Beauty

This Collar, Blue My elbows leak with grease And all my toes are laid with steel I'm rough of neck My knuckles specked with cuts that never heal The world I mend The swirls on plastic lens paints...

See the Music Mysterious the inner eye that hears the dancers flying by across the stage in grand jete' as woodwind, horn and cello play And there, just barely in the wings the graceful ballerina...

About the Lady Godiva and her famed naked ride through Coventry Once in the town of Coventry, Leofric Earl had held decree; Too great the tax that he appealed, Greater than his folk could yield. They...

by Jane Blanchard George Herbert was born into a well-to-do and well-doing family of Montgomery, Wales, in 1593. When he was three years old, his father died, leaving a wife and ten children. Herbert...

In garret lofts poor artists have quite often painted women bathing, combing hair inside a nearby mirror… __________________________Your eyes soften, and, pale as blossoms or flesh from a pear, your...

  in the woods, I stop in twilight dim … as spring throws off the evening’s hoarfrost coat midst groaning fir and shivering bare limb I hear the spirit whisperings that float on ragged...

Winter’s Nocturn       When angles of the sun are shining low, Intuition tells us we must sleep. Nocturnal tracks appear now in the snow To mark the chilly vigil some must keep. Enlightened...

Statues A Villanelle Two Buddhas now a lost reality, A crowd chants loudly near a pile of stone; Across the South you won’t find General Lee. The temples fell despite UNESCO’s plea And ISIS’...

  The wisest poem ever Was written by my daughter, Although I’ve never known her To be much of a scholar. She’s only five years old now, But wise beyond her years. My daughter wrote a...

For Bill Horn Send up on wings of blood our fathers’ cry, Though the unhearing dead brook not your sound, And flesh yet binds us to the groaning ground, Release your paeans to the boundless sky, And...

At night I hear Prokofiev and Liszt and dream of playing baby grands as sly Euterpe lures me towards the melodies of pianists. My fingers cannot meet the demands of Mendelssohn’s complicated...

Sonnet I: Liu Haixiao Mr. Liu Haixiao (pronounced Leo High-shaow) is serving a 16-year prison sentence in Jilin Province, China, where he was arrested for tapping into the local TV network to broadcast...

A rhupunt A modern place that maintains grace a safer place for all who come The airplanes fly the city sky the mountains high you're never numb never alone away from home in temples roam to...

I. As clear blue symbols dance before my eyes, And I lie still, my head upon the ground, Each part of me, in dappled sunshine crowned, Wants formal shape in selfish compromise, And hides itself in...

  You Decide Some know me as Destiny, The weaver of the cloth of Time. Although my looms are never stilled, They say I choose how high you’ll climb, How fast you’ll fall, how great your name; I...

12/03/17 Of all ye gods, that crown Olympus high, Who yet remains that man’s not brought to heel? When aircraft daily pierce great Zeus’s sky, And Neptune’s depths have long since been...

  Within what hut, My woodland maid, May I remain awhile? Next what fire may my chills Be warmed? Be there A path that leads Past stony piles and tells Us not to walk alone? I do not...

  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...

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...

  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...