Monthly Archives December 31, 2016

  Color streams burst brightly in a flourish of elation, Each to soar and cover night's condoning, lofty, canvas – Livening this moment, man-made shooting stars' vibration Emanate our gladness to...

  Tapestry A Miltonian Sonnet The pattern on the underside confused By snarl and tangle, jumbled, twisting knot. Its warp and woof embroidered without thought It seems: the flawless linen now...

  How Can You Feel Blue? How can you feel blue When you look toward the sky And see the darkling silhouette Of birds, as gracefully they fly In strict formation 'cross The iris of your eye? How...

For King Charles I of England On the day I asked for a second shirt So my people would not see me shiver In the cold breeze blowing from the river And think me afraid to die or be hurt On that scaffold...

  There are no predators in the wood So deer run free who never could And hunting’s forbidden So deer don’t stay hidden And ticks thrive in trillions Off the hides of millions Spreading...

  Holiday Horror: A True Story By Lucy Giardino Cortese Twas two weeks before Christmas And all through the house Water standing in puddles Mama starting to grouse Three pipes in the floor Had...

To Michael Dana Gioia* By Cal Wes Ubideer The Word within the World that articulates itself does not exist in sunlight or in leaves upon a shelf, upon computer monitors, or on stones on a path; the Word...

  Unspoilt, unique, a soulful place Ancient oaks all around Scattered acorns sprouting shoots New life emerging from the ground I touch the parchment bark of birch It's leaves shimmering in the...

On the Winter Solstice Winter Winter cold and crass Winter Winter old the grass Fast we go across the field Massed the snow and frost to wield Night of rest abed when tired Light and fest and sled and...

  Scrabble-ism One night I was hangin’ with Len, Eating and watching t.v. All the pizza rolls gone, I then Suggested Monopoly. “That game is all luck!” he then said, Voice revealing some...

By Jane Blanchard On December 5, 1830, Christina Rossetti was born in London to an Italian-English mother married to an Italian poet in exile.  The youngest of four children, all of whom grew up to be...

The first Society of Classical Poets sponsored "Rhyming Poetry Reading" was held at The Tea Garden in Middletown, New York, on December 18, 2016. The open mic featured readings of rhyming poetry by renowned...

  To the Kurdish Women Soldiers With girlish smiles above costumes of war - you dance, sisters; stamp the pallid golden dust to furbellows about your booted feet. Cold light, drab uniforms are aching...

  Witches’ Brew Round and round the seven seas go, In the putrid poisons throw, Double, double toil and trouble, dolphins die and oceans bubble. Extract of mercury, pcb’s, poison waters by...

  Beauty in a Butcher’s Shop By Damian Robin There can be beauty in a butcher’s shop Even when that butcher’s shop’s unclean; And we can make that dirty butchery stop By listening to the...

  Sighs fill the room as Mulan weaves the loom She doesn’t want Father to meet his doom. The Khan needs an army to face the Huns; Father can barely walk let alone run. There’s none to take his...

by Dusty Grein The sestina originated among the troubadours of medieval France's Provence region, and the modern thirty-nine line form is attributed to one of these traveling poet entertainers of the...

  Kitty staring at the tipped fishbowl (whoever felled it left not a hair), With no one home, what was, do you think, The mysterious force that toppled it there? I will honestly say I do not...

  Obi-Wan Bin Laden RIP Let’s remember what God wants: Killing people’s never right, So Obi-Wan Bin Laden then Cannot be a Jedi knight. To make folks free you face them straight...

A rondeau on Shen Yun Performing Arts By Evan Mantyk I love the dance that can exalt The human form without a fault, Demeanor grand, inspiring pose; They’re swift yet seem in sweet repose And all my...

  Ohio State University Attack By Wilbur Dee Case "If you don't like liberal democracy, go to North Africa, the Middle East, or China. Oops." —Waseel Budecir I'm warning you, America, the post on...

  In an Unfinished Honeycomb:  An Old Story As lichen on a rock expands, so you grow in love on the lap of your mother until --- smothering her presence you burst aglow into green adolescence....

Unforeseen Good Fortune’s Heirs Are We There’s little of the Plague that we can find to celebrate except for this small gem – when those who died left property behind it often changed their...

  Dedicated to Falun Gong practitioners who have faced seventeen years of persecution in China. As tempests are blowing, angry waves clash; The foaming sea roars, whilst lightning doth flash. Eternal...

  Wood Nymph A wood nymph knocked on my door last night           her hair was flaxen gold the ivy trailing through my...

  Exhale swift, what crimson breeze; Amber crisp and fuchsia Colors adorn leaves on the trees Their coats of misty rouge. And clap, applaud with festive show Aware not of the scent; The musky...

December—not April cruelest, nor June In moon—must be the most romantic month, Why else make men of snow, or gods of men, Or turn the world virgin-white, life in death? At dusk, a chickadee,...