do. And...

  A Grave Sin by Satyananda Sarangi How grave's this sin of man to shatter man! The human touch is dreaded, faith has fled; I think of God to find a way and scan How grave's this sin of man to shatter man! An empire built on bricks of blood...

  Domain of Pain A piercing migraine or a throbbing toothache, A splinter underneath a fingernail, An upset stomach caused by too much fruitcake, And waiting for responses in the mail Are typical examples of distress A person is expected to endure Within this agonizing wilderness Until his passage to...

  Fake Checks by Esca Webuilder As Twitterites do fact-checks, which are really only fake, confusing truths with their opinions is their main mistake. But censoring the voices that they do not want to hear, is neither good, nor valu'ble; it is a kind of fear. One needs to get...

  The Stranger Above the dark hill in the still Spanish night, The moon, a lone fountain of watery light, Demurely ascends, as she hides her fair face Behind misty veils of gossamer lace. Below, the small village lies dead as a tomb; Its few humble dwellings, enshrouded in gloom,...

  Endless Dream I walk the trail, in hopes of reaching you, As winter sheds her tears of crystal ice. I rise above snow drifts, the trail to view, But find my steps alone do not suffice. On knees I crawl across the banks of snow, As yearnings for your...

The Climber inspired by and dedicated to Chris Bonington and my erstwhile heroes Don Whillans and Dougal Haston He has conquered crags and chimneys Only eagles would have seen And the frozen lofty kingdoms Where the blizzard reigns supreme He has traversed mighty mountains Through the rockfall and the scree...

by David Whippman In 1984, Philip Larkin was asked to become the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. This position is, in principle, the most prestigious that any British poet can attain: in effect, court writer to the British monarchy. Larkin refused, because he felt by then that he had...

  At the Cemetery “Drowned together while playing with a sled on the ice of the Saw Mill Pond at Kensico. Dec. 5, 1871.” ---gravestone inscription She pauses here, what has been done? One stone in fact, yet three in one And there beneath, what does that say? Upon her...

Solemn Silent Soldiers Rest by Roy E. Peterson, written May 22, 2020 Solemn, silent soldiers rest Beneath the green earth’s sheltering breast. The bodies that were once in pain Became the ghost Corps of the slain. Mothers and fathers teary-eyed Remember the son or daughter who died. They pray and...

  17 March 2019 When bleeds the heart with heartache harsh and deep, And coiling loins are toiling, boiling hot, And tears descend across the landscape steep, Cascading in their anguish, frail and fraught With senseless queries gathered in a heap, I know not what my Father’s will has wrought....

  Mastering Magic Set the questing mind on fire with magic, Learn the ancient lore then follow through. Effortlessness must be automatic, Forcing sorcery will never do. Wizardry well done is wild—electric! Perseverance is your greatest tool. If the bones show through the flesh, it’s tragic. Practice. Practice. Practice. That’s...

  Oh, What Is Prayer? Oh, what is prayer? Is it a mystery, that bridges earth and heaven in a cry, that reaches to the infinite? A sigh, A groan, a whisper, tears that come to be admixed from faith and high anxiety or deep recesses of the soul. Whereby...

by Sultana Raza In April 1820, Keats was already aware that he had tuberculosis, and in spring of that year, he was experiencing fever, a bad chest, and lots of anxiety, specially about not being able to finish his poems, and that he would remain obscure. He’d previously nursed and...

Hummingbird Communion I watch them play at dawn of day, as molten gold is splashed their way, on feathers flecked with flashing green and rubies fused in morning’s beam, where sleepers dream and seekers pray. My sabbath aerial display, my seraphim sky-high ballet, means while the worshippers convene I watch...

Clarity and Obscurity Part III Read Part I: The Essences of Classicism and Modernism Compared Read Part II: "Concrete" Poetry and the Fall of Metaphor by Adam Sedia Modernism produces obscure poetry because it denies the existence of absolute truth. Without a fundamental truth to reveal, poetry is relegated to...

  O do not chasten me with tales of fine __Fresh wells of wisdom and of warriors bold, __Or sacred veins of Ethiopian gold, Your more than oracles or muses nine, For I've drunk deep of a more potent wine __That welcomes all into its bounteous fold, __Where worlds abundant,...

  My Last Duchess The Duke of Ferrara recalls his last wife. by Robert Browning That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will't please you...

  I. The rats infesting Kathmandu Airport Appear to co-exist in peace with man And have, it seems, since local time began, Been treated each like some great Juggernaut. Their teeming numbers give no pause for thought To thwart the airport staff: it seems they can Induce distinct responses other...

Edmund Spenser by Margaret Coats Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) wrote 121 sonnets of rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee, including 87 in his love sequence Amoretti. The Spenserian sonnet differs from the Shakespearean because its three quatrains are linked by rhyming couplets. This variant is sometimes treated as the third important...

  New York poet Joe Tessitore challenges poets to begin a poem with these words:   My country used to be...   Post your poem in the comments section below. (Poems should be metered.)