Poetry

. The Two Corteges by Joséphin Soulary (1815-1891) | translated from French by Hadyn Adams Within a church two groups of people met: An infant’s funeral cortege, the first: A woman followed, her heart fit to burst Within her breast repressing her regret. The second for a baptism all set;...

. On the Cost of Doing Evil I care not if the sky burns red and human flesh is seared. I pray that all souls will just rot as many long have feared. I wait for when the birds don’t fly and locusts take the grain. I hope the fertile...

. Toasting Burns    His words ring out from windswept glens. __They lilt from lapping lochs. I see love through his red-rose lens; __I hear the midnight clocks In castle nooks chime Auld Lang Syne __As kilted suitors croon To bonnie lasses rapt with rhyme __Beneath a Highland moon. His words will please till seas gang dry __And rocks melt wi’ the sun. They soar beyond Ben-Nevis high...

. Dystopia Reality is never what it seems To be.  It hides itself in shrouds of mist, In bulging envelopes of gilded dreams, In requisite pronations of the wrist That guides the palsied hand that holds the pen. What good is it to cry that life’s unfair If one does...

. Mourning the Dead by Li Qingzhao, Southern Song (1084-1155) | from Chinese by Talbot Hook Above in the heavens the star-river flows; Down on the earth the curtains hang low. As the air grows chill, and my pillow tear-damp, I arise, untying my robes just to know The hours...

. The High Cost of Low Prices Poetry is what I treasure. Books of poems give me pleasure, but my grief’s been hard to measure, since I did some shopping. “50 Famous Poems”---nifty! Now on sale for just $ 2.50. I should revel, since I’m thrifty, but my mood is...

. The Joys of Spring a pantoum It’s here—sweet long-awaited spring. New blooms smell lovely; skies are blue. The trilling birds are on the wing. Earth has awakened; life is new. New blooms smell lovely; skies are blue. Kids dash outside to have a fling. Earth has awakened; life is...

. Disambiguation As in the dawn the nature of the beams Of light invading chambers---how they glint, Conceal with shade, or paint with rosy tint--- Reveals the day, not as it is but seems, So, in the natal cradle of our dreams, From the beloved’s eye we aim to mint...

. To Tchaikovsky by A.N. Apukhtin (1840-1893) | Translated from Russian by Olga Dumer With my musician friend’s departure A minor key pervades my lines. Yet, like a fugue’s evolving texture, Old friendship amplifies with time. We played together, with bravura, Our youthful daring prelude. Since adolescence, fame’s allure Thrilled...

. The English Cantos: StairWell Canto 4 Leaving a broken relationship of the past behind in Canto 3, the poet enters a new world of education and what that means. Before entering a specific establishment, the poet has to catch up with Dante and Virgil who have forged ahead. But...

. Rescuing Contemporary Poetry from Vers Libre The conservative & informal vs. the free Before addressing my thesis, let me explain my choice of the word conservative in identifying a category of poetry, basically that which employs meter, often rhyme, and addresses traditional themes. Most would use the word formal....

. The Heroes of Beijing on the Jan. 21 movie premiere of Unsilenced, just days before the Beijing Winter Olympics As great as it may be to send those hockey Pucks on icy wisps of air into A net as sweet as tightly guarded honey, It is, at root, a...

. Apocalypse The fractured sky splits, flaming at the edge— The earth heaves upwards in explosive wrath. No eye can bear the clay-caked risen dead Sleepwalking through the streets in blackened shrouds. The seas turn into boiling, viscous blood And everywhere, unending trumpet-blasts, Swarms of gnawing locusts whose foul wings...

. To Sleep, to Sleep by Friedrich Hebbel | translated from German by Sean Thompson To sleep, to sleep and only sleep And never wake and have no dreams! The bitter woes that made me weep but half-remembered fading gleams. So I, when echoes of life's fullness Reverberate down where...

. Self-Exile "Parue—nec inuideo—sine me, liber, ibis in urbem.” —Ovid While driving underneath I had to pray: the tunnel, God, had better not cave in— as if New York could make the earth obey. My Lord, I won’t let New York City win. I well recall the moment's clarity as...

. Black and Red Within a latent, pathless peak, A mountain’s womb begins to leak The flicker of a fervent hue, When primal mantles stir a brew. This billow turns into a cloud That sprinkles as a stony shroud, While foam and fume pervade a thrust And stoke the trails...

. O, Brother Surveillance permeates us now,__George Orwell saw it coming.Stamped social credits mark our brow,__the cityscape is humming, The virus hum, the wifi hum,__a background, humdrum silence,Something wicked here has come,__evil backed by violence. Not private now nor personal,__each facial line's a password—More database than physical—__where living dead are...

. The Winter Games Go On Although detainees must sleep in cramped cells on cement floors, and though they must wear shackles with their numbered uniforms, and though repression crosses Xinjiang’s pale locked-down sky, the corporate industrial complex won’t bat an eye. Although Hong Kong was once a base of...

. Lockdown The day sprawls wider than a yawn, a mouth that sucks a ticking clock, a door that lets the wind blow in, but no one comes to lift their fist and knock. The rain outside is free to run and fall and fling itself through puddles on the...

. Sonnetized “Why poetry?” My chair leans in his chair And slides me a sabbatical-swelled smirk. The past nine months I’d shouldered all his share So he could spend his patriarchal perk In penning pap not destined to see light. “A couplet is a manageable cup “To nurse while nursing...

