H C Palmer: Two Poems
My father believed the bedrock beneath our ranch—
once an immense sea—
was still alive, that natural rhythms persisted
in its sluggish consolidation.
Naomi Shihab Nye: 300 Goats
O lead them to a warm corner,
little ones toward bulkier bodies.
Lead them to the brush, which cuts the icy wind.
Another frigid night swooping down
Rachel Trousdale & Charles W. Brice: Two Elegies for Renée Nicole Good
I think of long dead Germans caught in the Bardo.
Are they wagging their fingers at us?
Now you know what it felt like, they say
Valerie Bacharach: Barbara, I’m Sipping Coffee
My hands have morphed into my mother’s; arthritic knuckles, thin skin, and yesterday I
discovered her Mah Jong set dumped in a guest closet
Stuart Kestenbaum: Prayer for Joy
Every butterfly knows that the end
is different from the beginning
and that it is always a part
of a longer story
Naomi Shihab Nye: Generations
At the end of an unseasonably warm day
New Year’s Eve 2017
I stood in my kitchen holding
one wooden spoon.
Vox Populi: The Most Popular posts of 2025
Since mainland China blocks western media, I was very surprised a few months ago when a flood of visitors from China began clicking on Vox Populi.
Chard deNiord: Erebus
This is the river’s music that still plays
like the wind in its accompaniment
to the only song I know how to sing
Barbara Crooker: When I Gave Away My Tent
…some protection from sun, snow, rain in this, the very imperfect
twenty-first century where working two jobs isn’t enough to get
an apartment in a country where too much is not enough.
Michael T. Young: How to Read a Poem
The experience of reading a poem should not start in the meaning first, but in the feelings it evokes just hearing those words, in the images, and rhythms carrying you along, much like a good song.
David Kirby: The Way I See It
I wonder if our bosses have any idea how much time we spend
thinking about them. My friend Silvia can’t sleep because
she can’t remember the name of her boss from twenty years ago.
Ma Yongbo: A Dream at the Beginning of Winter (English & Chinese)
The broad leaves of the sycamore tree fall onto the small car,
once all the leaves have fallen, the car’s colour turns white,
receiving signals from the stars of the departed
