Culture

  “In the Midst of Life We are in Death.” --Book of Common Prayer, The Burial of the Dead In sure and certain hope, we toss The soil in, and bless the dead. The final sentences; that pause Of...

  At the Supper Table of a Progressive They understood riots and death and what's more, "Adore them all really," and down to the core, So dropping my napkin to grant them the same, I upset their...

  Feeding Time Chickens feed on chicken feed. Birds on birdseed, yes-indeed! Cattle feed on cattle feed, Twitters feed on Twitter feed. People feed on many things, Avocados, onion rings, Water...

  There’s no age bar on titivating hair, Apart from putting rouge on wrinkled cheek. A Speaker has the right to looking fair, And prune her brunette hair once in a week. Pandemics come and go,...

  The Church is Locked on Easter Day a rondeau The Church is locked on Easter Day Despite the stone being rolled away. The Christ awakes to greet the poor But they cannot get through the door To go...

  Lucrative On the Laundering of Drug Money As commodities go, you are harmless enough Whether tendered in coin or in crinkly stuff. But without you it seems that the world will not turn Men consort...

Weave a circle round him thrice, __And close your eyes with holy dread, __For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. —Coleridge, “Kubla Khan” Sam Coleridge smoked opium. Ho...

  When Logos lived within the heart of man, Then beauty bloomed and flowered forth at will--- And every house was built upon a plan; Order’s essence, captured and distilled. Then Lucifer, in...

  July 4, 2020 A monument falls Rioters have no remorse What happened this fourth?     Summer 2020 Sunny days are here! The beach is ideal and near. It’s Fall...

  London’s Docklands, Pre-Gentrification from a sonnet by Wordsworth Earth has not anything to show more foul Unless it be the same neath fog and rain; But no, for like Rasputin’s reechy...

  Losing It He staggered round his living room in stunning disbelief As for the very umpteenth time, he’d gone and lost his teeth. He cried, “They’re in here somewhere, I must search and...

  They tried and failed. They’re trying still To steal our freedom; break our will--- The terrorists who torment days With ire and fire and Hades’ blaze. Our bones burn with their evil...

  Misdirection Some dictionaries and encyclopedias still define “fascism” as a far-right system of rule. They need to look again. The Party of self-righteousness, Imbued with far-left...

For Nantes Cathedral Ravaged by Arson in July 2020, a Tribute  This holy place, where the enthusiasm of builders was succeeded by doubt following catastrophe, then hope expressed in restoration, is it not...

Poet's Note: The Venerable Bede tells us that in the 7th century Caedmon, “having lived in a secular habit till he was well advanced in years, had never learned anything of versifying.” Leaving a...

  No Longer There I wonder if a change has come about. No longer do I feel that she is there As physical a being in her chair To me as I to her. My words ring out And they receive no answer but they...

In Response to an Article on the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners in China I read the other day about the pain That you endure in some nightmarish place, Removed from sight, where sadists made...

  Before the plague I never knew my hands. The need to purify the human touch has turned my vision inward, but though much is taken; much remains---in human hands, the same, yet not the same. The...

  I am a cardboard cutout. I sit here in the stands. I do not think. I do not blink. I do not clap my hands. You are a cardboard cutout. You sit there next to me. You do not cheer. You have...

  'I Shall A Mighty Hunter Be!' “I shall a mighty hunter be, The King of Kills, by God’s decree! Savannahs always guarantee a vantage camouflaging me. I’ll lie in wait with sharpened...

  We Siblings Three Attempt to add the hours we have shared: One hundred thousand, maybe thousands more? Our paths conjoined for several years before We struck out on our own and even dared Imagine...

  I made her a bed with cushions and throws but she refused and slept in my bones. My skin, too tight for both my sighs and hers so she filled it with rot, making it home. ---Al-Mutanabbi, d. 965...

  The Angels’ Share Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God’s ways to man. — A.E. Housman When whisky’s aged in...

rhymes written after reading Simon Barnes’ blog post "Barn Owl in the Snow" Across the marsh, white passing over white, The silent hunter flies then loses height Descending to a favoured perch to...

adapted from Babrius, first century A.D., and Jean de La Fontaine, 1621-1695 __At least twelve thousand years (though likely more) Between the wolves and sheep had raged a war, Until the lupine clan...

  Editing with the OED for Rita Bornstein __Like a mental abattoir, the OED, With brumous exactitude, looms over me As my blue pen prunes my cachaemic prose, Decorticating glut in orderly...

  Abracadabra The written word is magical And not just something clerical. You scratch some marks into the sand; I see the marks and understand What you are thinking in your head Without a single...

  The potato blight and resultant Great Famine struck Ireland from 1845 to 1851. Potato crops didn’t recover until 1852, by which time at least one million people had emigrated to escape poverty and...

  The Falcon “In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire?” ---William Blake, The Tyger Falcon, falcon, flying...

by Andrew Benson Brown James Sale’s HellWard is the first volume of a planned trilogy entitled The English Cantos. If the quality of the current volume is any indication of the two forthcoming ones, then...

  a villanelle My heart goes out to those unknown, Whose life by Time’s cruel hand erased, Their ravaged, riven, nameless stone. Shattered, lost, grass o’ergrown, No date to tell when coffin...

  Ab Initio Mundi* *ever since the beginning of the world At first the darkness reigned o’er all that was, Until a little point of light emerged. That grew and grew regardless, as it surged Ahead...

  in memory of my father-in-law, Pietro Lorefice (1938-2020) The bell now tolls, dear Pietro, for this hour When we must bid your faithful soul adieu, And lay to rest that mortal frame we knew, Now...

  My marriage failed (they always do.) Emotionally unequipped To work things out without a script, We didn’t try to talk it through. What do I pay that therapist for? You can’t see what...

  When the wokest of folk virtually convoke In a year of elections and riots and fear, Uncle Joe from the basement the Nanny will stoke. He’ll invoke Ms. Kamala as newscasts evoke, “She’s a...

  Upon a boat, by ocean bound, Below the sun, upon the sound, The bait, a line, a reel, a fish: Bound for butter, herbs and dish.     Alec Ream is a writer living in the Northern...

  Madcapfesto We’ll unlock prison gates and let the inmates saunter out. We’ll tear down wall and rule; we’ll sponsor every lug and lout. We’ll overlook drug smuggling and the trafficking of...

by Joseph S. Salemi The poetic effusions of some people are so incompetent that they cross the line into unexpected humor, and thereby become valuable. Such is the case with the work of William Topaz...

Winner and Runners-up of The Society of Classical Poets 2020 Haiku Competition Judged by Mike Bryant and Susan Jarvis Bryant See all entrants here.   Thunder-bellied clouds Move slow over heathered...

  A Ditty What happened to the human race? It vanished, friend, without a trace. And what, pray tell, of humankind? You may well seek, but will not find. And finally, humanity? It slipped into...