Poetry

Degrees of Light She squinted, watching circling gulls Fly overhead; small rhythmic waves Slapped steadily upon ship hulls. Brown crabs dashed out from wet sand caves Evading hungry birds; dried fins Of fish lay underneath palm trees. Sleek dolphins laughed with long fixed grins, Warm west wind stirred, strong humid...

ADULT AWARDS   1st Place – $500 Josh Lefkowitz, “A Poem of Fact” 2nd Place – $250 Kathleen Hellen, “Everyday Halloween” 3rd Place – $150 Lorna Davis, “Buyer’s Remorse” 4th Place – $100 Alexandra Umlas, “Falun Gong” 5th Place– $75 A.R. Harmon, “Welcome Tree”   Honorable Mentions | Adult   George Ian...

  Heaven Smiles for Falun Gong O you who stand so strong through wind and rain, So like those statues lasting through the years, Impervious to time’s assaults and pain, Unfazed by human doubts and crippling fears. With hearts of gold and wills of diamond made, With fliers in hand,...

  A Sonnet for the Sonnet-Maker You know the beats and rhythms, the iamb Which pulses like a crippled-legged walk; You, with the force of one who said, “I am That I am,” in iambs you will talk Of truth and beauty, pain and sorrow, all And nothing, touching Heaven...

Jutting out of a mountain their stone faces peer out with their notice crucified in stone. Crafted to demand a nation’s reverence visitors would mediate and atone. But who can expect more than imperfection now that their sullied reputations bark from static news chatter and journals that sit higher up...

By Evan Mantyk A veritable Renaissance woman, Sally Cook is both an accomplished poet who's regularly published in National Review and an accomplished artist whose paintings are on display at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, of the State University of New York. Her recent poem on the demerits of Walt Whitman caused quite...

  Rising unbidden, a fury unspent, I hear the high keening of tribal lament, Of ancient injustices never forgiven, Never forgotten, rising unbidden. Where are the horsemen who raided our village, Came without warning to plunder and pillage? Who are they now, in what lives are they hidden? An old...

  Steel Masks King Henri II of France was accidentally killed in 1559 during a festive tournament when he was lanced in the eye by Gabriel Montgomery, seigneur de Lorges, a member of his Garde Escossaise. A young Italian nobleman named Luigi Corbinelli witnessed the event, and was so profoundly...

In that part of the day that briefly follows night, before the turning finds the steady lying line from where the biggest star will mount and will get bright, I turn me inside out and start to lift my spine. In that part where the day does start, there are...

  Humanity is a word to be earned─ I sing my song as a bitter wind blows, a chant from my heart to be carried far, I sing my song as falling darkness grows; as I sing  my sadness and sorrow grows. How can I tell the world that love...

Monsoon Dance In Quintets Go back, O' spry peacock, go back into thy dense coppice! The sylvan clock did spell a sly lie! Monsoon is far… ah still a tear in summer's eye! With stars, the sky is clear! Restless our yeomen are staring at sky. The deer and bunnies...

Written upon watching this video. Note that May Day is the international day honoring workers.     Mayday on May Day By Damian Robin and Evan Mantyk With their pins and strings and force withal And gloves as white as pus, Like Marxist carpet wall to wall They raise appalling...

  A Villanelle My grandma smiled as I walked in the door pretending to overpower her pain because I came ... to see her once more. Black-and-blue I.V.-bruised arms, stiff and sore, rose to greet me, and despite the strain, my grandma smiled as I walked in the door. With...

Yes, I admit I seldom write, Or even think of you, But not, as you suppose, Because there's someone new, But rather that I do not choose To let you slip away, Or let the passage of a year Seem more than half a day. Because I will not think...

Blessing in Disguise They catch each little misstep and with kindly, caring grace— they point out the right direction by gently getting in your face. And just in case, you've overlooked that vexsome fatal flaw, they take the time—to point it out: deftly hid, midst blah-blah-blah. They're sweet and giving—to...

For Our Children “The sum is greater than its parts,” or so the saying goes. And now the two of us can see the proof as each one grows, Distinct but similar in code, the perfect mix and match Of you and me but with a little extra in each...

To a Red-Winged Black Bird on the Advent of Spring For some a robin heralds in the Spring. Others: a crocus or a daffodil. My old man claims it’s when nightchirpers sing. The farmer cites the rain, the barnyard rill. I sense it when the maple-lines come down; when pruning-ladders...

Compassion, with your sun that shines unseen, You lead the river of man’s thoughts to flow Where Saving Grace’s golden breezes blow, To universal mercy’s sea pristine. With selflessness imbued, one’s self will soar To reach its zenith, freed of every urge, To feel the joy of spreading joy emerge,...

By Alex Phuong The night sky has served as the inspiration for many poets and writers, from Longfellow’s “The Light of Stars” to “Stars” by Robert Frost, and still does. Profoundly and mysteriously beautiful, Carol Smallwood’s In Hubble’s Shadow is an artistic exploration of mankind’s place in the universe that...

  Riddling Away What slips and squanders, and has no matter? Leaves one to ponder, and rarely flatters? Is never enough to go all around, and often too rough when finally found? And where will it go long after I’m dust? Another will know and hopefully trust. Announce its calling...

