Culture

Clarity and Obscurity Part III Read Part I: The Essences of Classicism and Modernism Compared Read Part II: "Concrete" Poetry and the Fall of Metaphor by Adam Sedia Modernism produces obscure poetry...

  O do not chasten me with tales of fine __Fresh wells of wisdom and of warriors bold, __Or sacred veins of Ethiopian gold, Your more than oracles or muses nine, For I've drunk deep of a more...

  My Last Duchess The Duke of Ferrara recalls his last wife. by Robert Browning That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra...

  I. The rats infesting Kathmandu Airport Appear to co-exist in peace with man And have, it seems, since local time began, Been treated each like some great Juggernaut. Their teeming numbers...

Edmund Spenser by Margaret Coats Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) wrote 121 sonnets of rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee, including 87 in his love sequence Amoretti. The Spenserian sonnet differs from the...

  New York poet Joe Tessitore challenges poets to begin a poem with these words:   My country used to be...   Post your poem in the comments section below. (Poems should be...

I Loved You... I loved you, and I probably still do, and for a while, the feeling may remain, But let my love no longer trouble you... I do not wish to cause you any pain I loved you, and the hopelessness I...

FIRST PLACE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F96xN0VV7JU The Virus and the Cure by Rob Crisell One hundred years of tyranny, One hundred years of pain and lies. If communists of China win, The...

all poems by Bruce Dale Wise   The Pilot by Air Weelbed Suc I saw him flying overhead, a pilot in a plane, and looking down, he gazed upon the anguish and the pain. Although I saw compassion in...

Better Stock Than You after Henry Lawson’s "Prouder Man Than You" by Beverly Stock Your tome of pride be shattered, I’m from better Stock than you. You don’t treat all as equals, And I think...

The Argument: The Poet, having escaped the HellWard of European and corrupt politicians, emerges into the penultimate HellWard depth where he, with his guide, Dante, meets the Poetasters from America and...

  Tennyson thought it better “to have loved and lost, than…” Well, you know the rest. Of course this begs the question most of us can only guess. Is losing ever really good, or is this just...

St. Piran (Feast Day: March 5) A rhupunt Irish heathens, Unbelieving, Strapped poor Piran To a stone then Rolled him over. A cliff! Cut-throats They came to gloat. Though stones don’t...

  In the midst of free-verse critics’ Smug, inchoate analytics __Seasoned with self-righteous pedantry, There are poets who are striving To achieve success reviving __Classical and formal...

  Dear Governor, by C.B. Anderson Reopen every workplace, pretty please; Your "cure" has proven worse than the disease. Your lockdown's brought the people to their knees, And now they live in fear...

  Oxford "University"? Its preference now: diversity. The Homers, Ovids, Virgils--- Now peanuts for the squirrels! This "school" now gives instruction In Western Civ destruction The classics?...

  Spring Snow Tyrant Winter reaches __Beyond its frozen tomb, Dares cast its icy mantle __On bud and crocus-bloom. Long it reigned unchallenged __In dark and cold and ice; Thwarted now, it hurls...

Deep Regrets Dedicated to the memory of the 118 men of the Russian submarine Kursk, which exploded and sank in the Barents Sea on August 12th 2000. The protocols of men of power; Agendas passed in...

  The Onus of Vernal Duty Surrounding fields and woods unfreeze, The air once more is filled with light, As springtime’s blanket amnesties Dispel the winter’s cheerless night. So long you’ve...

  Donald J. Trump They laugh at him and sneer as if his lack Of faith in modernism’s unholy gods Can justify each Philistine attack And drown out facts with which they are at odds. Yet from...

  It takes patience to learn patience; It takes courage to be brave. One must first find mental freedom To no longer be a slave. Only faith can make us faithful; Truth alone can make us true. Life...

  Vermont in April doesn’t seem to know quite how to dress. She thinks she ought to wear bright, flowery things, and yet, she cannot tear herself away from all the clothes that go with winter....

We meet Diomedes, the Greek hero of Troy, trapped in a flame with Odysseus in Canto 26 of Dante’s Inferno. Odysseus speaks but Diomedes remains silent. Here, ironically, he speaks through his...

  Winter's Breath The sudden chill of winter's sigh Caresses me when autumn flees. My meager warmth she tries to pry, While planting kisses cold and dry; With icy breath she starts to tease. I'm...

"Winner: Humanitarian Award" Mugabe’s universally adored. He made his people multi-millionaires--- Zim dollars are the answer to their prayers. Champion of the poor, the sick, the old; A veritable...

  The Back-to-Work Protesters Limerick by Mark F. Stone Our minders with power and pensions can rob our hopes, while the Fourth Estate calls us a "mob." They would be less scornful and also more...

  Beyond His Ken based on a true story The plane was in the skies above Beijing When, let us call her Joy, a stewardess With China Eastern Airlines, saw the ring And heard the heartfelt words, and...

  That day a dark, vermillion, winter sky, like a Turner water-colour, was seen reflected in an old pond where, nearby, the poet Basho watched a small, unclean and speckled frog jump in the evening...

  For England & St. George In praise let’s raise our flagons to the conqueror of dragons to the Saint who fought for all he thought was fair. Let’s fly our flags and bellow for that bold,...

  Golf My friends love golf so much But I do not share the allure. There’re many other ways for me To function like manure.     It’s Love Last night we watched old videos Our...

  The statue stands and holds aloft her torch, the Kalahari moon, the Northern Star. A lantern glimmers on a Southern porch; a balefire beacon signals war. These are unbroken shafts of light...

  The empty sonnet frame’s a puzzle box into whose elaborate maze ideas are dropped. They press its walls and work to plot a path through dark till final light appears. Escape demands ideas adapt...

  Sonora: The Desert Harsh sunlight beats upon the thirsty land And glares upon the limestone cliffs and sand, While waves of heat rise shimmering, above The parched loam where the great saguaros...

The March of Spring O, hear the bold approach of spring, who marches, stamping, blowing! He startles all the birds that sing above the fast streams flowing. They take to wing and soar on high Where white...

Mayor Rules Chocolatier "Essential Business" by Mark F. Stone Our craving for chocolate is serious. Deny us and we will be furious. Withholding confections could alter elections for mayors in ways...

  So here he lies as he has lain in state These ninety years in this cathedral crypt At Westminster. We come to venerate The relics of a martyr: his heart, ripped Out of his chest at Tyburn for a...

  Tongues Spin and Weave Tongues spin and weave their sophistry, a slick and silken tapestry, from golden throne and ivory tower and each elitist seat of power through labyrinths of history. Such...

  What If My Time What if my time is limited? if all That I have left is perhaps months, not years, All laden with the worries and the fears Surrounding what is death. Can I recall A time when all...

Costume Parties by Fiat? by Julian Woodruff ‘Round nearly vacant lots The cars grow fewer still. No traffic tied in knots, No malls in which to mill. The numbers in the market Are smaller day by...

  As Alexander rose upon a hill, somewhere east of King Darius’s dust, at once a pure, serene and awful still undoes the man. For conquer all he must, but what is next? What if the field be...