Blank Verse

. The Calendar You are the festive dregs of January,you liven February with Valentine’s.You are the March that gives spring sanctuary,you are the splashing rain April confines.You entertain the shaken buds...

. 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...

. 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...

. 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...

. 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...

. Nero Before the Tomb of Simon Magus And Peter, looking steadfastly against Simon, said: “I adjure you, ye angels of Satan, who are carrying him into the air, to deceive the hearts of the unbelievers,...

. Lullaby of New Mexico, Part Two Part One can be read here. Duerme Papi---Dad, it’s time to rest. I smooth your blanket here at Desert Sage And look with worry at your wrinkled face. My calloused hand...

. Gone Are the Days The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. ---Oscar Wilde Gone are the days—the halcyon, magical days of yore, When you were young and full of marrow in your...

. Lullaby of New Mexico Duerme mijo---sleep my weary child As we drive south upon the interstate. My side-eye checks on you, my tired you. My calloused hand caresses your wheat hair. The radio sings dreams,...

. The Photograph The snowflakes tumble down like frozen tears, Which fall from every eye this winter day; They heard the call and answered without fear, Their country to defend without delay. A couple stands...

. The Automated Phone System I called up a business But no person answered, I got a phone system With multiple options Some rather confusing; I kept getting transferred, Spent most time just holding; Then...

. A Glass for My Father Marie-Maurille de Virot, Mademoiselle de Sombreuil (February 14, 1768—May 15, 1823) My father was the Marquis de Sombreuil: An old man when it happened, but back then The Revolution...

. And Turn Thanks for the twenty seconds of Your crisp, medicinal perspective, Encapsulated in a laugh That shook like a bragging monkey’s ass. Call it a joke, a gentle nudge— It pushed me over some good...

. Where Your Treasure Is “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where...

. Now Once Again How many years ago, I’ve lost the count, we lay beneath these trees at summer’s end; the orchard left to tend itself for then the children came and seasons tumbled all together, mad...

. 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...

. 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. ...

. A Clamshell in Concrete  I was a child in kindergarten class. My mother held my hand as we trod on The sidewalk leading to the boulevard. This was 1951. The path Was paved in smooth cement, and at the...

. The Hypodermic For a poet, the pen is merely part Of the apparatus of addiction. He emulates the frozen fly in amber Watching eons come, roll by, and pass. As motionless as veined quartz in a stone, He seeks...

. Everlasting I must admit, when I arrived in Hell I was surprised.  Not, as you might surmise, Because I never reckoned it was real— And surely not because I thought I’d led A sinless life—but owing to...

. To a Girl Named Olivia What shall I say to you of untold love In this more than empty space that lies between Our two selves wound in tongue-tied reticence? I have touched your hand in images and dreams, As...

. The Crucifixion of the Serpent And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. —Numbers...

. Apocalypse The fractured sky splits, flaming at the edge— The earth heaves upwards in explosive wrath. No eye can bear the clay-caked risen dead Sleepwalking through the streets in blackened shrouds. The...

. Albert Pierrrepoint (1905-1992) served as one of GreatBritain’s chief executioners from 1931 to 1956, duringwhich time he hanged over 500 persons. All the namesand events mentioned here are real. My father...

. Heliotrope Phaeton, son of the god Helios, attempted to drive his father’s celestial chariot. His inexperience caused him to burn up part of the earth and the heavens, so he was killed by a thunderbolt...

. The Carnelian Ring: A Still-Life Footfalls echo in the memoryDown the passage which we did not takeTowards the door we never openedInto the rose-garden. —T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton I think of a walled...

. Isolde and the Men of Stone Who could believe, except on ancient trust? The stones grew pliant, yielding into shape When softer nature touched them; human forms Emerged, as marble figures...

. The Bibliophile’s Birth Certificate Marius Michel (1846-1925) was one of the most prominent and gifted bookbinders in France. He produced work in strikingly beautiful and unique designs, and today his...

. Charles Maurras (1868-1952) was a highly influential French poet, essayist, and political journalist. He edited the rightist paper Action Française, and was a member of the French Academy. He wrote that the...

. The Death of Today’s Sequoia Flecte ramos, arbor alta, tensa laxa viscera: Et rigor lentescat ille, quem dedit nativitas, Ut superni membra regis miti tendas stipite. —Venantius Fortunatus (c. 530-609...

X No tengo más que darte —Inscription on a Spanish sailor's gold ring, in the shape of a hand holding out a heart, found off the western coast of Ireland. Their splintered hulls well-raked with cannon...

…anulbaṇáṃ vayata jóguvām ápaḥ. Weave ye the singers’ work without a knot. —Rigveda 10.53.6 Those pale cream swaths of handmade linen, brought From Sicily around 1905 Lay in our rag drawer...

  Palermo’s great basilica is still— All prayers are tongueless for a lonely hour. Here high and holy silence can be breathed Like incense from the smoking thuribles Swung by acolytes at solemn...

  The Graeco-Roman historian Lucius Dio Cassius, in his Roman History, describes “dark dinners” that were given by the emperor Domitian to specially chosen guests.   Domitian’s dinners...

Miles hastatus (spearman) of the Legio Decima Fretensis, stationed in Roman Judaea, A.D. 33 Vere, filius Dei erat iste. —Roman centurion at the crucifixion, noted in Matthew 27:54. They say he was the...

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. The misreporting of great Caesar’s death Errs by one gross omission. We’re not told That when conspirators bared blades to strike, Caesar’s well-practiced...

Joseph Pulitzer Junior High September 1959 – June 1961 I think we spoke but fifty words, all told. No more than that, and most were just polite— A brief exchange of greetings or a comment On some...

Posting atop the hill beyond the field in rain so thick he barely saw the bodies, the General tilted back his hat and sat, shaking his head. His horse shifted a foot and whinnied, a grazing wound across...