. . Hope What task be done, you thought was not?What asked and sought, forgot, was wrought?What strain was set against a blow?As gain unfettered, bettered, lo, The frost was last before the sun;What once was lost recast as won. . . The Moment “And I knew just as surely,...

By Sandeep Kumar Mishra and Evan Mantyk English poetry has a rich history dating back at least 1,400 years. Looking at poetry today, it is easy to get trapped into thinking that the flurry of poetic movements of the last one hundred years or so are incredibly important and represent...

Note: The brown-headed cowbird, Molothrus ater, rather than raise its own young, lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, which may or may not accept them or the nestlings that emerge from them.   How long it took to think of such! Since mothering has proved too much, My next egg goes...

Verification What further evidence will now be needed to assure Us that behind the strictly physical there’s something more, And that the natural world is clearly ordered from above, Than seeing how the normal parent cannot help but love A child?  Though some may raise the specter of “the selfish gene,”...

  "For even in the beginning, when arrogant giants were perishing, the hope of the world took refuge on a raft … for blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes."  – Wisdom of Solomon, 14.6 They’re at it now: hear them – sabres rattle, And hush – the whoosh...

Posting atop the hill beyond the field in rain so thick he barely saw the bodies, the General tilted back his hat and sat, shaking his head. His horse shifted a foot and whinnied, a grazing wound across its haunch still oozing blood, an equine service stripe its tail would...

. Visiting the Ruins of Tintagel Castle I wander through a forest deep __in Cornish countryside And think I see some elves asleep __And giants run to hide. The branches gnarled like magic wands, __Green velvet moss on trees, The ivy cloaks around the ponds, __Soft rocks bejewel the streams. I...

. Sally Cook is both a poet and a painter residing in upstate New York. In addition to the Society of Classical Poets, her poems have also appeared in Blue Unicorn, First Things, Chronicles, The Formalist Portal, Light Quarterly, National Review, Pennsylvania Review, TRINACRIA, and other electronic and print journals....

Spring was near now Spring’s here, come to waken all the flowers and to welcome April showers. Spring was near now Spring’s here. The grass is green as green can be and the blossoms are blooming in the apple tree. Spring was near, now Spring’s here. A little bird has...

If Romeo Had Received the Letter Part I Romeo (in the catacomb, lying down beside Juliet) The friar’s note said: “Romeo she will wake.” Thus here I am now with my life at stake. You’ll resurrect? Or will the potion err? the anesthesia taken on a dare, a hope that...

Blue Star Mama painted calm and clouded landscapes Before she wed, blue-green and grassy shapes, But these went by the board just after she Jumped off into the matrimonial sea. Later, Bach rocked the house and Chopin too, For as we grew up, that was what she’d do, Bringing us...

I Watch the Sun I watch the sun, its trek, across the sky. The shadow too to see how it reacts. When light steps forth, the shadow it gets shy. Then shadow finds its strength when light contracts. A quiet little fight the two ensue. He reaches out his arm...

  Boston Public Garden On Boston Public Garden's willowed shorebank, two little girls are feeding ducks: they prance from beak to beak, arms arcing past their foreheads to farther thrust their crusts. They feel, perchance, how full the cupboards of their lives are stocked: so full they're called to fling...

By Evan Mantyk In the sea of free verse, drifting downward into the bottomless whirlpool of aesthetic relativism, it is hard to not get lost; but poet, editor, and professor Joseph S. Salemi seems to have found the other shore. He has stood firm on the bedrock of rhyme and meter...

By Cid Wa'eeb El Sur "The end is where we start from." —T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, Little Gidding Upon the heels of an Idlib chemical attack, about five dozen Tomahawks were hurled back to back. Like giant, hornet-robots hissing with their striking bombs, they targeted Shayrat-Base tarmacs, depots, planes—near...

  “Doing what deserves to be written, writing what deserves to be read, living to make the world a happier place.” That's what Pliny the Elder said. He quoted “In Vino Veritas,” from some older, and wiser, gent, but he put it in one of his gardening books, and so...

White Wolf, Black Wolf: A Cherokee Story A trijan refrain Inside you lives a wolf of white— of patience, peace and love. He is forgiveness, hope and light; a blessing from above. This wolf of white the world will see through all the good he brings to thee. _____This wolf...

  One Near-Death Experience at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital To be dazed out, phased out, near to dying In a hospital bed Somewhere in a street near you, Pain excessive, crying, Eyes blank at blank ceiling staring ahead And nothing, nothing to do. Only night comes on, but what matter?...

After E. T. A. Hoffman "Only connect..." E. M. Forster, Howard's End By Ewald E. Eisbruc The inner structure of the movements, working joint by joint, the way they all are linked together, toward a single point, th' interrelation of main themes, producing unity, beteem each listener to reach a new...

We Forget How quickly we forget the people killed, Millions slaughtered to get a lie fulfilled. All those Russians in the frozen gulag, All those Chinese, dead, without epilogue, All those hearts, for grand fantasies, stilled… The same ideas which now make students thrilled Inspired other men to the death...