Poetry

Written upon reading the book How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World. The beast once foretold for the end of days Crouched in a Karl Marx statue erected Last month in Germany, where it displays A...

Little Girl She's fishing in a rock pool just abandoned by the sea She's too engrossed within her world to notice you and me. She sprawls to draw a picture open book upon the sand Great masters never...

Note: Joseph Charles MacKenzie would like to offer a 25% discount on the first edition hardcover of Sonnets for Christ the King to his fellow poets and readers of the Society of Classical Poets, in gratitude...

by James Sale FORMAL COMPLAINTS by Joseph S. Salemi, Somer Rocks Press, 1997 MASQUERADE by Joseph S. Salemi, Somer Rocks Press, 2005 SKIRMISHES by Joseph S. Salemi, Pivot Press, 2010 I first encountered...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Confucius Institutes "Three things cannot be hidden long: the sun, the moon and truth." —paraphrase of a Buddhist quote by Lu "Reed ABCs" Wei The Chinese...

Congratulations to the following winners! Thank you to judges Joseph S. Salemi, James Sale, and Damian Robin.   First Place $100 Prize: Ben Foreman, Cascabel, Arizona Cheesemaking Find a...

To Make a Poet “A man can learn the art of poetry,” You say, “and many learn this art by me.” Poetry teacher, render something clear: Tell me, how do you teach a man to hear?   The...

  I may have borne them each, but it was you, Whose shoulders carried weight I never knew, You set the bar so high, so straight, so true, The surest, strongest Dad?  Well, that was you. I may...

Form Sonnet Turn the page and write again today Make something come out of an eager mind Make something in a new and different way In something both of earthy and refined For when I strive it seems that...

See notes below for background and allusions. Olivia: Daughter, shall we sit and grieve together, And tie our two bêtes noires up with a tether? You had Ezra Pound and I had Yeats: Two poets now...

A short film by Gleb Zavlanov. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxnDmkKqaF4&feature=youtu.be Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds...

  Everlasting Chesterton The author, G.K. Chesterton: A playful epigramist, A master of the terse bon mot, And witty dithyrambist. He loathed pomposity and claimed (And I believe quite...

  I Love This Life a rondeau I love this life in spite of all the trying times and every wall I must tear down to find success, although sometimes my happiness is thwarted, slowing to a...

Curtain Up! Sunset and the robins sing, nightingales reply song that summer evenings bring, weeping willows sigh from lawns and from thickets a chorus of crickets ____serenades but remains out of...

  The sky boiled, As the earth ruffled, Clouds blew past, And the soil buckled. The dead came forth, And stood in wait, Believers noticed, Heavens Gate. As they watched, It opened...

These three sonnets come from the newly released poetry book Organ Harvest, by Damian Robin, which exposes the murder of prisoners of conscience, particularly peaceful Falun Gong practitioners, for their...

by Con Chapman Nyla Matuk and I have a few things in common; we are both poets (or in my case, claim to be), and we both know what sumptuary laws are, she having written a book of poems using that term as...

Canto 2 is part of a sequence of 33 Cantos called The English Cantos that James Sale is attempting to write in the style – and using the terza rima – of Dante. His aim is to create a contemporary epic of...

Wild Strawberry On summer strolls, I often find. Wild strawberry flowering in the wood, White leaf, gold bud, my cheerless mood Is ruffled clear, as fragrant wind Blows equally through flower, through...

I have not been to Medford, nor Milan; I have not seen a war, nor won the peace; I’ve risen to six thousand cloudy dawns that – not once – promised sun, and storms to cease. I have not stood to spurn...

Sometimes, when the light and the mists of the day _Settle holy and soft on the edge of the night, When the sights and the sounds of the world melt away, _And the vision that lives in the soul takes...

for Czesław Miłosz For a moment as brief and long as eternity he sees what the blind man sees in the blink of an eye: a sun that never sets, forms wrought from gold, purity before it falls or is restored...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) The Cat in the Red MAGA Hat by Carb Deliseuwe Eugenior Joseph took girlfriend and mom on Mother's Day to Cheesecake Factory, Miami, for a piece of cake. Though he was...

My Garden Lush, fresh-pruned verdure shades the cobbled path, It bursts with rich-hued blossoms strewn about Whence sweet aromas waft, blend, and enswathe, And droops with luscious, nectar-swollen...

The intricacies of script and figure are amazing. Kudos to the faithful who made contributions large or small. By far this volume is the greatest ever to present illuminated gospel. Ink was carefully...

The Seabirds Seagulls, on the air they glide, Over the waves to the land; Soaring across the sky, so wide, To softly land on the sand. Pelicans, floating in the sky, Upon the wind, so free; Across the...

Translation by David B. Gosselin   If I from this darkened valley Where the gloomy vapors creep Might by some wonder swiftly flee My soul could blessedly weep! Gazing upon this pure...

Boasted Viridian Said Viridian Green to Cerulean Blue, “The waves would be boring without me and you, The crashing unflashing, the sheen without glow, Silver unplugged: not luminous Bro.”   Of...

Song of Us Face to face, polite and careful, Tentative we were, and prayerful, Neither one of us would dare pull More from this than met the eye. . . . Yet Side by side we worked together, Hands of...

  Napoleon in New Orleans So the sun of Austerlitz has set. I had many triumphs, but it’s the few defeats – Leipzig, Waterloo especially – I struggle to forget. I struggled to rearrange...

Poet's Note: In this sonnet I'm paying tribute to the patriotic bikers who make their annual pilgrimage to Washington DC to participate in Rolling Thunder's First Amendment Demonstration Run every year on the...

By James A. Tweedie Call me a snob but I am generally attracted to what is commonly referred to as “great art” or the “masterpieces.” Over the years I have looked at famous paintings and I have looked...

Heritage as Hope I saw the cricket scene in evening light, In Windsor light with calm men moving through The evening air and dressed in cricket white. Long centuries are contained beneath the blue Of...

All poems translated from Russian. The Rock A gold cloud rested the whole night Upon the breast of a huge rock; And cheerfully at dawn it dashed Into the blue not to come back Wet traces in the...

Joy Comes Softly silent; kindly kept, ___the haunted hours crept. Moonlit minutes—marked and mute, ___the lonely doubt takes root. The tendrils twine; the rootlets reach. ___Somehow the sun must...

Bridge of Memories a symmetrelle in mixed syllabic meter A bridge built of memories spans the gap between future and past. Although life may speed by us too fast, from every experience, knowledge we...

I remember our marriage the horses, the carriage the millions we spent on your gown we threw out the book the foundations we shook as traditions came tumbling down twas a modern affair each sex...

The Archaeological Gardens at Giardini-Naxos 7 March 2018 The stones are overgrown with clover now, Drowned by daisies, fresh cape sorrel too; Orange or lemon globes gleam from each bough; Mankind’s...

  In an old timber town lived a man of renown; With a chainsaw he couldn’t be beat, And as quick as you’d say “What’s for dinner today?” Limbs would fall, cut precise and complete; And...

The pika climbs the snowless slopes in hope of finding cooler climes. A tailless kin to hares, he shelters under stones to cope with rising temps within his furry skin. The ball of fur appears to roll...