Poetry

. Memorial Day, 1984 2024 “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”  ---George Orwell Today we honor those who gave their all In monstrous conflicts in the name of peace; Those who...

. The First and Usually Unspoken Rule of Great Writing The greatest rule of writing is to tell A truth, the truth if possible, within The scope of lines set out, to sound the knell Of honeyed feelings, not...

. He Who Was Omnipotence, omniscience __and there’s omnipresence too. If you possess those qualities, __there’s nothing you can’t do. Be here and there, both now and then, __while acing each exam. And...

. I Never Do a Happy Dance I never do a happy dance, Or look online to find romance, Speak my sentences upended, Or keep saying I’m offended, Check my email every hour, Never seeing tree or flower, Drink my...

. Betrayal a villanelle Today she spied the shadow of a snake Slither through the spreading family tree--- A curse her startled heart finds hard to take. She heard this serpent hiss. Though wide...

. View from the Beach after Robert Frost’s "A Cliff Dwelling" Here hazy seems the azure sky and azure seems the hazy sea. One lone gull lends an echoed cry somewhere out there, a longing call. A faint mirage...

. The SCP has just learned of the passing of Canadian Member poet Lionel Willis on December 28, 2023. He had been contributing his work since 2021, starting after his wife passed away in 2020.  He is...

. Eulogy to the First Ms. Brown or a Divine Comedy of Educators . To my aunt—the second daughter of three, And first to leave us just two years ago: I picture you once sitting on Grandpa's knee And asking...

. 1. Just off the cuff, I’d cap the alcoholic swill __Before it calls your bluff and saps your will. . 2. The dead, although their tongues are somewhat tied, Might know already all you might...

. Newman, Alone Newman, thirty, alone, asleep in bed, Groans, yearning for his mother, years now, dead--- Alive, her vivid female acts above Had served as lodestar for his childish love. The women he’d...

. Two Times Two Is Four Now Kierkegaard once wrote a book, __Entitled Either/Or, But for myself, I only know, __That two times two is four. For though the oceans brim with blood, __Foretold in ancient...

. Unopened Letters Unopened letters strewn across the floor Addressed to me with your name on the back. Left where they fell inside my slotted door. A postal service-aided sneak attack. I step on them with...

. The Cleft There’s danger for the harmless dove; she swoops Into the cleft of the great mountainside. Her heartbeat calms as she keeps still and mute Surrounded by the rock where she abides. If from her...

. Dandelions “...all the days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow....” ---Ecclesiastes 6: 12 . ____As I stepped out one morning, ____I saw across the lawn ____A yellow audience...

. Chelsea a true story from I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris “Behold not everybody's beauty: and tarry not among women.” ---Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 42:12 That long-skirt, apple-pie brunette from...

. Miss Crespo’s Halloween Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures; ‘tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil. —Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act II, Scene 2 Silhouettes in...

. AI's Promise What is the latest ingenious ability makers have made out as mental agility? Smoothly unveiling the newest utility, __though it effusively services whims, it reveals our fragility __more than...

. King George III Declares War from Legends of Liberty, Volume 2 Note: The British have won a pyrrhic victory at Bunker Hill. King George, who has been showing some erratic personality quirks since being...

. Dishing Out Advice Why are there always dishes in the sink? So lazy and undisciplined. You’d think they might show just a little more respect and know that household members will object. But there they...

. He Lied About His Age 'Twas May of nineteen seventeen, our country now at war. Will had decided to enlist, this great world to explore. His lifetime numbered sixteen years, he'd lie about his age, His build...

. Saturn "When we have shuffled off this mortal coil" —Shakespeare "According to medieval thought, the worst planet was Saturn,  sponsor of death, destruction, darkness, and disaster." —Michael Ward When...

. Rwanda, April 1994 Inside Nyamata Church the pews are piledwith clothes, the blood that drenched them dull and dry.What demon turned sane men and women wildwith bloodlust that ten thousand here would die? A...

. An Incomplete Account of How Things Are __From where I drift, One hundred meters from the shore, The elemental thunderous roar __That’s falling swift __Is but a sigh That whispers thoughts into my...

. Herman the Cripple A body helpless in deformity Was mine, though loving parents carried me Full seven years in sick infirmity, Then placed me in the monks’ academy. Their island abbey Reichenau became My...

. Go Woke, Go Broke Sports Illustrated’s prize was doing great. Big bucks each year from the swimsuit edition. But then it seemed keen to alienate Its loyal customers with a new mission--- Put old, or fat,...

. The Dead They’re pretty but the dopamine Has hollowed out their pale blue eyes. They sit there, staring, silent, numb, (They only need to move their thumb…) Intent upon the tiny screen. There’s no...

. And Yet We Wash Our Hands When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, butthat instead an uproar was starting, he took waterand washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I aminnocent of this man’s...

. Music by Jeff Eardley . Look Homeward, Sweet Afton after Robert Burns Look homeward, Sweet Afton, back to thy green braes, Recalling with pride Britain’s glorious days. Then forward flow strongly, I pray...

. Book Reviewed: What Was and Is---Formal Poetry and Free Verse, by Theresa Werba, Bardsinger Books, April 2024 by James A. Tweedie With What Was and Is—Formal Poetry and Free Verse, Theresa Werba (formerly...

. FIRST PLACE . Free to Be the PRC by James A. Tweedie According to the PRC’s unwritten protocol,To be Chinese these days it seems you can’t be Falun Gong.Your race or where you’re born no longer matter...

. Rosella My Lone Star mother beams a summer smile As golden as the sun-hugged coastal plains. In snake-proof boots she trekked that extra mile To settle my assimilation pains. She steered my English foibles...

. A Mother’s Day Sonnet I hope you have a happy Mother’s Day And take a moment out to feel the love I’m sending to you there, though faraway, Like kisses raining down from high above, Each one a memory...

. S.W.A.M.P. Soulless, Warped, And Monstrous People look at us as smelly “sheeple.” Easily manipulated. Otherwise, we’re mocked and hated. Those revolting, loathsome creatures, all have normal-looking...

. Hookerville School Built just before the Civil War, employed till twenty-nine, This one-room school that stands today withstood the test of time. Turn back the clocks to times long passed, so many years...

. Orpheus We want the heroes back so we can learn: Herakles smashed his way to hell and stormed By violence the ferryman and three-faced dog; Even yanked Theseus from his deep-rooted seat Without a...

. 10/7/2023 More than one has risen up against us to destroy us. Rather, in every generation they rise against us to annihilate us. —The Passover Haggadah The world is killing Jews, again. There are too...

. All Aboard!   a pantoum He’s pumped and ripe to ride the gravy train. He’s armed with cheese and charm to save the day. He’ll pulverize all poverty and pain. He’ll magic melancholia away. He’s...

. Epicure's Delight A wondrous day, my love, is this— An afternoon of utter bliss! The two of us alone at last Embracing tightly, holding fast! The setting sun could scarcely vie To match the fire in your...

. On Scotland Police were inundated with over 7,000 calls in the first week following the passage of Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act last month. Where tartan, tweed, and Highland Games began: The...

. To a Beet I sing the bristled hedgehog grainno horticulture can explain,with six sly seedlings in its brain:__the unborn beet.  That hook-and-hollow hydra seed, a spiny knell to nascent weeds;nor leaf nor...