William Butler Yeats: The Wild Swans at Coole
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky…
Deborah Bogen: Risk
In Sappho, the spaces name nothing — but the emptiness still speaks.
Donald Krieger: Unveiling
I listened to the learned
seeking meaning, hundreds crowded
into the Beth Shalom basement,
police in armor at the entrance.
Judith Sanders: A Mourner’s Kaddish
We must have forgotten thee,
o Jerusalem,
because our tongues cleave
to the roofs of our mouths
and our right hands
have lost their cunning.
Jason Irwin: Giuseppe the Shoe-Maker
Giuseppe, a simple shoe-maker,
who never learned English, stood
banging his head against the wall,
cursing God in his native tongue
Vincent Van Gogh: Art and Soul
A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.
Donald Trump: MAGA Sonnets
…you’re lucky I’m your president.
You’re so lucky. You’re so lucky, I always tell our great
First Lady, Darling, you’re so lucky.
Emily Dickinson: The Soul selects her own Society
The Soul selects her own Society —
Then — shuts the Door —
Neil Shepard: Seagull in a Bowl
Where gulls scavenge and float above the arcade,
Where waves break against the risings and pilings,
And the ring-toss winner sets off the dinging bell
And the girl laughs as the boy hands her a souvenir
Rita Sims Quillen: Taste and Other Mysteries
little oily sardines to lay on saltines
which he would make disappear
into the smile under his moustache
Ed Bieber: Cleverness
Nature is the master here: boundless, unpredictable,
full of astonishments. The children come next. I follow.
Molly Fisk: Native Landscape
Back then, the new growth on redwoods was the brightest
green and tasted of citrus, a good vitamin source if you were lost
in the woods, which I wasn’t, I was pure found girl skipping…
Mike Schneider: Bob Dylan’s Ballads of Murder, Drowning & Other Songs of Love
If one of the defining tendencies of post-modernism is breaking down borders between high and low culture—such as between Beethoven and Elvis, Dylan is a supreme post-modernist. The cultural compass inscribed by his work is huge, flattering us by the depth of his learning and song awareness. We can follow or not—the songs don’t care.
Charles W. Brice: Stupidity
The guy in his MAGA cap
yells at my friend
that she’s a scaremonger
for wearing a mask
