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English 379 Revisited
Not openly, as others loved, loved we, Lovers by night who dissembled by day, Were eager to debate a simile Or parse a metaphor, but balked to say A word in harmless badinage; nor dared To tease or touch, or even be alone, Till candled night enclosed usóbodies bared, Our…
To Botticelli
You give us newborn Venus, fair and innocent—her hands and hair arranged to hide her nakedness— an unexpected seemliness. Her flesh is pale, sweet, luminous— spun-sugar delicate, a gloss of candy rather than ripe fruit— weak nourishment for love's pursuit. The scalloped birth-shell floats on curls of froth. How could…
Watercolor Lighthouse
She sits by the fire easel set so she can easily look out the window to the tapestry of beauty which she is painting. Watercolors, expertly blended, the details of the painting become soft, a less defined portrait of the magnificent scene outside of her home by the sea. She…
Frank Salvidio
In addition to poems which have appeared in journals and anthologies, Frank Salvidio is the author of several books: Between Troy & Florence (original poems and translations), Sappho Says (translations of the poetry of Sappho of Lesbos), and translations of Dante's Vita Nuova and, most recently, the Inferno.
To This Coy Universe
[Many physicists predict that a rapidly accelerating universe such as ours means that the cosmos as we know it, and thus the future itself, will end.] O Universe! on which I used to depend, how is it that you, too, will end? The latest astro-notion, however right, claims that infinity…
Lollipop Lullaby
Whisk me away to the south of days where three cornered hats perform gypsy plays where wagon wheels bustle down autumn leaved ways whisk me away to the south of days Bounce me over the tumbleweed flats where chestnuts are marbles and donkeys wear hats where poodles do headstands and…
Winterscape
Showered by snowfalls as the branches break, The forest path grows dim in evening dusk. And owls reply, deep in the gloom awake, Like ghostly mourners for earth's icy husk. White over black, the snow-robed sentinels Cover the rushing stream, black waters roll, Resound through dream worlds, woods and fells,…
Rollin Lasseter
Rollin A. Lasseter retired in 2003 from the English faculty of the University of Dallas. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Vanderbilt University, and attended Yale University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. His dissertation was on W.B. Yeats. He was Director of the…
A Crown of Sonnets on the Euphronios Krater
The Museum Visitors The people hurry in and out of rooms of the museum that hold the ancient arts from Greek and Roman palaces and tombs, some whole and perfect. Most are now just shards. Their gift shop bags show what their first stop was: to buy post cards of…
Old Stones
Your father stoops to pick up a stone Gently, he lays it, a nice fit, in a small crevasse in an old wall. The larger stones were cleared by your father, your father's father, and before himóhis father to make a space for meager crops, keep the scrawny cattle in…
Madame Sosostris
With daily preparations made, she slumps into her chair, a fraying turban hiding graying threads of thinning hair. The hem is slightly tattered of her dress of velveteen. A peeking pair of slippers there have lost their silver sheen Around her slender shoulders drapes a shawl with golden thread. Stars…
Charles Plays the Ukulele
Charlie plays the ukulele in a small Manhattan bar at a crowded intersection near the pier, where the people buy their tickets for the Staten Island Ferry, and linger for a drink or two, or maybe just a beer. He knows he makes them happy, for they sometimes enter sadly,…
The Winter of Our Discontent
They say it is the winter of our discontent, when old boughs break and fingers shake, what raging nonsense! I find in it so many compensations stamped into the aging silver of my mind, a currency to spend and spend again. Things I've done, not always wisely, places I've known,…
Brian Bentley
Australian media writer, producer & director for Radio, TV & Print in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and overseas, now retired. 35 years writing and producing media presentations, advertising campaigns, special features and product promotions for direct clients, major advertisers and advertising agencies. I lectured for three years on Creative Media Writing…
Night in the North
Here in the North Night settles gently in a crystal sky a gradual ballet a slow cascade a pastel procession observed through sleepy eyes of hyrax, fox and deer, apple, cherry and the many forest trees now solstice approaches Night is less she compensates for this by her slow approach,…
Risking the Road
