Monthly Archives August 31, 2017

  The bark came off the trunks before the leaves had dropped— the freeze sped up, the shade enlarged, the birdsong stopped. No forest hiss survived, no human sound, no sigh— it was to be the...

by E. Ducabe Wisler "Pray for Texas." —Ubs Reece Idwal The tropical cyclone named Harvey plastered Houston's plat, ten trillion gallons of rainwater in a constant splat; the size of Harvey, as immense as...

As times turned hard and harder yet, The Queen grew apprehensive— Relentless tides of change had made One luxury expensive. Reluctantly, she let her yacht Retire to Edinburgh— It was refitted for a...

  Poet's Note: "Back when I was eighteen years old, things were sort of grim with the Vietnam War and my draft status up in the air. I had just graduated from high school the week before and was...

I may as well be hired as his maid, the way I’m made to clean his toilet seat. Still worse, the only way I’m getting paid is that by cleaning the commode I treat myself to one as dry as that he...

Poetry before Writing “Greece down through the fifth century has aptly been described as a ‘song culture’.” ~ Michael Schmidt in The First Poets, 10, quoting Leslie Kurke, “The Strangeness of...

  Let us raise statues to the Prince of Peace: __Cain’s monuments are powerless to bind __Our hearts in summer’s sheaf, or to remind The world of our first fall through sin’s caprice. Our...

Poetry, as we have discussed in earlier parts of this article series, depends upon the Muses and accessing the deeper self or soul within each person; this is not an easy thing to do. In the 18th century Lord...

Proem In rhyming, timing is everything. Rhymes in wrong places make awkward spaces. A rhyme in rhyming knows more than prose. Rhymes are the rings you hear in the mind’s ear. Nature’s rhymes are free:...

A Villanelle  “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” —George Orwell From the first green grass we navigate— Through days & nights of wake...

by Cause Bewilder for Joshua Philipp Grave statue after statue falls with strict impunity. Memorials and monuments yield to community. The wind whips up no recollection; it cannot forget; the soldiers...

Higher Purpose Is there any higher purpose As they walk with faces down? Are they sure of destination As they shuffle through the town; With eyes grown unaccustomed To a world beyond their...

Passing of the Seasons When snow has melted, chill has gone, and winter turns to spring, The tender buds grow on the branches where the robins sing. The earth once brown is green again, blessed by the April...

Nesting Season Little sleep. The night heat did not relent. You startle me up as day breaks over the tent to show me the sea-turtle tracks you found through the bluestems behind the campground. I hardly...

He viewed the world with perfect form But upside down, not as the norm He lifted those who’d been down - trod And doing so, he followed God     Neal Dachstadter is a poet living in...

By Joshua Philipp Abbie Farwell Brown described the far north in his 1902 book, "In The Days of Giants," as "the land of the midnight sun, where summer is green and pleasant, but winter is a terrible time...

  I used to find it hard to lose at chess. I'd watch in disbelief the check and mate, think through the game and curse to find too late— I'd bought disaster with the bishop's press. In school,...

George and the Dragon In the Yorkshire dialect “Nah, sithee,” said Granny, “Just set thee dahn ‘ere, An’ I’ll tell thee a tale old and true, Of ‘ow good Saint George slew a dragon one...

The Journal It sat upon his bedside table, closed, And waiting to keep record of each day: The silent pages still and unexposed, A diary to come, his dossier. He saw it every evening as he bent To turn...

Meadows of Corn It seems but bland to every passing eye, These regal meadows dressed in ripened corn; They dance and few can such effects deny, The brows of greener grass their touch adorn. As dismal...

Argument The following poem is a dramatic monologue in four sections, based on a brief passage in a barbarian legal text. In the sixth-century law code Lex Burgundiorum, an account is given of the widow...

Thank you to everyone who participated! Judges Dusty Grein, Michael Curtis, and Damian Robin have selected the below winners for the first Rhyming Riddle Contest. Judge Curtis said meter was...

  To Solitude Come, Solitude, my first and truest friend! Long hours of careless converse burden me, And I have need of hospitality Such as art thou alone meet with to lend. What synthesis my past...

  What heights within my mind descend? To fall on peaks where faith shall end, As summits fail to comprehend, That lands beneath cannot ascend, The pinnacles my thoughts transcend. As...

  Windmill Song Alone it shudders on a hill, Defiant in the wind. A strong south gale could topple it, A hard rain do it in. Too many years its silver blades Whirled in the morning breeze While...

On Visiting the Tea Garden in Middletown, New York I. A harried daddy with two kids in tow, Maneuvering through city streets and cars, I look around quite nervously for crows Whose filthy bombs my head...

By C.B. Anderson Anyone writing formal poetry today has to be grateful for the arsenal of fixed forms—most of them bequeathed to us from masters of the past—that is available to lend structure to poetic...

A Villanelle To breathe the beaming silence of the sky I long, when dawn’s chill wakes my eyes, and see The oft-unseen yet boundless peace on high. When slumber’s velvety dim moments die, Pale...

  Untitled All older statues want to come alive, Those Greek and Roman ones, and Christian, too. Their skeletons and veins and muscles strive To break through marble skin.  They want their...

I. My brain just came back from the laundry they tell me it's perfectly clean and it's thinking the way it's supposed to though I'm not really sure what they mean They tell me I shouldn't be...