Poetry

by Sultana Raza In April 1820, Keats was already aware that he had tuberculosis, and in spring of that year, he was experiencing fever, a bad chest, and lots of anxiety, specially about not being able to...

Hummingbird Communion I watch them play at dawn of day, as molten gold is splashed their way, on feathers flecked with flashing green and rubies fused in morning’s beam, where sleepers dream and...

Clarity and Obscurity Part III Read Part I: The Essences of Classicism and Modernism Compared Read Part II: "Concrete" Poetry and the Fall of Metaphor by Adam Sedia Modernism produces obscure poetry...

  O do not chasten me with tales of fine __Fresh wells of wisdom and of warriors bold, __Or sacred veins of Ethiopian gold, Your more than oracles or muses nine, For I've drunk deep of a more...

  My Last Duchess The Duke of Ferrara recalls his last wife. by Robert Browning That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra...

  I. The rats infesting Kathmandu Airport Appear to co-exist in peace with man And have, it seems, since local time began, Been treated each like some great Juggernaut. Their teeming numbers...

Edmund Spenser by Margaret Coats Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) wrote 121 sonnets of rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee, including 87 in his love sequence Amoretti. The Spenserian sonnet differs from the...

  New York poet Joe Tessitore challenges poets to begin a poem with these words:   My country used to be...   Post your poem in the comments section below. (Poems should be...

I Loved You... I loved you, and I probably still do, and for a while, the feeling may remain, But let my love no longer trouble you... I do not wish to cause you any pain I loved you, and the hopelessness I...

FIRST PLACE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F96xN0VV7JU The Virus and the Cure by Rob Crisell One hundred years of tyranny, One hundred years of pain and lies. If communists of China win, The...

all poems by Bruce Dale Wise   The Pilot by Air Weelbed Suc I saw him flying overhead, a pilot in a plane, and looking down, he gazed upon the anguish and the pain. Although I saw compassion in...

  Piracy is now endemic to the Somali coast, since the West will do nothing to stop it. —News item, 2008 I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. —T.S. Eliot Mermaids, sing me pirate...

  https://youtu.be/bYg-ITiEEyM   "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud," also known as "Daffodils," the poem by former British Poet Laureate William Wordsworth (1770-1850) read by the President of...

  The Transatlantic Serpent’s Tale Do you recall the time when I was born? A time of ferment---Honest Abe was dead. The Civil War had left the country torn, But did not stop the fateful push...

Better Stock Than You after Henry Lawson’s "Prouder Man Than You" by Beverly Stock Your tome of pride be shattered, I’m from better Stock than you. You don’t treat all as equals, And I think...

The Argument: The Poet, having escaped the HellWard of European and corrupt politicians, emerges into the penultimate HellWard depth where he, with his guide, Dante, meets the Poetasters from America and...

  Tennyson thought it better “to have loved and lost, than…” Well, you know the rest. Of course this begs the question most of us can only guess. Is losing ever really good, or is this just...

St. Piran (Feast Day: March 5) A rhupunt Irish heathens, Unbelieving, Strapped poor Piran To a stone then Rolled him over. A cliff! Cut-throats They came to gloat. Though stones don’t...

  In the midst of free-verse critics’ Smug, inchoate analytics __Seasoned with self-righteous pedantry, There are poets who are striving To achieve success reviving __Classical and formal...

  Dear Governor, by C.B. Anderson Reopen every workplace, pretty please; Your "cure" has proven worse than the disease. Your lockdown's brought the people to their knees, And now they live in fear...

  Oxford "University"? Its preference now: diversity. The Homers, Ovids, Virgils--- Now peanuts for the squirrels! This "school" now gives instruction In Western Civ destruction The classics?...

  Spring Snow Tyrant Winter reaches __Beyond its frozen tomb, Dares cast its icy mantle __On bud and crocus-bloom. Long it reigned unchallenged __In dark and cold and ice; Thwarted now, it hurls...

Deep Regrets Dedicated to the memory of the 118 men of the Russian submarine Kursk, which exploded and sank in the Barents Sea on August 12th 2000. The protocols of men of power; Agendas passed in...

  The Onus of Vernal Duty Surrounding fields and woods unfreeze, The air once more is filled with light, As springtime’s blanket amnesties Dispel the winter’s cheerless night. So long you’ve...

  Donald J. Trump They laugh at him and sneer as if his lack Of faith in modernism’s unholy gods Can justify each Philistine attack And drown out facts with which they are at odds. Yet from...

  It takes patience to learn patience; It takes courage to be brave. One must first find mental freedom To no longer be a slave. Only faith can make us faithful; Truth alone can make us true. Life...

  Vermont in April doesn’t seem to know quite how to dress. She thinks she ought to wear bright, flowery things, and yet, she cannot tear herself away from all the clothes that go with winter....

We meet Diomedes, the Greek hero of Troy, trapped in a flame with Odysseus in Canto 26 of Dante’s Inferno. Odysseus speaks but Diomedes remains silent. Here, ironically, he speaks through his...

  Winter's Breath The sudden chill of winter's sigh Caresses me when autumn flees. My meager warmth she tries to pry, While planting kisses cold and dry; With icy breath she starts to tease. I'm...

"Winner: Humanitarian Award" Mugabe’s universally adored. He made his people multi-millionaires--- Zim dollars are the answer to their prayers. Champion of the poor, the sick, the old; A veritable...

  They march in an imaginary parade, All of the dear ones I have ever known, Relatives, friends, impressively arrayed, Saluting them, I stand here all alone. This is no show of military...

  The Back-to-Work Protesters Limerick by Mark F. Stone Our minders with power and pensions can rob our hopes, while the Fourth Estate calls us a "mob." They would be less scornful and also more...

  Beyond His Ken based on a true story The plane was in the skies above Beijing When, let us call her Joy, a stewardess With China Eastern Airlines, saw the ring And heard the heartfelt words, and...

  That day a dark, vermillion, winter sky, like a Turner water-colour, was seen reflected in an old pond where, nearby, the poet Basho watched a small, unclean and speckled frog jump in the evening...

  For England & St. George In praise let’s raise our flagons to the conqueror of dragons to the Saint who fought for all he thought was fair. Let’s fly our flags and bellow for that bold,...

  Golf My friends love golf so much But I do not share the allure. There’re many other ways for me To function like manure.     It’s Love Last night we watched old videos Our...

  The statue stands and holds aloft her torch, the Kalahari moon, the Northern Star. A lantern glimmers on a Southern porch; a balefire beacon signals war. These are unbroken shafts of light...

Earth Day 2020 Poet's Note: April 22 is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Earth Day is an annual celebration on which events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for “environmental protection.”...

  Seven skulls sit side-by-side atop the wall of Erringtide. Their salted sockets watch the wide expanse of waves within which hide the devils Marax, sixes each who’d seek to storm the sandy...

  The empty sonnet frame’s a puzzle box into whose elaborate maze ideas are dropped. They press its walls and work to plot a path through dark till final light appears. Escape demands ideas adapt...