Poetry

. Cookies I bought a bag of cookies for a snack, But they were way too sweet… I took them back. I tried each one to make sure this was true. I really didn’t know what else to do. The woman in the store was not too kind. She told...

. Civilisations Forget the Taste of Their Own Tails To see a friend possessed By the time’s ideological incantations, To see a world soon blessed By mob rule and its dark infatuations; To glimpse a friend’s black eyes Gouge out the moment’s question—friend or foe? To glimpse a world of...

. Bingo Ladies Gray-haired gals meet twice a week, Have their luncheon with the clique At the Wendy’s in Coppell. After they have talked a spell Off to northwest part of Dallas To the Giant Bingo Palace. First they greet the Palace guards Then select their lucky cards. Thirteen at...

. Out, out, brief candle! ---Macbeth I am black-dog blue and blinded by the glitzy gaze of stars. Lucent moons will never light __my skyless eye. I am frequently reminded of my fear __of future scars--- when he stills my howling heart __my angst will die... I have wondered at...

. This Side of Eternity I. Imagination, you’re a two-edged sword, The universe your oyster, opened wide; Conceiving all the boon life might afford In dazzling display: what may be tried, Perpetual possibilities, outpoured Before the casual confidence of pride. Infinity thus beckons, but we err Who hope to taste...

. For Sophie Pakaluk Barrows based on The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God by Michael Pakaluk in pie quebrado meter Before God made her soul and mind, Before her parents’ genes entwined __To start life’s spark, To them each priest and doctor bade That no more children should...

. On the Banning of the Word 'Field' by the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work See the related news story here. In Southern California they’ve declared that field’s a word to studiously ignore. It seems that at all costs folk should be spared plantation connotation. Has your...

. For the French Revolution Oh, this shall tell the tale of France’s past: the revolution brought in ‘eighty nine, when Frenchmen took a stand and rose, amassed, against the king from ocean to the Rhine. Before its start existed three estates: the first, the clergy; next, nobility; and third,...

. Be Gone an angry teenage daughter to her absconded mother What irritant incited you to leave And not come back while I was left to grieve? Was it the man you wed, the girl you bore, Your dispositions? Tell me: Why? What for? I learned to live without you...

. The Fluctuations of Modernity and Antiquity a pantoum __Something is ahead, A solemn note on open sky, __It rises from the dead, A whizzing plane of time gone by. A solemn note on open sky, Reminds me of the shopping mall, A whizzing plain of time gone by, A...

. Putting Settings in Their Place For dilettantes the world’s bereft When table settings aren’t precise. For if the forks aren’t on the left They’ll give their host some stern advice: “The fork goes here, for love of life, “The salad fork goes right next to it. “And on the...

. Letter from a DC Prison We’d seen the evidence, the ballots dropped In loads of boxes trundled in late-night With ballot counting claimed to have been stopped; The windows blocked to hide observers’ sight, Suitcases dragged from under tables; more— The laptop filled with the Bidens’ dirty dealing Dismissed...

. Antietam It was the bloodbath battle of the Civil War; Scores of men died, by musket, the gore; Was this brave dead soldier from north or from south, Left on the field, blood gushed from his mouth; He had a young sweetheart, love oozed from her breast, But he...

. Queen of Jubilees A Queen there was, revered, of global fame--- Elizabeth the Second was her name. For three-score-years-and-ten she ruled the roost and gave us Brits a self-assuring boost through walkabouts and bric-a-brac that bore her likeness. She was loved by rich and poor who visited each town...

. Elegy for an Unremarkable Man Poor Niel is dead. He’d been off sick since May. Cancer, they said, as if we couldn’t guess, And, since we didn’t know what words to say, We stayed away. If pressed, we might confess We’d turned our jellied backs to his distress, Acting...

. Thorns Grow with Song It’s time to rend our hearts and look inside The chambered will, into the voices in The vein: thorns grow with song. A hope applied With mercy calls the tuner of the tidal Pull of the soul, brings rest, denying sin It’s time. To rend...

. I Met a Shepherdess  by Guido Cavalcanti (c. 1250-1300) translated by Joseph S. Salemi I met a shepherdess in a small copse. More beautiful than starlight, the girl seemed. Her hair was blonde-ish, with a swirl of curls. Eyes full of love, and face-blush like a rose, She guided...

. Mourning Louis XVI We must not say in public that we mourn--- Sit still, Brigitte, and listen to your père! If we disclose our grief we court the hate Of France’s revolutionary swarm. These days are bleak for those of us well-born. Hell take that bloody butcher Robespierre, Whose...

. The Departing Year This night shall stand and stare with wintry rage Through half-closed windows stained in loss and gain; To measure all astounding feats and fame Against those bitter tears in blinding rain. The memories shall never wane with sight, Nor lend to coming days a newer tone;...

. "I Will Mock When Your Calamity Cometh"  "...but ye have set at nought my counsel, and would hear none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh..."  ---Proverbs 1 If you butcher a womb, you'd shoot up a school, Your...

. Xi When Xerxes saw his bridge of boats which spanned The Hellespont destroyed, forthwith he laid Fetters of iron on the waves and flayed With whips the surf which had him dared withstand. So Gaius, too, seeing Britannia’s land Beyond his dreams of conquest, sent his hordes To stab...

