Beauty

On Visiting the Tea Garden in Middletown, New York I. A harried daddy with two kids in tow, Maneuvering through city streets and cars, I look around quite nervously for crows Whose filthy bombs my head before had marred. I dashed in through the front door of the place, A...

A Villanelle To breathe the beaming silence of the sky I long, when dawn’s chill wakes my eyes, and see The oft-unseen yet boundless peace on high. When slumber’s velvety dim moments die, Pale crowds rush back and forth, although unfree To breathe the beaming silence of the sky; For...

  Untitled All older statues want to come alive, Those Greek and Roman ones, and Christian, too. Their skeletons and veins and muscles strive To break through marble skin.  They want their blue Eyes once again to see the world of living flesh. They want to sweat in love and...

A Lifetime Day drifts into evening Evening into night All around me darkness With only stars for light Dawn awakes the morning The morning burst into day The cycle never ceasing Black to white to gray The rhythms of each moment The seasons of each year Time goes on forever...

Upon the release of the Society’s How to Write Classical Poetry   When feeling some compulsion to compose, One wonders which of many forms to choose, Then tends to favor what one really knows, Where there is little left to gain or lose. But one may wait to see how process...

For Elizabeth On the Poet’s Eleventh Wedding Anniversary   Though you behold me silent in this room, Know that I walk in fields of fresh-cut hay; Though I be still, my thoughts like roses bloom And run with clouds across the vault of day. The west wind summons me beyond...

The important events in the life of Gaius Valerius Catullus (84-54 B.C.) are recounted through the poems he has left. The particular poem below was written on his return from Asia Minor, where he had attempted at a public career by following Memmius, the patron of the poet Lucretius, into...

Inside the Dragon’s Teeth Maui, Hawaii From inside, you get a new perspective ___Of the tourist spot known as Dragon’s Teeth. The people who write about such things give ___This place, which lies on the ocean beneath A golf course and ritzy hotel, a dull, ___Scientific description: “Lava flow, Met...

It has long been observed that whilst the ego is useful in making daily and ordinary decisions in our life, it is less effective when it comes to more important issues; it is by nature competitive, and it tends to subordinate the greater good for more immediate gains and self-gratification....

  When, late in May, Memorial Day ____Inaugurates the season Of summer sun and summer fun ____(Much welcomed, with good reason), Then nature’s crowned with sight and sound: ____The sky is bright and clear, The flowers’ blooms and birds’ bright plumes ____Proclaim that summer’s here. The birds cheer on the...

Unshaken Faith Forward Alliterative verse dedicated to Falun Gong practitioners who have faced persecution in China since July 20, 1999   The ground was broken, crusty, cracked for miles and miles, and ever on, and in the distance, black clouds called out death and doom, from Hell they hailed. The...

LVII. On a Bodegón of Zurbarán From carbon darkness, splendor! Light comes forth. A painter knew the warm fidelity Of lemons pointing east and west and north, And praised the Thornless Rose’s purity. Two silver patens, oranges enthroned, A crown of blossoms and ascending leaves, The rounded basket, finest that...

  At last, the sunset’s knell forebodes the ceasing day— The merchants in their silken garments trudge their way Along, with Turkish camels and Koranic tunes. Diurnal light retreats from dromedary’s dunes, And Bedouins arrive, commencing ev’ning hours And drive their caravans across Saharan bow’rs Where fading clouds announce the...

  And What Of Art? It used to be that there was a division Between the arts, and each had segments, too. A poem was just a poem, required revision, A painter mixed his colors – blue was blue, And didn’t need some trash, or added gravel To make it...

Dante’s Inferno, Canto I (Poem by Dante Alighieri / translation by J. Simon Harris in terza rima) In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself again in a dark forest, for I had lost the pathway straight and right. Ah how hard it is to describe,...

  A wind blew through the almond trees. The blossoms shook, the petals floated down Past where I sat on the cliffs above the sea. The waves reminded me a bit of the mounds Of snow I’d left behind, if only for a week. The locals though were wrapped in...

Why Live This Long? The thought presents - Why live this long? What more to do, Once sung my song? The arch of life Made sense to me. With work in hand - While serving Thee. Great tasks complete, Hills have been scaled. Success achieved - Opponents failed. I turn...

  Potpourri Take leaves at first, curled crisp by autumn’s cold— Crush them to crumbly powder in a tray To make a simple palette of decay In varied tints of brown and red and gold. Next flower petals, multicolored, bold In stark chromatic contrasts—dry and bray Them in a mortar...

Epistle to a Celt Where, o Celt, mayst thou be found Upon what all was once thy ground? Art thou of thy majestic race The last to bear a mortal face? Thy speech and runes thou scornst to learn, Which memory can scarce discern. In splintered nave, the Celtic Cross...

This poem is written in response to proposals to sell ancient public forests to private developers in England. https://saveourwoods.co.uk/   Oh, site where forest now is laid – Why take the suite of forest dreams? And live on angry air and claim. Oh, site where forest now is laid –...

