Poetry

Avocado Grove On dry, withered leafs Until drizzle leaves Sitting silently The fruit’s ripe, big crops Giant green rain drops Hang abundantly The bark thick and strong Like cultivated gong* Grows there upwardly I share with you fate You share with me shade Time moves patiently. The fresh spring breeze...

Nearby a wasp lights, twitching its pointed stinger in the summer heat. As I drive my car, an eagle flies overhead. How far have I come? An ant climbs slowly up the old man's hairy arm. He flings it away. Continuously, the rooster crows all day long. He is barely...

They operate contrary to the rules of common sense that we hold dear as proof that what we know is right, that we’re no fools and senses we possess perceive the truth. They ramble through eleven dimensions. Their motions, seemingly governed by chance, confuse and amend our comprehensions – on...

The Farmer’s Wife He may as well be sitting on a piece Of junk john-boat out on some open lake. The field is shorn, divested of its fleece. The hay is tedded and the rusty rake Is resting now beside the tree-lined wall, Next to the tedder, stilly looking on,...

1.  In 373, at Antioch, Jerome asked himself if he were not a disciple of Cicero rather than Christ, his eternal home; and thereupon abandoned his early love for philosophy, law, language, and literature, and devoted himself instead to the remove of Hebrew, Greek, and translating Holy Scripture, seeking sure...

By Christine Lin NEW YORK—How could staring at a canvas barely two square feet transport a person to the hillsides of Pennsylvania or the glass-like waters of Lake Placid? How could a painting of a farm that existed 150 years ago feel so viscerally real and immediate? This is the...

Bereft of the poetry of his soul The knight took refuge in the house of death Into darkness he went with his mind crushed Wandering lust gone and with his own trust. The enchanter gone And disenchantment entered And the land of La Mancha Slowly turned to dust & cinders....

A disturbing riddle was told to me: “The city of evil that starts with ‘B’ That has six more letters after that one, Will be, by bloody tragedy, undone. “The nations all love this mighty city, Not in their words, but in reality; The city fills the nations with their...

The chicken crossed the road I heard. Which was so silly, so absurd, Especially for so dumb a bird. But when she started to come back She met an eighteen-wheeler Mack That smacked her with a great big whack! Then squawking, flapping in the air The chicken cried out in...

Alone, I take a flight to see some friends, I gaze out over ocean from the clouds and marvel, as the plane I’m in ascends with all of us above the earthly crowds. From gravity itself we’ve all been freed. Like Shakespeare said, how like a god our sense, and...

The Trojan War has finished its long course. Achaeans won by sneaking past the vaulting walls As if they were a gift: a wooden horse. A decade done, at last the city falls! And yet the riches found were not it all, Along with war, there came a great  resource...

I wonder if I'll ever see a banished piece of Poetry of mine in print. I hope and pray and squint; but yet, I have to say, that I may not live long enough. The Frogs are ugly, stark and gruff. The Bog is ominously steep. To step inside one...

Across the trough o' th' mighty Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, New York, there's a cantilever bridge of steel, connected to a walkway rail trail that makes its two thousand meter trek in standard gauge, the world's longest elevated public park, trestled by-little-water-place-reed-covered-lodge. On solid footings, trussed, it passes through the...

Drums lie tilted, battered and still; Grass fires gutter; none are left to kill; Bitter smoke coils through leafless trees; A stunned horse quivers on bloody knees. A tin cup's clank, a thump, a moan - Battle's dirge in dissonant tones Drifts above those soon to be dead, Blue coated,...

Implicitly the Cosmos has design, Just as I hold the pattern in my mind Of how this sonnet’s feet and rhymes align With where some latent motive is inclined. One cannot see the sonnet’s form until It’s filled with what at last grows manifest, Expressing clearly its inherent will Confined...

Written in May 2010 / Revised April 2020 Trumpets blast and Heaven opens, light shoots through, Gods of all the Kingdoms smile now anew, Legions of celestial soldiers stand, salute, Drumbeats sound between the flourishes of flute, Cherubs and celestial maidens spread their flowers, Time himself relaxes for these joyous...

By Mary Byrom Last year, painter Erik Koeppel left New York City’s big art scene behind. He moved to a small town surrounded by the picturesque White Mountain National Forest. Yet far from disappearing from the art market’s radar, he is becoming better known as art lovers and collectors find...

Steven J. Levin was born in Minneapolis MN in 1964.  His interest in art began early, when as a young boy, Levin would spend hours drawing alongside his father, a commercial artist.  Recognizing his talent and interest, Levin’s father gave Steven many impromptu drawing lessons and tips, as well as...

Near a brief flash of lightning sits a bird, a white one on a gray and sloping roof, and rests against big blue clouds, like a surd, almost absurd, incapable of proof; and down below some city buildings gleam; green trees and shrubs stand in between; a lone bridge crosses...

