Humor

Natura Naturans “Off with their heads,” the Red Queen said. But she was mostly talk. A true decapitator is The little sharp-shin hawk. I saw one once, a blue-bolt shot, To seize a thrush in...

The Thoughts of a Dog What really does go on inside the mind Of the domestic dog? To simply say They think of very little else all day But eating what they’re given, what they find To feed on would be...

These Twins These twins came forth in one amniotic sac. They sensed the danger they had come upon And both held hands to keep that danger back: It truly was the best they could have done. Their need...

Winners of the contest can be found here. From the riddle posed by King Solomon to the Philistines to the philosophy of riddles put forth by Aristotle to the riddles posed by Gollum to Bilbo Baggins in...

  I lift my eyes and pray to God above, deliver me, dear Lord, from Satan's Hell. I come to You with heart brimful of Love, content to drink life's water from Your well. And if, by chance, I do...

  The sausage on my plate is rubbery and inoffensive A clever likeness made of turkey meat Not your tastiest breakfast fare yet not complete- Ly unsuitable for consumption by the hypertensive. My...

May Old Glory Always Wave by Roy E. Peterson May Old Glory always wave Above the tumult and the fray. Honor heroes who were brave Until the final Judgment Day. Drape the caskets of the dead, For...

Judges: Michael Curtis, Amy Foreman, Reid McGrath, Adam Sedia A few words from Judge Michael Curtis: In apology: If you, fair writer, did not win, take heart, This juror read for craft more than for...

  It comes as no surprise that “golf” When backward spelled is “flog.” For it’s a sport so hard to solve Leaves many in a fog. On surface it so simple seems – Just hit a little...

Doomsday… or Not? The Green New Deal is out there, and Bernie says it’s true— there’s only twelve more years left for the likes of me and you to curtail carbon footprints and cure the ailing...

  The human body is perpetually pregnant with Trillions of microorganisms that hath colonized Its intestinal lair, and like the gravid woman's pith Heart eats not only for herself, but for her...

Note: Formal Ballroom Dance competition involves five specific dance forms. This sonnet cycle attempts to introduce and describe them. I have also composed and attached audio recordings of a Waltz and Tango as...

The Limerick I’d Love to Write by Joe Tessitore There once was a President Trump And many thought he was a chump. ____But none was more shrewd ____Than this big-city dude, Now back over his wall...

a satirical piece in Sapphic stanzas   Every day they come in a flood: unwanted Big manila envelopes stuffed with verses. Mostly garbage—that’s what we sift and filter Looking for talent. Like...

The clerihew is a kind of epigrammatic verse (normally) consisting of a pair of rhyming couplets. The first line will usually introduce the name of a famous person. The following three lines will describe some...

  A New Life an English ode With the blending of two souls, in a dance as old as time a spark ignites, and a cell divides; a baby—hers and mine. Conceived in a moment of utter joy, a new and...

A truncated quatrain is a form I have invented in an attempt to find some appropriate English form similar—for its brevity and single-mindedness in theme—to the Japanese haiku. They consist in four lines...

Fifty years ago . . . (it seems Like only yesterday) . . . the dreams, The hopes, and the unspoken fear That marked and marred my Senior year . . . I faced a future plagued with doubt; A Cold War world...

White Is A Color, Too It seems strange to have to say this After what that great man taught, Yet I have seen so much amiss That I fear we all forgot. I’m here to share an opinion, Which might be a...

by Lew Icarus Bede The way I dealt with T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland was to write a poem, equally desperate, in that same allusive style—with notes. That unpublished poem Cicadas' Voices, written in the...

A Journey to the East by Evan Mantyk is a historical and poetical fairytale adventure styled after Journey to the West, by Ming Dynasty writer Wu Cheng’en. The first nine chapters of the former may be read...

  With lifeless smiles she's sitting tight in the vase. With painted flowers, leaves and twigs she's like a dressed deadman on funeral day. Let days and months pass by; forever she's...

Winners announced here! Write a short poem that begins with one line from any Shakespeare play or poem. The poem should be two to four lines in length. Post it in the comments section below under your...

Riddle No. 1 So astounding is this part— A major muscle, like your heart. And so astonishing its job, Without it you would be a blob: You couldn’t stand or lift or bend— You’d be a pretzel in...

Irrelephant Within the room there’s something big, But management ignores it. A redwood tree, not tiny twig? Concern they haven’t for it. Though elephant is in the room, It’s on the mouse they...

  Dust to lust to disgust to trust to must to just to dust.     Wm. Walters is a professor of English and linguistics at Rock Valley College, in Rockford, IL. His poems have appeared...

Streamlined In some alternative reality I have remained unmarried, all alone. Would that have been a better way for me - Some Spartan bachelor flat, my comfort zone? Just having to look after number...

  —from A Gallery of Ethopaths What generates the half-assed views That this dimwit nation spews? Why are persons mindless lemmings? From what source is this stuff stemming? Collapse of...

Epigrams on the Decay within Academia   Liberal Artifice "Progressives," through advanced miseducation, Have shaken our fair land to its foundation.   Gustatory Chiasmus Good taste is...

Read the poetry of the recently departed John Whitworth at Trinacria or The Poetry Archive. by Sally Cook Any ordinary poet composing a landscape piece might easily imagine a dull blue sky, one small white...

An Ode to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern 50 Years Later A Poetic Summary of Tom Stoppard’s Award-Winning Play As Seen Through the Eyes of Its Two Leading Characters Says Rosencrantz to Guildenstern, “I...

  Birthday Apology William Shakespeare was born April 26, 1564 If all the world’s a stage, and all the men are women, myne eye be true, I gauge; her beard doth need a...

  The Canada Geese used to migrate each year. They’d summer up there and spend winter down here. Their nests were in Canada, home of their birth. From there they would fly to the ends of the...

The Melancholy Snowman Though stony-eyed, I watched the finches glide. The chimney smoke, the builder slide, At night, I gave the constellations words, The House, the Builder, and the Birds. My silver...

  When May became P. M., she had a doggéd view - Her Parliament majority would fly us through: All Brexit documents on leaving the E. U., All Acts of Parliament, all formal how-d’ya-do, All...

  The Pregnant Woman The Pregnant Woman nests a baby seed Who's ever pressing on her very core While her body adapts to baby's needs She's feeling aches she's never known before. A linea alba...

  —from A Gallery of Ethopaths The world is filled with brainless brats Who all insist on having tats. These morons with their inked-up bods Walk about like savage gods Displaying, to the...

  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...

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...

  “Jingle Bells, jingle all the way” I sang to her to break the spell of what appeared to be her fell demeanor. Neither would she bray ‘in a one horse open sleigh’ “Hey!” but droned as...