Poetry

By David B. Gosselin The nature of the subject matter discussed in Dante Alighieri’s lyric poetry, his canzoni, has been debated time after time, generation after generation. While the Dantisti as they are called, the Dante scholars, will often take up the habit of prating on individual details and individual poems,...

By Brett Forester Writing but one fine, enduring poem is a remarkable achievement. Writing a book of great poems is an even rarer triumph. Yet in 1820, British Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (born August 4, 1792 - died July 8, 1822) published just such a book: Prometheus Unbound, with...

  Stone Walls Sometimes a Prison Make What might have happened once in Carolina To folks whose only wish was for some peace Is commonplace within the Wall of China, Where persons are abused without surcease. A so-called government that treats its people Like livestock destined for the autumn slaughter...

  The Garden of the Gods A Cywydd Llosgyrnog When storm clouds hid the Manitou*, They cloaked invaders from his view: Giants* who engendered fright With fearsome height and thundered tread. Their horrid creatures ran ahead— Kindled dread and panicked flight. Before their jaws devoured the land, A shaman knelt...

  Perked Coffee Things today are bad and getting worse, examples always seem to us abound: service for consumers seems perverse, and music does not have that vinyl sound. My garden pruners, they don’t last one season, and dealers’ auto service seems a scam, the prices for my phone plan...

Homer’s Iliad I.1-47. Translation in the epic hexameter, the meter of the Greek. Sing of the wrath, my goddess, of Peleus’ son Achilles, doomed and destructive, which gave the Achaeans numberless sorrows, sending so many robust souls down to the house of Hades, spirits of heroes, but bodies abandoned as...

  Lips, soft as velvet, primrose pink, Are rent the blue of bruising ink. They rive and crackle in the cold, Retract in tissue paper folds; Corroded strips as flayed as zinc Teased grey and gaunt, and growing old. Faint silver sands shake down like snow, Days melting slowly in...

  On Reading Ginsburg’s “Howl” Once, I possessed an open mind, Which I assure you was my own. I used it to read Ginsberg’s “Howl” Well, I don’t wish to be unkind But those words seemed randomly sown. My first reaction was a scowl. So I tried a second reading....

By Evan Mantyk Advertising for it is everywhere. If you haven’t seen it, you just haven’t been paying attention. A brilliantly colored image depicts a Chinese woman striking an airborne pose. But what is Shen Yun really all about? What does a performance involve? Whether you are a poet, an...

  On President Trump’s First Year in Office An earlier version of this poem was published with an explication in The Epoch Times. In Donald Trump we’ve found a man Who can the tides of time withstand, A seasoned duke, of vision strong, Who sees the picture hard and long. He...

  The Old Westerns No more heroes on horses named Trigger No more rugged, chapped, white hatted figures The bad guys today do not always wear masks At least not the exact kind they did in the past. Though crime existed in those olden days In the end, the wicked...

We New Yorkers love our real estate. We measure our bliss by the size of our rooms. We all need a place to park our freight. We apartment hunt on our first date in vacated spaces swept with a broom New Yorkers live for real estate. We speak mortgage point...

  The Oddity My pen and me set off to sea but washed up feeling useless; the cadent swell invoked a spell and story of Odysseus. While pen-wrecked there I would not hear those rhythmic words like Circe's; this poem must be Penelope and I a new Ulysses.   Seventy...

  Dreams as a Child Remember our lives in dreams as a child, When tingled excitement tickled inside, Surging in giggles which shivered our nerves, As hands clasped in joining’s which laughs only served, And then our hugged shoulders were high with the mirth, Of wondrous adventures that stemmed from...

By James A. Tweedie These days, William Cowper (November 26, 1731 - April 25, 1800) isn’t likely to be found on anyone’s list of “Top Twenty English Poets.” Fifty years after his death, however, three competing collections of his poetical works continued to sell with over 100,000 copies in print....

  Glacier Sleeping mistress of the land, Whose long repose the ages span, We tread across your fissured gown Until we find in looking down, We can at last discern and trace The chiseled beauty of your face, Where frozen tresses fresh with snow Across your granite shoulders flow. We...

When Horae's icy carpets sweep the dale And the heavy boughs shed their frozen tears, The earth is covered with her icy veil And mortals lashed with Time’s cold sneers. Yet let us not run from such cold deceived As our salted tears turn to wintry pearls The soul to...

  A Great Divide "...to form a more perfect union" I walk to the edge of a great divide and I try to talk with the other side but they do not reciprocate they tell me that I'm filled with hate I stand at the point of no return and...

  I have been here before, when heaven cried, All my love and longing locked up inside, Where the green grass glowed in the falling rain, So why have I come to this place again? To the place where I laid that marble stone, Where I knelt and prayed and...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) The Filtering of English in Iran by Delir Ecwabeus "...nor did anything terrify the people so much as those encomiums on his Majesty's mercy..." -Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels "To teach the English language is against the government," said Medhi Navid-Adham, head of state enlightenment....

