Culture

  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...

(by the ancient lawgiver who threw himself on his blade to satisfy a legal technicality) 625 b.c.e. Yours is a hard but hardy justice: When __The Poets weighed their verses on the scale, Proud Homer saw...

  Though all the world should grovel and bend To the minions of deepest hell, Our days of glory shall not end Where brave men fought and brave men fell! We’ll take a stand to save our land And...

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...

  From the stations they sent out a call To their jillaroo friends - one and all; For an overnight camp, while the sky bore the stamp Of a cloudless day darkened from view. So they came in farm...

  I am a captive of the wicked queen. My mind’s a blank; the temptress took my soul. I know too well  what this desire must mean. And oh! The evil beauty I have seen. Though loving her must...

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...

  Ere gloaming wanes, acceding sable night, As writhen mists conceal a pallid moon, From bastion vigil, thou descry a sight; To rumours, foul and fey, thine ears attune. Beyond the eaves of...

Room 402:  Gehenna Comes to New York (On Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Jan. 22,2019 repeal of New York’s Public Health Law § 4164)   Note:   “Room 402” does not refer to any specific event...

The Bad The first video of Hannah Silva instructs us on the abyss that poetry reading has found itself in today. The irrationality and baseness of slam poetry has given way to experimental poetry that doesn't...

  Three Thousand Years before Apple and Three Thousand Years after the iPad I carry in my knapsack poems by The ancient Greeks, the eldest ones, the best, The best of elders. They are still as...

apropos of 'The Threads' by E. Mantyk I fell into a radiant sleep; Thereon into dream and seeing: A paradise seemed me to keep; In its walls, the seeds of being. Thus thrown into this strange-sweet...

  Though beauty also beckons there, Mt. Shasta’s peak projects severe, So from her panoramic view, Is cast a pall on me and you And everyone approaching here, Courage take but caution,...

The Fate of Fine Art Too late to turn the clock back on fine art, Egregious oxymoron that it may Be called today, but where to find the start Of this, the slow beginnings of decay? For once we found...

Translation by Martin Hill Ortiz  Farewell to the Royal Gardens at Aranjuez by María Rosa Gálvez de Cabrera of Spain (1768-1806) Aranjuez: forest, rich with flowers, Through which the tangled Tajo...

Mother of Falun Gong They said my mother would be back tomorrow, They said her smile would still shine proudly here, Her hand brush off the dreadful, bitter sorrow That manifests itself within a tear, But...

by Edward C. "Ted" Hayes   A Prefatory Poem (or a Gaggle of Goosefeathers) Some will judge this essai the exact thing it’s not – Distilled, unvarnished, contemned tommyrot For asserting mod...

  I like it, though it’s very dark; The firelight a fading arc Along the tree, whose ageing bark Shows day is near. I like it, but have questions yet: I do not know where this is set, And are...

Who Needs QU? It’s time to retire Q-U. K-W’s logical choice. What’s Q do that K cannot do? And U’s vowel that has its own voice. Inkwire why bother with this, A kwest to our language...

Salesman of Salesmen Infectious spirit, everybody’s friend,Hypnotic and fascinating, a forceOf pushy power, broiling to transcendObjections fully, only to endorsePositions he defends until the...

by Evan Mantyk As the border wall with Mexico that President Trump is building gains greater and greater attention, so too has the early 20th century poem, “Mending Wall,” by American poet Robert Frost....

  When I was young, I’d disassemble clocks So I could understand what made them go. With tools in hand, and pieces in a box, I’d wonder, and I’d look, and then I’d know. But lacking tools...

I start to age ten minutes out of bed, More fragile now but not yet dead. My son-in-law hovers round me when I walk In case I stumble as we talk. My daughter’s gift to me: a three-pronged cane Concealed...

  Reinigeadal, Harris So many years ago it was, a child Tramped up from East Loch Tarbert’s rocky shore Across the peat hags underneath the wild And dismal sky that overhung the moor. No road...

Star Needles A star is just a bauble stuck on what We view as sky.  Lest it let winter in, We join sky fabric back together. When It makes a split, a slice of light slips through The center of each...

The Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion ( 蘭亭集序; Lántíngjí Xu), from the 4th century AD, is generally regarded as the greatest work of Chinese calligraphy. Although...

by Gregory Spicer “Death and taxes” bemoan us now, as ever. Yet as I bask in the fading embers of Christendom's most sentimental season, my mind freshly equips itself for the new year by conjoining...

The Fiancé inspired by Anthony Trollope’s "Can you forgive her?" (1864-1865) Alice, he wants your money, honey. Alice, he wants your cash. He’d never ask you without it don’t doubt it – He’s...

Translation by Michael Coy The Lake Thus, ever driven onward to new shores, borne constantly away, Can we never, in the Ocean of the Ages, drop anchor for a day? Oh, this beautiful lake!  The...

Dedicated to far too many of my contemporaries, and they know who the hell they are. I. I am the perfect poet— I strike a dainty pose. I sniff the air for floral scent And elevate my nose. I’m...

  The fire waits with tiger paws on silent haunches by the hill, then mounts the rock with clinging claws, and contemplates the moment it will pounce—on sagebrush dry as bones, under a ghostly...

Common Language I hear the music of the artist's brush Bruise with color the canvas' white, Feel the composers' fingers rush Across the keyboard into night To lodge clear notes in the blackest sky, Stars...

Transhumanism Somewhere about there’s a slithering sound of man’s enmity, causing excitement and casting the seeds of calamity, claiming enlightened revision of old postmodernity. Oh! But the thought...

The Catholic Work Ethic I'll do as much as I am able __Before the sun has set. I doubt that I will run the table __Because I haven't yet __Achieved my full potential. There will be time to lie in...

The Afternoon of Man Fourteen or so, one autumn afternoon, my homework done and supper hours away, I scuffed along on sodden paths bestrewn with yellowed leaves in woods where I’d once played. Perhaps...

  This evening of your festive day I pray _Oh Agnes, little model of the pure, _Oh girl with smiling eyes, and faith so sure: They won for you the martyr's palm this day. For neither threat nor...

Sonnet II: Liu Xitong Liu Xitong (pronounced Leo She-tong) recently spoke on Capitol Hill about the persecution he faced in communist China for his practice of Falun Gong. Read about the event and his story...

  These twain ephem’ral lives were fraught with woes When they, a boy and girl in morn of life, Defied their due inheritance as foes And chased a star-crossed love as man and wife. Belovéd by...