God of men who’s dressed in white, Beard on face of long brown hair, Halo pattern traced in light, Nimbus flowing through the air. Glowing skin with mercy shines, Ancient toga wraps His frame, Fabric rich and much more fine, Than what mortals give a name. Eyes of keenest vision...

An Oklahoma Nightmare Leashed from the continent, it flew— on 20 May 2013— and caught the currents of the airy blue— colliding winds that swirled above—whirling. Sweet Jesus, the tornado's winds touched down west of Newcastle, Oklahoma, at 2:45 pm, and stayed aground for seventeen long miles fifty minutes! On...

In meadows green and pastures sweet, My love and I, we first did meet; She watched me tend my flock by day, And yet at night she went away. She was my sun, my warmth and light, There by day and gone by night. At the stream, swift and cold...

Pressure is what the loam feels when, buried and dis-tracted, it cannot function right; when it cannot get at the rain and light; when it, by a hellish heat, is harried. When it is not prepared, or preparing, To produce, what it was meant to produce; when its physical makeup...

The Union army's futile frontal attacks on December 13 against entrenched Confederate defenders on the heights behind Fredericksburg is remembered as one of the most one-sided battles of the American Civil War, with Union casualties more than twice as heavy as those suffered by the Confederates. Fredericksburg With frosted breath...

Grains of Time Somewhere through the hour glass, slip grains of time, eroding fast. Past and present times collide, revealing all truths hidden lies. Ties that bond are held so dear, but suddenly they disappear. Fear not hidden, courage slides, rocks back and forth, from side to side. Wide the...

The Ring for E. S. and W. S. "my precious," —Gollum, in The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien   I only knew but one tall dude who had a ring with magic powers. He had one large, silver ring. Although still visible when he put on his ring, it gave...

I saw him standing at the gate of heaven. It was in a dream, but seemed so real I was in awe. Behind him in my vision all was white and lit. Dear reader, though hard to believe, I truly saw this most magnificent of men. He was all shine...

Nothing to see here, they say each breath, People starving, as they feed us to death, Puppets on strings, all of us they bind, Right from our birth they program our mind, Who are they you ask, the unseen and silent, Keeping us distracted, by making us violent, Telling us...

The Old Brown Carpet Hurray! I don't have to vacuum The old, brown carpet, anymore! At last, I managed to get it Removed from the dining room floor! It wasn't at all difficult Deciding it really must go, Its age was indeterminate But many years of use did show. Once,...

Like roaches fighting over baited trap we climbed and clambered, even pushed and shoved while scrambling for some nourishment like love we’d push the other children off Mom’s lap. So certain of the limits of the feast – a pie too small for each to have a slice – our...

Exchange They go to take the heart of you, mark your skin & cut you through. With silk knives, their sharp skill connives to stroke apart flesh & lives. In surgic- al masks, they'll unpick the atoms gods had made stick until your profitable or- gan is isolated more &...

My love, accursed, will never let me go. I mourn your loss and all those wasted years. The wars that men have fought for causes, though, Can never bring you back, nor make it so That I can be a stranger to my tears. My love, accursed, will never let...

Come, tell me your story, master of prose. Use elements of the proper language To sway me to your side, and if all goes Well, hallowed will your words be on the page. So many things in common do we share, Like our emotional sincerity, Our love for beauty, and...

Spirit of green engendered in liberty Sweeping across the glanded glades Tangled tree spirits in tarnished brief Dancing shades of sunlit lauded leaves. Some reveries of buttercups in a sea of grass Sporting squirrels where frolicking en-mass A listed gesture abbotted in a shallow ditch Songs of flyers in myrtled...

Soft warm eyes searching, yearning full plump lips pouting and burning she looks upward in hope and desire burning inside consumed by fire. Big bright eyes warm and true deep inside, her soul shines through pining each day for her love elusive saving herself for her man exclusive Hanging on...

A red-tailed hawk on a bridge railing looks fixed, loosed from its master. Reading one haiku, two bowls of strawberries passed through three centuries. When I looked back, o, the man whom I passed, Shiki, was lost in the mist. A small, soft, brown hare chews upon green blades of...

As a gentle, outer light shines downward, a different, invisible light — that of spiritual illumination — shines into the mind as a woman studies the teachings of Falun Gong. The child, resting serenely under one arm, signifies the harmonious balance that can be found between a rigorous spiritual life...

How beautifully does Pisanello seize upon the Vision of Eustachius in paint, where all conjoins together in a whole to please, although a grim foreboding portrait of the saint, for he and family will all be put to death for spurning Roman gods. But here there is no taint. The...

No one could recall When, in days of yore, The calm York River Had so breached its shore, Or where such places Roiling water went! Remarked one and all, "'Tis a rare event!" So, with great surprise The deluge was met As downtown Bancroft Began to get wet... The riverside...

Department stores are nice But prices there are high If you've got lots of cash They've lots of things to buy But if you're like most folks Just trying to make do You'll want to save some bucks But get a bargain too I know a type of place That...