Poetry

Hints from the Moon (Monday) Beginning with zero, hints from the moon Going through phases, ripe in the womb; Time out of nothing, pared in the night, Planet of sorrow tilting to light; Retrograde...

“Red Wall” by Kunlun Zhang: This painting records the personal experience and internal turmoil of the artist, Professor Kunlun Zhang. Professor Zhang was imprisoned in China for three months, during...

Forested deep purity Dusted with a winter's glow; Crystalline perpetuity Takes its place in nature's show. Fresh sunlight plays with diamonds soft That glisten as they sing In silent awe that drifts...

Images of beheadings and men in orange jumpsuits Haunt me when I wake The black hooded vigilantes in the desert Push my heart into the bellows of despair I imagine my male cousins under the...

Free me from wars? Make my debut? Oh, Mr. Handsome G.I. Joe— your face and a blanket won’t do. Sift flour from Mama’s ashes, melt glue from Papa’s bones. Knead them into dough— free of wars,...

A news report here provides some background on China Radio Like Radio Free Europe, Which popped the wax Plugs from deafened Soviet ears, And warmed their sterile souls With tales of liberty, China Radio...

The rustic minuet's small step has since been swept away by all the modern pop and pep and fizzle of the day. One of the first to introduce it into music's lair was Frenchman Jean Baptiste Lully of Louis'...

Laments of the Oppressed My great country, please let me be, What I think and say should be up to me, The world cannot be so controlled, You don't have to block every single road. It isn't something bad...

Updated January 9, 2020 A Quick Sonnet Guide.  A traditional sonnet should have... 14 lines. X Rhyming. The most common is the Shakespearean rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. These 14  letters...

This poem was inspired by Shen Yun Performing Arts.   Bleak and somber is the flavor du jour; Modernism pervades all spheres of art; Artists lacking virtue make it a bore, People wait for a...

Ode on a Children’s Cemetery Plot 1. Behind the soul-gorged cemetery ground, We discovered a plot of yet more dead, A trim, verdant patch cradled all around By a low brick wall, like a toddler’s...

Beneath the Mask Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. -Oscar Wilde A mask is worn to hide one’s face from the surly light of day but if...

Two young brothers are left at home, All by their lonesome selves, The older one notices a new toy, Sitting high up on a shelf. He climbs up and brings on down, What he believes is a toy gun, He thinks...

Secure the yoke and bind the crown. Steady the mouth and tongue for sound. The morning breaks. Our sight is found. The bell is hung. Let’s gather round. Now strike the lip for their renown. Each...

When You Have Reached the Bottom By R. Lee Ubicwedas When you have hit rock bottom, you have nothing left to lose. You gain experience and wisdom that you now can use. You have a choice how to react when...

The Apprentice of the Dead He painted the lines of the country road. He painted the leaves: saffron and gold. He painted the canopy, round the mere, all rubicund this time of the year. He painted the...

  The warmth of daylight’s veil is cherishingly cast Upon the sacred walls of ancient Angkor Wat, Whose temple towers show grand myths from ages past, With timeless lands of gods to fading matter...

The wind was high that horrid day. The wind blew long and high, and I heard three strange women hum-humming as they came through the harvest rye. I watched them in my childish way. I watched them with...

  Political Banter Once again it’s that time of year, When political banter seems the rage. When otherwise normal people, Try to come off as some worldly sage. I have friends who are really nice...

The God Morpheus vs. The Little Baby Kuppy You'd think in such a fight - no contest To be sure - immortal gods happen not To happen, but have always been best And around to give humans their best...

To Hell with the Hoi Polloi A droll from the Man of Mode To hell with the hoi polloi, I say, democracy is démodé; aristocrats, by troth, know best, who needs a scurvy IQ test? A pox upon the...

The White Stag By Bard Eucewelis I saw it long ago; so long ago it seems as if it was a dream, a white stag in the wood. Reality is ever fading through time's seams. It's odd to say so; but its sighting was...

The Golden Mean By Aedile Cwerbus Right living's hard, the ever-urgent prow pursuing storms or pressing up against life's dangers, tricky shoals and shores. The golden mean is perfect, but hard to achieve....

A Sonnet's Beauty A sonnet’s beauty’s mostly in the planning, Not in the writing, reading, even saying. The builder knows it’s in the careful laying Of foundations ‘fore the brutal sweat of...

Volkswagen has admitted to rigging as many as 11 million vehicles with illegal software that cheats on emission tests.   Lies and half-truths? Daily fayre But for pious folk it’s only fair If you...

It’s called “the magic hour” Before the sun sinks low When everything is bathed In a warm, golden glow Colours look much richer Flowers, more velveteen And a country garden Is a haven of...

Farm Air and Poplar Before the air be clearly cool, In Georgia, Monticello, see, Be one precursor of the rule, That lower heat - humidity - Be gaining ground and holding sway, Embryonic, slight and...

Winter Smoke Winter smoke and little houses Drawing blinds against the dark The cold, the crying wind Against a stark White moon Winter smoke. Wispy phantoms Casting a ghostly veil Of patterned,...

By Damian Robin ‘Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free, How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee? Wider still, and wider, shall thy bounds be set; God, who made thee mighty, make thee...

For 30 more riddles click here. I. I may not have a large population Compared to China or the United States, But more than those two or any nation I’ve more coastline and freshwater supplies. What...

Dawn on the Shore An hour before the dawn of day, I walked beside the tranquil bay, Along the sandy shore. The air was still. The wind had ceased. The planet Venus hung in the east, In the west the...

  Your spirit’s eyes, now opened, see The timeless steps of stone ahead... Old debts weigh down your weakened knee, Each step, a human burden’s shed. While slogging up the sacred...

Game Over With my friend P. Modernity, We played a game of strategy. Sipping our hot cups of coffee, We spoke over a game of chess. Most of our chat was mere bs, But then the game turned...

Ideology is a disease, Impervious to reason, An infection known to seize One in the election season. It has alas no known cure, This paralysis of the brain, No thought is allowed to stir If it runs...

Rare Dreams I'm looking through the window of a plane in which I've never been, nor ever will; staring beyond a wing that is not there into a sky I've never seen nor care to see again; above clouds...

Danger: Helping Is Forbidden By Aw "Curbside" Lee It's been a month since he's been seen— the Chinese advocate of civil rights— Li Heping. Two, believed to be police, came to his door on the 10th of...

Night and Moonlight What more can be said about the full moon that hasn’t already been said before? The queen of tides, now glaring at the shore, sits on her throne as if midnight were noon; a...

  A trail it stumbled on a door, A doubled one, upon a floor, Some fellow just as you and me, Approached the portal now we see, And unobtrusive might have been, Except he’d shed, down to the...

Confucius Institutes, which advance the agenda of the Chinese Communist Party, are found at universities in the United States and around the world. In colleges and schools, and blocks of...

The Backwards Romantic “Most of those once common occasions for poetry seem embarrassingly old fashioned now that piped-in tunes and hand-held devices provide the background music for life’s journey.”...