Beauty

  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 and bend around slotted bridle angles, on to shelves of lines, be they enjambed or...

  Sonora: The Desert Harsh sunlight beats upon the thirsty land And glares upon the limestone cliffs and sand, While waves of heat rise shimmering, above The parched loam where the great saguaros stand. And perched up high among the spines thereof There broods in camouflage a mother dove, Whose...

The March of Spring O, hear the bold approach of spring, who marches, stamping, blowing! He startles all the birds that sing above the fast streams flowing. They take to wing and soar on high Where white clouds race across the sky. What garish, yes, outlandish dress the spring dons...

  So here he lies as he has lain in state These ninety years in this cathedral crypt At Westminster. We come to venerate The relics of a martyr: his heart, ripped Out of his chest at Tyburn for a priest, Was sewn back in at Cromwell’s stern behest. Four...

  What If My Time What if my time is limited? if all That I have left is perhaps months, not years, All laden with the worries and the fears Surrounding what is death. Can I recall A time when all the cares of life were small, And I would...

  As Alexander rose upon a hill, somewhere east of King Darius’s dust, at once a pure, serene and awful still undoes the man. For conquer all he must, but what is next? What if the field be lost? ---What if the field be lost!? What though the field be...

  Sonnet of the Silent Voice Unbounded power marks a tyrant’s choice: He chains the infants up to keep his throne, Refusing freedom to the silent voice. Thus, he neglects his seeds that were once sown. Adults prevent its birth, to make a slave, With Lust, the master, hearts within...

  The painter and poet Sally Cook has a new exhibition at UB Art Galleries. Because of the current coronavirus pandemic, UB Art Galleries has put the entire exhibition online so that you can actually travel through it and experience it virtually. Click below to visit the exhibit: http://ubartgalleries.buffalo.edu/exhibitions/sally-cook-1960-present/  ...

  Translation by David O'Neil Translator’s note: Piers Plowman is a late medieval allegorical narrative poem, believed to be authored by William Langland, which describes several visions experienced by the poem’s narrator, called Will. The language is Middle English,* but the meter belongs to the poetic tradition of Old English...

  Easter by Joe Tessitore Behind the stone of timeless wait He rose alone despite its weight and strode from darkness into light; Eternal Day dispelling night.   Like Christ and Lilies by James A. Tweedie To higher zeniths doth the sun aspire _As winter wanes and waxing spring ascends....

  Dulcius Ex Asperis by Andrew Ross Invisible and terrible A virus stalks the land. It floats across the atmosphere And moves from man to man. A tickle in the throat perhaps, A muted sneeze to start. A dying gasp, The poisoned asp, It still remains as we depart. A...

  No One to Comfort Them after Ecclesiastes 4 Just look around: Oppression everywhere exists beneath the sun, and the oppressed cry vainly for relief, but who will care? The slaves, the poor, all those who are distressed and dying, the addicted, and the lost--- who comforts them amid their...

  Sullen, somber skies— Heavy leaden tears are shed in sorrow. Heaven cries. Thunderous sobbing grief— Thrashing, crashing; Flashing, gnashing; Death defying belief. Salvic memories— Rise redounding; Soar rebounding; Echoing unease. Midday darkness creeps— Lachrymosa; Mortua ossa; All creation weeps. Crimson raindrops fall. Darkness scheming; Light redeeming. Done for. Done...

  Personae and scene: Vergil and Dante, somewhere in the mid-region of Hell. Dante: Honored Vergil, tell me where we’re going— It’s hard for me to take in what you’re showing Without some preparation. I can’t deal With shocking sights that make my blood congeal. Already I’m a quaking nervous...

  Pygmalion knew these women all too well; his instincts told him he’d better sleep alone. He took to art. —Ovid, The Metamorphoses, Book X His wife will say no living soul should trust that skinny man. He reads too much and falls asleep at 10pm. He only lusts for...

  The Last Bard o Scotland Translation by George T. Watt, frae the original by Joseph Charles MacKenzie Watters o Irvine an Annock, Ma saut tears mell wi the sautie ocean, Wast o Arran Isle an the Clyde Thay watters flow wi the aul lang syne. Gilliland! Makar o muir...

    Read by George T. Watt The Scrieve fae Arbroath Non enim propter gloriam, diuicias aut honores pugnamus set propter libertatem solummodo quam nemo bonus nisi simul cum vita amittit. —Scrieve fae Arbroath (6 Aprile 1320) by Joseph Charles MacKenzie Arbroath! Sae lief tae the hairts o the free,...

  Chapter I Who sings of arms these days? Or even men? The seed of Adam’s tucked inside Eve’s apple, And sits not taking root—his defect’s been Apparent since equality’s long grapple. Poor Satan garners sympathy and tears: He was oppressed, a proletarian So cruelly cast from heaven’s privileged spheres...

    Rahul Gupta holds a PhD for a thesis on mediaeval Germanic and modern mediaevalist metre and poetics from the University of York. His poetry and translations have appeared hitherto in Agenda, Acumen, Carillon, Eborakon, Equinox, and Molly Bloom, among other journals. I have recently published prose in British...

