Poetry

. Art and Belief by Joseph S. Salemi When I consider the question of art and belief, I recall the words of the world-famous Indian dancer, Sujata Rubener. She was born a Christian in Bombay, but she was the premier dance interpreter of the various myths of Hinduism and Buddhism,...

. Lee in the Furnace "He who thinks of Lee Must think of Washington. . ." ---Herman Melville So Oleh, Chief, my other grandfather, Mine on the distaff, on the losing side. The furnace burnishes your graven face. You smell destruction, like a gathered tide. As all your features soften,...

. Insouciance When circumstances wear you down Consider this important fact: It’s easier to smile than frown. When autumn leaves have all turned brown, Your borders breached, your cities sacked, And circumstances wear you down, Go find yourself another town To capture what you’ve always lacked: A cause to smile...

. Tampering with Permanence  a Seattle pantoum __Here where I live, a cloud looks like a mountain; mountains float. Like love, illusions laugh out loud. We’re stuck in nature’s drunken boat: looks like a mountain; mountains float and fade to air, though made of rock— we’re stuck in nature’s drunken...

. Pythagoras, Man of Music Pythagoras was of mathematical mind. No matter where he went, he’d often find Relationships to numbers. For example, The clangorous peal of blacksmith hammers’ metal On metal gave him cause to train his ear. That different weights made different tones was clear. He tested weighted...

. Voyage to Scotland Constantius II, son of Constantine and emperor from 337 to 361, hoped to glorify Constantinople by collecting relics of all twelve Apostles. He took Saint Andrew’s remains by force from the saint’s principal shrine in Patras, Greece. This violent robbery greatly distressed the people of Patras....

. Killing Common Sense The savagery of leftist rage __is getting more intense. There’s no rest from the war they wage __upon our common sense. The brave who voice their doubts out loud __are always shouted down. They’re cornered by the blue-haired crowd, __then driven out of town. Young brains...

. There Are Not Enough Hours in the Day There are not enough hours in the dayto take all of the naps I want to take.As soon as I have sprung up from the hayI think I'd rather dream than be awake—so long as they are of the pleasant sort,not...

. If You Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter If solidified oil with chemical clutter That helps it look yellow and tasty to eat Makes you think there’s no need to believe it’s not butter, You believe in modernity’s biggest deceit. If you think things can just be replaced with a...

. Death in Life, Life in Death: Canto XXXIII of Inferno by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) translated by Stephen Binns The sinner raised his face from that foul meal ____shade eating another’s head __and wiped his mouth then with hair that once was __upon the head that he consumed with zeal....

. What Sort of Freedom? What sort of freedom is it that proclaims Its export to the savage and demands Oceans of youthful blood to back its claims And wrests the first fruits from hard-toiling hands; That foists debt’s yoke on children, hollowing All human action with harsh usury; That...

. You Might Be a Leftist Liberal Democratic Clone You might be a leftist liberal Democratic clone, If you think someone else should pay your student loan. You might be a leftist liberal Democratic jerk, If you get paid for protesting and not for work. You may be that one...

. . Music by Jeff Eardley . . The Return to Ithaca by Brian Yapko This shall not be forever, This life spent on the sea. __I’m going to find my one true love And joined again we’ll be. I’ll risk the howling tempest With sails high on the mast,...

. My Last Delivery as Attending Physician adapting a line from Carl Sandburg Although she’s labored for eleven hours, determination freckled on her face to consummate nine months, she summons powers inherent in her gender of the race to introduce another life to air, and so she bears down through...

. Revolution Puckish Schoenberg, bored with Bach now assaults the tonic scale, pounding (his a frontal shock), on Mozart's coffin, a modernist nail. He scans the twelve established tones, then briskly rolls the musical dice, overturning melody’s throne, emancipating dissonance. What’s he doing, anyway? Has he made a radical break...

. 2 Peter 3 “Consider that our Lord’s patience is directed toward salvation.” ---2 Peter 3:15 For once in church (before, I think, the Sacrament) In silence deep and cast adrift in prayer, I folded in upon the immanent For just a moment (maybe more) and there Was made of...

. Wayward Their frosty hearts and polished oaken door Slammed shut the night she found her stolen voice. She sang a moonbeam song---a shocking choice In mystic keys that spurned the common score--- A black-sheep beat that rocked the status quo In jarring notes of pink and indigo. Her sickened kin---they banished her from sight With tongues so sharp they severed touch and tie; With barbs so blunt they bruised her summer sky. Through squalls of pain her bold refrain took flight--- A...

. The Ballad of Baldy McCass Canteen I From Utah to Colorado rode that wily desperado. Sometimes off to wild Wyoming or Nevada he went roaming. In late afternoons towards banks, high society’s rare ranks, coaches, too, slanted his shadow, having stolen o’er the meadow. Spring and summer, fall and...

. To Whom It May Concern a common spelling error: “Isreal.” "Woe to those who say of the evil that it is good and of the good that it is evil; who present darkness as light and light as darkness, who present bitter as sweet and sweet as bitter." ---Isaiah...

. Remembrance I When I, a boy whom youth made bold, Had bid my land of birth one last adieu, To search for glory, fame and gold On distant shores, as seamen do, Drowning old worries in the waves of blue, Exchanging comfort for the cold, The land for sea,...

