Poetry

Sonnet VI from Sonnets for Elizabeth Consider how the bards of old had sung Before their numbers vanished with the years, And how their harps delighted captive ears When thought itself was green and fancy young. Think how the meters of a distant tongue Gave figuration to men’s hopes and fears,...

The Mausoleum, Dumfries His crypt sealed by stones made by mother earth, A soft voice: This is where Robert Burns lies, Yon granite gaol is unmoved, unchanged, Tourists trek on through the graveyard, a dearth Of sound until they leave his hallowed cries Behind, written in black and well arranged;...

  Within my gardens soul abounds, A spirit stirring neath the ground, Aroused by secret depths that found, Concealed, inspired, a place profound. And as the rustling leaves surround, With stories from the breezes sound The haunting wind shall sing and pound, Upon the life beneath this mound. And in...

. . Boast of the Poplar My common green I turn to gold, As Summer’s steaming, burning hold is broke, unseemly in July, At the close to mollify. I the Poplar; broad my graft, I see afar: afore and aft, Uncloke my leaves at August crest, In golden sheaves I...

  ~ Dedicated to Falun Gong practitioners facing persecution in China Brutality meets decency and then What happens?  Hardness softens, or it cracks A little.  Craquelure might happen when The decency is struck.  Unless an axe Completely shatters bright compassion, right Can still survive, strong, beautiful, and calm. If brutal...

On Formal Slavery (to a Nation of Free Verse) For there are those that call us slaves.  How poor and simple we must be to cling to ties that stretch us, bend our purpled backs before some ruthless lash and ask for more.  A slight psychotic tendency, a dream of...

Columbus Statues Defaced A haiku High-jacked history An Autumn of mutiny We are lost at sea   A Step Beyond A step beyond The Enemy lurks directing his army  of mindless jerks in the conduct of an Uncivil War and no one knows what they're fighting for. Foundations shake, conventions break and the...

  What is my body that was never mine, That, fevered, it should waste below the deck? I rise, instead, to face the ocean’s brine, The Muslim’s wrath, the ending of my trek. What is the ball that penetrates my chest, If not the lead that tipped the Roman’s scourge...

  Basics Tonight I paint flowers on my tablet. I wanted to write about deeper things like God and love and time and death which brings me again to the compulsive habit of pursuing the truth. On this planet it is probably one of our failings to overlook truth in...

  "A man’s as old as he’s feeling …" ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge “If the body frees the mind in its quest For youthful dreams to be forever young Let not Time play such games like cricket test* To stay batting because the gloves are hung. If I should sit...

  Productivity Lately a feeling's been making me twitch, The Creator in me has too long sat bewitched. Too idle He sits, and He longs to express, some insightful new thought that he does not possess. I should be very pleased that He's been so subdued, that he's given me...

Joe Stalin led his country for just short of thirty years— Three decades filled with purges, hunger, suffering and tears. “To make an omelet,” he once said, “you have to break some eggs.” By “eggs” he meant some heads and necks along with arms and legs. Not counting war (or...

Decades later, his voice still heard: Sustainable, organic, and home-grown. We're reaping what he'd wisely sown: Ahimsa*, respect, main keywords. His foresights make us rethink world, A balanced outlook, clearly shown. For humble, simple life was well-known, Ethics, morality, old school words. Respect for Nature, he felt strong, Cared not for...

Blasphemy A Reflection On the Murder of Two Women Outside the Gare Saint Charles in Marseilles, France, This Morning, October 1, 2017 “Allahu akbar!” The words rang clear, As if the man was shouting them at me. I had no way of knowing they would be The final words that...

by Jane Blanchard Beatrice, Dante Alighieri’s second guide in La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy), makes her literary debut in an earlier work, La Vita Nuova (The New Life), a combination of prose and poetry that details his encounters with the girl, and then the woman, who became his muse....

The Teacher to His Students The ghost… the ghost of Hamlet’s father, came To walk the castle walls one moonless night. This father, once the king, had come to blame His brother, for his grave, incestuous slight: He’d murdered him and took the queen as wife, Then clutched the crown...

Reluctant night is slowly retreating The earth in gray, dim shades still hovering, Dawn strides out leisurely to wake each farm Her sleepy liquid light now makes sand warm, This morning nymph arises from sea pearls She’s wearing magic misty gown of swirls, Her gleaming bracelet borrowed from sun rays;...

“Carlotta Capuccino , ‘Plato’s Ion and the Ethics of Praise,’ takes the . . . view that poetry deploys ‘groundless praise’ and ‘promotes a dogmatic and passive style of life and thought,’ and so is ‘essentially incompatible with philosophy.’” ~ https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/plato-and-the-poets/ The pupa waits. Dogmatically it will Become a Luna...

  Scientists of the world were meeting Stars among them they were feting Challenges new they were seeking Of wine and wisdom, they were reeking "We have caught the long tail of pi We did count the stars in the sky Oceans depths too we have found out Source of...

  Incarnation I: Ego Mater Pulchrae Dilectionis I blossom forth delights on fruitful vine; My grapes are opulent and fair, Productive of a deep, supernal wine Of highest knowledge, hope, and fear. Late summer’s honey, heavy in the comb, Shall never be as golden nor as sweet As I am...

