Poetry

By Aubrey Henderson You battle with our demons in the dark. You wake up screaming from your troubled dreams. Memories of the dark day you embarked, On a journey far from the red regime, And left your homeland burning in despair, Cloud your judgment with endless fear and hate. The...

By Evan Mantyk There is a dark and forceful urge to blame The nine-eleven terrorist attacks On religion, on security gone slack, On our country, for all that we feel shame, There’s also an opposite urge not to blame, But to throw our hands up and to step back And...

A moving sculpture that vividly depicts a woman with two airplanes crashing into her forearms, Meredith Bergmann's monumental bronze sculpture “September 11th” was unveiled this month in its permanent home in the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. The sculpture was specially commissioned by the Cathedral. Outside the Cathedral...

In this refashioned version of Homer’s Iliad, the mystical hero Achilles’ clashes with the doubting King Agamemnon over a woman, throwing the fate of the Trojan War, and more, into jeopardy. Click here for the Act I. By Evan Mantyk ACT II SCENE I Achilles and Patroclus sit together in...

By Joshua Philipp So deep grown were our rings of sin, lost hope had humankind, lost hope for sight of spring again, our fates could not unwind. Blind and lost, a darkened world, no peace could this heart find, no peace but empty joys unfurled, with blackness in my mind....

Lesson Plans, Readings with Questions, and Sample Essays: Lesson on the Poetry of Bruce Dale Wise (Society of Classical Poets Competition Winner) Bruce Dale Wise poetry (includes questions) Essay Comparing Two Bruce Dale Wise Sonnets (includes questions analyzing the essay)   Lesson on "A Psalm of Life" by Henry Wadsworth...

NEW YORK—Patricia Watwood and two other artists came together in June at the Forbes Galleries, where she held an exhibition to espouse the virtues of contemporary classical realist art while searching for clarity about the oft-misunderstood field. “Our work is not usually ironic, overly self-reflective, morbid, or nihilistic,“ she explained....

By Tom Zart God has always had his poets Who He watches with love from space. But Satan has his poets too Who try to lead us from our grace. King Solomon was a poet Who spoke of love, life, death and war. That lips were like threads of scarlet...

By Christian Watjen BERLIN—Standing in a green field in the cultural heart of the German capital, an Italian tourist desperately looks around, and then points at a concrete wall covered in graffiti. “Is that the Berlin Wall?” she asks. Indeed, this was East Berlin, but the infamous wall was somewhere else....

Translated by Gary Pansey Ridiculing Social Status In Their Proper Places First come officials And then of course their boss, Next come the famous With so much dough to toss; Bodyguards hold down the fort, Execs and doctors fare well, Phony beggars in every port, Lap dancers crowd the stairwell;...

Let Observation with extensive View, Survey Mankind, from China to Peru; Remark each anxious Toil, each eager Strife, And watch the busy Scenes of crouded Life; Then say how Hope and Fear, Desire and Hate, O'er spread with Snares the clouded Maze of Fate, Where wav'ring Man, betray'd by vent'rous...

Jeffrey L. Benson, an artist living in Orland Park, Ill., paints landscapes with architectural elements, in part to preserve the history of old buildings. His realistic paintings are created with transparent watercolors because he feels watercolor is the ideal medium for creating texture. Texture creates realism and visual interest. “It...

By Bill Coyle Go to the prosperous city, for I have taken pity on its inhabitants, who drink and feast and dance all night in lighted halls yet know their bacchanals lead nowhere in the end. Go to them, now, commend, to those with ears to hear, a lifestyle more...

NEW YORK—Thirty-five years since it opened its doors in SoHo, the Eleanor Ettinger Gallery is a rarity in New York City. It is one of the last bastions of realist and representational art in a market dominated by abstract and pop art. But the gallery says the tide may be...

By Michael T. Young Traffic, a crowd, the tide flooding the bay, whatever will rise and fall, will begin, then end, forgive each moment for what comes along, like wind shoving the clouds, and clouds, the day, like the night calling the sun to come in, the dream where a brief...

In this refashioned version of Homer's Iliad, the mystical hero Achilles clashes with the doubting King Agamemnon over a woman, throwing the fate of the Trojan War, and more, into jeopardy. By Evan Mantyk ACT I SCENE I On the shores of Hellespont, the Achaean King Agamemnon enters looking troubled....

By Joshua Philipp At night alone, I sometimes dream of a place which seems so far away. Quietly sitting by a stream. With words this place so hard to say. In distant lands, its legends told of flowered hills and ancient trees. The weight of wonders, words cannot hold. Its...

