Beauty

  Two mass shootings took the lives of twenty-nine this afternoon. Fifty-one (at least) were injured, every life cut short too soon. Exiting a downtown bar or looking for a loaf of bread, Simply...

  Giacomo da Lentini is a Sicilian who is generally considered the creator of the sonnet. This translation is by Leo Zoutewelle.   I’ve seen it rain on sunny days And seen the darkness flash...

"Made in China" “Made in China” reads the label— Shattered on the coffee table: Some cheap and broken plastic toys We purchased for our girls and boys— Imports purchased which enable Labor...

Poet's Note: These five sonnets and song are the product of a four-week journey taken in June to Ireland and through west central Scotland and the Inner and Outer Hebrides. Unlike the sonnets, the lyrics to...

Roots in the Sky, Boots on the Ground: Metaphysical Poems C.B. Anderson, Kelsay Books, 107 pages paperback, ISBN-10: 1949229688 2019, $17.00 by Carol Smallwood Smallwood: Joseph S. Salemi commented on...

  The Teacher to His Students The traffic light turns green. Your car won’t budge. You’re either texting or completely blind. And when you do proceed, you’re slow as fudge. You’re still...

Dust My soul clings to the dust. Ps. 119.25 How like the dust my soul can be. I see it sometimes, dazed and inattentive in a ray of light, or settled in a thin coat on a table, waiting languidly to be...

  Theseus Amazed Around corners through archway and gate Sensing forever the enemy’s mind Poised to avenge the innocents’ fate But a mirror was all I did find.   The Adept A handful of...

  inspired by John Masefield’s “Sea-Fever” (1902) I will go down to the bush again, where the days hang crisp and clear, And cicadas hum their sonorous song from places far and near; Where...

  a modified English Alexandrine An ancient apple tree in my unkempt backyard Has skin pocked like the moon by savage nature’s wrath. The top is bare and broke, curled like a parched...

  Soaked in silence, sunbeams through the shutters, dust floating softly. Stuffy, flecks of mold and rust sticking here and there, a gentle draft. The glow makes all things appear the same as...

  As fiddle lilts its rhymed refrain it harkens an angelic past. If only we could now regain that sweet voice that was ne'er surpassed. Med'eval times, when hearts were chaste and men of honor...

She Walked in Beauty a tribute to Gao Rongrong* after Lord Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty” She walked in Beauty, pure as light— Like sun and moon and starlit skies Illuminate the darkest...

Sonnet IV. Cleve Backster whose work on plant perception gained wide exposure in the 1973 publication The Secret Life of Plants. While people claim the fetus has no being Worth enough to trump a...

  The taxi driver took us down From great Mohonk, New Paltz and such; And every mile we got to touch We felt the pull of New York town. And chatting in our easy way— He black, me white, what...

Good Captains From daring to despair runs common man. A vane to changing winds is his own mind. One hour he may so boldly think, “I can!” The next, poor fool to nagging doubt’s inclined, His...

Her Love for Him My true love laughs, and angel choirs sing; The mountains echo back his tuneful mirth While Nature dances, heav’n in step with earth. ‘Tis music to mine ear; mine heart takes...

These Twins These twins came forth in one amniotic sac. They sensed the danger they had come upon And both held hands to keep that danger back: It truly was the best they could have done. Their need...

A reading of the below poems by the poet:   The Loan a villanelle This life we hold so dear is but a loan. For good or ill, its balance must be spent, For life is not a thing that we can...

One Love In all the world there’s but one Love, just one. A single substance—like the billow lit From overhead by flashes from the sun And tears that rain upon a pillow—it Is all the same, no matter...

    The man who never cries is like the ship That never sailed, or left the sleepy shores, Who’s never felt the waves of peril whip Against his keel far off from peaceful...

  I lift my eyes and pray to God above, deliver me, dear Lord, from Satan's Hell. I come to You with heart brimful of Love, content to drink life's water from Your well. And if, by chance, I do...

May Old Glory Always Wave by Roy E. Peterson May Old Glory always wave Above the tumult and the fray. Honor heroes who were brave Until the final Judgment Day. Drape the caskets of the dead, For...

Translator's Note: "Adiutor Laborantium" is an Irish poem attributed to Colum Cille (521-597), founder of the monastic community on Iona. It is an ABC poem, with the exception of two C-beginning lines in the...

  Side by side, like toy soldiers under the sky, these seedlings all stand in a row. And on this day of independence, the Fourth of July, I stand here and I whisper, “Please grow!” Down the...

Judges: Michael Curtis, Amy Foreman, Reid McGrath, Adam Sedia A few words from Judge Michael Curtis: In apology: If you, fair writer, did not win, take heart, This juror read for craft more than for...

Dead Poet Of what I was, not much remains, but that which does, indeed still strains to craft and pen a poem sweet, as I did when my heart did beat. I’m cold and stiff, yet still I yearn! (It seems as...

Kingfishers and Kites Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I...

Disappointment The waiting's not the hardest part: Much worse is when you finally know That what you craved with all your heart ____Will not arrive. Infatuations come and go, Bad luck upsets your...

  The ambit is the noblest cause, A last vestige of Apollo's love, A pursuit freed from any flaws, As peace aloft borne by a dove. In all we have is finitude, So best that we attempt To bask in...

  Leaf in Fall I feel hard without my love at my side; she is the part of me that lacks the soft buoyancy that rounds and bears me aloft into the spring sky mirrored in the tide… without her I...

It’s easy to look without seeing The beauty of life all around; When moments arisen to being Deserve to stir feelings profound. To all of God’s work lies a reason, And all we ought do is agree That...

  Message in a Bottle A ballad written on Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019 While birds above the beachhead soared __and winds began to blow, I took a bottle from the froth, __condemned to ocean's...

  I Spent My Youth with Byron and the Bard I spent my youth with Byron and the Bard, With Tennyson, the Brownings, and dear Keats— And full of passions, eager, trying hard To imitate their lofty,...

Note: Formal Ballroom Dance competition involves five specific dance forms. This sonnet cycle attempts to introduce and describe them. I have also composed and attached audio recordings of a Waltz and Tango as...

Cicadas There is, I know, some benefit in this, this cycle of emerging, breeding, dying- so brief a time for knowing any bliss, or making friends, or new endeavors trying - only to bring forth offspring...

  A song’s composer’s music might reveal A question or idea in such a way That black notes penned on paper weigh what’s real; But if unheard his work subsides to gray. That gray divides...

  Birthday Greeting to a Doomed Child a song of lament decrying New York´s “birthday abortion” law, approved January 22, 2019 So, welcome to this world, little one, little one! Your first and...

  Its coarse name belies this silken treasure, with iridescent dome and spiral apse. Imagination slips in with pleasure, to contemplate an opus like blown glass. Perhaps a queen lived here (no...

These poems are part of Daniel Galef’s series Imaginary Sonnets. Each sonnet is a verse soliloquy from the perspective of a different historical figure.      Gillette to Frenhofer (spoken by...