Beauty

Of All God’s Living Creatures Of all God’s living creatures only we With subtle artifice create our style Of dress and image, and with painted smile Construct the me we want the world to see. Though...

a villanelle Ye let it flow, the bitter brine, let flow! How long you hold it back, those snowy streams! Don't stop their course, until they touch your toe! Your past congealed as solid misery and...

inspired by “The Lady of Shalott” by Tennyson Part I The forests loom at Nottinghamshire. The river oaks still aiming higher, Surround the field where from the byre The cattle trample through the...

The Moon Festival, also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival, is a traditional holiday that celebrates the Harvest Moon (the full moon nearest the Fall Equinox).    Through Mists of Tears The moon shines...

. Quiet Night Pondering by Li Bai (701-762) A bed before the bright moonlight. Does frost below lie on these halls? I lift my head: the moon is bright. I lower it—my homeland calls! . Original...

by T.M. Moore I had just finished teaching one of the adult classes at our church on the meaning of Christmas, using John Milton’s Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity as my text. We examined many...

  Today I strolled upon the shore Where Grandad walked in days of yore; Along its sandy, glossy sheen Where once his imprint would have been. And thereupon I did behold ‘Twas here, when I was...

Originally published here. ALBUQUERQUE, NM — July 27, 2019 — Sonnet 5, a marriage poem from MacKenzie’s Sonnets for Christ the King, has inspired award-winning producer, composer, and vocalist D.G. Hall...

Cape Horn They lifted anchor, spread the sails, __Quit shores where they were born, Bound for spice isles from doubtful tales __By way of far Cape Horn— Rough seamen, fortune-bound, to trade __In...

Anonymous Diagnosis In ancient China, a sense of propriety did not allow women of high social status, and women in general, to expose any part of their bodies to a male physician. A woman suffering an...

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  Pale would be the water ____Reflecting only skies, Gracing not the splendor ____Of your enchanting eyes. Pale would be the moon ____That only marks its pace And fails to see the boon ____Of...

An Open Letter to a Fellow Poet for Adam Sedia But why against one poor poet, a hundred men? —Cyrano de Bergerac (Edmond Rostand) What dreams do come to distress needful sleep, to cause me wakeful to...

  Learning Experience The world is filled with rules For making things; and schools Where ziggurats of thought, Erected there, are taught. The language that we use Now hides within a ruse Of...

Love Song for a Grapefruit Dear Grapefruit, I of late have been untrue, Seduced by sweet confections of all sorts; My tastebuds languish, and my girth reports Unwanted gain from my neglect of you. The...

I. The Evacuation of St Kilda The remote island community on St Kilda had existed for thousands of years in considerable hardship until, from the 1890s, tourists began to visit in large numbers. The wealth of...

When our new park enticed me to a walk I saw a dandelion on the trail. Its yellow bloom hung on its broken stalk And it appeared to call me with a wail. Was it a she, or rather she a he? I was bemused:...

  My father woke the day that he __Was in the forest born To find that all gentility __Was from his nature shorn. A base unwilled enchantment laid __That jealous fairy scorned. For in that tale...

Haiku   When a newborn cries, locked in a room by itself, does it make a sound?   Fog enshrouds the night. Woven in the heavy mist, a thread of fireflies.     In Time -...

Evening Stroll by P.C. Boutens (1870-1943), written in The Hague in 1909, translated by Leo Zoutewelle We wandered much too late today! __Nearby the final bridge, There where the trail just fades...

  The Moon, torn from the Sun, her only lover, Rose, starry-eyed and weeping beams of light, A mourning widow left to wisp and hover, A torturously pitiable sight, Wan from the strain of sobbing...

After the Rain After the rain, it’s time to walk the field again, near where the river bends. Each year I come to look for what this place will yield— lost things still rising here. The farmer’s plow...

The Devil at Woodstock I was a mere sixteen that Summer day We all piled in a beat-up car and drove To Woodstock, or someplace we had been told That a great spectacle was to occur— An earth-shaking...

Gray I feel a certain loyalty to gray. Gray days, gray sweaters, cars - gray everything. Gray soothes and calms. It doesn’t boast, or fling itself before you like some shades do (they know who they...

  One interesting question is ‘why poetry, specifically?’ I am currently writing an ‘epic’ called The English Cantos, and I have chosen to write my epic in terza rima. There are many forms of...

  Do I remember him? How could I fail To think of that tender boy, handsome and hail, Zealous and hearty, his muscles in tone, Who once climbed these ancient hills, cycling alone? He’d...

An ode to Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Sebastian: from Greek “venerable” I touch the pages of your music. Then My thoughts transport to times and distant sounds Where you once dwelt. I think of...

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  Two Laws In this imperfect world who suffers less: A good man wrongly jailed with conscience clear? Another whose low deeds he can't confess Though from man's laws he nothing has to fear? The...

  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...