Poetry

AMERICAN INCIPITS Ishmael “You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him,” Genesis 16 11-12 I fathom that there’re names that could be worse… Some years ago—it...

  'Twas so much more on that morn before fall that we all came to mourn as it fell As the shadows that touched had borne, by its clutch, a scorn we remembered so well From the sky rained a fiery metal as flowers and petals were mired with soot...

Cloaked in rumors of religion, looming bloodthirst Brings upon world’s drowning morals bouts of horror, As the force of chaos calls you... Depths that holler For damnation fan your frenzied rampant outburst. Charity extends its hand... to face your onslaught! Burning words you read do send your minds, which dream...

  We folks in Florida are quick to extol her amenity: The beach, the surf, the lifestyle announce unique identity. But, sometimes Mother Nature interrupts our serenity: The pointed target of Irma's wrath transforms to obscenity.   Post your Hurricane Irma poetry in the comments section below.   Lucy Giardiano...

The New Explorers See this figure? That’s the Spirit Sent up way back when to scout. She rolls around And samples rocks To see if any life’s about. We sent her up here Ages back To serve in the great Search for Life. And she does so, Never ceasing, Tho’...

The best way to understand America is through the lens of football esoterica. If you have no clue where you belong, why not join the friendly football throng? Get to know the winners and the losers, then idolize the biggest, meanest bruisers. If you know the players, teams and stats,...

Hero for Hire About myself I feel so good I grabbed my club, I donned my hood I found a hater to beat Then on the other side of town I knocked another statue down it crumbled at my feet I am a hero in the eyes of those who...

Urban Butterfly What business have you here, In acrid air, to strain Through jagged glass and steel On a cracked asphalt plain. Faint, shady memory Of vernal vales of green – Wind-tossed, long-lost, you fly Among this tortured scene, Whose weight could pulverize Your grace with heartless ease; And yet...

The Sea My sleeping spirit wakes As the town’s vespers Climb the stairless sky And the sea whispers. The rushing waves crash On the craggy Shores of consciousness And the sea whispers. Like an ancient song Or some sailor's dirge Which the pale waves hum As the seas surge. Through...

Cicada and Mantis You are known to us by your choral song, The clicks and buzzes of an insect throng. Hidden in darkness, a collective hum Consumes attention like a temple gong. You are not known to capture an eardrum. Rather, you’re thought to be praying by some; Bent fore-legs...

By James Sale Donald Mace Williams Wolfe and Other Poems is an extraordinarily good collection of poems, clearly written by a veteran writer. The underlying credo of the collection is very aptly summed up in the opening poem called, appropriately, 'Credo': Step out under the stars on a dark night Or...

  The bark came off the trunks before the leaves had dropped— the freeze sped up, the shade enlarged, the birdsong stopped. No forest hiss survived, no human sound, no sigh— it was to be the dullest place below the sky. From dens and hides small eyes kept watching out...

by E. Ducabe Wisler "Pray for Texas." —Ubs Reece Idwal The tropical cyclone named Harvey plastered Houston's plat, ten trillion gallons of rainwater in a constant splat; the size of Harvey, as immense as is Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, NYC and NJ's jut; a storm a bit like Galveston's horrific...

As times turned hard and harder yet, The Queen grew apprehensive— Relentless tides of change had made One luxury expensive. Reluctantly, she let her yacht Retire to Edinburgh— It was refitted for a tour Both riveting and thorough. The spaces where the crew once stayed Provide much satisfaction— The ones...

  Poet's Note: "Back when I was eighteen years old, things were sort of grim with the Vietnam War and my draft status up in the air. I had just graduated from high school the week before and was considering what my future might hold. The word 'Despair' popped into my...

I may as well be hired as his maid, the way I’m made to clean his toilet seat. Still worse, the only way I’m getting paid is that by cleaning the commode I treat myself to one as dry as that he pissed upon when targeting the toilet bowl with...

Poetry before Writing “Greece down through the fifth century has aptly been described as a ‘song culture’.” ~ Michael Schmidt in The First Poets, 10, quoting Leslie Kurke, “The Strangeness of ‘Song Culture’:  archaic Greek poetry” In ancient Greece the mainlands and the isles Held deeply in their peoples’ fireside souls The...

  Let us raise statues to the Prince of Peace: __Cain’s monuments are powerless to bind __Our hearts in summer’s sheaf, or to remind The world of our first fall through sin’s caprice. Our monuments recall the gods of Greece __Whose lifeless looks their marble temples lined: __Blank, frigid idols...

Poetry, as we have discussed in earlier parts of this article series, depends upon the Muses and accessing the deeper self or soul within each person; this is not an easy thing to do. In the 18th century Lord Chesterfield commented on how an individual could be anything they chose...

Proem In rhyming, timing is everything. Rhymes in wrong places make awkward spaces. A rhyme in rhyming knows more than prose. Rhymes are the rings you hear in the mind’s ear. Nature’s rhymes are free: As you shall see, My rhyme’s beginnings are paid in endings.   Excerpts from “Bones...

