Culture

This Collar, Blue My elbows leak with grease And all my toes are laid with steel I'm rough of neck My knuckles specked with cuts that never heal The world I mend The swirls on plastic lens paints...

About the Lady Godiva and her famed naked ride through Coventry Once in the town of Coventry, Leofric Earl had held decree; Too great the tax that he appealed, Greater than his folk could yield. They...

by Jane Blanchard George Herbert was born into a well-to-do and well-doing family of Montgomery, Wales, in 1593. When he was three years old, his father died, leaving a wife and ten children. Herbert...

  The Maid of Orleans A villanelle on Joan of Arc As I gazed at the flames of the fire my heart, with all there that day, broke – such strength could not help but inspire. A young woman burnt as...

Winter’s Nocturn       When angles of the sun are shining low, Intuition tells us we must sleep. Nocturnal tracks appear now in the snow To mark the chilly vigil some must keep. Enlightened...

Statues A Villanelle Two Buddhas now a lost reality, A crowd chants loudly near a pile of stone; Across the South you won’t find General Lee. The temples fell despite UNESCO’s plea And ISIS’...

For Bill Horn Send up on wings of blood our fathers’ cry, Though the unhearing dead brook not your sound, And flesh yet binds us to the groaning ground, Release your paeans to the boundless sky, And...

At night I hear Prokofiev and Liszt and dream of playing baby grands as sly Euterpe lures me towards the melodies of pianists. My fingers cannot meet the demands of Mendelssohn’s complicated...

Theological But there’s a God, white-knuckled, jealous, His heart an anvil, and his mind a bomb. Take the crew of The Indianapolis,* Torn limb from sculling limb inside a storm Of sharks. There is no...

Sonnet I: Liu Haixiao Mr. Liu Haixiao (pronounced Leo High-shaow) is serving a 16-year prison sentence in Jilin Province, China, where he was arrested for tapping into the local TV network to broadcast...

A rhupunt A modern place that maintains grace a safer place for all who come The airplanes fly the city sky the mountains high you're never numb never alone away from home in temples roam to...

  You Decide Some know me as Destiny, The weaver of the cloth of Time. Although my looms are never stilled, They say I choose how high you’ll climb, How fast you’ll fall, how great your name; I...

The Day the Poetry Died Wonder why poetry is in decline, While not ever writing one lyric line? There is no experience more perverse, Than self-indulgent poems in free verse. Your pain, your angst, and...

After Joachim du Bellay’s "Les Regrets LXVIII" I hate the Florentines' foul avarice, I hate lewd Sienese profanity, I hate Geneva's glib duplicity, I hate malign Venetian artifice, I hate whate'er...

The Cymbal Player As bows and fingers quiver strings, as lungs and lips whip up the air, as notes soar on great falcon wings, one player, seated in his chair like a finch hid in a maple tree, as if...

by Lew Icarus Bede "A sonnet is a coin: its face reveals The soul—its converse, to what Power 'tis due: Whether for tribute to the august appeals Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue, It serve; or,...

  Self-Love Some tenderhearted people claim We’re deficient self-esteem; Yes, a collective sense of shame Made despondency mainstream. While gloom and sadness are the rage, I suggest the torment...

Wordsworth’s Lament I wandered lonely as a cloud—Oh dear! I watched the dance of daffodils—Oh my! When on my couch in vacant mood I lie I feel their wealthy fluttering draw near. I see them toss...

  The toys we buy at Christmastime (The decorations, too), Don’t come from elves in Santa’s shop, As we’ve been told they do. The “Made in China” label can Be found upon these...

On the occasion of his birthday, 160 years ago, on February 27, 1848  At the Solitary Age of Twelve—Seven and Twelve Being Holy Numbers The first of seven early music books Reveals a boy methodical as...

  Living with Omnibenevolence Each one of us is furnished with an expiration date, And no one living has the power to elude his fate. There comes a time when every living creature has to die, But...

It’s a vicious process, sonnet writing. It seems as every time I near the goal a syllable or rhyme eludes me, rendering my poetry somewhat droll. I feel empathy for those who struggle and a growing...

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. The misreporting of great Caesar’s death Errs by one gross omission. We’re not told That when conspirators bared blades to strike, Caesar’s well-practiced...

This life—O, how much more of it remains? The night is brief. Toward those short trees, we saw a bird, descending with our grief. Chris Hixon, Aaron Feis, Scott Beigel vanished in the day. Luke Hoyer,...

Which Is the Grandest Name of All? Which is the grandest name of all? Churchill, Churchill, Churchill! Winter sere or crimson fall Churchill, Churchill, Churchill! Who held bold freedom’s flag so...

“But it was not pleasant to fire at the back of an unoffending individual…so I let him alone.” —Major Patrick Ferguson, British Expeditionary Force What if it had been a different man Scouting along...

Fenghan Gao was an outstanding artist of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912 AD). He had profound wisdom and was multi-talented; he was good at writing poems and good at painting, especially landscapes and flowers. He...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjc_6R0ang8&feature=youtu.be   It was once thought that swallows wintered on the moon, or morphed into field mice beneath the autumn swoon of clouds, or...

  Like feathered tip of swooping sparrow Our kinship cuts like that of arrows A brother’s love has weakened me I’ll take the slice, so brother be Shivered dreams of days that past Rivers...

In another lifetime I was William Blake When I saw his work That was my take He wrote about love And the human heart I thought I was him Right from the start He wrote about London Tiger burning...

Those Days and These “‘. . . Macbeth does murther sleep.’” —William Shakespeare If only such a villain were __Alone in this regard, The course of human history __Would prove to be less...

  Between the trees, along the path I hear the woodpecker tap tap tap. Beneath the bridge, cyclists roll through Pedaling and laughing two by two. Friends holding hands, walkers with dogs, A...

Flower of Choice On native Australian flowers The wattle bears her gold in early spring As luminescent beads on woody strings, Spreading perfume ‘til the mild air brings Sweetness deep to every living...

By Carter Davis Johnson In a period where American literature was considered peripheral and amateur, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) helped create a national literature to challenge European...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Hylas and the Nymphs by Beau Ecs Wilder John William Waterhouse's "Hylas and the Nymphs" must go; enchanting, pretty, water nymphs are far too much to show. Manchester...

  The Last Time I Saw Paris You have imagined how it was, I expect: Troy’s famous towers burning, the city wrecked, the lines of weeping captives marched away, the streets strewn with corpses, the...

    Sort of Old I take my senior discount at restaurants and stores. I cover up my gray hairs with Clairol reservoirs My bathroom’s filled with potions I slather on my face. AHAs and...

At Lincoln’s Tomb Springfield, Illinois, 2016 Be glad you cannot rise to life and stand Outside that tomb to die again from shame At Illinois, your home, your prairieland, Transformed, yet quick to...

Truman Capote was fired from his job as a copy boy for The New Yorker after he angered Robert Frost. Whose kid this is, I do not know, He seems to have a job here, though. He’s irritating, and quite...

By Brett Forester Writing but one fine, enduring poem is a remarkable achievement. Writing a book of great poems is an even rarer triumph. Yet in 1820, British Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (born...