Poetry

  Meeting Alexander You were the wonder of another age. Enemies and friends alike: they learned To love your laughter and to fear your rage. It was your therapy when cities burned, But if I somehow met you face to face Such probing questions I would like to ask. Yet...

  I Don’t Know With questions some adults are asked Why do they try to keep it masked--- Like they’re afraid to let it show--- That they should answer: “I don’t know”?     The Thought Was Good We get exotic foods and spices _As well-thought-out gifts, From folks who...

  Glog Gets Participation Prize Our tale’s set in a prehistoric cave Carved in a cliff above a vast expanse Which offers Aurochs Clan a safe enclave Within a land the future shall call “France.” The fecund plains below are lush and teeming With toothy predators and shrieking prey. A...

  The Bamboozlers of Belém inspired by the recent disasters that plagued COP30 (UN Climate Change Conference) in Belém, Brazil The shamans of the earth and air, _Messiahs of the seas, The saints of planetary care, _Redeemers of the trees, The wizards of the wind and waves, Have been exposed...

  The Last Caesar ---Ravenna, 476 AD The figure on this golden solidus: a beardless boy, his dress a bossed cuirass, helmet adorned with Rome's imperial crown, Augustulus, Orestes' handsome son. The annals say: Rome weakens year by year, Byzant holds strong; Hesperia quakes in fear. Attila's soldiers start to...

  Just Do It. _My spirit’s wings shall soar _Although at times I stray. When I’m downcast… when life’s storms blast… _I gaze upward and pray. _Fed up with sin and war… _Outside, inside my mind. I do not know where I should go. _What task have You assigned?  ...

Diocletian’s Horse “Save it for your horse.” ---Oedipus Tex, P.D.Q. Bach (Peter Schickele) While Diocletian owned the home Octavian built (although he ruled from Asia Minor, don’t be fooled, He was the emperor of Rome), ambition and a lack of sense brought some in Egypt to rebel against his title....

The poem read by the poet himself at the Society of Classical Poets' in-person Poetry Symposium held in Naperville, Illinois on September 5-6, 2025: https://youtu.be/FzqtmavvpJ8   Video created by Andrew Benson Brown.

  Choosing a Thermometer If tubes hypoglottal Can cause you to throttle, And things in your ears Breed irrational fears, And under your armpits Occasion for harm sits, While probes in your nose May precipitate flows, Then you I expect’ll Most likely want rectal.     From Hesiod Cronus, while...

  Morning Rain Veiled sky, dusk at dawn, Night gone---yet not gone; Half-light, hardly day; Weird world, dim and gray. Rain falls---steady, soft. Mists rise, twirl, and waft. Gentle pattering Drowning everything, Drumming---constant, deep--- Coaxes back to sleep. Sleep, though, now eludes As day’s darkness broods. Thwarted, still I lie...

  Timeless The timeless, gentle swish of wave-washed sand; The echoed “chock” of rounded wave-washed stone; The silent, skittered feet of pipers and A distant sea-tossed crab boat’s throbbing drone. The squawk of gull, the sharp-shrill caw of crow; The unseen shaft of air where eagle’s soar; The dance of...

. Beyond "Daffodils" The British weather gets my goat. For once, upon a morning stroll, My path became a flooded moat, Whilst lightning’s flash and thunder’s roll Alarmed me with their blinding din - The downpour soaked me to the skin. I trudged through muck, avoided trees Lest I should...

  Longfellow I first met you in the schoolroom, _When I was but a child, And read your words and heard your voice _Sing out so sweet and mild. But as I grew, I saw your work _More cast off and despised, By those critics who now believe _History should...

  Sensation Amidst the flaming of the flying saucer’s landing gear, like as the Sunshine glazing it, in gold-white-yellow sheer, the meadow edge is filled with crabgrass seedheads by the trail, the bright, cement-gray road is lit by brilliant blazing rays. The shadow of the alien is ten-foot long, and...

  Seeing Shen Yun in Milwaukee The curtain rose—divine, resplendent stage, Where heaven’s hues met earth in living grace. The dancers turned as petals in the wind, Each step a vow, each motion born of truth. Then silence fell—a single voice arose, A song of gold descending from the clouds....

  Early Days The scent of roses, and the blazing sun, The gas pump next door busy—day’s begun. No school; some insects flit. I feel the heat Upon my skinny shoulders and my feet. As Mama’s chickens cackle in their pen, I revel in the world I’m in. But then...

  Snootsplaining For every galoot there’s a dutiful snoot Acutely aware that their truth’s absolute. They jabber and jaw as they bore to the root Of topics that wallop the nincompoop mute. For every galoot there’s a dutiful snoot To set cretins straight with the weight of a brute. For...

November by the Sea The cliffs, they are eroding On old Pacific shores, But chill November calls me To where the ocean roars. I hear the rolling breakers As they approach the land. I hearken to their thunder Resounding on the sand. And then I'm looking skyward Where there's a...

  Gilgamesh Lines Introduction In 2011 when we were evacuating Iraq, looted antiquities entered the market. One such was this shard which features 20 partial lines of the Epic of Gilgamesh, likely inscribed before the seventh century B.C. Verse translation “I” occurs early in the epic. Verse translation “II” occurs...

