Poetry

. The Present---Tense The partial thaw of yesterday now slips Beneath a crust of light that is white snow. This snow is hiding stumbling blocks that trip Intrepid elders' steps to broken hips As small-warmed kids are dangled off the floor, Yanked from falling by firm parents’ lifts. As sun...

. Vom Himmel Hoch by Martin Luther (1483-1546) translation by James A. Tweedie 1. From highest heaven I here befall To bring a good news tale to all. So much I want this tale to bring To tell it I will gladly sing. 2. A little child this day is...

. Sunday Morning While the World Burns Another something, somewhere, every day Perturbs the practised calm of her routine. Those sad reflections on the fractured screen Of tragedy ten thousand miles away Deface the morning’s promise with dismay And make its dull demands seem so obscene. She’s running late: the...

. “Use the Word ‘Cancel’ or ‘End’ Instead of 'Abort'" —Stanford University's 'Harmful Language' List What might have been What could have been What would have been A child who dared to climb a tree Who dared to jump and skin their knee Eyes filled with possibility, A child who learned to tie...

. See the painting more closely here. Eden The newborn world is all aswirl with beasts Obedient who, as God specified, Have duly fruitful been, have multiplied And claim laid to the garden west to east. Their prowl for food and flesh knows no surcease; With feral instinct so preoccupied...

. Continuation You and I are of two discrepant minds: We disagree on all that matters—plus, Our separate brains are not quite sure what kinds Of things they favor, making four of us. The four of us engage in conversations That sound like bickering in closed committee Meetings where doubtful...

. Mother’s TV It numbs regretBut, better yet,Helps her forget,Lest devils spawn. It quells each thoughtOf folly’s rotLost, sold, or bought,From dawn till dawn. Time Confounder,Siren Sounder,Demon Drowner …Is always on. . . Amber of the Evening Amber of the evening meeklyCreeping up the stairs,Slinks into the room discreetly.Amber of...

. There She Goes When Everyone’s a Woman, No One’s a Woman upon reading the news story here. There she goes, erased from Cambridge pages--- An instant relic wafting on the fringe Of lunacy as sybils, saints, and sages Forewarn of doom and logophiles cringe. There she goes---Eve’s ostracized from...

. ---To My Beloved Husband Our married love is no ethereal sound Which dies away when wedding bells cease tolling: No idle lust for courting or cajoling Which dissipates, its petty joys once crowned; Nor yet a chain to keep the body bound, Inured in stagnant care and yearly foaling:...

. The Tartini Tones Combination tones generated by violins of good quality can be easily heard, affecting the perception of the intervals. The harmonic content of the dyad is enriched by the combination tones and this is positively perceived by the listeners. —Giovanni Cecchi, University of Florence Italian Tribune, November...

. Winter’s Perfection A Zen aesthetic guides winter’s perfection--- uncluttered, austere, natural, still, subtle, embracing flaws and daring introspection, a quiet season, slow, without the hustle of spring and summer, harvest’s rush in fall. A single tree’s bent by the weight of the snow, a peasant’s hunched beneath the wood...

. The Portrait   I dreamed I was an artist, and had made A likeness of the one I loved for all To wonder at, and, that the homage paid Might grow, I hung it on a trendy wall. It was a likeness, but had subtleties Which left the character...

. Arrival of Spring Each wing delivers news of a young earth: The nightingale, the end of moonless woes, The dove, the peace of melting mountain snows, The hummingbird, a lightness dense with mirth. The goldfinch tells the sun what joy is worth, The starling stirs the nimbus clouds that...

. Autumnal Wind Autumnal Wind, who are in speed as swift As was the Spring with which my life began, If you would sigh upon this lonely man, And whistle through his heart’s wide-open rift, Then from the thorns of life I bid you lift This fallen leaf; to blow...

. Toward Yehuling, 1211 Unfolding steppes emerge as flattened plains Of long grasses of gold and April-green, While crystal streams, like bold and careless children, Careen away through boundless fallow fields. Horses graze nearby on budding sprouts While courtly falcon streaks the sky alone, Now mantled in the palest morning...

. Lessons in Love  inspired by William George Falconer (1922 – 2006) I. The First The photo flew from Grandad’s falling wallet. It fluttered to the floor within my reach. I picked it up and saw the writing on it--- Summer ’64 at Brighton Beach. I gazed at Gran---a siren of...

. Supplication to Erato and Melpomene Erato, decked in crimson roses; green branches of myrtle, Help me forge the words to win her heart: My crippled pen can summon not the words that might make fertile Barren hours passing till we part. Her eyes are of the ancient jade; like...

. Yet The withered dune grass slumps beneath a sere Gray frozen sky, as winter tag-teams fall And nighttime frost compels the Black-Tailed deer To seek out warmer lairs beneath the tall, Cone-laden Sitka spruce. The screech of jays Intone a requiem for summers past, And fading memories of once-lived...

. In a Soviet Gulag from an oft repeated joke There was a break in the relentless cold And then the guard stepped out for quite a while. Such changes made the prisoners grow bold: Two yelled their thoughts, another cracked a smile. One wanting to impress the others told...

. Gathering in the Names for Michael Vincent Laureate Ortiz Hill (1957-2022) I'll add names to my life until I'm subtracted, And my name is as long as this poem. There's a scroll with a list of the lives I've impacted, And my name is as long as this poem....

