Poetry

. FIRST PLACE https://youtu.be/F3aTnHiJ4yU . Amends to the Innocent by Brian Yapko Dear Falun Gong, I owe you my amends. I heard but would not listen to the sighs Of battered souls I should have known as friends. An Evil which I failed to recognize I fed with foolishness. My...

. Resist Arrest Instead of Arresting Resistance In Denmark, something now is very rotten, As fetid as the food-scraps in the trash That we have, somehow, carelessly forgotten To take outside.  Our mood begins to crash As we reluctantly, ashamed, take heed Of our inured abject incompetence. Some reinvigoration’s what...

. Moments in Marble from Michelangelo’s sculptures; above from left are depicted Dusk, Dawn, Night, and Day Day hustles up, impelled to humanize His world of work by wary energy, To make hours grow, outstripping blowzy noon, With muscles rippling out of royal rest Unneeded, once it ripens reasoned thought,...

. Patriotic It’s really clever, isn’t it, The words they use to smear us with? They call the righteous hypocrite; It’s just a ruse, veneer, a myth. They’ve tried to make vile racist stick, Then homophobe, supremacist, Deplorable, and lunatic, Transphobe, and misogynist. I really don’t mind all the names, The...

. Read by Susan Jarvis Bryant . In This House... In this house... We value science so much we accept that male and female chromosomes exist and gender is not merely a suggestion. In this house... We know that love is love. We also think that love should be both...

. Reviewed Book: Virtue’s End by Joseph Sale by James Sale In writing this review I have to come clean and confess an interest that not many poets or critics often have to do: and the confession is this---I am reviewing an epic poem by my own son! There is...

. "Tomorrow, at Dawn" Sung in English . "Tomorrow, at Dawn" Sung in French . Tomorrow, at Dawn by Victor Hugo (1802-1885) Translation by James A. Tweedie Tomorrow, when the countryside is kissed by dawn, I’ll leave. For you are waiting there for me I know. Through forests, over mountains...

. Euryalus Describes His Mother In Vergil’s Aeneid, the youthful Euryalus volunteers for a dangerous nighttime raid, asking that his mother not be told of it before he leaves, but that she be cared for, should he not return. He is killed when he attracts enemy attention by making a...

. In Honor of Birthing Person's Day In gratitude and thanks I bless the one Who gave me life, who sacrificed each breath; Whose love unbounded warmed me till their death. I praise my dear, beloved birthing person. I bless the day that I became their son. For nine months...

. A Mother’s Worth A mother’s worth, it glows and gleams in eyes. It beams in grins and giggles sent her way. It echoes at the core of coos and cries. It greets a burst of cheers and fears each day. __It battles through the bawl of sleepless zones __Worn weary...

. The Canterbury Tales---General Prologue, Lines 1-18 by Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) translated by Evan Mantyk When April’s sweetest showers downward shoot, The drought of March is pierced right to the root Through every vein with liquid of such power And virtue that it generates the flower; When Zephyrus too exhales...

. Mind Games---Three Cerebral Triolets  Propaganda  It wants your mind. It wants you blind. It warps and washes wayward brains. It gains control of humankind. It wants you blind. It wants your mind To cave, to close, no cogs to grind Till not one stain of you remains. It wants...

. The First Spring Rain a rhupunt The first spring rain ends winter's pain; new growth again, the earth revived. Soft melting snow will quickly go, small brooks will flow; life has survived. Frost leaves the ground, joy does abound, feelings profound from hope derived. Grass turning green so fresh...

. A recording of our Christmas and New Year Poetry Reading in December has just been made available. Thank you again to the host, James Sale, and all of the poets and readers! . https://youtu.be/ujRomBreh50 . .

. This, Too, Will Pass This, too, will pass--- They like to say. This pain now here Will fly away. This, too, will pass--- This broken heart, This dear, sweet loss--- Tears me apart. This, too, will pass--- A mindset, sure, To meet life’s trials And thus endure. This, too,...

. Incense I cast my words aloft this way and that, Imagining they’re incense offered sweet And fragrant, curling in their brief conceit, Their wisps as agile as an acrobat; And think of priests the Covenant begat, Who when they did their solemn God entreat, The incense was a carrier...

. Crank Out a Few, Please by Joseph S. Salemi Many years ago, when I was in graduate school, I attended a seminar on Vergil’s Eclogues. These are the lovely bucolic verses that Vergil modeled on the earlier Greek pastoral poets who were prestigious in his day: Bion, Moschus, and...

. Guardians of the Sunset III. The years go down like liquor.  Drink and pour and drink again, and laugh or sigh, and look behind you at the dark streets of the past, the rows of street lamp dandelions.  You take so long to cross a portion of the vast...

. The Song of Nina Jankowicz The lies burst ripe and rife today. __Their juice spurts forth with pride. The thirst of those who’ve gone astray __Is quenched by gossip’s tide. My job is drenched in poisoned fruit. I’m Nina. I will kill the root __Of grapevines far and wide....

. A Sonnet for My Nephew Your mother held you first, and then your dad, And after that, the nurse. But then: your aunt. You curled inside my arms—such a small lad— My heart was yours right then. You did enchant Me so, and I knew then that you and...