  Sonnet of the Hardened Heart Care less, I warn myself; bother no more With inner crevices: prying the shell Like scabs (rough, oozing, sore), which crust, but tell Of tumults against the psychic seabed floor; It is in vain. Swollen and hard around The meat (like newborn skin, or...

  Upon Seeing a Stump Where a Tree Once Was When in the park, I passed a felled oak tree That once with lofty boughs would softly sway. At least, I’m sure, it must have waved that way Had I but stopped with eyes willing to see. Had I but...

  On Time I went to bed too late last night And woke up to an awful fright But now it’s done, what can I say? Tomorrow turned into today They say time flies, you never know About the days, where do they go? A penny in your pocket, say...

The poem read by the poet herself at the Society of Classical Poets' in-person Poetry Symposium held in Naperville, Illinois on September 5-6, 2025: https://youtu.be/-9aSevsHMFo   Video created by Andrew Benson Brown.

  Big Pharma Big Pharma companies pay fees that get spent on the salaries of scientists who regulate each new drug, so the long-term fate of every drug executive depends on an affirmative from people at the FDA, the very people that they pay. Big Pharma touts the benefit of...

  Solid Oak The oaks are always late to shed their leaves. They cling to vestiges of summer raiment, Now woebegone and sere, as though it grieves Them to remit the final scheduled payment. The russet husks do battle with each gust Of wind. They rasp and rattle, go to...

  November Nights are cold, days crisp and bold. On the ground and in the trees, Vast array of red and gold Eyes behold as daylight flees. Morning frost defies the sun. Breeze demands we bundle up. Embers glow; there's fireside fun. Relish now fall's steaming cup.     December...

  The Golden Soldier ---for my grandfather He had a calming charm. He always spoke Of garden-basking instances of joy--- His apple yield; his acorn-laden oak Abuzz with busy squirrels, keen and coy. Each dusk he sipped a whisky in his chair, Eyes drinking in the shimmer of his wife....

  A War Poem of Sorts ---to Robert Thomas Waldock, who died in 1983 The graveyard’s last but one dug hole was filled by Robert Thomas Waldock who had fought in Flanders, where so many men were killed, and where the twentieth century was wrought. His picture’s in a treasured...

  BBC Leadership Change Most networks now compete to be the one perched at the apogee of those to whom reality is just a triviality. Each one distorts the news we see to push progressive policy by splicing film selectively and smearing those who disagree. So many have fought worthily...

  The Long Journey Home I’ve traveled many miles on this long road, Across cold, barren hills and sweeping plains, To reach my home and shed my heavy load And warm my hands where hearthfire's glow remains. The wind blew bitterly across my path, And snowflakes caked my lashes, as...

  Old Bottles ---Oneida County, Wisconsin From time to time, when stirring in the muck below our lakeside dock, we dredge them up: old bottles, curio shaped, clear, green, or blue. We gurgle out a muddy milk of sludge and wash each bottle clean, while wondering how old it is...

. Europe Arranges Its Own Autopsy ---with apologies to T.S. Eliot . I. The Trojan Horse When April came it showered France with acid. The U.K. too and Sweden, Spain and all The countries of the West---so smug, yet placid. They chose this. Not to fight. Not to stand tall....

  The Reliquary One early morning long ago, I stopped to watch the Avon flow. Long-steeped and weedy, olive green, Its waters slipped along below, Slid over rocks, and in between--- Gelatinously smooth and slow, High-hung by vine and leafy screen--- A fragrant, forested ravine. The sun of that Midsummer...

  Listening to Incense A spiral from ignited aloe rises, Translucent, swayed with compound camphor salve Through azure air that gently opalizes The things we see and think we know or have. Soft cloudlets drift from dimness overhead, Obscuring colors as they wreathe the room Where scroll-arm chairs are darkly...

  Machine Learning All algorithms, hypothetical Or otherwise, all organised behaviours Evoke responses antithetical— And thus the desperate ever doubt their saviours. Our tone is too obsequious, you say— Far too agreeable, arousing nought But timorous contempt. Yet you obey Civility’s demands, as you were taught— For your humility commands...

  Melampus: The Listener   Canto I---The Gift of Listening 1. The Birth of the Listener The strong winds over Pylos were whirling and whispering low, while a babe in his cradle was ringed by the blustery night. Two green serpents coiled near to the boy in the pale silver...

. The poem "Ode to the Dogs" by Shari Jo Lekane read by the poet herself at the Society of Classical Poets online Poetry Symposium on June 28, 2025: . https://youtu.be/XRGO27J1_28 Video created by Andrew Benson Brown.

  Words of Wisdom One bit of wisdom that life has conferred Is when to give somebody else the last word.     In Sight But Out of Mind Believing I’d use it someday, I put something in a good place, And ever since that’s where it lay, Three decades...

  Hoosier Autumn October! Morning nips and noontime burns; Crisped, sere, dun cornstalks fall beneath the scythe; Chrysanthemums blaze as the woodland turns To living flame, a golden land of myth: Bright yellow birch and beech and tulip-tree, Red sugar-maple, rainbow sassafras, And flame-orange pumpkins fattened lusciously Like Hesperides’ fruit,...

  On Swatting a Fly The fly I hunted down is on a pane, a window pane, where yesterday a swat with rolled up, A-4 notebook left him slain upon the glass, a splattered, lifeless blot. I try to work, but how my eye is drawn towards that ruined body...