. Tuesday Afternoon I sit beside a lake and fish, And read The Captive Mind. An hour gone, I stand and switch My bait for a new kind. But cheddar cheese and crawdad square For catfish work the same: In wind and rain or weather fair, I never catch my...

. Sister Thérèse Scatters Flowers Soeur Madèleine has brought me this bouquet--- Vermillion, scarlet, each rose bright and pretty. She’s kind to join me in my cell to pray, But I cannot accept her tearful pity. She’s frightened how consumption can erode A little nun like me. Her heartfelt sighs Forget...

. The 2022 State Dinner Elites come to Washington and dine On lobster harvested in Maine. (They plan To regulate the catch, create a ban, Because enviros claim the fishing line Is killing whales.) Also on the menu: Filet of beef, potatoes, roasted pears, Champagne and caviar, affected airs. Only the best...

. Child's Garden  To never end, we thought, the morning light that kissed our eyes, and breezes whispering with cherub voices, pausing to invite us to a secret world, and conjuring the whims of pussy willow magic wands and piney beds for tiny acrobats and games of hide and seek...

. Write a poem about the 2022 FIFA World Cup happening now and post it in the comments section below. To get the ball rolling (pun intended), here is a World Cup sonnet by poet James A. Tweedie: . Fast Forward In soccer, forward strikers are the heart And soul...

. Elegy for Miran Sutherland Miran Sutherland was miscarried at 14 weeks. Read his story here. His earthly life a hundred days, He died inside his mother’s womb. His tiny eyes would never gaze On lights that earthly life illume. His doctor called him “medical waste;” His mother, shocked and...

. A Right Royal Circus a villanelle  Roll up! Roll up! Come hear the desperate call Of sparkless Markle and her spurned buffoon. With pleas for privacy, they welcome all. They welcome all like flies upon a wall To witness tears---a crocodile monsoon. Roll up! Roll up! Come hear their...

. Covid on a Clear Day One day I window watched for things to write; the next day I was lost, and underneath the spell of fever, hot, with skin stretched tight, I slept curled up with clenched and grinding teeth. Then came the dreams of elevator shafts that moved...

. CBS Has Now Verified CBS says it’s now verified, The laptop Hunter took in for repair. And other breaking news that it’s supplied Is Washington has crossed the Delaware. . . Plan Needed Republicans won’t win elections Till they learn to neutralize The harvesting of mail-in ballots Dems corruptly...

. On Ford Madox Brown's "The Last of England" Their balcony beringed with cabbages, They fix their eyes on the receding shore And blankly call to mind the ravages Now past and wonder at the ones in store. The Channel’s unrelenting winds upsoar Magenta ribbons into bloody streaks, While he,...

. China’s Silent Screams  The CCP will never hear the screams Of those who strive to find their way back home. It steals all hope and freedom---snatches dreams From lost souls tossed where wolves and nightmares roam. The CCP will never hear the howls Of folk whose flesh is melting from their bones--- Those burned alive as barbarism prowls Through dead-end streets...

. Grifters With smug, aggressive faux urbanity __They do their worst to seize control. They think it signals perfect sanity __When they adopt a regal role, Expecting us to stroke their vanity, __Lest our good hearts seem dark as coal. We start to question their humanity __When we discern what...

. Nessun Dorma after the Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni  The aria "Nessun Dorma" was played for Donald and Melania Trump's first dance at their wedding in 2005. No sleep tonight.  The city will not sleep.And you too, princess, in your chilly suite,Go to the window, look...

. What Now Will They Build Written upon reading about anti-colonizer graffiti recently found on a Lincoln statue. Read the story here. We see angry children Assembled after dark. Attack defenseless statues Of men who made a mark. Nothing do they know Of those they denigrate; They know not what it means For one to...

. Aunt Helen Aunt Helen told me it was time to go. It hurt her to sit upright in the bed, a fact I'd rather that I didn't know. It's OK, I can turn this gear below. Please don't; a flattened mattress hurts my head. Aunt Helen told me it...

. Advent Poem When October leaves have fallen and November skies are grey, The stores proclaim that Jesus, hope, and joy are on the way. The virgins hear and heed the call (this world they long to flee), And congregate with eager hearts to trim their Christmas trees. Before the...

. What Geese May Teach My mother had the power that knowledge wields, So questions such as—Would you like to go? Were never invitations, but commands To fly away, cross yellow fields and low, Like summer insects, stuck upon windshields. A raggle-taggle group we were, and so Like sandflies could...

. Last Letter from Florence A recent incident recalls the fears Your letters have expressed: that seven years In this art-laden place might rob me of Whatever you once thought that you could love: The flat I rent lies halfway up a via Around a bend from Piazza Signoria. A...

. Making Children Lie __Canker of mind, the soul Denied—a lonely social wound Is making children lie with pruned __And grafted lines, their whole __Unfolding stories cut And rearranged. Inverted nouns And crossed-out text and scarring sounds __And blocking verbs—and what __A fearful disregard For grammar, generations’ muse, The rules...

. . Instructions Set in Bone With my own knife, by my own hand, I carve these words in no-man’s-land Upon the skull of my late foe, Who sheltered here some weeks ago. He’d only paused to rest a time, And plug a hole, broad as a dime, Drilled into...