. May Day Note: Maypoles were a feature of ancient Roman festivals to mark the renewal of Spring. The feast days of Saints Philip and James were celebrated by the Church of England in May.   Having hewed a length of pine, __They drove it in the ground; Then word was...

. Apollo’s Lament He pounds his naked chest and looks for bones Suspecting that the bay tree is a sham. At last he falls upon his knees and moans “My little doe, my tender dove, my lamb!” He scans the forest but he knows the truth: His longed-for Daphne has...

. Apocrypha Two orbs in hand—one large, one small— He climbed the tower to the top. He let them go and watched them fall, And those below who saw them drop Were dumbstruck when they hit the ground With a loud thud at the same time. The clerics in the...

. Beauty at the Waterslide She stood at the top of the waterslide, Bikini, new curves, wavy hair; Surrounded by boys in their swimmers, Unsure as to why they were there. Moved by some insistent attraction, They’d never quite noticed before; They circled hypnotic and spellbound, By her new magnetic...

. Seasons of Change Our fervour was apricity’s embrace. As neon streaks awash a Nordic night, it flared unfettered through the carapace of clotted clouds to cast its fluid light. Accrescent cravings bloomed in brumal air. We whispered vows in springtime’s silver moon. As fireflies, we sparked a summer flare,...

. Revelation You never see suspects admitting their guilt, __Or partisans stating they lied. You’ll never hear soccer stars fearing defeat, __Or macho guys saying they cried. In a world where the truth’s often hidden away, __And the facts can be hard to construe, One thing I would never keep...

. Douglas MacArthur, Et Al. Douglas MacArthur waded through the surf, Unafraid to lead his men in battle. Today, they’d rather write a book, tattle On their bosses, and walk on Astroturf. Just sayin’: MacArthur, Nimitz, Halsey— You gotta give ‘em credit: those men were ballsey. . . Joe Biden,...

. A Tale of April 25, 1999 I’d practiced Falun Gong for seven years. It stopped my spine disease’s jabbing spears And repositioned bone and smoothed skin pores. Such cures were far beyond mere earthly scores. The same occurred for many friends of mine Who felt in touch with elements...

. Photo of Uluru / Ayers Rock by the Poet Uluru / Ayers Rock The winter outback chill of mid-Julys Cuts to the bone as waning suns conspire To send their sparks through darkening cobalt skies That set the Dreamtime Uluru on fire. The silent, preternatural display Is backlit by...

. St. George Updated Our age old bold defender __Now an up to date transgender Is consorting with the witless and the woke. He has quit his knight malarkey __Now he hates the patriarchy And our green and pleasant land’s gone up in smoke. He fought the fiercest ogre __Till...

. By George! By George, St. George! You really are a slouch. Arise, pick up your lance, eschew the couch. Like Patrick, Andrew, David, fill our breasts with pride and we shall wear upon our chests your colours---background white, a crimson cross, since of all saints, you’re England’s saintly boss....

. Remembering Ophelia His scathing tongue had thrust her to the edge. It nudged her through the willow’s sunless fringe. She teetered on that petal-littered ledge Where Hades howls and bluest moons unhinge The violet thoughts of agitated minds. The breath of death, it wreathed her in a kiss Of...

. A Call for Secession by Adam Sedia The fine arts currently lie atrophied in utter decline and degradation. Poetry is no exception. Ever since the advent of modernism in the decades leading up to the First World War, traditional aesthetic, which features realism in narrative and depiction and adherence to...

. With Boots On Soon after break of day an old man comes Trudging along the thawing roads of Cottage Country (the common land of day and hope) Considering the analects of Spring. At every unploughed drive where frozen slush Prevents all ingress of the motored sort He pauses, then,...

. All Out of Hope I am right here, Lord All out of hope. What of me now, Lord? End of my rope! What shall I do, Lord, What shall I know? Tie now a knot, Lord, Or just let me go? So much of life, Lord, I’m on my...

. Is form in poetry making a comeback? It is according to the BBC. In this BBC podcast series, aspiring poet Andrew McMillan talks to a group of "contemporary British poets who are re-framing traditional techniques to write about the modern world, exploring why form is fashionable again." https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000wc0r Thank...

. The Chained Oak This tale concerns the fifteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, A member of the English aristocracy. With mighty Halls and Castle where he’d often go, Perched high above the river running down below. One day, while on the hunt across his wooded land, Sat proud upon his palfrey,...

. . Shhh… Shanghai trembles at the edge of hell As horror wafts and weaves its way through streets. The moon melts in the flare of terror’s yell--- Hot howls of raw despair till morning greets Locked up souls locked down for safety’s sake As Satan prowls for hearts he burns to break. He gulps the tears the hopeless start...

. One Afternoon One hot Arabian afternoon a boom reverberated through my flat and woke my napping wife and children; in each room the windows shook, but not so much they broke. Two cars with insurrectionists aboard had tried to breach the oil field’s back gate and when they failed,...

Judges Angela Alaimo O’Donnell James Sale . OVERALL WINNER . Papa’s Commedia by Nicholas Walz That was hellish—the hulking chopper plunging Through the top: the battered fuselage yawed, Dipped, and dove, while like a lunging weed-eater, The stuttering, feckless blade chawed the trees. There’s no war, nor downed helicopter now....