Beauty

A Poet’s Lament - for Charles Southerland, whose brilliant prose style I so painfully tried to imitate and incorporate Nobody cried when poetry died a long, slow death - a final breath, maybe even a last...

A Journey to the East by Evan Mantyk is a historical and poetical fairytale adventure styled after Journey to the West, by Ming Dynasty writer Wu Cheng’en. The first nine chapters of the former may be read...

Bunny by Sally Cook Indebted to a simple spark of life, You missed your chance at Europe’s wondrous door. A conscientious mother and a wife, You danced your dance upon an inland shore. Your simple...

  I woke this day from napping, and I saw you lying there, Across the room, upon a couch, asleep without a care. The golden beams of twilight streaming through the windowpane, Shone wondrously upon...

  With lifeless smiles she's sitting tight in the vase. With painted flowers, leaves and twigs she's like a dressed deadman on funeral day. Let days and months pass by; forever she's...

  For Lori Kaye and Riley Howell I sing in praise of Lori Gilbert Kaye. When racist hatred paid a deadly call On Congregation Chabad of Poway, She stood and “took a bullet for us all.” I sing of...

Read the poetry of the recently departed John Whitworth at Trinacria or The Poetry Archive. by Sally Cook Any ordinary poet composing a landscape piece might easily imagine a dull blue sky, one small white...

Venting Be angry, and do not sin. —Ephesians 4.26 We're told a large volcano roils and seethes beneath the soil of Yellowstone. The steam that rises all throughout the park, and wreathes its many...

On Time’s Memory Time is a sieve of our own brand. A net Made not to catch but to let go: of gold, Of fish, of bread, or dust; a knotted mould Formed from ourselves, to let us so forget. Or else time is...

The Fall of the Fourth Estate a rondeau The Media: the Fourth Estate* Performed disgracefully of late: Delivering the news askew, Allowing certain viewpoints through To fuel the discontent and...

Translation by Matthew Wildermuth Note: In the time of its composition—the first decade of the 13th century—Tristan was already a timeless story of heroism and romance, yet in the hands of a great...

  Birthday Apology William Shakespeare was born April 26, 1564 If all the world’s a stage, and all the men are women, myne eye be true, I gauge; her beard doth need a...

Towards the End of Chinese Communism Through Shanghai’s packed glissando peaks and Beijing’s glossy miles, As though to keep out counter breaths and polish glassy smiles, The dazing days of blinding...

Here shut behind an oaken door I stay, left in a room paneled with times long gone, and learn to know the passing of the day, for day and I await the selfsame dawn. My window faces west, my door is...

Gallipoli, 1915 There are none left on earth can ever tell At first hand of this mortal waste of war Hard-fought one hundred years ago and more, The stench of death, of corpses left to swell, Their...

  I face the day with unexpected strength, to know we’ll meet when the sun has disappeared. Your hand in mine we’ll walk the forest’s length, with peace of mind and nothing to be feared. I...

  Tosspot tulip, withered, bowed and bent; __Severed stem embedded in a vase. __Natal bed a now-forsaken place. __Glory passed; its bloom and beauty spent. Birthed, bedecked, betrothed, by bulb and...

  It is a moment or a spot in time, When time is quieted and put away; A simple thing becoming the sublime, Suspended and eternal in a day And all around me just dissolves to naught; I feel my...

A special holiday post featuring "My Cross" by Joe Tessitore of New York, New York; "Pietá" by Tonya McQuade of Los Gatos, California; "The Pietá" by Michael Charles Maibach of Alexandria, Virginia.

  Luckily for the bereft grieving through darkness alone, dawn is abundantly deft at its medicinal tone. When a new morning appears, duty abruptly commands focusing thoughts on careers and...

The Cathedral, Burning by T. M. Moore Flames wreck the walls and ceilings that had stood for centuries, scorch ancient timbers, raze to ash that sanctuary made for praise, and cruelly crumble sacred...

  Today poetic form is ostracised. It’s stifled and suppressed, deemed obsolete; classed as archaic, stuffy and effete, a vestige of the past to be chastised. Make no mistake, the ‘advice’...

’Twas just a fleeting moment when our journeys crossed, When you were walking roadside, munching on the moss, On Christmas, we were driving, dinner on our mind, To share with friends and fam’ly at that...

Where the Heart Goes Where the heart decides to go, The feet must go along. The heart is first to know A thing is right or wrong. The heart knows who to trust. The heart knows who to fight. The feet...

Wings Oh, to catch the winds of flight And soar where eagles go, To leave the woes of troubled souls Behind me far below. I'd listen to the song of birds And sail in endless flight, Then chase the sun...

Damon’s Song (from Eclogue 8) by Vergil / translation from Latin by Olivia May Translator's note: Vergil’s Eclogue 8 presents a singing competition between two shepherds, Damon and Alphesiboeus, whose...

When we listen To his sweet song, Did he then know It'd live this long? A song that gives To every age, A timeless sense Of history's page. Reminding you, Reminding me, Love songs can...

The Melancholy Snowman Though stony-eyed, I watched the finches glide. The chimney smoke, the builder slide, At night, I gave the constellations words, The House, the Builder, and the Birds. My silver...

  The Water of Life To die Of thirst Is nigh The worst And saddest way A life may end, Since quickened clay Cannot transcend Its fundamental need For fluid that's designed To irrigate and...

translation from Italian by Luigi Pagano Maybe because you are the image of eternal peace O evening, you are welcomed by me with open arms when the summer clouds and the gentlest breeze beguile me with...

In the Garden In Paradise there is a place where ruby-colored roses grace the trellises of precious pearl - so splendidly their buds unfurl! She and her Child oft’ wander here among the flowers they...

Curve It’s just a simple curve, gouged by a string to make a tidy border in between the walkway and the yard. On one side, green grass glistens, wearing morning dew like bling. And on the other side,...

That I Might Learn to Love a villanelle That I might learn to love I sorely prayed with hopes that God might teach me by romance as yearning I the empty sky surveyed. Yet lovers marched in cumbersome...

  The Pregnant Woman The Pregnant Woman nests a baby seed Who's ever pressing on her very core While her body adapts to baby's needs She's feeling aches she's never known before. A linea alba...

  How I long for the days gone by, Such memories overtake me. I look back on my life and sigh, May the future not forsake me. All the fond thoughts of yesteryear, Coupled with the thoughts of...

  Beyond the brimming ages Gabriel waits, his foremost message burning on his breath. Through time men slide, creeping through the gates of birth and out again the doors of death. He sees kings...

The Black Children In China, until rather recently, each pair of parents was allowed one kid, according to the “one-child policy.” Some parents had another, which they hid. Unregistered, these kids...

Note: Teaching classical poetry rather than other forms of poetry or modern literature makes a difference. Inherent in classical poetry is a respect for tradition, for order, for discipline, and for the...

Anonymous (12th Century), 'Du bist mein' ('You are mine') I am yours and you, mine are; Of this ought you be 'ware. You are a part of, prisoner in, my heart; The little key is gone afar. You must...

  He thinks in lines And vexing vertices. His shining mind always inclines To maths and magnitude, minute degrees Of formulae, and the impossibilities He has deciphered with those...