Culture

  Ghost Lightning So ominous, this strange, unsettling sight: Sharp lightning pulses pierce the moonless sky In silence as if Jove hurled demon-stars At Earth. The embers streak across the night Beyond the clouds---but mute. No blast or cry. Could this yet be the soundless rage of Mars--- A subtle...

  At Dawn of Time ---after Genesis 1:1—2:3 At dawn of time God made both heaven and earth. And as the earth was formless and unfilled And darkness blanketed the ocean’s girth, God’s Spirit interceded as he willed And hovered over all the waters chilled. “Let there be light,” God...

  Fool’s Paradise The words from fools surround us all— they’re siren calls that can entice our base desires, and thus we fall into a world imbued with vice. Like paradise, it can appear, until your coveted career or family ends up destroyed, due to falling into the void.  ...

  The Meteor A Vision ---09.10.25 It cut across the skies, Grim sign to terrorize A world whose conscience dies. Like blinding lightning hurled From thunderclouds wind-whirled, It stuns the silenced world, Rends peoples, realms in twain, Shakes continents amain, Drives multitudes insane. In its horrendous wake, A rift tears...

  Sally Forth, Ms. Cook "My holiday shall be That they remember me; My paradise, the fame That they pronounce my name. —Emily Dickinson I’m well acquainted with a gal named Sally, Whose verses span the hither and the yon— She’s mapped more real estate than Rand McNally And raises...

  The Mission Our mission---to discover signs of life amongst the stars---seemed destined to succeed; for though our sun-strewn galaxy was rife with barren orbs, our probe commenced to feed our mother ship with data that portrayed a double-planet’s larger sibling as a place where fast-evolving beasts once stayed before...

  A Genuine Petrarchan Note on William Wordsworth’s Ecclesiastical Sonnets How did it end, then, for Romantic Bill? He labored long on Church-of-England lines— Which had to be, fans thought, of all designs The most surprising. He pursued it still. Octave and sestet he worked hard to fill With pious...

  Victimhood Diet “You can’t hold on to your victimhood and get on with your life. You have to choose one.” ---Jordan Peterson Most people who riot were raised on a diet of slights and oppressions from past grievance sessions. The wrongs made against them were real and incensed them,...

  Just Hang On! When I was young, I played outside and cousins often were my crew; the big kids usually would decide which games to play, and what to do. One spring day my excitement grew as we set out just after dawn: my cousin said keep him in...

KO ---inspired by the Lyoto Machida-Vitor Belfort Fight, May 12, 2018 Below the jaw---no gentle punch, A flying kick, a dental lunch; Incisor, cuspid, bent to munch A bitter flavor with a crunch. Machida hailing from Brazil, Where masses staring, glaring, still; He passed his foe a snoozing pill, Out-sassed...

  Feeble Best We try to earn God’s love but can’t succeed. When on His narrow path, we trip and fall. How could we not? We’re merely noise and need. Just shrieking infants, unaware we’re small. To us, our shrieks sound like a symphony. To Him, each one must sound...

  The Decorator I live to decorate for Christmastide. My summer birthday barely means a thing As I count Christmases new glorified By fir or pine or spruce, encouraging My spirits as I check bulbs on each string Inherited. At last, tired colors died, And free to choose, I bought...

  The Time to Give Him Thanks In the still and pristine morning, When the flowers bathe in dew, And the meadows stir from slumber With their creatures, not a few; Just before the mountains shiver At the coming of the light, And the elk in stately splendor Ventures forth...

  The Keeper’s Wife “Dear God in Heaven, why have you forsaken me? To take my husband—rest his soul—in your embrace? Just looking out to sea now gives me mal de mer. I wish he never brought me here. This wretched place Is cursed! What strength I have comes from...

Musical Version by Lex McKee     Cetus and Jonah’s Lament "And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day, and it attacked the plant and it withered." ---Jonah 4.5 When I think now of you, great Cetus---Whale--- And me...

  A Poet Explains Perhaps, dear madam and dear sir, You might with my remarks concur As I explain why I insist That poetry should still exist When all the world embraces prose, Though I admit I can’t suppose We yearn for language made to shine When common speech will...

  Swimming to the Waterfall at Uvongo In the heat of the early winter By the haunts of the southern strand. Filled with a lust for adventure We forwent the safety of land. But the cliffs watched on with suspicion, In silence they warned us and said: “Beware of the...

  Meeting Alexander You were the wonder of another age. Enemies and friends alike: they learned To love your laughter and to fear your rage. It was your therapy when cities burned, But if I somehow met you face to face Such probing questions I would like to ask. Yet...

  Glog Gets Participation Prize Our tale’s set in a prehistoric cave Carved in a cliff above a vast expanse Which offers Aurochs Clan a safe enclave Within a land the future shall call “France.” The fecund plains below are lush and teeming With toothy predators and shrieking prey. A...

  The Last Caesar ---Ravenna, 476 AD The figure on this golden solidus: a beardless boy, his dress a bossed cuirass, helmet adorned with Rome's imperial crown, Augustulus, Orestes' handsome son. The annals say: Rome weakens year by year, Byzant holds strong; Hesperia quakes in fear. Attila's soldiers start to...