Click here to download the entire book as a pdf file. By Leonard Dabydeen In the fraternity of poetic minds we can luxuriate joyously on the richness of old age, or on becoming old but fresh as sunshine in its glory across expansive horizons. Polish poet Stanislaw Jerzy Lec said, “Youth...

Read about forced organ harvesting in China here. Photograph This man is lost, dead, His organs taken. Dark; hard to look at: His drained flesh sunken, With hard, dark, stitch scars ... Gone, save this token. Elsewhere, his organs Live where they’re foreign.   Flame The non-consenting body Knifed with...

  Not Every Morning Not every morning is as this one, calm excitement for a future brought by change, so many years’ hard work to wrought from strange traditions of my past into this balm. The child me dreamt of serene home, torment behind for those who won’t escape, a...

  Re-visiting Dante “For Dante it was a strict rule not to rhyme the word ‘Christ’ with any other word except itself” – Clive James Inferno Down we went like no other care were there; No sense we’d be bedraggled, drowned, doomed, or lost; All that mattered was now, that...

  Sonnet by Joachim du Bellay (1522-1560) / Translation by Morgan Downs   If all our life is no more than a day In the Eternal; if the years which turn Chase off our days without hope of return, So transient are all things, be what they may: O captive...

Walk with me, though both of us May wonder where we go. Talk with me, explore, discuss The things we may not know. Sit with me, through anxious hours Of waiting and of pain. Stay with me, to share what’s ours In sunshine and in rain. Look at me and...

Beneath Brambles A villanelle Beneath the tangled brambles, look around. Vines creeping, smothering, create the dark. A trillium insists her bloom be found. Canes strangle, branches slip to ghastly ground from hemlocks cased by thorns that puncture bark. Beneath the tangled brambles, look around. The sun strains, searching through a...

Requiem for September (or/ November Is Upon Us) Withering leaves Dying grasses Autumn is here Time Passes Gray skies Chilly days Brisk nights Life’s fabric frays Weary bodies Wracked with age Time to turn Another page Readying for winter Dreaming of spring Eternally hopeful What it will bring We are...

By Joseph Charles MacKenzie, for the Society of Classical Poets Born in 1939 Samuel Gilliland attended the ancient Dreghorn School in an old mining village on the right bank of the river Irvine, said village having passed from the De Morville’s, Lord High Constables of Scotland, to Roland, Lord of...

  Cagney's Last Curtain Call Words shape my lips, words that I shall borrow, Pre-dawn, the sun, yet to fully arise, Caresses land edged by a bustling sea; Joy’s tears form, for I may weep tomorrow, I watch lighthouse lights blink and realise They are beacons guiding boats to the...

Translation (1) By a hedge, the day before, I met a half-breed shepherdess Full of cheer and sense no less— A peasant woman’s child. She wore A cloak of fur. One could adore Her simple skirt and canvas clothes, Wooden clogs and woolen hose. (2) I crossed the field to...

  One afternoon, ‘neath forest tall, where Sunlight dons disguise, I saw a sight few people see (unless they’re telling lies); For under Swamp Mahogany there stood attired in green, An amusing little fellow, spouting phrases coarse, obscene. I asked him, “Sir, what ails you? Why curse when all around,...

Youths for Prophets, Without Sin As youths for prophets steer a course, Towards our futures of remorse, We forge a dauntless faith believed, Inspired by deeds not yet bereaved, And age which slows, and grows to show, Wisdom's what we really sow. _________________________ Sweet forsaken pagan dreams, Of adolescent thoughts...

AMERICAN INCIPITS Ishmael “You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him,” Genesis 16 11-12 I fathom that there’re names that could be worse… Some years ago—it...

  'Twas so much more on that morn before fall that we all came to mourn as it fell As the shadows that touched had borne, by its clutch, a scorn we remembered so well From the sky rained a fiery metal as flowers and petals were mired with soot...

Cloaked in rumors of religion, looming bloodthirst Brings upon world’s drowning morals bouts of horror, As the force of chaos calls you... Depths that holler For damnation fan your frenzied rampant outburst. Charity extends its hand... to face your onslaught! Burning words you read do send your minds, which dream...

  We folks in Florida are quick to extol her amenity: The beach, the surf, the lifestyle announce unique identity. But, sometimes Mother Nature interrupts our serenity: The pointed target of Irma's wrath transforms to obscenity.   Post your Hurricane Irma poetry in the comments section below.   Lucy Giardiano...

The New Explorers See this figure? That’s the Spirit Sent up way back when to scout. She rolls around And samples rocks To see if any life’s about. We sent her up here Ages back To serve in the great Search for Life. And she does so, Never ceasing, Tho’...

The best way to understand America is through the lens of football esoterica. If you have no clue where you belong, why not join the friendly football throng? Get to know the winners and the losers, then idolize the biggest, meanest bruisers. If you know the players, teams and stats,...

Hero for Hire About myself I feel so good I grabbed my club, I donned my hood I found a hater to beat Then on the other side of town I knocked another statue down it crumbled at my feet I am a hero in the eyes of those who...