It's Best to Be a Giver It’s best to be a giver, not a taker, Or else how could you ever face your Maker? When time is due and Judgment Day is here, You look in your Lord’s eyes, and have no fear, You know your heart is pure and...

The Akkerman Steppe Original Polish by Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855) below I launch myself across the dry and open narrows, My carriage plunging into green as if a ketch, Floundering through the meadow flowers in the stretch. I pass an archipelago of coral yarrows. It’s dusk now, not a road in...

Poem for a Birthday Say that the year is round, and on its top March lighted candles in concentric rows. They drip their wax, which hardens on the heart As birthdays pass, and most of us suppose That all we ask is just some time to stop, Regroup, remit the...

  When dusk settles, the oxalis Stands taller and sweeter, As if to say that all of this Is just Nature’s theater, The butterfly-shaped purple leaves Are an actor's costume, Which fans out in royal sheaves And is soaked in perfume.   Julia Geaney-Moore is a Psychology and English major....

The Muses we understand from Part 1 of this article are the daughters of the future and the past, and more specifically of memory, light, truth and beauty; they are essential for the ‘good life’, and we understand as well that because they are goddesses, they cannot be summoned by...

. . What Rumor, What Word? On the featured photo above What rumor, what word, O Cloud from the sea? Cumulus, Nimbus: what sayest thou to me? But human and man; the simplest I be, And found ruminating, mine interest would thee, O quench, with thy speech, and earnest me...

  In a secluded forest glade, Where sunlight shines and shadows fade, The faeries come to dance and play Upon a bright warm summer’s day. Light are their footsteps, quick their feet On shimmering wings, they do fleet. Throughout the glade, clear voices ring; The songs of faerie folk they...

27 November 1976: Fort Eustis, Virginia By Usa W. Celebride It is an autumn Saturday. I sit amidst the scree, of dry, brown, crackly leaves, against the rough bark of a tree. The Sun casts out long shadows. It's a time of purity, of rest, of realism, grandeur and simplicity. I...

  Déja Do you remember when a piece of art Held truth or meaning in its oil or stone— And beauty even?  Paintings would impart Aesthetic truth and not just some sweet tone Of glowing like a Rothko, luminous But void like Close Encounters of the Third Kind’s shimmer.  Artefacts were numinous Like...

  Taking a Gambol A rabbit’s life’s a gambol, A fortunate existence; Giving time enough to spare For frolics in the bramble, Bunny-hops from here to there, Some chewing for subsistence. But in dreary contrast we Refuse to twitch our noses At sweet treasures given free - The perfume of...

I Think I Like You Better Now I think I like you better now; it’s been a little while Since first you took my breath away with just a passing smile. When love was fresh and new and fast, before life took its toll-- I think I like you better...

The Flowers Upon a morning stroll serene Across many young floral gardens Greeting me on those fields of green Was the red rose who all love pardons. The humming bird about it flutters The bees its sweet soft hues admire But I hear a miser who mutters As storms prepare...

Penelope’s Postscript Uncounted days, wrung dry of tears— Lost wanderers do not return: So much for the departed years. Heap up my mangled hopes and fears, Leave Ithaka to mock and spurn Uncounted days. Wrung dry of tears I shut from my importuned ears The suitors’ pleas. How could I...

Tipton County, Tennessee, 1917 My great-grandfather cut down huge black oaks Whose stumps his two young sons helped him uproot, Each some Yggdrasil yielding to the strokes Of manic axes in their mad pursuit Of Paradise providing ample fruit, A man with two boys made to work as men, Their...

Ephemeral Constant With hued music, beautified page. His spheres were thinner than gossamer, Only to beauty, did Keats defer. Was omni-sensory, ahead of his age, Gifted synesthete; few could gauge. Lines between realities could he blur, With Psyche, or nightingale easily confer. Complex were stanzas, of youthful sage. ‘Cockney’ image...

  Sonnet IV. Edward the Confessor Edward, the Cross no more on England’s shores Thy people blesses. The light of faith is gone. From stolen thrones the foes of Christ wage wars Against thy sons, and not one sword is drawn. Thy Westminster, by pagan rites profaned, Where thy pure...

Dying Muse Not everyone will survive The muse has sung her last song The end is about to arrive It has been following us all along The forest is groaning in pain She sheltered her creatures with love Her labors were all given in vain Of her plight she knew...

  Mine eyes beheld your beauty, My thoughts remember how, Your loveliness I cherish, Where ever you are now, And in my heart I know you, Always to be near, Because your vision glories, My picture of you clear, And while this life we passage, Your bloom will help me...

  Justice,  Equity  and  Compassion  in  Human  Relations In realms of Humankind’s relations, Justice rules as queen & from her crown, the powers Compassion & Equity descend to Earth like stars, divine & regal past all seen to glorify those hearts sublime that scorn all Evil’s seeds, for Virtue feeds...