Poetry

  Oak tree like a gnarled arthritic hand jutting into the sky black and bent knobby knuckles, twisted swirls and burls appearing ancient, energy spent Dry leaves are sparse, barely hanging on and are missing in many places Branches and twigs like a skeleton which ghostly tule fog soon erases...

Sleep, lying in dry river beds Sold rapidly, buy the shore banks Brains washed from corporate heads Dried and neatly styled on fuel tanks Rippled, ragged breaths of ashen air Smog saturated sludge and stench Precipitations drought and bare Floating plastic water bottles’ island’s quench External thermostat control is diplomatic Hemisphere and...

  To me, to rhyme— It is sublime To others But a waste of time To match the sounds Of words, they say Promotes an Aural truth-decay To them I say To rhyme’s the way! To make the words Run, jump, and play Forget the rest To rhyme’s the best!...

The Theater of the Bush To westward the sun seeks a comfort nocturnal, Her warmth slipping under the covers ahead; And daylight soon passes the threshold eternal, Turns on the night-light and settles in bed. Awakens from slumber those creatures encumbered By prisons of sunlight and tethers of day. Possums...

. . Approaching Spring Above the mountain, under the sky, Canadian Geese, you hear their cry, Over the mountain, hear them sing, Man and Wife, approaching Spring. . . Charge to Orion Gird thy blade and tighten belt Spurred unswayed by heights not felt Betelgeuse and Rigel fire Nimble Lepus;...

  Are the dead at peace in the ground? wrapped in loam, slow dissolving to earth. Is the mother at peace in travail, wracked apart that a child might be born? Does a man find peace as he toils for a cause, half around the world's girth? Were the martrys...

  Spring is Coming From naked trees, droplets of dew, Drips like tears onto my upturned face. Everything is bleak, nothing new. No creation feels like outer space. Hear ye, hear ye, everyone come. What, a spot of bright green on that tree? Although it’s as small as a crumb,...

By Basil Drew Eceu At least four people have been killed and forty injured in a terrorist attack in London in the afternoon. Here near the cradle of great Parliament'ry government, a cruel terrorist went mad upon the hard cement. He rammed, and slammed, his car into the people that...

By Elizabeth Spencer Spragins Poetry has been an integral component of Welsh culture for centuries. Indeed, the Welsh word “bardd” (poet) has been traced back to 100 B.C. Depending on their skills, Welsh poets held one of three official ranks, and earning the designation of “chief poet” was a high...

A Pantoum The wind, it sings through trees of pine The breeze, it sweeps my senses clear This day shines bright, this day shines fine These dunes are bringing heaven near. The breeze, it sweeps my senses clear Awakened eyes view vibrant hues These dunes are bringing heaven near The...

How much wheat can a woodchuck eat? Or cabbage, carrots, and peas, Spinach, parsley, peppers, and kale, Tomatoes, lettuce, n’ beans? What if he brings his family n’ friends? A party they will throw! So pack your bag and grab your hat— It’s off to market you go!   Connie...

The Rocky Mountain Pines Written in Rhymed couplets of Anapestic Tetrameter. In the mountains or plains, with the pine in the air, I’ll awake to the sun with a chill to compare. When I hike up a hill, with a heart full of gloom, And the trail is lined by...

By James Sale There are nine Muses of poetry, daughters of Zeus or some say Apollo, and the Titaness, Mnenosyne, goddess of memory, past and future. And of these nine the most important is Kalliope, she of the Lovely Voice, and the muse of epic poetry; and she is considered...

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 wind, to breathe the free air, skin pale and wide like the sky,...

  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 heaven’s purity And faith in his small part. He sailed the sea on...

  Celestial Teevee Something that’s always puzzled me: Does the Creator watch us on celestial teevee the way we watch Modern Family? If so, can He (She? It?) switch channels? (To other worlds, galactic variety shows?) When does He get up for beer and pretzels, since there are (I assume)...

By Evan Mantyk Last year, the College Board released a significantly redesigned Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). The SAT is used by millions of student applicants each year to gain admission to U.S. colleges and universities. The redesign brought the SAT closer to its counterpart, the other major U.S. college-admissions test, the...

Cold and Uncertain shaken and stirred; Flying through clouds so quickly they’re blurred. Hold, comfort and buckle me in; Make us trust in safety again. Sitting armed with a passport and strapped with hopes from the past; Remembering the memories which are certain to last. Then optimistic voices, so assuring...