. A 2023 Survival Villanelle for Potentially Contentious Thanksgiving Gatherings Keep dinner chatter chirrupy and perky. Don’t prod the pachyderm that plods the room. Thank your candied yams you’re not a turkey. Stay cool when you hear tosh that’s crass and quirky, Like blokes lactate and fellas have a womb....

. Spirit of Thanksgiving Past O, noble Spirit of Thanksgiving Past, You are a very strange yet gracious host! Of course the thought of going back brings joy--- To see my life when I was just a boy! So guide me as an insubstantial ghost And through a mist we’ll...

. . The Eve of Thanksgiving ‘Tis the eve of Thanksgiving, and all through the class, The students are wishing the time would soon pass. Though it’s nodes, modes, and frequencies they’re told to find, Bright visions of turkeys sashay through each mind. Though the pencils are poised over notebooks...

. Interrogation at the Grassy Knoll: November 22, 1963 Who are you guys? We’re from the CIA. And you? I’m Lucien Sarti from Marseilles. What about you swarthy types? Who, us? We’re Cuban exiles, and we won’t discuss The reason why we’re here. And how about you? I’m sent by...

. World View Beyond the line where sea and sky collideLie distant lands beyond myopic sightWhere men and women live and love besideThe self-same sea beneath the same sun’s light. Where East meets West depends on where one stands.I travel west to reach the OrientWhile those in distant cross-Pacific landsLook east...

. . Reversing Babel . I. Babel “Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.” ---Genesis 11:1 . An ill wind blows through Babel, where all speech Is one, so that it’s possible to plan--- Then build---our city’s tower, which will reach To realms where God can be...

. Perpetual Emotion “And everybody hates the Jews.” ---Tom Lehrer, National Brotherhood Week Not many people like the Jews; __By many they are hated. The people whom God chose to choose __At best are tolerated. Whenever something seems unfair __It’s Jews who are "outrageous." "Like viruses they’re everywhere. __Thank God,...

. “United” Nations? The U.N. won’t condemn Hamas’s slaughter,Supporting those who want Jews underwater.Iran’s a U.N. human rights group head,Though it would like Americans all dead. Two U.N. questions thus remain unclear---Why we’re still in it, and why it’s still here? . . True Apartheid Leftists say Israel uses “apartheid,”Though...

. Hero, Leander and Marlowe Setting: Christopher Marlowe’s flat in London. Date: May 29, 1593. At last I see the tyrant in the Muse--- She captivates, but those she loves she kills. Like Mephistopheles, adept at ruse, She forces me to plot out what she wills. Now trapped within my...

. Wishful Thinking The “investigation” widens of the traitorous crimes the Bidens __are and have been guilty of for years, As liberal scum like CNN attempt to save his ass again, __he’s grappling with his family's greatest fears! What he's done for all this time, thriving off his life of...

. Prayerwise for Gloria (1934-2013) Tough, keen, opinionated, shrewd:Collected junk, shared what she foundWith those who shared her roof and food,With those who shared her daily round. She prayed her daily round of beads.She loved the ancient Latin Rite,The Athanasian among creeds,Allied with Michael in the fight. Her children chose...

. Fungible Assets A pint’s a pound the world around. Now, lay your oars athwart the gunwales And let your aching muscles get some rest. Relieving strain on carpal tunnels, Your doctor says, is always for the best. What use, my friend, is all the rowing When final destinations are...

. Babylon (or Shelly's "Ozymandias" Paraphrased) . Oh Babylon, sweet Babylon, how long your skeleton has rotted in the sun— your name intoxicates like honeyed wine & makes me smell your incense in my mind & see your ziggurats & pleasure domes & zoos exotic creatures once called home, &...

. . Love Songs for Malcolm . I. Quickly you approach, King Malcolm, Firm and steady is your tread, Predetermined on defeating Faint reluctance in the greeting Made by one you mean to wed. . English words surprise me, Malcolm, Asking questions delicate; Comfort for us you’ve promoted, Courtly words...

. To Some Religious Brothers Beg! pray! or preach!  Or make one gravel-throated noise, Make murmur or a whimper or a single moan! Burble or belch or grunt!  The silence of your voice Unsettles souls and states, and your mute-mouth makes known Our pregnant insufficiency, our copious dearth. Our squally...

Classical Poets Live with Andrew Benson Brown Episode 8: Torquato Tasso, "King of Poets" If you enjoy this video, please like and subscribe on YouTube to support the production. . https://youtu.be/oOoeozJXUVU . . Andrew Benson Brown has had poems and reviews published in a few journals. His epic-in-progress, Legends of Liberty, will...

. What Do You Do When You No Longer Drink What do you do when you no longer drink, no tossing out the empties in a bag as one by one you hear that cautious clink then wipe end tables with a beer-soaked rag? Face reality? No, not right away....

. Assorted Sonic Salads (i.e., Kamalisms) being the first installment of a repository of wisdom from the Vice President of the United States of America. Edited by Jeff Kemper . Space! Exciting insight cited from a speech at the Vandenburg Space Force Base in Vandenburg, CA on 18 April 2022...

. Poetry A poem, subscribing to a plan, Flies higher than the highest planes, Seems safer than a rose-red tan, Or traffic in the fastest lanes, Where people die in random crashes. And yet how dangerous are words? Combined, their meaning soon surpasses A single, random act. Like birds, We...

. It Seems Like Only Yesterday Votes and virtue did not yield Control of our own border, And context did not supersede A breach of law and order. Most people thought the playing of Our anthem was the grandest, The media told what they saw, And weren’t just propagandists. Then...