Beauty

Proem In rhyming, timing is everything. Rhymes in wrong places make awkward spaces. A rhyme in rhyming knows more than prose. Rhymes are the rings you hear in the mind’s ear. Nature’s rhymes are free:...

Higher Purpose Is there any higher purpose As they walk with faces down? Are they sure of destination As they shuffle through the town; With eyes grown unaccustomed To a world beyond their...

Passing of the Seasons When snow has melted, chill has gone, and winter turns to spring, The tender buds grow on the branches where the robins sing. The earth once brown is green again, blessed by the April...

Nesting Season Little sleep. The night heat did not relent. You startle me up as day breaks over the tent to show me the sea-turtle tracks you found through the bluestems behind the campground. I hardly...

He viewed the world with perfect form But upside down, not as the norm He lifted those who’d been down - trod And doing so, he followed God     Neal Dachstadter is a poet living in...

  I used to find it hard to lose at chess. I'd watch in disbelief the check and mate, think through the game and curse to find too late— I'd bought disaster with the bishop's press. In school,...

George and the Dragon In the Yorkshire dialect “Nah, sithee,” said Granny, “Just set thee dahn ‘ere, An’ I’ll tell thee a tale old and true, Of ‘ow good Saint George slew a dragon one...

The Journal It sat upon his bedside table, closed, And waiting to keep record of each day: The silent pages still and unexposed, A diary to come, his dossier. He saw it every evening as he bent To turn...

Meadows of Corn It seems but bland to every passing eye, These regal meadows dressed in ripened corn; They dance and few can such effects deny, The brows of greener grass their touch adorn. As dismal...

  To Solitude Come, Solitude, my first and truest friend! Long hours of careless converse burden me, And I have need of hospitality Such as art thou alone meet with to lend. What synthesis my past...

  Windmill Song Alone it shudders on a hill, Defiant in the wind. A strong south gale could topple it, A hard rain do it in. Too many years its silver blades Whirled in the morning breeze While...

On Visiting the Tea Garden in Middletown, New York I. A harried daddy with two kids in tow, Maneuvering through city streets and cars, I look around quite nervously for crows Whose filthy bombs my head...

A Villanelle To breathe the beaming silence of the sky I long, when dawn’s chill wakes my eyes, and see The oft-unseen yet boundless peace on high. When slumber’s velvety dim moments die, Pale...

  Untitled All older statues want to come alive, Those Greek and Roman ones, and Christian, too. Their skeletons and veins and muscles strive To break through marble skin.  They want their...

A Lifetime Day drifts into evening Evening into night All around me darkness With only stars for light Dawn awakes the morning The morning burst into day The cycle never ceasing Black to white to...

Upon the release of the Society’s How to Write Classical Poetry   When feeling some compulsion to compose, One wonders which of many forms to choose, Then tends to favor what one really...

For Elizabeth On the Poet’s Eleventh Wedding Anniversary   Though you behold me silent in this room, Know that I walk in fields of fresh-cut hay; Though I be still, my thoughts like roses...

The important events in the life of Gaius Valerius Catullus (84-54 B.C.) are recounted through the poems he has left. The particular poem below was written on his return from Asia Minor, where he had attempted...

Inside the Dragon’s Teeth Maui, Hawaii From inside, you get a new perspective ___Of the tourist spot known as Dragon’s Teeth. The people who write about such things give ___This place, which lies on...

It has long been observed that whilst the ego is useful in making daily and ordinary decisions in our life, it is less effective when it comes to more important issues; it is by nature competitive, and it...

  When, late in May, Memorial Day ____Inaugurates the season Of summer sun and summer fun ____(Much welcomed, with good reason), Then nature’s crowned with sight and sound: ____The sky is bright...

Unshaken Faith Forward Alliterative verse dedicated to Falun Gong practitioners who have faced persecution in China since July 20, 1999   The ground was broken, crusty, cracked for miles and...

LVII. On a Bodegón of Zurbarán From carbon darkness, splendor! Light comes forth. A painter knew the warm fidelity Of lemons pointing east and west and north, And praised the Thornless Rose’s...

  At last, the sunset’s knell forebodes the ceasing day— The merchants in their silken garments trudge their way Along, with Turkish camels and Koranic tunes. Diurnal light retreats from...

  And What Of Art? It used to be that there was a division Between the arts, and each had segments, too. A poem was just a poem, required revision, A painter mixed his colors – blue was...

Dante’s Inferno, Canto I (Poem by Dante Alighieri / translation by J. Simon Harris in terza rima) In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself again in a dark forest, for I had lost the pathway...

  A wind blew through the almond trees. The blossoms shook, the petals floated down Past where I sat on the cliffs above the sea. The waves reminded me a bit of the mounds Of snow I’d left...

Why Live This Long? The thought presents - Why live this long? What more to do, Once sung my song? The arch of life Made sense to me. With work in hand - While serving Thee. Great tasks complete, Hills have...

  Potpourri Take leaves at first, curled crisp by autumn’s cold— Crush them to crumbly powder in a tray To make a simple palette of decay In varied tints of brown and red and gold. Next flower...

Epistle to a Celt Where, o Celt, mayst thou be found Upon what all was once thy ground? Art thou of thy majestic race The last to bear a mortal face? Thy speech and runes thou scornst to learn, Which...

This poem is written in response to proposals to sell ancient public forests to private developers in England. https://saveourwoods.co.uk/   Oh, site where forest now is laid – Why take the suite...

It's Best to Be a Giver It’s best to be a giver, not a taker, Or else how could you ever face your Maker? When time is due and Judgment Day is here, You look in your Lord’s eyes, and have no fear, You...

The Akkerman Steppe Original Polish by Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855) below I launch myself across the dry and open narrows, My carriage plunging into green as if a ketch, Floundering through the meadow...

Poem for a Birthday Say that the year is round, and on its top March lighted candles in concentric rows. They drip their wax, which hardens on the heart As birthdays pass, and most of us suppose That...

  When dusk settles, the oxalis Stands taller and sweeter, As if to say that all of this Is just Nature’s theater, The butterfly-shaped purple leaves Are an actor's costume, Which fans out in...

The Muses we understand from Part 1 of this article are the daughters of the future and the past, and more specifically of memory, light, truth and beauty; they are essential for the ‘good life’, and we...

What Rumor, What Word? On the featured photo above What rumor, what word, O Cloud from the sea? Cumulus, Nimbus: what sayest thou to me? But human and man; the simplest I be, And found ruminating,...

  In a secluded forest glade, Where sunlight shines and shadows fade, The faeries come to dance and play Upon a bright warm summer’s day. Light are their footsteps, quick their feet On...

27 November 1976: Fort Eustis, Virginia By Usa W. Celebride It is an autumn Saturday. I sit amidst the scree, of dry, brown, crackly leaves, against the rough bark of a tree. The Sun casts out long...

Sonnet XLIV. The Finding Let not this grief across her face invade, Dear God! Thou madest these my one true care! Not Egypt, where we hid Him and He played, Could fade her brightness with its desert...