Poetry

. Once the Future You were the future once, not long ago. Your sterile walls of concrete, brick, and glass Outlined in steel, and jutting angles show Scorn for the forms you thought you could surpass. That future now has come---with water-stains, Sun-bleaching, rust, and there a pressure-crack; The vision...

. Learning to Laugh The pathos of a circus clown, with empty pockets inside out, now challenges a small boy’s frown. Bewildered by the mimicked pouts, the racoon eyes and painted tears, he wonders what this clod’s about who falls but never seems to fear the squirting flowers or flying...

. I Can’t Be Bought I can’t be bought. They always pan my poems and they have a plan to pay me if I will agree to stop composing poetry. They say I am an also-ran. Who cares if they are not a fan! My trek as poet just began....

. Another Day How time has wasted, over time, over time. __At least to me, that’s how it seems. Oh how I’ve chased it, back and forth, back and forth… __I catch it only in my dreams. The clock is ticking overtime, overtime. __I cannot seem to catch a break....

. The Blue Absorbent Towel . As he fillets my leg and makes a flap above my knee of skin to sew it shut, interns are watching closely how the cut is perfect artistry, a suture map, a hemisphere I'm sailing into all alone. That pungent sea of flesh and...

. Dear Death… Don't tickle with your sickle __Don't taunt me when I'm sick. Don’t make me writhe. Don’t spare the scythe. __Be slick and stick me quick. Don’t waltz me long and slowly __Through shawl-and-slipper pain. Zap me with a thunderbolt __Stark-naked in the rain. Don’t sneak me from between the sheets __Inanimate and...

. Ambition We’re dipping our toes in the paddling pool __When we ought to be tackling the seas. There’s no point at all in thinking so small __With the water just up to our knees. We need to be braver, go deeper, work out __What to think, where to go,...

. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/S2VaIdhn3kg?feature=share https://www.youtube.com/shorts/t99I9LcfEhs?feature=share https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4P99bbEAh-0?feature=share . . Andrew Benson Brown has had poems and reviews published in a few journals. His epic-in-progress, Legends of Liberty, will chronicle the major events of the American Revolution if he lives to complete it. Though he writes history articles for American Essence magazine, he lists his...

. Windjam Dry leaves abruptly fell that day— Whirled weathervane communiqué Proposing a quick stroll away Along a narrow inlaid path To venture past the aftermath Of an alfresco yellow bath. Emerging from the stonecut room Behind a waterfall’s stray spume, A tenor tone, “May I presume To lift the...

. What Time Is It? “What time is it?” he asks of me, __“It’s now eleven o’clock;” “What time is it?” he asks of me, __As I hear the tick and tock. “What time is it?” he asks of me, __“It’s now eleven o-two;” His eyes light up in childlike...

. Requiem The notes we cherish most Are gathered from the throats Of those who perished young. The song we sadly toast Was sown from wanton oats, Disowned and never sung. . . Role Models __A forager is digging ramps Up on a sunny hill in Tennessee, __Philatelists collecting stamps...

. A Star O silent sphere of silver-soft-spun light,Thou crystal pearl strung on an airy veilSuffusing bright celestial delightIn snowy glory o'er thy starry trail:The bridal necklace of the night inflameWith purer ray, whose brighter progenyUnveils her blushing face, unmarred by shame,With vestal grace’s immortality---Or so at first you seemed...

. Blessings Every now and then when I’m in prayer I feel Your famous joyfulness descend. It doesn’t descend, of course; it’s always there Waiting for us, just as it’s always been. It doesn’t happen often, just enough To keep me moving toward You. I had come To think I...

. On Cats and Love My cat does not explain himself. He knows his reasons. Why must I? He needs to bathe while on a shelf Or hunt some trash? I don’t care why. I do not need to understand. I love him since he’s loyal, kind, And brings me...

. The Plight of a Troubled Young Soul Parts I and II are paraphrases of actual notes. . I. Not Today I know I’m ill; I am not well. In truth, I want to end it all. I want to toll my own death knell. I wish I could escape...

. Failing at History She always argued when I used to say We were like the great lovers of the past. That was just woolly thinking, she’d insist: Each separate period of history Was quite different from us in the way They defined romance. So my exotic list--- Caesar and...

. Zelda She and Scott were the face of the Jazz Age, Drunk and riotous in post-war Paris, He scribbling out page on potboiling page To fund the wastage of two beaux esprits. When the stock market crashed, in twenty-nine, He ploughed on, as the now notorious Gatsby scribe; she...

. To Find a Waterfall The wild forest is a spiritual place. Disbelief does not last there. Halfway through My span of life, my sunrise-to-set race, I found my trail among the trees anew. Goal for the Spring: to find a waterfall, To trace my pathway out to that grand view....

. The Kakistocracy Does the news give you malneirophrenia, __but you've not been to sleep? Do you galumph all day around the house, __your mind in sorrows deep? Do politicians bring on crapulence, __but you've not had a drink? Is it those ultracrepidarians __who make you doublethink? All the solipsist...

. Because She Walked In Beauty They sentenced her to over seventy lashes, Because she walked in beauty, hair revealed, Which beauty they demanded be concealed. Courageously, she faced the mullahs’ fascists, Who glared at her with dusky eyes askant. Then led away and shackled to a bed, They beat...

