Tag: Poetry
-
Solitude
Donna PuccianiWheaton, Illinois, United States You’ve got to walk that lonesome valley . . . —American Folk Song We learn to be alonefor months when microscopicmurder floats in the airlike so much smoke. We learn to fearthe passing strangerwhose only misdeedis walking two large dogson our shared sidewalk,their communal breathexploding in lethal stardust. We learn…
-
Pink and yellow
Govind Krishnan Durham, North Carolina, United States The Magpie by Claude Monet. 1868 – 1869. Musée d’Orsay. Via Wikimedia I am wearing pink, I have a rosy glow My breaths are even, measured, slow The doctors come and go. Come and go. Come and go. But sometimes they mutter, their heads bowed low. And…
-
Things to think
Dean Gianakos Lynchburg, Virginia, United States Detail of: A crossword fanatic ringing up a doctor in the middle of the night to find the answer to a clue. Line block after D.L. Ghilchilp, 1925. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Think in ways you’ve never thought before. If the phone rings,…
-
Hope quarantined
Prasad Iyer Singapore Poet’s statement: This fictional poem expresses the feelings of a migrant separated from his family during the COVID pandemic. Photo by Logan Fisher on Unsplash Quarantine forceth divorced souls Distanced families and broken wholes Shards of thoughts, impaling my core Locked down borders’ hearts a sore Shallow slumber,…
-
Novalis: The white plague and the blue flower
Nicolas Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain Figure 1. Bust of Novalis at Nikolaifriedhof (Weiβenfels). Photo by Doris Antony on Wikimedia. CC-BY-SA-2.5. Novalis was the pseudonym and pen name of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr1 von Hardenberg, a poet, author, mystic, and philosopher of early German Romanticism. Young Hardenberg adopted the pen name “Novalis” from his twelfth-century…
-
Prayer to St. Roch, patron of plague sufferers
Jack Coulehan Stony Brook, New York San Roque. Francisco Ribalta, between circa 1600 and circa 1610. Museu de Belles Arts de València. Via Wikimedia. Please take your work to the next step, St. Roch, beyond being a friendly ghost to the lost. Bring us back from the edge. Pour out the healing grace of your…
-
Deserving but unrecognized: the forty-first seat
Marshall A. LichtmanRochester, New York, United States The Nobel Prizes Each year on December 10th, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death, the Nobel Foundation and the Swedish royal family recognize the individuals deemed to have made the greatest achievements in chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, and literature; and the Norwegian Nobel Committee recognizes “the person…
-
When I heard the learn’d epidemiologist
Dean Gianakos Lynchburg, Virginia, United States Photo by prottoy hassan on Unsplash Sitting on the maroon recliner in my den, I am having trouble concentrating on the epidemiologist who is talking on the television. He points to a Covid hot zone on a color-coded map of the United States. The screen changes before I can locate Virginia.…