. Living The Dream   “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin,   but by the content of their character.” ---Martin Luther King, Jr. The USA gives thanks---hurray For Martin Luther King--- A good and gracious grand display For one who rose above the...

. Martin Luther King, Jr. Meets Today’s Left How would the Left see Dr. King Just what reaction would they bring If he today could be our guest Reviving messages expressed? How would the Left see King today? Not positively, I must say. Support for words like his seems slim....

. I Grieve Bleak Streets I grieve bleak streets where handguns reign in terror Daring inner-city residents To duck and cover. Life used to be fairer Years ago, when mayors and presidents, Police, and everybody else refused To tolerate a minor misdemeanor, And those who broke the law were not...

. Let It Bleed My family believes a puzzle piece is missing, that it’s me and if they snap it in, the family will have peace. The picture will be whole. They’ll close a gap. But as I stand outside, I see no space to fit me in. The edges...

. A Truthful Triolet I want the truth. I want to trust The words that trip from lips that lied. I want all doubt to fade to dust. I want the truth. I want to trust. Truth hurts. Truth heals. Truth's heart is just. My faith in you, it hasn’t...

. Obsession an Alfred Dorn sonnet As candles gently glow in amber light The picture centered high upon the wall appears to take a life form of its own. Yet, thoughts of her are stronger on this night. He views her fleeting image in the hall, as he sits drunk,...

. Caring Now, while Winter’s noisy emptiness moans In the flue, Dearest, look out at all these Somberly unimpatient silent trees Holding aloft their abject skeletons: Can new flesh somehow sprout from human bones Like April’s tender leaves? Can memories Of touches lost refind their first surprise As roots grope...

. Civis Romanus Sum (I am a Roman citizen) As Paul stood bound and for the whip outstretched, He said to the centurion beside, “‘Tis lawful here for you to flog a wretch, A Roman citizen and not yet tried?” The mere centurion on hearing went And to the tribune...

. The Spirit of the Anti-Mary a poem in honor of Our Lady of Gualalupe in reparation for the crime of abortion and abortion-tainted medicines All those who seek me find eternal Life, But those who sin against me snuff life’s breath, And plunge into their souls a blood-stained knife,...

. The Artist Intuitive journey, subconscious creations refuse to diffuse while the muse makes the choice to infuse mystic magic with personal voice giving birth to original manifestations. Works will cement while fermenting with feeling revealing a meaning unique to each eye. “No one knows why,” says the strange passer-by,...

. The Lost The fog rolled heavy, down to blunt the day, Sharp skyscraper tops dissolved into the gray. Pale ghosts condensed, one here or there, lone, gaunt: Scared eyes, blank masks, as if condemned to haunt These empty streets that once were thronged with life. They hurry with held...

. Limerick China’s footballers haven’t a clue why they can’t go and get a tattoo, but I think it might be it’s since President Xi is afraid they’ll choose Winnie the Pooh. . . This Urge for the Truth We strive for trusted knowledge in the guise of Truth, but...

. The A-bomb Dome in Hiroshima The epicentre of the blast was here, This dome, its empty ribcage gaunt and bare, It stands mute testimony to the day A Superfortress, the Enola Gay, Took to the cirrus-marbled cobalt skies Above Hiroshima, unwished-for prize, Its mission: razing of necessity By nuclear...

. The View from Space My helmet gone, I float among the stars As weightless as my lungs deprived of air Asphyxiating slowly, I am far From all I love and anyone who cares. The stars are dead already: cold and hot, Like burning funeral torches in the sky Their...

. Fleet of Foot Pheidippides A Grecian runner named Pheidippides, From Athens, ran to Sparta with a plea. “We need your help to fight the Persians, please!” But Sparta sent him back with, “Nosirree!” Two-hundred eighty miles is what he ran, For four or maybe five days he was gone....

. https://youtu.be/RMcLVFNbueY . Complete poem text here. CREDITSPoetry: Alan Nordstrom (1939-)Audio/Visual Work: Society of Classical PoetsVoice-Over: Evan MantykPhotos/Footage:“Milky Way with Tree” by Videvo, licensed under Videvo’s Royalty-Free License (videvo.net)Music:“Valley Sunset” by Alejandro Magaña (A. M.) licensed under the Mixkit Stock Music Free License (mixkit.co)Sound FX:“Crickets and insects in the wild...

. Cascading Nation Now not so much a nation as a place for pushing through a bruit cacophony of cultures in discordant synergy, dismissing calm consensus, wit, and grace as if considered discourse would abase befuddled masses yearning to breed free and manifest a new world destiny while tumbling headlong...

. Sadness Has Silent Feet Sorrow comes on softened steps, __But joy leaps madly in. Where is she with the golden hair __I would yet see again? Is she now like wind on braes __That sing the brae-wind song? Or does she, silent, by the sea, __Whisper, and walk along?...

. St. Joseph’s Admonition Forget yourself, and do what’s right, Remember how you gained your sight, So do not pause to quench your pain, Your will is strengthened by the strain, But weakened if you do not fight. Pick up your sword and slay with might, The demons who tempt...

. It’s Coming for You! It’s coming to devour you, you know. There’s no escape no matter where you go. It waits and watches, hides behind the door With fetid breath from pathogenic spores. Far worse than covid’s variants, it drains The life force from the body and the brain....