. Summer of ‘73  It’s sunset and the sidewalk still feels hot. My legs and feet are bare, they do not mind Mosquitos nearly eating me alive. The neighbor kids are starting to come out. We play a game of hide and seek; I hide Up in a tree and...

. Father after "So Far, So Near," by Christopher Pearse Cranch (1813-1892). Father, maker of all spirit, infinite, You can ensphere it. Still, You enter all that's living: raising, guiding, and forgiving. Of all worlds, You are the spawner. You alone deserve our honor. All things good You don't deny...

. . . Maura H. Harrison is a writer, photographer, and fiber artist from Fredericksburg, VA. She is currently an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of St. Thomas, Houston.  Her works have appeared in Dappled Things, Ekstasis Magazine, Amethyst Review, Solum Journal, Heart of Flesh Literary Magazine, Trampoline,...

. Again The bench is near where children play And where she sits to dream and muse. She knows her life will shortly fade— A doleful thought she can't refuse. Her wrinkled skin declares her age, And her eyes, alive years ago When young and lustrous in their shine, Now...

. I’ll Keep My Truck I’ll keep my truck.  I won’t revise my thinking as gas prices rise. My son-in-law berates and blames my truck.  It drinks too much, he claims. He loves to spout and moralize. He says the long-term answer lies in hybrid cars of smaller size. The...

. The Pitcher Plant The insect dances on a pitcher plant drinking deep the fabled honey nectar. The rim affords a place to lean and slant— heedless treads the doomed fructose collector. Advancing where the juice is still more sweet, excess brings him to his tragic blunder: ignoring slippage neath...

. The School Bell The schooldays weave a maze inside my mind, A maze with streets resounding childish zeal; The world was then a fairy land designed For all I thought, a world with grand appeal. That giant bell would ring aloud in pride To end the looming boredom, tasks...

. Long List of Requirements The sweet and lovely woman sought __A man to call her own. She had lots of prerequisites __And kept them cast in stone. Some friends were worried such a list __Would court futility. But she felt it was needed for __Compatibility. All those with vast...

. To My Brother after John Keats When I have fears that I may lose my sight before I've savored books I long to read, before famed writers oust my glooms with light and my starved mind their genius stories feed; When I circuit the nature park, a sightseer, surveying...

. A Mighty Fortress for Diane My eyes ache from the tears still left unshed As I remember all she meant to me. I still can’t quite accept that she is dead And find scant solace in the eulogy. A vibrant life bled out to ashen sod. Faith wavers. Maybe...

. The Five Ages Beneath rose bower and sweet cherry shade Long since have Saturn’s golden people slept And for their sins the silver race were swept Hence and in lightning-blasted clefts were laid; Next were the bronze folk in the balance weighed And wanting found and crumbled into dust;...

. Song of the Snow by Amado Nervo (1870-1919) translated by Isabel Chenot How miraculous Nature is! Doesn't the snow give light? Immaculate and mysterious, tremulous and quiet: it appears to kneel in noiseless praise __while falling … Oh snowfall! your weightless and glacial eucharist this day, my vital sin...

. Bunker Hill: The Death of Joseph Warren from Legends of Liberty, Volume 2 Dramatis Personae Joseph Warren – Physician, spymaster, and major general of the colonial militia William Howe – Commander of the British Forces at Bunker Hill Israel Putnam – Patriot veteran, popularly known as “Old Put” Col....

. Fallen Hummingbird A formal-verse remake of a free-verse poem of the same name written by my mother on October 16, 2000, in memory of my grandmother Your hands, dear mother, on my mind have been— Your calm and comfort-giving hands, so thin And bruised, impossible to recognize, From where...

. Saint Sebastianus Sebastianus, soldier, pinioned, bleeding, Stands at his lonely and forgotten post Unperceived—no, even unsuspected— By the diseased and ulcerated world. Stomachs swollen with dyspeptic lust, Crisscrossing arrows of sharp competition, The noise and energy of the inane— All pass by him without a nod or glance. But...

. The Unchecked Pawn Quickly Black castled king-side and planned his attack. White then countered with confidence, primed for a sack, with the sneakiest strategy he could contrive: nonchalantly he pushed his f-pawn to rank 5. I’ll just nab it, thought Black, but wait ... what’s going on? Devil take...

. Shakespeare Re-placed Re-Verse Engineering In the picture above, SCP poet James A. Tweedie has taken the image of Venus from Botticelli’s Primavera and relocated her to the upstairs bathroom in his home. She seems quite happy, there. But what if he did the same thing to snippets from Shakespeare...

. The 10 Best Poems of Emily Dickinson by Monika Cooper Being presented with an Emily Dickinson poem is like getting a telegram from a strange planet: our own. There may not be any words you don’t know. But she has an idiosyncratic way of putting words together and of...

. Homebound They get too old to come to Mass, too sick, Too shaky on their legs or just too scared To leave the house. The bleak arithmetic Of life has caught them sorely unprepared And suddenly the simple life they shared In prayer within the safety of their pew...

. The Darkened Hill We drove and found the childhood place where you would run and hide for space away from family pain and disgrace. Up to the top of the darkened hill we crept and stopped to drink our fill of midnight growing, falling still. All was quiet in...