Beauty

  The winds of time will cease to blow, The shining moon will cease to glow, As history comes to an end; Eternity waits 'round the bend. The books and minds of all mankind Will over time, be...

  Dream on the Horizon I sail the ocean toward the setting sun to find my dreams that hide within the sky. And I will travel till my days are done, to live just one before I say goodbye. I search...

  Castles in Our Heads The old Italians once long held The mind as ordered hall; And in their arm-chair coffers swelled A wealth beyond recall. Each room was filled with hint and clue To trigger...

  A Lesson Learned from Trump “We are all equal in the presence of death.” ---Publilius Syrus (100 BC) Today I learned a lesson from the one Whose acid tongue has beaten down the best; A man...

Supreme Farewell As every king and peasant must, A justice stands before the Just. We bid farewell to Sister Ruth, Who trembles now before the Truth.     Joe Tessitore is a retired New...

  “In the Midst of Life We are in Death.” --Book of Common Prayer, The Burial of the Dead In sure and certain hope, we toss The soil in, and bless the dead. The final sentences; that pause Of...

  The Church is Locked on Easter Day a rondeau The Church is locked on Easter Day Despite the stone being rolled away. The Christ awakes to greet the poor But they cannot get through the door To go...

  Lucrative On the Laundering of Drug Money As commodities go, you are harmless enough Whether tendered in coin or in crinkly stuff. But without you it seems that the world will not turn Men consort...

Weave a circle round him thrice, __And close your eyes with holy dread, __For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. —Coleridge, “Kubla Khan” Sam Coleridge smoked opium. Ho...

  When Logos lived within the heart of man, Then beauty bloomed and flowered forth at will--- And every house was built upon a plan; Order’s essence, captured and distilled. Then Lucifer, in...

  Losing It He staggered round his living room in stunning disbelief As for the very umpteenth time, he’d gone and lost his teeth. He cried, “They’re in here somewhere, I must search and...

For Nantes Cathedral Ravaged by Arson in July 2020, a Tribute  This holy place, where the enthusiasm of builders was succeeded by doubt following catastrophe, then hope expressed in restoration, is it not...

Poet's Note: The Venerable Bede tells us that in the 7th century Caedmon, “having lived in a secular habit till he was well advanced in years, had never learned anything of versifying.” Leaving a...

  No Longer There I wonder if a change has come about. No longer do I feel that she is there As physical a being in her chair To me as I to her. My words ring out And they receive no answer but they...

  Before the plague I never knew my hands. The need to purify the human touch has turned my vision inward, but though much is taken; much remains---in human hands, the same, yet not the same. The...

  We Siblings Three Attempt to add the hours we have shared: One hundred thousand, maybe thousands more? Our paths conjoined for several years before We struck out on our own and even dared Imagine...

  Backyard Bliss I hear hope’s song fill skies today __In trills beyond my door. Her citrus kiss burns through the grey __As martins dip and soar. Their purple sheen in lemon rays Is testament to...

  The Angels’ Share Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God’s ways to man. — A.E. Housman When whisky’s aged in...

rhymes written after reading Simon Barnes’ blog post "Barn Owl in the Snow" Across the marsh, white passing over white, The silent hunter flies then loses height Descending to a favoured perch to...

  The potato blight and resultant Great Famine struck Ireland from 1845 to 1851. Potato crops didn’t recover until 1852, by which time at least one million people had emigrated to escape poverty and...

  Doris Evelyn Alice Falconer, born April 9, 1922, died August 24, 2004 You taught me the importance of good humour, the gravity of truth and courtesy; to never take for fact a rampant rumour, but...

  The Falcon “In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire?” ---William Blake, The Tyger Falcon, falcon, flying...

  Oh, to helm an angel ship __Adrift in a billowy sea With a specter crew in a sky of blue, __Just the vast beyond and me. Flying the mist like gulls on the wind, __With never a falter or...

by Andrew Benson Brown James Sale’s HellWard is the first volume of a planned trilogy entitled The English Cantos. If the quality of the current volume is any indication of the two forthcoming ones, then...

  a villanelle My heart goes out to those unknown, Whose life by Time’s cruel hand erased, Their ravaged, riven, nameless stone. Shattered, lost, grass o’ergrown, No date to tell when coffin...

  Ab Initio Mundi* *ever since the beginning of the world At first the darkness reigned o’er all that was, Until a little point of light emerged. That grew and grew regardless, as it surged Ahead...

  in memory of my father-in-law, Pietro Lorefice (1938-2020) The bell now tolls, dear Pietro, for this hour When we must bid your faithful soul adieu, And lay to rest that mortal frame we knew, Now...

  My marriage failed (they always do.) Emotionally unequipped To work things out without a script, We didn’t try to talk it through. What do I pay that therapist for? You can’t see what...

  Upon a boat, by ocean bound, Below the sun, upon the sound, The bait, a line, a reel, a fish: Bound for butter, herbs and dish.     Alec Ream is a writer living in the Northern...

Winner and Runners-up of The Society of Classical Poets 2020 Haiku Competition Judged by Mike Bryant and Susan Jarvis Bryant See all entrants here.   Thunder-bellied clouds Move slow over heathered...