Poetry

Lyrics-The Forms and the History Lyric Poetry Lyric is short poem that conveys intense feeling or profound thought. In ancient Greece, lyrics were sung or recited to the accompaniment of the lyre. Elegies and odes were popular forms of the lyric in classical times. The lyric poets of ancient Greece included Sappho, Alcaeus, and Pindar; the major Roman lyric poets included Horace, Ovid, and Catullus. Lyrical poetry was also written in ancient India and China; and the Japanese verse called...Read Full Story

Dejan Stojanovic, Chicago, 1991 Here lies once splendid ancient Roman Villa in ruins. Remnants of a gorgeous mosaic—Venus and a flying dove on the floor—of big gardens, fountains and pools talk about her rich and lively history. The Roman wealthy patrician did not think of us looking at the mosaic of his Villa. He built it for posterity, yet desired to live longer than his creation. He thought he could deceive the uncompromising ruler—time. Although there was no real stock market then, he...Read Full Story

there are greater     poets                         perhaps but there is only         one                               cum                          m                                i                                n                                  g                                    s to be nobody but  yourself Plato did not say         this or we wouldn’t believe    it             he heard us (all)             in the silence unknowingly             we spoke to him...Read Full Story

Graphics by Susan Joyner-Stumpf (sonnetwolf designz) UNTETHERED TRUTHS what of ancient tears do they align themselves with stars collections of our fears defining what we are what of bends in a rose when winds tear petals free if storms are what we chose why do we drown in seas do you answer every call tread softly soil below or answer not at all and only to the echo what of passion that died is stillness what you seek grow from grief inside become the power that you reap would you give up...Read Full Story

…………… i dream, ….. Someday, everything . everywhere aware to my senses will have been aware OF the sense it makes, that I had come along . before the woken hour of epiphany; . floating through the scramble with every other body stuck where the sap has spun firm in our cosmic day, . I, with the firmament for a mind we gods of mortality all tend . to project our divinity onto; . I know someday will be come for the arrival of souls outgrown by...Read Full Story

The taste of Transylvania: Part 2 As I stood and turned to face him his knowing eyes drank in mine and I could feel myself being lost in his darkness.  He moved closer taking my face in his cold hand. His presence commanding and strong.  He overwhelmed me.  I let out a soft breath from my wine soaked lips as I gazed longingly at his face, searching his eyes, willing his mouth to kiss mine.  He gently ran a finger across my lips and then tilted my chin, exposing my neck up to the moonlight as...Read Full Story

Charles Simic This interview was published in the Serbian magazine Views , in August 1991, soon after the war in the former Yugoslavia started.  Charles Simic (1938) is one of the most respected and beloved contemporary American poets. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for his book The World Doesn't End: Prose Poems , a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Wallace Stevens Award, among many other honors. He was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in...Read Full Story

These nymphs, I would perpetuate them.                                                     So bright Their crimson flesh that hovers there, light In the air drowsy with dense slumbers.                                            Did I love a dream? My doubt, mass of ancient night, ends extreme In many a subtle branch, that remaining the true Woods themselves, proves, alas, that I too Offered myself, alone, as triumph, the false ideal of roses.   Let’s see….                     or if those...Read Full Story

Walt Whitman 1 I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death. Creeds and schools in...Read Full Story

Beloved Spirit; Pathways to Love, Grace and Mercy. Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave   In the wake of 9/11, author Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave took solace in a short prayer. She sensed a spirit of forgiveness at a harrowing time in a complicated modern world. This became a time of unexpected inspiration for Alexandra, who had never written poetry before. Now, ten years on from that fateful day, Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave releases the final chapter of her inspirational poetry trilogy...Read Full Story