a turtle's crossing I should have trusted instinct, followed the impulse, but there was no shoulder, just two blades of lane, impenetrable shield of tall grasses bounding sprouting fields beyond, so I didn't stop. I wished her well, she straddled the line. Hovering where she could turn back, just as…
Groceries on the Path Unpaved
Right hand, Grocery bag. Left hand, Free. Her skin, Well aged ebony. Her voice, Calm and weak. She walks along the unpaved road, Vulnerable and meek. They stare, Each eye is a sharp blade. They jeer, But she passes by unscathed. Thrown stones Hit her brittle bones. She stumbles and…
Coming Home in a Haibun
Sixteen miles south on Highway 87 the road turns a sharp corner east. And the first head-on view of the blue green purple Bear's Paw range grabs me. Right in the solar plexus. Bright sun on mountains Cotton ball clouds dance colors over the prairie Then the small death. The…
Two Zinnias
Two zinnias in a glazed vase clipped by nuns' careful scissors, are the only decoration in this spartan room in a convent in Jerusalem but it is clean, the mattress comfortable flagstone floors, yellow- and red-ochre, have been polished to a gleam by passing shoes these one hundred years, even…
Tao of Taos
Dedicated to Wired? Coffee Cyber Cafe in Taos, New Mexico I A big Teddy Bear man rakes the pebbles of a Buddhist Zen sand garden out front A totem pole watches while water drips from boulders into pools in ancient rhythms And a rock-lined creek sings a song of renewal…
The Queen of the Sea
She has no castle, this queen, but coral reefs, No crown but woven weeds and shells, No crowds of waving love, nor chiming bells, No folds of silk and satin, no marching bands, No company but the Sultan and his reverent band To pay her tributes one day in a…
South Sea Odyssey
I Elusive treasure is my quest Glimpsed but as halo in the haze Stray eyelash caught in sunshine dust A fistula from long lost days Loose fragments from a fragile world Where time has leached through porous stone Kaleidoscope of patterns laid From memories so deftly hewn An Aztec temple,…
Miss Worthington
I saw her one last time. Erect and hating her condition she rolled her chair a little closer to the windows of her winter garden: “The elms will have to go, you know. The elms are sick… “I climbed them as a child.” There was that catch of hidden sadness.…
10 P.M. by the Singapore River
Night, illuminated by the multitudinous fragments of a thinking city. Languid giants tower over cruising bumboats breaking through the river's reflective reverie. The waters, skirted seductively by vibrant shophouses, stir closely-guarded memories; and people, going about various little lives. He looks around. Solitaire in that cubicle. Gossip at the pantry.…
The Bewick’s Wren
The nest of the Bewick's wren consists of twigs, hair, leaves, and grass, placed in a cavity, such as a mailbox, fence post, hole in wall, or birdhouse. Such nests have been found in greenhouses, garages, and sheds actively used by humans, which suggests a relatively high tolerance for disturbance.…
Morning
I woke slowly with the dawn, and the pale, rare light of early morn felt its way across the floor and clambered up the curious wood and danced on top where night had stood. A boy in my life's own morning, I woke to find that night had ebbed and…
I Am a Fado Song
Disguised beneath a shawl of antique lace or within a black shirt of the required style, I have the gift and its curse: my tradition is to perform miracles. I raise the dead. Melody and memory conjure my spells; I croon reluctant shadows back to life. My rhythms seduce stilled…
Jerusalem of Heaven, Jerusalem of Earth
I I think this place may break my heart. Around a corner lies the golden dome, burnished to a postcard glow; there a minaret rises like an amazed breath But that's not where I am. I am in these streets, narrow as a curse. The buildings crouch like beggars, their…
Uncovered
I prayed for months to Anthony, the patron saint of all things lost, to return the lace mantilla—white-thread netting interwoven with roses, pearl-like beads—that I'd worn to Mass each Sunday. I prayed and waited, in a sort of test. What sort of saint would deny the devout request of a…
Spinning Pearls
Nandi sits alone, untended, Quiet time at her command. The silent moments Slip on by her, One by one; A string of pearls Made deftly out of fossil moonlight; Nandi sits alone. Her thin hand draws A languid arc all spindled out of Rainbow promise; See it spill Picasso petals…
On the Border
1. Over hills once named in Phoenician someone upstairs is moving furniture, heavy stuff it groans massive over stone floors, encountering bombed roads and bridges it makes detours through cobbled streets, hides in cellars and tunnels, under schools, places of worship, hospitals. Someone is calling for blood, transfusion offered but…
Fragments From Crete
