. Before Checkmate “Tis all a Checker board of nights and days Where Destiny with men for Pieces plays: Hither...

. The Witch Hunt I’ve been a lawyer for a long, long time And seen a lot of things that...

. Finding the Crime “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime” ---Lavrentiy Beria, Head of the Secret...

. At Dorr Point Our far too brief excursion about to cease,We walked the woods to Dorr Point—one last partingImmersion...

. Selling Short The winter wind’s a shot across your brow, An addend to the sense of deficit You wrestle...

. A Formalist Walks into a Bar... “Dear barkeep, give me something most unsweet,I like my drinks with an astringent...

. Upon Learning of Trump's Conviction _America is big;__Does things in style:Like setting up a President__And rigging his trial. _America...

. Phone Home I often talk to radio astronomers, The kind of guys who like to stay anonymous, Who chew...

. God Knows Tomorrow’s torched and trampled on the street. __We hear the battle cry Of demons dancing to the...

. Leopold and Loeb Or, the Consequences of Ideas A Frenchman’s thought-experiments Argued by Englishmen until A German stripped pure...

. Out Walking I hear the heath alive to free A heart from hearthside reverie, _And with my rambling feet...

. A Tiny Tabby Beside our garden’s scalloped fence, where English Ivy’s vines are dense, we viewed an unexpected sight;...

. The Devotee She moves from one devotion to the next, From this beloved statue to the text Of some...

. I Saw a Naked Wood Nymph I sat down in the forest, a picnic in the shade. I saw...

. Rising with the Sap You would not call them blocks, those obscure streets Where people live. Their driftings trace...

. Surviving Caligula Setting: Caligula’s Palace, the Palatine Hill, Rome Date: 23 January 794 Ab urbe condita (41 A.D.) The...

. Love and Vipers for Harrison Butker, the football player criticized for supporting traditional views of women in a commencement...

. Memorial Day, 1984 2024 “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”  ---George Orwell Today we honor those...

. The First and Usually Unspoken Rule of Great Writing The greatest rule of writing is to tell A truth, the truth...

. He Who Was Omnipotence, omniscience __and there’s omnipresence too. If you possess those qualities, __there’s nothing you can’t do....

. I Never Do a Happy Dance I never do a happy dance, Or look online to find romance, Speak...

. Betrayal a villanelle Today she spied the shadow of a snake Slither through the spreading family tree--- A curse her startled...

. View from the Beach after Robert Frost’s "A Cliff Dwelling" Here hazy seems the azure sky and azure seems...

. The SCP has just learned of the passing of Canadian Member poet Lionel Willis on December 28, 2023. He...

. Eulogy to the First Ms. Brown or a Divine Comedy of Educators . To my aunt—the second daughter of...

. 1. Just off the cuff, I’d cap the alcoholic swill __Before it calls your bluff and saps your will....

. Newman, Alone Newman, thirty, alone, asleep in bed, Groans, yearning for his mother, years now, dead--- Alive, her vivid...

. Two Times Two Is Four Now Kierkegaard once wrote a book, __Entitled Either/Or, But for myself, I only know,...

. Unopened Letters Unopened letters strewn across the floor Addressed to me with your name on the back. Left where...

. The Cleft There’s danger for the harmless dove; she swoops Into the cleft of the great mountainside. Her heartbeat...

. Dandelions “...all the days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow....” ---Ecclesiastes 6: 12 . ____As...

. Chelsea a true story from I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris “Behold not everybody's beauty: and tarry not...

. Miss Crespo’s Halloween Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures; ‘tis the eye...

. AI's Promise What is the latest ingenious ability makers have made out as mental agility? Smoothly unveiling the newest...

. King George III Declares War from Legends of Liberty, Volume 2 Note: The British have won a pyrrhic victory...

. Dishing Out Advice Why are there always dishes in the sink? So lazy and undisciplined. You’d think they might...

. He Lied About His Age 'Twas May of nineteen seventeen, our country now at war. Will had decided to...

. Saturn "When we have shuffled off this mortal coil" —Shakespeare "According to medieval thought, the worst planet was Saturn, ...

. Rwanda, April 1994 Inside Nyamata Church the pews are piledwith clothes, the blood that drenched them dull and dry.What...

. An Incomplete Account of How Things Are __From where I drift, One hundred meters from the shore, The elemental...