Poetry

In Response to an Article on the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners in China I read the other day about the pain That you endure in some nightmarish place, Removed from sight, where sadists made...

  A Cut Above Why shouldn’t Nancy break a lockdown rule To bless us with her chestnut-tress finesse? As Speaker of the House she’d look a ghoul If cameras focused on an un-coiffed...

    There’s lots of riots in the street or so I’ve heard from someone’s tweet; they’re pulling out all of the stops, those young people who fight the cops; I see the photos in...

  Before the plague I never knew my hands. The need to purify the human touch has turned my vision inward, but though much is taken; much remains---in human hands, the same, yet not the same. The...

  I am a cardboard cutout. I sit here in the stands. I do not think. I do not blink. I do not clap my hands. You are a cardboard cutout. You sit there next to me. You do not cheer. You have...

  'I Shall A Mighty Hunter Be!' “I shall a mighty hunter be, The King of Kills, by God’s decree! Savannahs always guarantee a vantage camouflaging me. I’ll lie in wait with sharpened...

  We Siblings Three Attempt to add the hours we have shared: One hundred thousand, maybe thousands more? Our paths conjoined for several years before We struck out on our own and even dared Imagine...

  Backyard Bliss I hear hope’s song fill skies today __In trills beyond my door. Her citrus kiss burns through the grey __As martins dip and soar. Their purple sheen in lemon rays Is testament to...

Winners Have Been Announced Here. "Poetry ... is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular." —Aristotle (384-322 BC),...

  "Poetry ... is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular." —Aristotle (384-322 BC), Poetics First Prize: $100....

"Poetry ... is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular." —Aristotle (384-322 BC), Poetics First Prize: $100. Publication on...

  I made her a bed with cushions and throws but she refused and slept in my bones. My skin, too tight for both my sighs and hers so she filled it with rot, making it home. ---Al-Mutanabbi, d. 965...

  The Angels’ Share Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God’s ways to man. — A.E. Housman When whisky’s aged in...

rhymes written after reading Simon Barnes’ blog post "Barn Owl in the Snow" Across the marsh, white passing over white, The silent hunter flies then loses height Descending to a favoured perch to...

adapted from Babrius, first century A.D., and Jean de La Fontaine, 1621-1695 __At least twelve thousand years (though likely more) Between the wolves and sheep had raged a war, Until the lupine clan...

  Editing with the OED for Rita Bornstein __Like a mental abattoir, the OED, With brumous exactitude, looms over me As my blue pen prunes my cachaemic prose, Decorticating glut in orderly...

  Abracadabra The written word is magical And not just something clerical. You scratch some marks into the sand; I see the marks and understand What you are thinking in your head Without a single...

  The potato blight and resultant Great Famine struck Ireland from 1845 to 1851. Potato crops didn’t recover until 1852, by which time at least one million people had emigrated to escape poverty and...

  Doris Evelyn Alice Falconer, born April 9, 1922, died August 24, 2004 You taught me the importance of good humour, the gravity of truth and courtesy; to never take for fact a rampant rumour, but...

  The Falcon “In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire?” ---William Blake, The Tyger Falcon, falcon, flying...

  Oh, to helm an angel ship __Adrift in a billowy sea With a specter crew in a sky of blue, __Just the vast beyond and me. Flying the mist like gulls on the wind, __With never a falter or...

by Andrew Benson Brown James Sale’s HellWard is the first volume of a planned trilogy entitled The English Cantos. If the quality of the current volume is any indication of the two forthcoming ones, then...

  a villanelle My heart goes out to those unknown, Whose life by Time’s cruel hand erased, Their ravaged, riven, nameless stone. Shattered, lost, grass o’ergrown, No date to tell when coffin...

  Ab Initio Mundi* *ever since the beginning of the world At first the darkness reigned o’er all that was, Until a little point of light emerged. That grew and grew regardless, as it surged Ahead...

  in memory of my father-in-law, Pietro Lorefice (1938-2020) The bell now tolls, dear Pietro, for this hour When we must bid your faithful soul adieu, And lay to rest that mortal frame we knew, Now...

  My marriage failed (they always do.) Emotionally unequipped To work things out without a script, We didn’t try to talk it through. What do I pay that therapist for? You can’t see what...

  When the wokest of folk virtually convoke In a year of elections and riots and fear, Uncle Joe from the basement the Nanny will stoke. He’ll invoke Ms. Kamala as newscasts evoke, “She’s a...

. Upon a boat, by ocean bound, Below the sun, upon the sound, The bait, a line, a reel, a fish: Bound for butter, herbs and dish. . . Alec Ream is a writer living in Virginia. His poetic work and creative...

  Madcapfesto We’ll unlock prison gates and let the inmates saunter out. We’ll tear down wall and rule; we’ll sponsor every lug and lout. We’ll overlook drug smuggling and the trafficking of...

by Joseph S. Salemi The poetic effusions of some people are so incompetent that they cross the line into unexpected humor, and thereby become valuable. Such is the case with the work of William Topaz...

a villanelle We came together with an open mind No crass intolerance or blinkered view Is it too much to ask us to be kind? The streets in which we children played were lined With generosity, and we all...

Winner and Runners-up of The Society of Classical Poets 2020 Haiku Competition Judged by Mike Bryant and Susan Jarvis Bryant See all entrants here.   Thunder-bellied clouds Move slow over heathered...

  A Ditty What happened to the human race? It vanished, friend, without a trace. And what, pray tell, of humankind? You may well seek, but will not find. And finally, humanity? It slipped into...

  dedicated to all those braving injustice in Hong Kong with nobility of spirit Muffled voices, anguished cries, Trampled freedom, published lies, Flouted treaties, threatened fates, Outlawed...

  Hero of Her Heart On February 9, 2007 Sgt. James J. Regan of the 3rd Battalion 75th U.S. Ranger Regiment was killed on active service in Iraq. Some time after the funeral, Sgt. Regan's fiancee Mary...

  Due to a recent government edict, approximately 5 million Australians must wear masks whenever they leave the house. We wear a mask because we’re told That COVID has us in its hold, And if outside...

  Cotton candy is, yes, is angel hair spun out while merry-go-rounds whirl full-speed with satisfaction fully guaranteed in the local splendor of Blake’s Prairie Fair. Surely the most...

All poems by Bruce Dale Wise The Prisoners in Manacles by Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei The prisoners in manacles in western China were just on a day out, stated the Chinese ambassador. The picture shows the people...

  Oh, When I Think Back Oh, when I think back to those halcyon days, When I believed the possibility That truest love would manifest to me And highest hopes would set the heart ablaze, I looked...

  Taj Mahal Built to commemorate a love that died Four hundred years ago, how sad to say She never saw what we can see today. Serenely does its massive bulk preside Above a seeming swamp on every...