  A Life I Could Not Save She did not feel her age though she was old, But still looked young as she was often told. And so she was a vibrant 95, Happy to be healthy and alive. And yet this cancer slowly had appeared, A diagnosis worse than...

  Don’t Get Caught The catfish and the trout hum different tunes, But both agree they love hot afternoons When no one wants to fish, when ponds and streams And rivers generate aquatic dreams That never end, and surely never end With either one, as evening shades descend, Dead-center on...

As the Lights Go Out - the Last Limerick "The night cometh, when no man can work." John, 9:4 by Joe Tessitore I can tell there will be no escape From this hellishly chilling landscape Born of hatred and panic And of darkness satanic--- Oh how well we've been whipped...

. From hoof and hide, to flank and horn, Amid the wood, was noble born, Upon the field I walked at length, Swift in motion, high in strength, And scarcely did I need to boast, Rare of speech, unheard by most, Until this day, when hoof and bone, And blood...

  Job 26.8-14 The flash and crash were simultaneous. The whole house shuddered, like it was about to come apart, and all the lights went out. The dogs erupted in a frenzied fuss of frightened yelping, and I ducked my head. The force of the concussion rocked me to my...

The Once-Lost Land The arm that threw the disc of day __Across the sky we know must dim, The hand that strewed the Milky Way __Where angels swim, From far beyond the farthest star Composed the darkness that we are. His light it is that we call ours: __The morning...

  Im Fruhling (In Spring) by Ernst Schulze (1789-1817) I sit here lonely on a hill Where skies are clear and blue; The sunset casts a glowing veil Over the deep and tranquil dale— I used to love this view. I walked with my beloved there, She was so close,...

. A very finely scattered sigh Of bashful mist would nigh attend My view and try---one wonders why--- To dare with utmost care to blend The reigning stateliness of trees on high. And yes, my half-closed eyes approved The quiet fill of unused space As nothing else at all had...

  Remember God “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” —Alexandr Solzhenitsyn by Connie Phillips We must remember God in all we do, And keep Him always in our hearts and thoughts. Repent our sins and strive for what is true, And thus survive all that the...

by James A. Tweedie   If a Contemporary Free-Verse Poet Wrote a Sonnet Today, because I’m early for Pilates, __I stop at Starbucks for a cappuccino, __But change my mind because the mocha lattes __Don’t keep me up as much at night, or so It seems to me. So, in...

  Carmen Cygni, a Retourne She holds the sickle and the scythe, Dark clothed and hooded, glimpse of white. A dancer languorous but lithe, She stands between the day and night. Dark clothed and hooded glimpse of white, Peitho beguiles by danse charnelle. She calls defiant, but contrite As fears...

  translation by Jonathan Shoulta Andromache Will you, my Hector, forever go away to where with unmatched hands Achilles makes Patroclus bloody off'rings? ____________________Who will teach your little one with strength to throw the spear, or how to honor the gods, if what I fear occurs and Orcus devours you?...

  I pour myself four fingers, or maybe it is five, sit in a broken rocker and slowly close my eyes. I muse on my survival for nigh on eighty years, A victory in heart, despite a wealth of tears. My mind goes whistling past the graveyard of my youth,...

  Mere words have not the power to convey the loveliness laid out before my eyes; this triumph of rebirth; this lustrous day; this crowning of Creation’s enterprise. This is the time when man and bird and beast awaken in the season’s warm embrace. This is when Flora’s variegated feast...

  This Luxurious Empire Vesuvius, you have destroyed a world! __With roars of fire and thunder, hails of ash, __You've hurled your blistering soul, with sulfurous flash Of fire-lightning—certain death unfurled! Yet this luxurious empire, paved and pearled __With rich mosaics, where rare fountains splashed, __You've O so capably and...

  What curve, what contrapposto, shift of weight, Recalls the tusk from which some Gothic hand Had carved the Paris Virgin holding straight My King enthroned upon an ivory stand! What smiles, no longer earthly, but divine, And each the mirror of the other’s joy! What tenderness contained within a...

  for Mark F. Stone and all his pets The duck has special properties: Like water off its back; If only we as humans could Perfect the duck’s dry knack. It’s not that water isn’t there Or ducks just cannot drown, But always buoyant in a storm, They’re always up...

  Unbridled Change O tempora! O mores!... Fuit ista quondam in hac re publica virtus... ---Cicero, First Catiline Oration These days of changing values can be hard: What once was just, today's considered wrong. Some things encouraged now at one time jarred, Abandoned now are values once held long. Unquestioned...

  The Author He portrays a lonely figure In his cottage by the sea With his pencil and his paper and his dog. Gone his youthful verve and vigour But remaining in its lee Is the gift that soon will form his epilogue. With the ocean panorama Bathed in twilight’s...

  A Soliloquy on Modern Poetry  I write this, a soliloquy Regarding modern poetry. I don’t appreciate the terse Disheveled nature of free verse. So much of it just seems contrived And of true beauty so deprived. I just don’t understand the thought That rhyme makes people overwrought, Whereas it...

  Waters of Irvine and Annock, flow with my tears, West to the Firth of Clyde and Arran: Soon, soon, Ayr will be mute and barren. Flow, waters, flow, like the passing of long, lost years. Gilliland! Singer of moors and the pensive glen, The muses fade on your final...