Like a modern day Norman Rockwell, the monumental works of contemporary realist painter Stone Roberts capture in vivid form and color the beauty of modern America. Among the four works on display is his newly created masterpiece “Grand Central Terminal: An Early December Noon in the Main Concourse” (above). The...

For the full comic by Illustrator:Lam & Joel Benjamin click here  

By Thomas Newton Just as the Renaissance was fueled by The printing press, the Internet has sounded A call for crafted poetry—a cry For quality that has the crude confounded. The plasma screen’s soft glow directs the Quest For human creative ability. The Classics that endure to feed the best...

By Thomas Newton The Founding Fathers showed the way and built Our sturdy ships to last through all of time. Each has a moral compass showing guilt And innocence, thus exposing crime. The Western Canon’s smoke is drifting past Their sleazy, sinking, ships—all lost upon The sea, steered by a...

(Clearwisdom.net) Ancient Chinese people cherished time, which was revealed in their pursuit for the truth and the Dao, the cultivation of one's mind, the establishment of one's virtue and longevity, and a long-term view of the world. This frame of mind was closely related to traditional Confucian and Daoist beliefs....

By Aubrey Henderson I remember vast fields of Helenium; Yellow, trembling, dancing with fireflies, In the fading light of nature’s atrium, As the storm rolled in; black clouds and thunder’s cries. And cried my heart from my rain drenched chest, For the loss of love which would never bloom. Yet...

By Michael T. Young The pine's elected to the maple's post, the fly's buzzword is vetoed by the day, streams in a presidential race all boast in speeches glittering with icy spray. The squirrels lobby to protect their nuts, the honeysuckle prosecutes the bee, the Sun, pro-lifer that he is,...

On the shores of Gitche Gumee, Of the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood Nokomis, the old woman, Pointing with her finger westward, O'er the water pointing westward, To the purple clouds of sunset.     Fiercely the red sun descending Burned his way along the heavens, Set the sky on fire behind him, As...

By Yolanda Marín-Parker Mathematics is The language that nature speaks To the human fool. Fool – man is – for not Listening to the wonder, Patterns and numbers. Math is everywhere: From the money that you owe, To the leaves in trees. Structure of nature, The science of medicine, Chaos...

The Wu Wei-ter The Contemporary Artist The Modern Artist On a Wind-brushed Night

By Joshua Philipp The winds of change, so soft they blow. In the blink of an eye, a thousand years. Immeasurable is the great river’s flow, to sail, one must remove his fears. So fine, the ship on which we ride, with wind to carry all the sails. Across dark...

Li Jinyu is an artist living in Brooklyn, New York. Her paintings are strongly influenced by her practice of Falun Gong. According to Faluninfo.net: “Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that is Buddhist in nature. It consists of moral teachings for daily life, a meditation, and four gentle...

By Dan Skorbach I sit with you the silent moon of May, After the chores of day are soundly sleeping. Here, once again, you come to guide the way, For those who in the night are lost and seeking. You cross the boundless sky beneath the stars, And sit so...

By Evan Mantyk The Apocalypse: what would it look like? Half the people now gone, When the gods’ dike That holds back raging waters was half withdrawn. Weeds overgrown, buildings abandoned, Houses like faces of ghosts, And locals who look stranded On an endless cracked concrete coast. In the streets...

By Joshua Philipp Just as flowers fall, so shall we all What meaning to find before time makes its call To love and the spring Softly we’d sing Then what is left, for to dust turn the memories of all. Yet there was a time, so long ago When troubles...

Heaven’s Gate Opens After History’s Long March Over 7,000 years of human civilization, how many heroes have taken the stage? Rise and fall, success and failure are like waves gone by, Love, hate, gratitude, and resentment are like sand taken away by the ocean. Wise men and sages of the...

The American poet Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, CA. He spent his first 40 years mostly unknown, and it wasn’t until after returning to the United States from England—where he had his first two books of poetry published—near the beginning of the first World...

By Evan Mantyk Get this thing out of my mind, It should never undermine, It should go and let me be, It should go and I’ll be free! Tear it out from in my heart, From its madness I can part, From its gladness I can leave, From its sadness...

. Lepanto Editor's Note: Don John of Austria, or Don Juan de Austria, (1547-1578) was half-brother to King Philip II of Spain and a Spanish military commander who achieved victory over the Turks in the historic naval battle at Lepanto. White founts falling in the Courts of the sun, And the Soldan...

A hunchbacked man, at least a hundred years old Hobbles by as I wait for the train, I brace for the inevitable sharp pain, When his grotesque odor will soon take hold, But, to my surprise, instead, the proud bold Smell of a rich cologne reaches my brain And I...

So Far Beyond This The God of This World to his Prophet The Flautist of North Station