Author The Society

by James Sale Carol Smallwood In the Measuring is a substantial new collection of 77 poems by Carol Smallwood. Carol is well-known to readers of The Society of Classical Poets, as her poems regularly...

  In Officio Exsequarium Come, let us bid the last of our farewells To one who sleeps on the retiring ship; November’s breath respires the mournful knells; “Lord, give him rest” is murmured...

Autumn Wind by Yuan Xi, translated by Jennifer Zeng and Damian Robin From far off, Autumn wind runs at us in a rush! Across a thousand miles, displacing clouds with sky, (And crowding through the dark,...

Hallowe’en by Sheri-Ann O'Shea Oh! Hallowe’en is not about the grave __Or ghosts or horrors fit to make men rave It’s not about black witches and black cats __Or goats or toads or spider webs or...

John of the Mountains To him we owe a mammoth debt, our grateful thanks and praise, For the lasting conservation trails with foresight he did blaze. A “voice calling in the wilderness,” like John the...

This universe of ours will end As we then return to the source. No more wounds to tend or to mend, As the source will chart a new course. When all the sands of time run out And existence must start...

The Ballerina Just before the break of day she woke from dreams of grand jeté and knelt beside her bed to pray. Like a feather, then she rose and slipped into her warm-up clothes to dance in silence...

There are kingdoms to rule if your foot’s the right size _____or your beauty is flawless and rare. With a tune and a tower, you’ll capture brave hearts -- _____if you don’t mind his boots in your...

Blasted granite marks the trail Guttered through eternal rock. Windborne smoke and ashes veil Mountain peaks through which we walk. Upward blue sky’s endlessness; Downward glimpse of lakes...

As yet untouched by any writer’s thought you’re still pristine and perfectly unspoiled. Just like a botox-frozen face that ought to pull and stretch, from life you have recoiled. Expressionless, your...

by Evan Mantyk Where is Homer? The epic poems of the famous Greek bard were the cornerstone of education for young Socrates, Alexander the Great, Roman emperors, William Shakespeare, and every serious...

(poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) The Viacruces del Migrante, migrant caravan, which started out two hundred strong has grown to thousands, and keeps on increasing as it travels north through Mexico, on foot, on...

Birthday Greetings As themes show signs of nature's stay, And time’s propitious dates hold sway, The evidence augurs your bloom, From sculptured years that now have hewn A shapened belle upon a...

Sonnet 201. The Force that Through the Green Fuse Pulls the Poem. Written in the Dylan Thomas Museum, Swansea. July 2017 Oh to be the Poet! Love the words And see them wound around the teeth and tongue, To...

  Why is it when you’re down and out, you’re also out of luck? Success they say is easy, “you’ll find it in a book.” I waded through a finance book, and on the middle page; Invest...

Solid Ground Our greatest philosopher David Hume, Whose logical doubts leave naught to assume, Used skeptical arguments he had found To leave nothing on solid ground Until a Kant came walking along And...

by Joseph Charles MacKenzie Read the Selected Poems from Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal online. Email [email protected] for details on purchasing the book. Two arts are beautifully displayed in...

  I woke this day beside the two-way Wye, at peace with wars too often waged inside between the push of how, the pull of why. The river, calm against the ebbing tide, displayed an ease I had not...

United They Fall Exhausted armies cling to noble trees along the margin of a meadow mown two weeks ago.  It's fifty-five degrees, and summer's long campaign is at an end, the bugles stilled, except...

Ah, now comes the mellow season, Marks its time with jackdaws caws. Autumn with its rusty reason Offers forth its season’s laws. Now no more the pretty laces, Florals found along the way. Brackish...

by Manfred Dietrich The world is riddled with riddles. Riddling is as old and as ubiquitous as language itself. When God invited Adam to name the beasts and the beauties of creation, he showed that each...

  For Elizabeth La Cienega slept on a muted afternoon At old Las Golodrinas, when I spied a nest Of swallows beneath the age-worn latias, hewn By a hand that is gone with the days that were...

  So delicate at first, the music swells And fills with brilliance of a dawning sun Each listener and cracks the callused shells The world has formed around our heart. And none Remain unmoved as...

  An acrobat named Larry Loops was best among all circus troupes, But he quit one day and was heard to say, “My boss made me jump all those hoops!”   There once was a man from...

In his bedsitter years, he was alone And all his dreams were haunted by some girl More wonderful than any precious stone Who’d bring fulfilment to his empty world. The loneliness pressed on him, dense...

Dark Devil’s Pool, where Spirit of the Tweed __Conceived the first-born of the Tuede clan; __Each maiden fair, and muckle braw each man, __With “Thol and Think” their battle-cry and creed. They built...

“Religion is an opiate of the masses,” So says the Prof. lecturing to his classes. “College used to be a carrier pigeon For this terrible thing called ‘religion.’ Where all were forced to swallow...

by Charles Eager William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, in 1770—the same year as gave us Beethoven, Hegel, and Hölderlin—and died at the age of eighty, rich in the knowledge of his...

Death Is the Cooling Night by Heinrich Heine Death is the cooling night, Life is the sultry day, But now darkness settles And I long for respite. Outside my window looms a tree; In it sings the...

For John McCain, Ernest C. Brace, & Alexander Solzhenitsyn I season my pen with the sonnet's blood, And do not reason with a moonless sky, Thus, in durance, we hearken to the wry Whisper of words from...

I . The Accused: “Your Honor… And if I were a troubled lad and if indeed I did go bad, it matters not what I've done since? No point in trying to convince when crushed between the iron jaws of...

a Petrarchan sonnet Life’s hills have been trampled since first we met, That mad, magic moment long years ago, When your smile lit fires in the candle’s glow And trapped me forever in Venus’...

—from A Gallery of Ethopaths* For those of us who cherish text, There’s anguish in what I’ll say next. The world of letters, by tradition, Was one of grace, style, erudition— A shrine to language...

  Pure of any mortal mote ___and boundless (but for sight): The deep dry sky of Autumn ___inscribes the shadows bright. (For what could dusty leaves conceal ___from such an endless eye? What...

  The butterfly, the sea anemone, And snowflake, though possessive of the true Design of grace and perfect symmetry, Seem crude and ugly when compared to you. The stars that line the deep, black...

The Coworker A “need-to-know” it’s called in Personnel and I’m just high enough to need to know she’s going through that quiet hell of watching someone’s life she loves recede. A bit more...

After RFK __I’m named for one about whom Lowell wrote That doom was woven in his veins. In June Of 1968, my father trained To blow-up bridges at an Army base In the Show Me State when news ambushed The...

Painted, woody there it stands, this door behind which kingdom fans. Bright with order, calm with ease, a wooden plank with hidden seas. A plight to pick which path is best, the fallen stairs or the...

by James Sale Wind in the Cave, Finishing Line Press, 2017 Out of Nothing, Shanti Arts Publishing, 2018 Recently in a poetry review of another poet on these pages I commented that the poet had included 33...

Translation by Evan Mantyk "The Ballad of Mulan" was written in the sixth century about a legendary warrior, Hua Mulan, who lived during China’s Northern and Southern dynasties period (420–589...