  Beauties sashay across the sand Norma Jean look-a-likes hand in hand Times before bikinis and thongs Transistor radios blaring songs Sunny shoreline lush and palmy Simpler times when thoughts were balmy Marching bands roar oom-pa-pas Splashing kids chased by their Mas Black sedans line mile-wide beach Scores float by...

Whenever Terror Strikes Whenever terror strikes, wherever death enshrouds the land, its people live in fright of crowded places. Masses hold their breath. Perhaps another truck will crash tonight. We gather, hand in hand, for loss enshrined or hold aloft the candle's golden flame. The dripping wax upon our skin...

Where have the roses gone from my garden? Look how those left freeze in cold winter wind; Nothing I can do nor ask for pardon To save the lovely petals as they’re thinned. Here in the kitchen I gaze in dismay, Looking at the sky with kind entreaty; Hoping snowflakes...

Sonnet XLI - Gifts of the Magi A grander throne than Solomon’s of old, Though wrought of rough-hewn wood and winter hay, Received the royal deference of gold From one who watched a star, by night and day. A nobler incense, burning without end, Nor gathered from the bleeding of...

. . Winter Wore a Raiment White Winter wore a raiment white, Checkered blue as snow in shade, As he worked, amid the leaves, In the Autumn golden sheaves, Soon my season’s time will come, Ever cool and never glum, Winter wore his raiment white, Checkered blue he took delight,...

  Nature’s pillars, which have borne Earth’s breath for ages, Are now crumbling into dust... Still, more keep falling, Shattered by our storm of wants, as outer changes Echo those inside us, stirred by ‘progress’ calling. Man-made streams of poison look like serpents crawling Towards the oceans’ hidden realms of...

  The Exclusive Inclusive I heard about a tender troop, Whose commission was to give Love like a ministry serves soup; They seemed, oh, so inclusive. This sounded like the group for me; Yes, I wished to be aligned. To join, they said, would cost a fee, A small price...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (born February 27, 1807 - died March 24, 1882) was an American poet of the Romantic period. He served as a professor at Harvard University and was an adept linguist, traveling throughout Europe and immersing himself in European culture and poetry, which he emulated in his poetry. Before...

  Lights The shining Santas smile in silver sleighs, With dazzling reindeer poised on roofs, midair; The phosphorescent elves stare in a daze, While shim’ring tinsel hangs from angels’ hair. The flashing lights, the lamps and laser beams Illuminate the buildings everyplace— The lights so bright they blind us in...

  Bemused “Polyhymnia would not lift her veil, All my attempts at sacred poetry failed, Calliope did not lend me her tablet, Epic poetry left me desolate, Terpsichore was sure, I could never dance, Curtly did she say, ‘not a blighted chance’ Her scroll's secret code, Clio wouldn't reveal, History...

  Listen to the voice that speaks within your heart, a whisper set against the roaring tide; softly calls the voice that’s set apart. The world calls loud and clear and smart. But what the world shouts is but a din; listen to the voice that speaks within your heart....

What chilly breeze creates a shudder and crimson leaves begin to flutter down, down like butterflies 'till barren branches reach the skies and herald lonely autumn cries amidst decaying clutter, then winter wends its weary way on through the festive holidays around, round the endless nights in search of precious...

A Rondeau The big corn field was gone today: A machine crouched amid the fray Like a locust after a feast Near the side road facing southeast— Likely to be gone by Sunday. The corn had turned from day to day Yellow-green to deep green array Then the pallor of...

. Vermont A white wood house defines the slope.  The trees Have gone to red and flame.  A field beyond Is spread with grass and granite rocks at ease. This stonewall pattern thinks it holds a pond, But it is free beneath October's sun, At least as free as anything...

  The First Funeral It is with wonder when I think Of Adam, Eve, no childhood grown, Standing before the living God, Alive with language, all words known. It is with wonder, then, to think They could – not taught by human tongue – Speak out and all the world...

  A Christmas Card A distant clang; here comes the heat To chase the chill from hands and feet! A steady hiss and many pings; The song our radiator sings To celebrate this Christmas morn The day that Jesus Christ was born! The windows now we see are dressed With...

  Snow’s candid praise bedecks St. Florian’s Gate As Sobieski passes on his horse. It is the Eve of Christmas, when men wait The changing of the world’s malignant course… Back in the octave of Our Lady’s birth, Whilst he prayed kneeling at Fray Marco’s Mass, The Ottomans yet held...

  https://youtu.be/dVnGlUaitiY   You hear the sound of carols from afar. Bright bulbs and tinsel, cinnamon and cloves. Beyond a hill of snow you see a star. Here you can look at stacks of Christmas trees, buy nuts and raisins, fruit from nearby groves, cards inscribed in gold: "joy, love...

by Annabelle Fuller John Keats (born October 31, 1795 - died February 23, 1821) began life as the son of a stable-owner, and ended it as an unmarried, poor and tuberculosis-ridden young man. Somewhere along the way, he managed to become one of the most beloved poets of the English...

  I should be asleep! But try as I might, I can’t help but keep Wanting to write. Not only deep Into the night, But till birds cheep . . And it’s all but light.   Monty Med is a 54 year-old driver who grew up in England, but he’s been...