A Villanelle  “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” —George Orwell From the first green grass we navigate— Through days & nights of wake & sleep— Down this road that leads to our house of hate. When the wise are...

by Cause Bewilder for Joshua Philipp Grave statue after statue falls with strict impunity. Memorials and monuments yield to community. The wind whips up no recollection; it cannot forget; the soldiers dead in Dixieland must twice be crushed to death. Robert E. Lee must lose again; the bronze equestrian must...

Higher Purpose Is there any higher purpose As they walk with faces down? Are they sure of destination As they shuffle through the town; With eyes grown unaccustomed To a world beyond their screens; Affixed to apps unsocial, Missing people, places, scenes? If call could make connection Back to Life...

Passing of the Seasons When snow has melted, chill has gone, and winter turns to spring, The tender buds grow on the branches where the robins sing. The earth once brown is green again, blessed by the April rain, And flowers shy peek out the ground to meet the sun...

Nesting Season Little sleep. The night heat did not relent. You startle me up as day breaks over the tent to show me the sea-turtle tracks you found through the bluestems behind the campground. I hardly rub my eyes when you unzip the mosquito mesh with insistence, gripped by the...

. He viewed the world with perfect form But upside down, not as the norm He lifted those who’d been down - trod And doing so, he followed God . . Alec Ream is a writer living in Virginia. His poetic work and creative fiction have been widely published. A...

By Joshua Philipp Abbie Farwell Brown described the far north in his 1902 book, "In The Days of Giants," as "the land of the midnight sun, where summer is green and pleasant, but winter is a terrible time of cold and gloom; where rocky mountains tower like huge giants, over...

  I used to find it hard to lose at chess. I'd watch in disbelief the check and mate, think through the game and curse to find too late— I'd bought disaster with the bishop's press. In school, a "C" would cause the same malaise that sick regret: "I should...

George and the Dragon In the Yorkshire dialect “Nah, sithee,” said Granny, “Just set thee dahn ‘ere, An’ I’ll tell thee a tale old and true, Of ‘ow good Saint George slew a dragon one day An’ all dressed in a metal suit too. It were like this…” she said...

The Journal It sat upon his bedside table, closed, And waiting to keep record of each day: The silent pages still and unexposed, A diary to come, his dossier. He saw it every evening as he bent To turn the lamp off, then to lie at rest, Remembering her face,...

Meadows of Corn It seems but bland to every passing eye, These regal meadows dressed in ripened corn; They dance and few can such effects deny, The brows of greener grass their touch adorn. As dismal scenes of urban life have choked Our ageing glimpses hour by hour sans shame;...

Argument The following poem is a dramatic monologue in four sections, based on a brief passage in a barbarian legal text. In the sixth-century law code Lex Burgundiorum, an account is given of the widow Aunegild, who betrothed herself to Fredegisil, sword-bearer to King Gundobad, ruler of the Burgundians. Aunegild,...

Thank you to everyone who participated! Judges Dusty Grein, Michael Curtis, and Damian Robin have selected the below winners for the first Rhyming Riddle Contest. Judge Curtis said meter was important: "Poets may pun, and poets may rhyme, Poets may riddle, yet must keep the time." Judge Grein said he...

  To Solitude Come, Solitude, my first and truest friend! Long hours of careless converse burden me, And I have need of hospitality Such as art thou alone meet with to lend. What synthesis my past encounters blend, What sweetness in the cup of memory Or bitter bile, I taste...

  What heights within my mind descend? To fall on peaks where faith shall end, As summits fail to comprehend, That lands beneath cannot ascend, The pinnacles my thoughts transcend. As inspirations aimed to call, Upon our heavened dreams enthralled. And knock upon its door for all, The altitudes no...

  Windmill Song Alone it shudders on a hill, Defiant in the wind. A strong south gale could topple it, A hard rain do it in. Too many years its silver blades Whirled in the morning breeze While spinning far across the plains A song it spun with ease. Those...

On Visiting the Tea Garden in Middletown, New York I. A harried daddy with two kids in tow, Maneuvering through city streets and cars, I look around quite nervously for crows Whose filthy bombs my head before had marred. I dashed in through the front door of the place, A...

By C.B. Anderson Anyone writing formal poetry today has to be grateful for the arsenal of fixed forms—most of them bequeathed to us from masters of the past—that is available to lend structure to poetic ideas.  Where would we be without the villanelle, the heroic couplet, or the mighty sonnet? ...

A Villanelle To breathe the beaming silence of the sky I long, when dawn’s chill wakes my eyes, and see The oft-unseen yet boundless peace on high. When slumber’s velvety dim moments die, Pale crowds rush back and forth, although unfree To breathe the beaming silence of the sky; For...

  Untitled All older statues want to come alive, Those Greek and Roman ones, and Christian, too. Their skeletons and veins and muscles strive To break through marble skin.  They want their blue Eyes once again to see the world of living flesh. They want to sweat in love and...