  Songbirds Sing (Triolet Sonnet) As songbirds sing with joy of spring, unfolding blossoms show their hues. From my front porch the wind chimes ring as songbirds sing with joy of spring. Fresh colors cast on ev’rything— in shades of yellows, reds, and blues. As songbirds sing with joy 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 one-wing, flapping birds. The journalists have difficulty being more diverse. It is as...

By Dona Fox It was Friday night. I fought my way across the campus through special effects left over from a Grade-B horror movie. Lightning shattered the sky as I entered the building. Thunder rumbled as I opened the classroom door. He was slouched on my desk, legs crossed, elbow...

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’ incremental twist allows locked plates at last to shift; the temblored continental drift frees the long pent-up potential...

By Wilbur Dee Case One of the most unlikely poems of the Modernist period is that by Robert Frost: "The Pasture." It is unlikely for many reasons. First, it seems more like a Romantic lyric, i.e., one hundred years too late, because of its rural depiction and its simple, formal...

  The World Is Still Too Much Too much, and much too much, it still goes on: The men and women who covet wealth and bling, And acquisition of each material thing, Yet search for some elusive paradigm Of Self as one with Nature. Rising seas And tempest winds instill...

By Evan Mantyk One week in mid-January this year, in the relatively obscure world of poetry, Joseph Charles MacKenzie’s “Pibroch for the Domnhall” exploded like an atomic bomb, shattering perceptions that rhyming and rhythmic poetry—poetry that common people appreciate or at least understand for a change—was dead upon the stage of...

When I struggle for sleep, I dust off a classic and try counting sheep: Trouble is, my sheep show off, they leap like Olympians over their feeding trough – They soar through the air, blending into the clouds, pirouette, land back down, where the rest of the animals wait, giving...

All photos by Mark Wyatt / All poetry by Alec Ream Chant of the Wooded Hall Chlorophyll concordant eaves Soaring ceiling, verdant leaves Torah spell my secret sees Worded oracle of trees Beneath a thing be found intent Unsheathing singing, sound and scent Growing shoots a task of me Sowing...

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 reprieve, And birds return to keep their migrant’s oath. You’ll see a certain lightness in...

  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 text of Rumi Without becoming gaunt and pale and rheumy. Old Shakespeare might have...

  This time of year makes it hard to believe in randomness. Maples flame up, then out, visible symmetry undressed as roots-in-air mirrors.  That blood moon too; imagine it even older, chokecherry-small, earth an egg, the sun a perfect boulder. What precision engineering to have them appear in eclipse as...

Often I ponder things unseen Eons of light and mysterious beings The breathtaking fallout as stars collide A silent womb where souls reside Hidden space where last breaths are kept Moss ridden stone where Jesus wept Tribal paintings of Mermaids on caves Star gates unsealed and paths unpaved Particles of...

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 sights that I see, The mud beneath my numb feet from the rain, Everything feels...

Darkness No longer did they see the need For things called books they used to read. Music—no longer symphonies, But simple tunes composed with ease. And what of Beauty?  What of Grace? They disappeared without a trace. Because of that, without a doubt, The light of Wisdom did go out....

  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 nervous system ____Was gradually shutting down. You really can’t appreciate its Wisdom? ____Oh, darling, must you frown? For when...

  Heat waves frolic along the desert’s endless edge I hear the shuffling of camel’s toes The soft landing of camel dung The smell adding to my woes My knees embedded in sand Awaiting the wrath of the queen of hearts The bald ibis watches from his rocky perch I...

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 howled Until hunters fired a torch That scorched the realms where night prowled. Sunlight slew Calves* of glaciers tinted blue, Snowy owls, and...

  After college, in my job search I found A prestigious post in antiquities At the historic museum downtown (As a gift shop clerk, more accurately). In my second year, the docents told us A few rounds of layoffs were to be made. As store manager, I bore the onus...

  Winter’s Passing Now I can see no sky above your space, For dark clouds hide the blue that may be there. The air is full of rain that pelts my face, The ground is flood and mud the grieved must bear. I think of those that live in warmer...

Where was it that Alice went, One bright and shining day, A rabbit's lair, beneath the blare, A restless child at play, And where was it that Alice was, To greet a smoking bug, Who's pipe spelled words, Such tales unheard, If ever were heard of, So, where was it...

. . Humble Shant My humble shant be free of strife Untroubled see my simple life Skiff and paddle, hat and brim Gift unaddled bright, not dim Photo by Tunde Hegedus at Inle Lake, Myanmar . . . . . . . . . . Amid the Stream I walked...