  Just Do It. _My spirit’s wings shall soar _Although at times I stray. When I’m downcast… when life’s storms blast… _I gaze upward and pray. _Fed up with sin and war… _Outside, inside my mind. I do not know where I should go. _What task have You assigned?  ...

Diocletian’s Horse “Save it for your horse.” ---Oedipus Tex, P.D.Q. Bach (Peter Schickele) While Diocletian owned the home Octavian built (although he ruled from Asia Minor, don’t be fooled, He was the emperor of Rome), ambition and a lack of sense brought some in Egypt to rebel against his title....

  Sensation Amidst the flaming of the flying saucer’s landing gear, like as the Sunshine glazing it, in gold-white-yellow sheer, the meadow edge is filled with crabgrass seedheads by the trail, the bright, cement-gray road is lit by brilliant blazing rays. The shadow of the alien is ten-foot long, and...

  Sonnet of the Hardened Heart Care less, I warn myself; bother no more With inner crevices: prying the shell Like scabs (rough, oozing, sore), which crust, but tell Of tumults against the psychic seabed floor; It is in vain. Swollen and hard around The meat (like newborn skin, or...

  On Time I went to bed too late last night And woke up to an awful fright But now it’s done, what can I say? Tomorrow turned into today They say time flies, you never know About the days, where do they go? A penny in your pocket, say...

  Big Pharma Big Pharma companies pay fees that get spent on the salaries of scientists who regulate each new drug, so the long-term fate of every drug executive depends on an affirmative from people at the FDA, the very people that they pay. Big Pharma touts the benefit of...

  The Golden Soldier ---for my grandfather He had a calming charm. He always spoke Of garden-basking instances of joy--- His apple yield; his acorn-laden oak Abuzz with busy squirrels, keen and coy. Each dusk he sipped a whisky in his chair, Eyes drinking in the shimmer of his wife....

  A War Poem of Sorts ---to Robert Thomas Waldock, who died in 1983 The graveyard’s last but one dug hole was filled by Robert Thomas Waldock who had fought in Flanders, where so many men were killed, and where the twentieth century was wrought. His picture’s in a treasured...

  Old Bottles ---Oneida County, Wisconsin From time to time, when stirring in the muck below our lakeside dock, we dredge them up: old bottles, curio shaped, clear, green, or blue. We gurgle out a muddy milk of sludge and wash each bottle clean, while wondering how old it is...

. Europe Arranges Its Own Autopsy ---with apologies to T.S. Eliot . I. The Trojan Horse When April came it showered France with acid. The U.K. too and Sweden, Spain and all The countries of the West---so smug, yet placid. They chose this. Not to fight. Not to stand tall....

  Listening to Incense A spiral from ignited aloe rises, Translucent, swayed with compound camphor salve Through azure air that gently opalizes The things we see and think we know or have. Soft cloudlets drift from dimness overhead, Obscuring colors as they wreathe the room Where scroll-arm chairs are darkly...

  Machine Learning All algorithms, hypothetical Or otherwise, all organised behaviours Evoke responses antithetical— And thus the desperate ever doubt their saviours. Our tone is too obsequious, you say— Far too agreeable, arousing nought But timorous contempt. Yet you obey Civility’s demands, as you were taught— For your humility commands...

  Melampus: The Listener   Canto I---The Gift of Listening 1. The Birth of the Listener The strong winds over Pylos were whirling and whispering low, while a babe in his cradle was ringed by the blustery night. Two green serpents coiled near to the boy in the pale silver...

  Words of Wisdom One bit of wisdom that life has conferred Is when to give somebody else the last word.     In Sight But Out of Mind Believing I’d use it someday, I put something in a good place, And ever since that’s where it lay, Three decades...

  On Swatting a Fly The fly I hunted down is on a pane, a window pane, where yesterday a swat with rolled up, A-4 notebook left him slain upon the glass, a splattered, lifeless blot. I try to work, but how my eye is drawn towards that ruined body...

  Alas! “Alas!” A word of grief and rueful mourning; A gut-punch from what was but is no more Or “almost was,” miscarried, died aborning. “Alas!” A raven croaking, “Nevermore.” “Alas!” Shall time deface, erase, surrender The still-warm memory of love’s last kiss? A gasping grasp at fading spectral splendor;...

  The Lorelei by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) translated from German by Bruce Phenix I don’t know what it can mean, such sadness do I find in a tale from ancient times which never leaves my mind. The air is cool, it grows dark; the Rhine flows quietly down; the hill,...

  Sign Wars Each autumn brings the Sign Wars once again. MUSSELLA versus TAYLOR for the crown of Village Mayor. All the Councilmen will pick a side while whispers spread through town. The current, lifelong Clerk will lead a charge against the young brash Super with a mouth agrestic. He’s...

  Lead, Kindly Light ---in the voice of John Henry Newman (1801–1890) Firmly I stand by virtue of belief, Belief in God who wills we act and speak, And aids our feebleness to sanctify What is of earth, of humble worth unique. As one to One, in love to Him...

Pumpkin Palooza Spooky, Kooky, Mostly Ghosty. Pumpkins round Cover ground. Corn stalks propped. Traffic stopped. Costumes galore: Short dinosaurs! Spiders! Black cats! Witches’ cone hats! Ghosts and goblins whirl. Dancers leap and twirl. Black witches ride on brooms. Who’s hidden in that tomb? Tiny ghosts are wrapped in sheets. All...