Poetry

  Sonnet by Joachim du Bellay (1522-1560) / Translation by Morgan Downs   If all our life is no more than a day In the Eternal; if the years which turn Chase off our days without hope of...

Walk with me, though both of us May wonder where we go . Talk with me, explore, discuss The things we may not know. Sit with me, through anxious hours Of waiting and of pain. Stay with me, to share...

Beneath Brambles A villanelle Beneath the tangled brambles, look around. Vines creeping, smothering, create the dark. A trillium insists her bloom be found. Canes strangle, branches slip to ghastly...

Requiem for September (or/ November Is Upon Us) Withering leaves Dying grasses Autumn is here Time Passes Gray skies Chilly days Brisk nights Life’s fabric frays Weary bodies Wracked with...

By Joseph Charles MacKenzie, for the Society of Classical Poets Born in 1939 Samuel Gilliland attended the ancient Dreghorn School in an old mining village on the right bank of the river Irvine, said...

  Cagney's Last Curtain Call Words shape my lips, words that I shall borrow, Pre-dawn, the sun, yet to fully arise, Caresses land edged by a bustling sea; Joy’s tears form, for I may weep...

Translation (1) By a hedge, the day before, I met a half-breed shepherdess Full of cheer and sense no less— A peasant woman’s child. She wore A cloak of fur. One could adore Her simple skirt...

  One afternoon, ‘neath forest tall, where Sunlight dons disguise, I saw a sight few people see (unless they’re telling lies); For under Swamp Mahogany there stood attired in green, An amusing...

Youths for Prophets, Without Sin As youths for prophets steer a course, Towards our futures of remorse, We forge a dauntless faith believed, Inspired by deeds not yet bereaved, And age which slows, and...

AMERICAN INCIPITS Ishmael “You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against...

  'Twas so much more on that morn before fall that we all came to mourn as it fell As the shadows that touched had borne, by its clutch, a scorn we remembered so well From the sky rained a fiery...

Cloaked in rumors of religion, looming bloodthirst Brings upon world’s drowning morals bouts of horror, As the force of chaos calls you... Depths that holler For damnation fan your frenzied rampant...

  We folks in Florida are quick to extol her amenity: The beach, the surf, the lifestyle announce unique identity. But, sometimes Mother Nature interrupts our serenity: The pointed target of Irma's...

The New Explorers See this figure? That’s the Spirit Sent up way back when to scout. She rolls around And samples rocks To see if any life’s about. We sent her up here Ages back To serve in the...

The best way to understand America is through the lens of football esoterica. If you have no clue where you belong, why not join the friendly football throng? Get to know the winners and the losers, then...

Hero for Hire About myself I feel so good I grabbed my club, I donned my hood I found a hater to beat Then on the other side of town I knocked another statue down it crumbled at my feet I am a hero...

Urban Butterfly What business have you here, In acrid air, to strain Through jagged glass and steel On a cracked asphalt plain. Faint, shady memory Of vernal vales of green – Wind-tossed, long-lost,...

The Sea My sleeping spirit wakes As the town’s vespers Climb the stairless sky And the sea whispers. The rushing waves crash On the craggy Shores of consciousness And the sea whispers. Like an...

Cicada and Mantis You are known to us by your choral song, The clicks and buzzes of an insect throng. Hidden in darkness, a collective hum Consumes attention like a temple gong. You are not known to...

By James Sale Donald Mace Williams Wolfe and Other Poems is an extraordinarily good collection of poems, clearly written by a veteran writer. The underlying credo of the collection is very aptly summed...

Submit three to five poems, each of which does not exceed 50 lines. Email as a word file or in the email body to submissions@classicalpoets.org. Put “Poetry Competition Submission” in the subject line...

  The bark came off the trunks before the leaves had dropped— the freeze sped up, the shade enlarged, the birdsong stopped. No forest hiss survived, no human sound, no sigh— it was to be the...

by E. Ducabe Wisler "Pray for Texas." —Ubs Reece Idwal The tropical cyclone named Harvey plastered Houston's plat, ten trillion gallons of rainwater in a constant splat; the size of Harvey, as immense as...

As times turned hard and harder yet, The Queen grew apprehensive— Relentless tides of change had made One luxury expensive. Reluctantly, she let her yacht Retire to Edinburgh— It was refitted for a...

  Poet's Note: "Back when I was eighteen years old, things were sort of grim with the Vietnam War and my draft status up in the air. I had just graduated from high school the week before and was...

I may as well be hired as his maid, the way I’m made to clean his toilet seat. Still worse, the only way I’m getting paid is that by cleaning the commode I treat myself to one as dry as that he...

Poetry before Writing “Greece down through the fifth century has aptly been described as a ‘song culture’.” ~ Michael Schmidt in The First Poets, 10, quoting Leslie Kurke, “The Strangeness of...

  Let us raise statues to the Prince of Peace: __Cain’s monuments are powerless to bind __Our hearts in summer’s sheaf, or to remind The world of our first fall through sin’s caprice. Our...

Poetry, as we have discussed in earlier parts of this article series, depends upon the Muses and accessing the deeper self or soul within each person; this is not an easy thing to do. In the 18th century Lord...

Proem In rhyming, timing is everything. Rhymes in wrong places make awkward spaces. A rhyme in rhyming knows more than prose. Rhymes are the rings you hear in the mind’s ear. Nature’s rhymes are free:...

A Villanelle  “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” —George Orwell From the first green grass we navigate— Through days & nights of wake...

by Cause Bewilder for Joshua Philipp Grave statue after statue falls with strict impunity. Memorials and monuments yield to community. The wind whips up no recollection; it cannot forget; the soldiers...

Higher Purpose Is there any higher purpose As they walk with faces down? Are they sure of destination As they shuffle through the town; With eyes grown unaccustomed To a world beyond their...

Passing of the Seasons When snow has melted, chill has gone, and winter turns to spring, The tender buds grow on the branches where the robins sing. The earth once brown is green again, blessed by the April...

Nesting Season Little sleep. The night heat did not relent. You startle me up as day breaks over the tent to show me the sea-turtle tracks you found through the bluestems behind the campground. I hardly...

He viewed the world with perfect form But upside down, not as the norm He lifted those who’d been down - trod And doing so, he followed God     Neal Dachstadter is a poet living in...

By Joshua Philipp Abbie Farwell Brown described the far north in his 1902 book, "In The Days of Giants," as "the land of the midnight sun, where summer is green and pleasant, but winter is a terrible time...

  I used to find it hard to lose at chess. I'd watch in disbelief the check and mate, think through the game and curse to find too late— I'd bought disaster with the bishop's press. In school,...

George and the Dragon In the Yorkshire dialect “Nah, sithee,” said Granny, “Just set thee dahn ‘ere, An’ I’ll tell thee a tale old and true, Of ‘ow good Saint George slew a dragon one...

The Journal It sat upon his bedside table, closed, And waiting to keep record of each day: The silent pages still and unexposed, A diary to come, his dossier. He saw it every evening as he bent To turn...