Beauty

  You caught me staring at you yesterday, or so it seemed, for you—you smiled and blushed and all your girlfriends giggled in the hushed and stilted silence of the lecture. They had to have...

The Day the Poetry Died Wonder why poetry is in decline, While not ever writing one lyric line? There is no experience more perverse, Than self-indulgent poems in free verse. Your pain, your angst, and...

  The unchanging moor, but heeds season’s call To don her different well-coloured weeds, My heart is cold, left lonely; waterfall And bright babbling brook, pretend their proceeds Quell the vast...

The Cymbal Player As bows and fingers quiver strings, as lungs and lips whip up the air, as notes soar on great falcon wings, one player, seated in his chair like a finch hid in a maple tree, as if...

Wordsworth’s Lament I wandered lonely as a cloud—Oh dear! I watched the dance of daffodils—Oh my! When on my couch in vacant mood I lie I feel their wealthy fluttering draw near. I see them toss...

On the occasion of his birthday, 160 years ago, on February 27, 1848  At the Solitary Age of Twelve—Seven and Twelve Being Holy Numbers The first of seven early music books Reveals a boy methodical as...

  Budding darkness, in your starkness, void of noise and light, deliver me from what I see ’fore day turns into night. Guide me through the peaceful sea of dreamers far and wide, as welcome shores...

  Living with Omnibenevolence Each one of us is furnished with an expiration date, And no one living has the power to elude his fate. There comes a time when every living creature has to die, But...

Goddess, sing me not, that barbaric yawp of man’s puny sorrows. He wants to swap his countless ills, not go down to Hades. The dogs and vultures wait to lick the blades of his small quarrel, spilled like...

Which Is the Grandest Name of All? Which is the grandest name of all? Churchill, Churchill, Churchill! Winter sere or crimson fall Churchill, Churchill, Churchill! Who held bold freedom’s flag so...

Tonight, I saw the moon Stalking me, watching me Hiding surreptitiously. She knows I know she's there She knows I do not care Reasons for and reasons why Curious, bold, or wee bit shy, A game, perhaps...

Insomnia Many's the night I lie in bed with words to write that fill my head. They twist and turn and jump and shout. Oh how I yearn to get them out! So off I go into my den. With lights turned low I...

She sits in thoughtful silence, chin in hand, That old blue skirt hem covers her thin knees. Gazing west, the sunset’s  silvery bands Lengthening shadows from the maple trees. The porch needs paint; its...

  I fear no more the settling of the night Or mind its grey, evaporating shades; Mine ears are deaf to time’s lost serenades, Mine eyes content with thy soul’s loving light. Thy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjc_6R0ang8&feature=youtu.be   It was once thought that swallows wintered on the moon, or morphed into field mice beneath the autumn swoon of clouds, or...

By David Bellemare Gosselin Today, seldom is Edgar Allan Poe's voice heard as it's drowned out by the popular notions of Poe as some sort of deranged man whose stories and poetry are simply the product of...

  Like feathered tip of swooping sparrow Our kinship cuts like that of arrows A brother’s love has weakened me I’ll take the slice, so brother be Shivered dreams of days that past Rivers...

In another lifetime I was William Blake When I saw his work That was my take He wrote about love And the human heart I thought I was him Right from the start He wrote about London Tiger burning...

The sparkle on the river, the lights from distant shore, the cold and bitter glitter, the beckoning of more, Is beautiful to look at, ‘tis a pleasing sight to see, like a woman dressed for dinner, in...

  Between the trees, along the path I hear the woodpecker tap tap tap. Beneath the bridge, cyclists roll through Pedaling and laughing two by two. Friends holding hands, walkers with dogs, A...

Flower of Choice On native Australian flowers The wattle bears her gold in early spring As luminescent beads on woody strings, Spreading perfume ‘til the mild air brings Sweetness deep to every living...

By Carter Davis Johnson In a period where American literature was considered peripheral and amateur, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) helped create a national literature to challenge European...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Hylas and the Nymphs by Beau Ecs Wilder John William Waterhouse's "Hylas and the Nymphs" must go; enchanting, pretty, water nymphs are far too much to show. Manchester...

  Sun slowly dipping in the western sky; the winds are light and the pine boughs tossing. From their warm, peaceful beds the meek and shy, walk to the river; time for the crossing. To the fields...

  A robin should fly south before the snow, With others in the flocks of migrant birds, Quite safe amid this seas’nal ebb and flow— To miss the chance would surely be absurd! Yet some stay on...

  Simple Contrivance So simple – yet divine! Such is contrivance of the pen The hollow spine of ink is light like bones of flitting wren So simple – yet divine! Indeed, no sword could strike so...

  The Last Time I Saw Paris You have imagined how it was, I expect: Troy’s famous towers burning, the city wrecked, the lines of weeping captives marched away, the streets strewn with corpses, the...

At Lincoln’s Tomb Springfield, Illinois, 2016 Be glad you cannot rise to life and stand Outside that tomb to die again from shame At Illinois, your home, your prairieland, Transformed, yet quick to...

By David B. Gosselin The nature of the subject matter discussed in Dante Alighieri’s lyric poetry, his canzoni, has been debated time after time, generation after generation. While the Dantisti as they...

By Brett Forester Writing but one fine, enduring poem is a remarkable achievement. Writing a book of great poems is an even rarer triumph. Yet in 1820, British Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (born...

  Stone Walls Sometimes a Prison Make What might have happened once in Carolina To folks whose only wish was for some peace Is commonplace within the Wall of China, Where persons are abused without...

  The Garden of the Gods A Cywydd Llosgyrnog When storm clouds hid the Manitou*, They cloaked invaders from his view: Giants* who engendered fright With fearsome height and thundered tread. Their...

  Lips, soft as velvet, primrose pink, Are rent the blue of bruising ink. They rive and crackle in the cold, Retract in tissue paper folds; Corroded strips as flayed as zinc Teased grey and gaunt,...

  On Reading Ginsburg’s “Howl” Once, I possessed an open mind, Which I assure you was my own. I used it to read Ginsberg’s “Howl” Well, I don’t wish to be unkind But those words seemed...

By Evan Mantyk Advertising for it is everywhere. If you haven’t seen it, you just haven’t been paying attention. A brilliantly colored image depicts a Chinese woman striking an airborne pose. But what...

  The Old Westerns No more heroes on horses named Trigger No more rugged, chapped, white hatted figures The bad guys today do not always wear masks At least not the exact kind they did in the...

  The Oddity My pen and me set off to sea but washed up feeling useless; the cadent swell invoked a spell and story of Odysseus. While pen-wrecked there I would not hear those rhythmic words...

  Dreams as a Child Remember our lives in dreams as a child, When tingled excitement tickled inside, Surging in giggles which shivered our nerves, As hands clasped in joining’s which laughs only...

By James A. Tweedie These days, William Cowper (November 26, 1731 - April 25, 1800) isn’t likely to be found on anyone’s list of “Top Twenty English Poets.” Fifty years after his death, however,...

  Glacier Sleeping mistress of the land, Whose long repose the ages span, We tread across your fissured gown Until we find in looking down, We can at last discern and trace The chiseled beauty of...