Culture

Dancer the arch of her collarbone a bridge, her legs a throne, the clean and simple lines of her body free of confines. she dances, arms akimbo, hair flowing, and I know that she belongs to the...

  Saint Patrick was a green alien, He came from other parts. He was not a native Irishman But was taken to their hearts. On oceans of pre-destiny He made a Christian start With a sense of...

The Press is not the enemy, but Donald Trump is right; the Press is disingenuous; they cannot get it right. Left in the midst of overladen, value-judgment words, left in the air, they're like a flock of...

or Mutatis Mutandis The mode of most catastrophe is gradually, then suddenly. Time slowly ratchets up the stress in states that tend to stay at rest until some last-straw catalyst, the tumblers’...

All photos by Mark Wyatt / All poetry by Neal Dachstadter   Chant of the Wooded Hall Chlorophyll concordant eaves Soaring ceiling, verdant leaves Torah spell my secret sees Worded oracle of...

Sonnet for an Arabian Autumn After William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 This time of year you will in me perceive When all things green take on their second growth, The sun at last agrees to a...

  Teaching the Inner Couplets of one Rumi Has left me truly desolate and gloomy. They say he’s great, this Sufi poet Rumi, But frankly, it is most astounding to me That anyone can read the...

A Million Thoughts Based on the Holocaust testimony of Bertha Haberfeld By Surina Patel A million thoughts are rushing through my brain, The looming gas chamber ahead of me, The sounds I hear and the...

  Console her with the Atheist’s philosophy: ____Never mind! Your grandma’s dead. It’s Nature’s way of denoting an atrophy ____In the muscles, lungs and head. I mean to say her central...

Riven (A Rannaigheacht Ghairid) Once I dreamed Ospreys soared where salmon teemed. Frigid streams and waterfalls Frosted walls where glaciers gleamed. Darkness cowled The moon whenever wolves...

  Education:  To Be Continued ... There is no lack of opportunity For education in this spendthrift age, And boys who wish to earn a decent wage Must show the general community That they have...

  Says Simon Cowell (A Villanelle) “Which came first, the egg or fowl? This is what I’d like to know.” “Who cares?” says Simon Cowell. (Not so much “says” as speaks in growl) I...

What a Wit is Worth For John Whitworth, poet Oh,  Whitman was a rhymer who enjoyed to play the part Of complicating everything.  It's something of an art To ramble on for pages on the pinprick of a...

You’ve not come to a meeting in three years— Within the movement, there are buzzing fears That marriage has ensnared you in its cage. And frankly, I myself have reached the stage Where anger has...

On the Protesters Filled With Hate By Bruce Dale Wise And while American airports were filled with screaming hate, Chief Petty Officer Will "Ryan" Owens met his fate, caught in a raid against Al-Qaida's...

  Bubbles I swish the stick To watch a spread of bubbles gleam; Free and delightful they float Almost a dream. This pristine orbs, A fragile yet audacious batch Seem hopeless until they...

by Evan Mantyk WHAT DOES THE classic Chinese story Journey to the West have to do with William Shakespeare’s classic play Hamlet? A lot it turns out. Both Hamlet and Journey to the West were...

Song of Ulysses For greatness and glory’s sake For all things rich and noble In proud ships tall let us make Again where only men are able Tired we’ve grown of glitter and gold Of the clamor of...

The "Greatest Show on Earth" Is Coming to a Close By Sirc de Budalewe The "Greatest Show on Earth" is coming to a close in May; financially it could not make it in the USA. The Ringling...

Shin-Rin-Yoku Forest Bathing You stand beneath this canopy of trees, surrender will, hold still.   You close your eyes and listen as the rustling of the leaves and lapping breeze-blown waters...

  Departure Like escaping through a siege, growing older       Hampers itself with hopes of return; So if, over your bare shoulder, Upwind palaces start to...

  A Reply to the Inner Self If, as you say, man but holds in his mind The limits only body can extend: How with Art do we our existence find, But in common words the thought always end? How may one...

  The Terrorists Tears feed the sweeping sands beneath their feet, And blood runs deep into the living ground. The sun throbs down with agonizing heat. The captives kneel, blindfolded, with no...

  We may hear some Bible phrase and laugh. __That book has no monopoly on ‘goods’. Some words clang, we tip its old tin bath __and out rolls “Baby Jesus” with the suds. Like cliqué’d,...

Water Music Just as white as a blanket of new-fallen snow Is the noise of a waterfall cresting a brim And ebulliently thrashing the basin below. But the sound of a freshet resembles a hymn, Its discrete...

By Evan Mantyk From The Iliad, Beowulf, and Shakespearean literature in the West to the Chinese Classic of Poetry, the Indian Ramayana, and the Middle Eastern Epic of Gilgamesh, classical poetry is the...

  Color streams burst brightly in a flourish of elation, Each to soar and cover night's condoning, lofty, canvas – Livening this moment, man-made shooting stars' vibration Emanate our gladness to...

For King Charles I of England On the day I asked for a second shirt So my people would not see me shiver In the cold breeze blowing from the river And think me afraid to die or be hurt On that scaffold...

  Holiday Horror: A True Story By Lucy Giardino Cortese Twas two weeks before Christmas And all through the house Water standing in puddles Mama starting to grouse Three pipes in the floor Had...

On the Winter Solstice Winter Winter cold and crass Winter Winter old the grass Fast we go across the field Massed the snow and frost to wield Night of rest abed when tired Light and fest and sled and...

  Scrabble-ism One night I was hangin’ with Len, Eating and watching t.v. All the pizza rolls gone, I then Suggested Monopoly. “That game is all luck!” he then said, Voice revealing some...

By Jane Blanchard On December 5, 1830, Christina Rossetti was born in London to an Italian-English mother married to an Italian poet in exile.  The youngest of four children, all of whom grew up to be...

  To the Kurdish Women Soldiers With girlish smiles above costumes of war - you dance, sisters; stamp the pallid golden dust to furbellows about your booted feet. Cold light, drab uniforms are aching...

  Sighs fill the room as Mulan weaves the loom She doesn’t want Father to meet his doom. The Khan needs an army to face the Huns; Father can barely walk let alone run. There’s none to take his...

  Obi-Wan Bin Laden RIP Let’s remember what God wants: Killing people’s never right, So Obi-Wan Bin Laden then Cannot be a Jedi knight. To make folks free you face them straight...

A rondeau on Shen Yun Performing Arts By Evan Mantyk I love the dance that can exalt The human form without a fault, Demeanor grand, inspiring pose; They’re swift yet seem in sweet repose And all my...

  Ohio State University Attack By Wilbur Dee Case "If you don't like liberal democracy, go to North Africa, the Middle East, or China. Oops." —Waseel Budecir I'm warning you, America, the post on...

Unforeseen Good Fortune’s Heirs Are We There’s little of the Plague that we can find to celebrate except for this small gem – when those who died left property behind it often changed their...

  Christmastime Lush green tree, wet pine scent fills the air. Strings of tiny gems, that plump tree, strangle, Children’s handmade trimmings everywhere, Red and green and bells that...

Who would true Valor see Let him come hither; One here will Constant be, Come Wind, come Weather. There's no Discouragement, Shall make him once Relent, His first avowed Intent, To be a Pilgrim. Who...