Poetry

United They Fall Exhausted armies cling to noble trees along the margin of a meadow mown two weeks ago.  It's...

Ah, now comes the mellow season, Marks its time with jackdaws caws. Autumn with its rusty reason Offers forth its...

by Manfred Dietrich The world is riddled with riddles. Riddling is as old and as ubiquitous as language itself. When...

  For Elizabeth La Cienega slept on a muted afternoon At old Las Golodrinas, when I spied a nest Of...

  So delicate at first, the music swells And fills with brilliance of a dawning sun Each listener and cracks...

  An acrobat named Larry Loops was best among all circus troupes, But he quit one day and was heard...

In his bedsitter years, he was alone And all his dreams were haunted by some girl More wonderful than any...

Dark Devil’s Pool, where Spirit of the Tweed __Conceived the first-born of the Tuede clan; __Each maiden fair, and muckle...

“Religion is an opiate of the masses,” So says the Prof. lecturing to his classes. “College used to be a...

by Charles Eager William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, in 1770—the same year as gave us Beethoven, Hegel, and...

Death Is the Cooling Night by Heinrich Heine Death is the cooling night, Life is the sultry day, But now...

For John McCain, Ernest C. Brace, & Alexander Solzhenitsyn I season my pen with the sonnet's blood, And do not...

I . The Accused: “Your Honor… And if I were a troubled lad and if indeed I did go bad,...

a Petrarchan sonnet Life’s hills have been trampled since first we met, That mad, magic moment long years ago, When...

—from A Gallery of Ethopaths* For those of us who cherish text, There’s anguish in what I’ll say next. The...

  Pure of any mortal mote ___and boundless (but for sight): The deep dry sky of Autumn ___inscribes the shadows...

  The butterfly, the sea anemone, And snowflake, though possessive of the true Design of grace and perfect symmetry, Seem...

The Coworker A “need-to-know” it’s called in Personnel and I’m just high enough to need to know she’s going through...

After RFK __I’m named for one about whom Lowell wrote That doom was woven in his veins. In June Of...

Painted, woody there it stands, this door behind which kingdom fans. Bright with order, calm with ease, a wooden plank...

by James Sale Wind in the Cave, Finishing Line Press, 2017 Out of Nothing, Shanti Arts Publishing, 2018 Recently in...

Translation by Evan Mantyk "The Ballad of Mulan" was written in the sixth century about a legendary warrior, Hua Mulan,...

. The Country Club To think about a country club Begun for whisky in a tub, Distilled from fields of...

Woman: Why choose the red dress, dear? Reply: To me it's really white, To you it should be clear, Mood...

Check-Mate by a Pawn for my sons We parry, thrust: This game of wits, Where each pawn must Deflect your...

Sonnet for a Cosmetic Company Ah Youth! To whom each maiden plights her troth To coax and woo each winsome...

I. I’ve awed at the Atlantic’s bluest depths, and peered at the Pacific’s deepest blues; the warm blue summer waters...

Lay your hand in mine dear, ___Lay your hand in mine; If you will lay your hand in mine We...

Ye boundless vaults of heaven without an end, __Thy silvery fields of azure stars unfold Above the earth, and verdurous...

I Taught a Lesson to My Toes I taught a lesson to my toes, They’d overstepped the mark, Escaping time...

a rondeau Cape Disappointment, battered and distressed, Besieged, beset, by brute-force waves hard-pressed As broad and deep Columbia collides With...

Left to Write It isn't difficult to find __the works the masters left behind, and others too have written verse, __some...

. Written: March 27, 2022 A Wedding Sonnet To those true cultivators of Zhen Shen Ren,* There is no common...

My Wife Is Clad in Cloth From Head to Foot My wife is clad in cloth from head to foot....

  Things shifted for them suddenly From seeing their folks in the morn To mourning their folks in the sea....

Three Loves in One We've gathered Love, but only insofar As we have reaped a crop from seeds we've sown....

a Petrarchan sonnet Highlighting midnight across darkened skies flies the Supermoon hidden in all of its glory; though sightless and...

A Life Well Lived a rondeau A life well-lived begins and ends surrounded by the love of friends. The air...

. https://youtu.be/9h-79BVeByw . Open Heart Surgery The best day of your life; a child is born! Start out happy, but...

  Riddle XXXVII From small beginnings I grow great, just keep up the heat and wait, help me become the...