The Saint Lucia flag reflects the tropical sky,
with the colour blue representing fidelity
and the emerald waters
of the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.
Gold represents the prevailing sunshine
and, of course, prosperity.
The triangles, they symbolize mountains,
the Soufriere twin Pitons,
and the people's hope and aspirations.
While there, couldn't help but smile,
for tho' located north of the equator,
with my eyes on an unusual sight
where, low on the horizon, and with clear skies,
I saw the Southern Cross every night.
Since it already exists
Why does Mr. Macron resist
Simply recognize France’s Palestinian revolution
Forget the ‘two-state Middle East solution’
Lawlessness comes home to roost
Israeli settlers’ troubles self-induced
Fool ‘lawmakers’ look the other way
for their crimes, settlers never pay
Yet killing innocents wasn’t enough
now a church attacked, Huckabee got tough
When Arabs attack them, settlers are rightly up in arms
but it doesn’t entitle them to do a church any harm
If they don’t get the message this time, along with their fool supporters
Messrs. Huckabee and Trump will give the settlers their marching orders
We'd played each other on the
song guessing app for
six years, ever since we were matched up
when I visited Iceland in 2016; we
both liked Classic Rock and stuck to
70s playlists
For a few weeks one year (2022) I was
"out of sorts" and didn't log in; when
I next opened the app
I saw Haraldur had terminated our six-year
rivalry
I mean, I led him by 540 to 86 games,
he was a bit slow,
but I valued our unspoken international alliance
It stung for a while but my
main concern was that my wife,
whenever I played the game,
always asked me how 'your friend Olaf' was doing
And now I just can't admit that he's
no longer my friend
I am 55 years old
There are songs that you will never sing
There are lips that will never speak
There are voices that you will never hear
And there are some hearts that you cannot move
For the world don’t know the rhythm
Stay on the path that you are on and destiny
Will compose a new song
The rhythm is bellowing in my ear
But it is not for everyone to hear
Change your tune from midnight to noon
When everyone is eating with knife and spoon
And they and they are swollen with wine in broad daylight
For everyone knows your name
The song that you can never sing
is your heartfelt rhythm.
June 21, 2025
For the Beatles 'Lay it to Me' song Contest by Charles Messina
The old iron curtain came down
But soon a clown reclaimed the crown
Ruthless and hollow-souled he rose
Now a foul Soviet wind blows
From the east it battered Ukraine
Spreading such cruel and endless pain
The past returns in blackened char
“Back in the U.S.S.R.”
I am the voice of your conscience
You would bury my memory
Erase me from your history books
But I refuse to go away, I refuse to die
Here I am today, thousands of years after
you would have buried me in Modi’in…
in Jerusalem… at the tip of Mohammed’s sword…
in Torquemada’s Spain… in Luther's ‘Reformation’
In your swarming Eastern and Western European ghettos
in Czarist Russia, in Stalin’s USSR, in Hitler’s Third Reich
in Poland, Lithuania, Egypt, Syria Lebanon, in ‘Palestine’ too…
Yet I, the Jew, voice of your conscience, stand my ground
To remind you that my unshakeable love of God and my People Israel
is stronger than your visceral hatred of my redoubtable faith...
For 'Mother Russia,’ 'Nationalist China,’ 'America the Free’ will go the way
of Ancient Greece and Babylon ~ but I shall still be around…
In the debate between dubbing and subbing
I side with subs to savor the original
mellifluous French, Tamil, Korean, Italian...
Reading the subtitles assists the deaf
and hard of hearing although voiceovers
benefit the blind and vision impaired.
Historically dubbing was employed
by fascist governments to advance
the nationalist agenda. In our own time
the tendency to consider dubbers dumb
implies reading’s the indispensable skill.
My wife reads her mail while watching movies
so she prefers dubs. I admire her mastery
of two idioms simultaneously
but my limited bandwidth favors subs.
Varnished Tech Titans
Tattered totems tarnished
Viral tribal bible spiral
Tainted talismans taunted
Cash cows flaunted
Gerontocracy trumps democracy
Theocracy stumps hypocrisy
Autocracy dumps diplomacy
Haunted schism prism
Vaunted Fat Cats
Enigma?…just
Dogma & Stigma
Tit for Tats
Martian Martial law
Doff your hats
To techno-*wats
And petro-*rats
Deplore or Encore?
Poor Planet in flux
All about the bucks
Ersatz Fat Cats
Well More is More!
My Inn by NoelsArt
Humans are a hotel.
Each day a new check in,
Happy, Sad, Good, or Bad
Welcome to My Inn!
Smiling, “May I help you?”
“Here’s the key to Room 2.”
“Enjoy the breakfast buffet
and enjoy the coffee too.”
Smiling at my frown
Laughing at my sorrow,
“Okay, spend the night”
“But, begone by tomorrow.”
Be grateful to new check ins,
they’ve all been Uberred in,
in from where it all began, and
in from where it all will end.
Comments: Inspired "The Guest House" by Rumi
Poem ‘Oblivion’
Drastic times calls forth bold demands,
Not quiet hearts or passive hands.
For change to rise, the roofs and roots must shake,
To build a new, immoral and unethical ways must break.
Sometimes it takes the patience to fall,
To raise up justice, loud and tall.
Opposition paves the path, it’s true,
For something better, bold, and new.
Wrongdoing for too long has been bought.
For so long, people of the past have fought
Acts of misconduct is in plain sight.
We must fight wickedness and injustice
With all our might.
Together we must unite and stand strong.
Before we go down the path of oblivion
From them doing wrong.
It’s time to stop pussyfootin’ around
time to bite the bullet and bear down
Time to forget Gaza, Hamas and Hezbollah
time to go after the ‘big fella’
It’s time to take down Iran
the only way Israel’s war will be won
Time to do so by whatever means necessary
For Iran is your number one adversary
Forty-five years she’s funded proxies’ terror
To let her be has been a huge error
So, go on the attack, Israel. Quick, take her out
There’s no longer one grain of doubt
Trump will be sitting this out
Or is Israel just hot air ~ Netanyahu, all talk
Shifting alliances make nations queasy
though status quo frankly leaves them uneasy
Boris Badenov
wasn’t quite Gudenov
The city exhales steam like a tired beast,
its breath pooling in alleyways
where no one walks anymore.
Cold, wet cobblestones gleam
like the backs of forgotten coins,
each one holding a secret
you must step lightly not to disturb.
Streetlamps blink like they’re remembering
how to dream—
orange halos shivering on the slick asphalt,
casting shadows
with no one to belong to.
Shop windows sleep behind
grimy glass and rolled-down gates,
whispering to each other
in the hush of the sodium dark.
Rain slicks the world into a mirror
and I walk through it—
a ripple in the ghost of a market square,
where footsteps echo
as if they're unsure
whether they’re mine or someone else's
long gone.
Neon signs flicker with old jazz—
an inaudible tune,
all hush and blue
and the smell of wet iron
lingering like a lover's forgotten scarf.
I am alone, but the night is not empty.
It is full of watching things—
brick mouths and sewer grates,
broken clocks stuck at almost midnight,
windows that sigh when no one’s listening.
The city speaks its truest voice
only when no one asks.
Specific Types of International Poems
Definition | What is International in Poetry?