Anemones and cyclamen grow wild on Kríti, fine-veined, blue, pink and mauve. A house hangs on the cliff face with bright blue shutters thrown back against lime-washed walls. Scarlet geraniums tumble down small steps and bare feet brush terracotta tiles. On a table a silver necklace, spiralled and shining, is…
Papa Bill
My grandfather was a great man. My sister used to mix his drinks for him when she was six A pint of bourbon every day. Smoked the walls gray He was a good man. Worked hard every day, waxed his black broad Plymouth till the paint ran thin, My sister…
Kristopher Smotherman
Remembrance
Do you remember my voice? Whispering hushed breathlessness, soft, polite, but pointed. Elocution elicited eloquence. It was evocative, at times, provocative. Do you remember my tone? A mélange built from mortar of Miss Porter's, purrs preferred at Vassar, and Parisian poets salon songs picked up at the effete elite Sorbonne.…
Island Matinee
The raucous early ferry carries swarms of sun-seekers all planning to be ingénues again acting out their dramas on a pocket handkerchief patch of sand. Battered and paint denied, a line of beach huts stands like lone sentinels surrendering to the invading horde, as a rude harshness of sound swirls…
Du Temps Perdu
1 April is taxation month, trimming Hedges, tidying up the lawn, fixing Paths and fences, packing Compost round the roots again. Winter, central heated, steamed up The Thames past Westminster Bridge. Summer we booked at Torremelinos, Insured against the rain. We took a villa, Strolled through the sunshine to the…
Raymond Southall
Love’s Labor Found
a romp through retrieved forms and loves Prologue He—shallow, callow with no rightful truthful name, He—trapped and shackled in the white man’s sinful rule, without the chance to laugh or understand, so lame I was—society’s begotten shameful tool, while learning how to be a god-damned simple fool; sweet innocence already…
Osmond Benoliel
Weather Report
I used to long for rain: blue skies in childhood arraigned me like a disapproving judge: they sentenced me to obligations I could not fulfill. Invariably, they made me ill. Suburbia's idea of play was onerous: the promised feast of Little League and summer days pursuing, hitting, catching, throwing (mostly…
One Man’s Legacy
It was a long and exhausting ride on my bike; a straight run over four hours and not knowing if I would make it in time, or even if I wanted to, had jarred my mind as well as my body. It was almost sundown. I stood in my father's…
Cicadas
It was not so much that they were unsightly, Sybil told her husband. Their simply being under her nose all day long made her uncomfortable as if she ought to go out and do something. But if she did, then they'd be underfoot forever, on her hands. Hugh laughed. “Dear…
Remembering August 20, 1969 on Memorial Day
An intriguing chain of events began with a story titled “The Postcard”, by Rocky Bleier (with David Eberhart) in the 2001 edition of Chicken Soup for the Veteran's Soul. It caught my attention as I was browsing through displays in a local bookstore in Lincoln, Nebraska. As I glanced at…
Bailey Is in Heaven
My name is Carly Ann. I live in a very small rural town in Georgia, in the great USA. Our town is not on a famous attractions map, but we do have a beautiful lake and abundant fishing ponds. Our weather is decent enough and seldom do we have to…
The Balcon
The stranger came for the first time to Mass on Tuesday, along with the few elderly women from the village of Las Barrancas who daily attended the almost empty church. He sat alone up in the rickety wooden balcon that hadn't been used for years. There was something disturbing about…
Hall of Fame
Standing in the middle of Main Street, Cooperstown, New York, was like stepping into 1950s America. At least that's what my son, Jeff, and I thought when we arrived at the Baseball Hall of Fame in late September 2008. The day was spectacular with oaks and maples ablaze in brilliant…
The Brave One
Acts 9: 1-19 The young boy saw the Temple Guard coming and dodged down an alleyway, hiding behind a pig pen. The foul odor of the forbidden animals filled his nostrils, but he made no sound. He prayed in his mind for the guard to pass by him so he…
Paper Daughter
Jing-mei's sixth and final interrogation fell on August 12, 1940. Sunlight cut through the Angel Island fog and streamed through the window directly into her eyes. She blinked but dared not move. One slip meant deportation back to China. The moon-faced officer approached her, and his shadow blocked out the…
The Right Eye of Justice
Audra Stern shot Ollie Kovak in self-defense. At least that's what the court decided, after a week's worth of deliberating. It had been building to that point for some time. Some said as far back as VJ Day. The nation had barely closed the door on WWII when we found…
