BY JEDIDIAH PASCHALL
Claude Monet upended public opinion of what good art was well over a century ago. Monet had a different vision of the world. The world wasn’t just a real place to be captured by the artist’s brush. Monet’s courageous point of view saw the world as sacred, dynamic, connected, and full of light. To this […]
Read MoreIntroduction It might be narcissistically indulgent to provide an introduction for my own work, but I ask the reader to bear with me. Usually, I don’t try to offer much commentary on my poetry. However, Sketches for a Wasted Youth represents a certain crossroads for me as a Christian of the mystical persuasion […]
Read MoreIn Memoriam – George Floyd Hail! proud warrior, for that final breath given to your people, becoming to us all a living symbol perfected in death. Victory! proud warrior, belongs to you this Memorial Day, we cast garlands on your veteran’s grave for the life you gave fighting the longest war in Earth’s […]
Read MoreThe first language of poetry is silence. All art begins with the imposing vacuum of the blank canvas. All music must spring forth from inaudible melodies. Before the truth of nature or the Divine can be grasped, the creative mind must be inclined to the vacant spaces. For one to discover meaning in shafts of […]
Read MoreA Prayer of Confession Forgive us Lord, For not gazing with gratitude Upon the dandelion, Whose beauty is no less stately than the rose; Dancing on a dilapidated lawn beside the ramshackle home, Dazzling us with her sunfire shine, Reminding us that no overlooked corner, no overworn space is incapable of being touched by […]
Read MoreThe following is an excerpt from Erich Auerbach’s 1929 publication, Dante: Poet of the Secular World – ‘The story of Christ is more than the parousia of the logos, more than the manifestation of the idea. In it the idea is subjected to the problematic character and desperate injustice of earthly happening. Considered in itself […]
Read MoreFor Whom the Bell Tolls No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own […]
Read MoreWhen you’re going to hit something on the nose, hit it hard and fast and often. — Aristotle… or Confucius (whatever, I found the quote on the internet) … Only the flicker Over the strained time-ridden faces Distracted from distraction by distraction Filled with fancies empty of meaning… — TS Eliot from Burnt Norton, The […]
Read MoreCome now child, here now child, You with the clear eyes We will leave this valley floor and Ascend San Jacinto’s snowy heights Rising rose in twilight’s blushing glance. They say this peak was named for a boy Who defied an emperor and dying, deified – Joined the empyrean company clothed In the same […]
Read MoreThere are few poems in the English language as bone-chilling as WB Yeats’ “The Second Coming”. This year marks the century anniversary of a poem that captivated and terrified the modern world. One needn’t be familiar with Yeats’ Irish nationalism, Theosophical inclinations, or his occultism to gain entrance into his imagistic rendering of the collapse […]
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ST. JUDE'S TAVERN 