Beauty

The silent seeds in wild wastes germinate; The gardened apple trees dripping in bloom. Creation calls and hears, each for its mate; The ice thawed and I bled — my womb has room. ____So let us do what God...

  Island City: Auckland I’ve grown to love this place of sea and noise Where buildings have assumed a regal poise As high they stab on sultry summer nights Daring to dim the stars above their...

  Ode to Cole’s “The Titan’s Goblet” O Grand Enigma! Tower of Life! Thy lofty scene ___Is but the glimpse of that eternal mystery, For in thy cup amidst the twilight’s gloaming...

This poem is dedicated in memoriam to Ms. Wang Lixuan. Because she was raising awareness about the repression of peaceful Falun Dafa practitioners in communist China, she was unlawfully arrested and detained,...

The constancy of change is to be wished; To find a partner and to settle down, To build a life, where new routines exist, To memorize her breathing, in and out. These all seem like regression to the...

  Pentadactyl 5-foot dactylic poem with a truncated fifth foot on the odd-numbered lines. With apologies to Pterodactyls. Dactyls are terrible lizards that fly at the mind pounding their emphasis...

The Ballad of the Poor Troubadour I’m past my prime __and I’m out of time— I never made a dime from a rhyme. There ain’t much worse __than an empty purse— I suffered from the curse of the...

  ‘Leonardo the Great’ was a painter sublime, Never rushing to brush while to-do-lists claimed time; As commissions part-done, lay about, gathered dust, His attention distracted (to patrons'...

  Why photograph a fact when you can catch A nightmare, be a Jackson Pollock or A Dalí at his Druid weirdest? Snatch A depth of fanged subconscious and then pour Some paint of guts across your...

The Lord: "Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand." (Jeremiah 18:6) Swiftly He kicks the wheel, rotating steadily— Lump on bat, now pressed flat, muddy-slick...

A little baffling it's, a bit insane and funny too, this whole God-farm affair. You sow invisible seeds in ghostly plain and wait for hallowed rains through silent prayer! You wait and wait to reap the...

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(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Crossing the Swamp by Jon MacNaughton by Caud Sewer Bile "If freedom of speech is taken away...we may be led, like sheep to...slaughter." —George Washington The boat...

In the Poetry Writing Workshop “Milton conceived the Paradise Lost as a whole before he executed it in portions. We have his own authority also for the Muse having ‘dictated’ to him the...

  Slender pillar burning bright, remarkably distinguished. I wish that you could stay the night but you must be extinguished. Your wick shall be collapsed between my thumb and foremost...

The Federal and the Doric The Federal and the Doric Combined a stern austere; They frowned upon the quad; They spread a healthy fear. Corinthian and Victorian Looked at the ground downcast; No one...

  Pink has become a favored cultural color, more subtle, less primitive than red: black mixed with pink is considered seductive, innocent when used with white and acquired its own name just in the...

Aldeyjarfoss If, in some grim sensory exercise In a laboratory, behind a screen Where staunch technicians memorialize Their findings, everything we’ve heard and seen, Or smelled and tasted, or in our...

Translations from Belarusian by the poet's son Ihar Kazak.    The Explosion May mayhem never strike our good Earth; The fertile one deserves tranquility and gratitude, So that on earth where in...

  In the deep of the night do my restless thoughts roam ____To the moon-flooded fields of the sky, And they search for a pure and ethereal home, ____Where emotions and thoughts never die. Where...

  Out of the crooked timber laid by man, No straight foundation may ever be built. While Reason clinkers on across the span, The tunes of Sin jaunt forward with a lilt. To lie, to steal, to feel in...

“. . .  lest when thou hast eaten and art full  . . . then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt  . . .who led thee through that...

a villanelle The sun descends into the silent sea. As shadows lengthen in the fading light I journey on to seek what yet may be. As death from life yearns to be free, And grief seeks comfort in the...

My Soul awoke and yawned and stretched and pushed And seemed desired to break its earthly bounds Too anxious, I almost its Spirit crushed As birth pangs silenced all but sense’s sounds. Alive at last, it...

  My candle burns at both ends Late into the night, And flickers fast, And bounces in my sight. My pen lies docile in my hand. The page is silent now. My eyes transfix; My thoughts do...

I. But yesterday, your noble fathers bled Upon the fields of France, where countless dead Had found among the vines their final rest, To gild with fame a venerated crest Whose princely brandishing from...

  If seasons pass too fast you'd better run. If they proceed too slow indulge in fun. Sunups are best enjoyed in days of cold. Sundowns when heat waves linger fierce and bold. Old age returns...

Sail Fever I knew some terms, the merest germs Of illness called ‘Sail Fever’: Tack starboard, port, keep mainsail taut, Steer boat by tiller lever! One Saturday, beside the bay, A salesman full of...

The precious are so  easy to neglect: I let them down, my family and my friends. It’s futile if I offer my respect - Today is much too late to make amends. Nothing is left for me to do or say. The fact...

Where a lamppost spreads a white spot light Nursing silent night with canny purr, A racoon crosses there in sudden flight. Where an old man walks his dog this hour With a leash that’s buckled to his...

Nova Scotia and the Clouds of Summer So silently they march along, the clouds of summer, proud and strong; their grand approach from yonder shore majestically they wander o’er. Not for the likes of me...

For Elizabeth My morning’s mountain wears the lavish light Of candid clouds and truth-engendered white. Ah, heavens, spread your opalescent ray, And open earth-blind eyes to boundless sight, That love...

Bristlecone Longevity The beauty of the tree is not how old, Indeed how ancient in its gnarling now, Not in its silent history yet untold, Nor in the pre-historic roots and bough— Their age—but in its...

Translator's Preliminary Note This is an original translation of a poem by Sappho (630-580 BC), traditionally known as the “old age poem” or the “Tithonus poem” (in the standard numbering by Lobel...

Heritage I like to say I’d an Egyptian father If that is too obscure for you, I’d rather Explain it just by citing preservation. They preserved mummies, he his indignation At how the world had gone...

Poet’s Note: I wrote this poem in the same metrical form as the song “America the Beautiful” (but without the internal rhyme). You can sing it if you want, but I think it is most effective when simply...

Two Lives by Michael Maibach When soldiers die, They give two lives. The one they had, And the one denied. The spouse not met, The child unknown, The life unsaved, The welcome home. The hill...

Garden Waltz a terza rima sonnet in dactylic pentameter with a truncated foot at the end of each line Radishes sway to the rhythm of sunlight and rainfall, Carrots to minerals present in alkaline...

The Lord’s Supper They’re gathered round, astonished, full of dread, round him who like a wise man must decide, and who leaves those with whom he’s broken bread, and who comes like a stranger from...

The Fall Revisited The implications of the fall are endless in their reach; that lowly serpent had such gall, Eve's failure to beseech. Though what they chose when they did bite that infamous red...