. Cambridge Dictionary Women, 2040 In 2040 leftist sports fans Realized their greatest joys, With legendary women’s records Smashed by athletes born as boys. Serena Williams’, Brittney Griner’s Records all erased, bar none. Some liberals, long cowed to silence, Rued alone: “What have we done?” . . View from the...

. La Bandera “ never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders” —Benjamin Franklin It was the feast of the Epiphany. The mall was full, the air alive with flags And musical with counter-revolution. We saw the snake, never the first to strike, The fir tree, firm as...

. The Babylonian Exile At first it cut much quicker to the bone: The loss of all, our world brought to the brink. But by and by you slowly start to think That maybe your concerns were overblown. Their gods are gods of appetite and prone To drunkenness from bouts...

. Unholy Orders for defrocked priest Frank Pavone I heard disturbing news: Pope Francis fired a priest For preaching pro-life views To save some of the least, Against unholy orders From bishops from on high. His empty priestly quarters Just leave me asking why. For priests and bishops who Preach...

. The Sky with Birds Just Lately Born Sometimes there’s a sadness in my heart. A stone, a thought, a fearful start. Yet I rise and see the morn, The sky with birds just lately born. So brave they try their early wings And taste wet crumbs of earthly things....

. Shams Shams-i Tabrizi was Rumi’s intimate friend and spiritual mentor. I stayed awake those short midsummer nights When naked druids danced beneath the moon’s Hypnotic glow performing pagan rites And marking stones and trees with sacred runes. Years later, in the vatic Persian sun, I delved into the bright...

. . A Broadside Drawn up before us, proud and sure, Costumed in their haute couture, And sporting all the best coiffures, With colours purple and azure, Loom the powers of disarray, Armed with bromide and cliché, With which to tar or to gainsay Whomever pines for yesterday. Though theirs...

. A Holy Picnic A small child had a vision in the light Of day, while sitting square upon the rug. It seemed as if she rose to a great height, And there, her senses gave a mighty tug As if to warn her there was more to come. And...

. The Winter Cold I so despise the winter cold; I admit it makes me utter all kinds of truly nasty words, disposition in the gutter. The snow, the ice, this arctic clime do not set my heart aflutter, and skidding down those icy roads, that does sorely make me...

. Dark Sky Back home, the dark is overborne By a billion busy diodes Emitting artificial light, Thence seeping out into the night. But, up here, there are auroras, Constellations, and nebulae--- Or so the motel owners say: “Last week, we saw the Milky Way.” So, we wind through wooded...

. Calendar Poems by Margaret Coats January loves what goblets hold, And February complains of cold. March plows the fields with furrows new, And April nurtures each flower’s hue. Dew on the grass, and leaves above, prepare May’s beds for sylvan love. June produces its fresh, sweet hay; July makes...

. New Year’s Resolution a villanelle by David Whippman And what have you resolved for the new year? I guarantee your vows will be in vain. Oh, I don’t doubt that right now you’re sincere. But soon, your good intentions disappear. Just as it’s happened time and time again. So...

. Same Old New Year   I bid adieu. You shuffle out. A new you shimmies in--- A you without the frown and pout, A happy you of zip and clout, And once again I’ve little doubt You’ll make me rich and thin. You’ll bring me zing. You’ll make me sing....

. Her Silent Prayer  for Isabel Vaughan-Spruce  Beneath the whisper of suburban trees One sombre, sunless, British afternoon, A hushed and humble lady stood at ease In thoughts that rose above the earth and moon To float beyond the turmoil and the tears. Those needful dreams adrift beyond this world, Those buoyant musings soaring as they swirled, Drew ruthless forces from officious spheres. As life and limb was sucked from pulsing womb, A pack of bullish bobbies on the beat (All taught to snuff out thoughts before they bloom) Sniffed...

. Two Empty Chairs “We did the NFP bit for awhile ... and have felt revulsion over it ever since. During that time we might have had at least two more children.”  ---Letter to the Editor, Seattle Catholic, 2002 Two empty chairs, each in its place— The kitchen table’s vacant...

. “Where Ever-present Joy Knows Naught of Time” ---Dante, Paradiso, Canto X, D.L. Sayers translation a rondeau redouble Where ever-present joy knows naught of time, The music of infinity is sung In full-toned harmony and richest rhyme, In higher speech than any earthly tongue. Outside the bounds of days or...

. Crimes Against My Sanity At any-given-time o’clock While tidying my house, I find--- Oh look---is that another sock? It really isn’t such a shock; My kids for chaos were designed At any-given-time o’clock. I can’t tell if they try to mock Me, or if they are truly blind (Oh...

. Addiction A ripple imperceptible, like hints of amber in the tiring balsams, swells to waves of apprehension, then imprints a vision on my mind, with carousels of pirouetting bronze bouquets that plead for my attention with a fiery spin, a touch-me-not exploding into seed, a symphony of reed and...

. Villanelle for Timothy When chains of cold resentment in the end Entangle souls and circle ‘round to bind, There’s freedom in forgiveness, my dear friend. When grievance woos the wounded to offend And “justice” justified is anger blind, We’re chained in cold resentment in the end. To slay the...