A Poem for the 2025 U.S. Presidential Inauguration: ‘Free People’ by Daniel Rancio The Society January 19, 2025 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 6 Comments Free People In some sense, free people have no needOf poets to give their speech a better voice.But freedom wanes without great art and heedOf powers that will enslave us with rejoiceIf only given a chance....
‘Stones for My Parents’ and Other Poetry on Grieving by Brian Yapko The Society January 19, 2025 Beauty, Poetry 25 Comments . Stones for My Parents I didn’t want to come. How sad it sounded To kneel beneath a hazy sun surrounded By strangers’ graves---grim watchmen for the bones Of those who’ve crossed the Bridge. The ghosts...
‘Whoever Am I?’: Poetry by Prudentius, Translated from Latin by Margaret Coats The Society January 19, 2025 Beauty, Poetry, Translation 26 Comments . Whoever Am I? Preface to His Poetry .by Prudentius (c. 4th century AD)translated by Margaret Coats If I see clear, through fifty yearsI’ve lived. The seventh after them appears to wheelAround as we enjoy...
‘The Hectic Life’ and Other Poetry by Thor Kangas The Society January 18, 2025 Beauty, Poetry 7 Comments . The Hectic Life _Sometimes we get discouraged _With life and all its fuss, Its raucous moments speeding by _Like children on a bus. _It’s all the hectic worries, _The troubles and the stress, That pull us...
‘Death Is But a Passing’: A Poem by Roy E. Peterson The Society January 18, 2025 Beauty, Love Poems, Poetry 13 Comments . Death Is But a Passing A death is but a passing from one world into another, A change of state, a change of place, a starting to discover, A test of fortitude perhaps for those I leave behind, A change of...
‘Pearls or Swine?’: A Rondeau Redoublé and a Villanelle by Susan Jarvis Bryant The Society January 17, 2025 Beauty, Poetry, Rondeau Redoublé, Satire, Villanelle 22 Comments . Pearls or Swine? Pray show me how to tell a pearl from swine. I have a thirst for sanity to slake. I seek a clue---a firm not fluid sign To steer me from the sway of all that’s fake. While Einsteins whine...
‘Best of the Windy City’: A Poem on Chicago and Other Poems by Russel Winick The Society January 17, 2025 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 12 Comments . Best of the Windy City Nation’s hub and culture center, O’Hare Airport, millions enter. Stunning architecture sites, The awesomeness of Frank Lloyd Wright; Union Stockyards fed the nation; Second City...
‘Elusive Illusive Art’ and Other Poetry by Mike Ruskovich The Society January 16, 2025 Art, Beauty, Poetry, Villanelle 1 Comment . Elusive Illusive Art Where are the pure, illusive works of artthat bubble upward from the deep unknown?Where in this world are worlds Art sets apart? Duct tape? A banana fresh from the cart?Renoir would...
Song Version of ‘The Day the Poetry Died’ by Steve Shaffer The Society January 16, 2025 Culture, Music, Poetry 20 Comments . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF6v6ES3FMU . This is song was originally a poem published by the Society of Classical Poets in March, 2018. . The Day the Poetry Died Wonder why poetry is in...
Four Newsy Limericks by James A. Tweedie The Society January 15, 2025 Limerick, Poetry, Satire 10 Comments . Four Newsy Limericks . A pedophile, if you should see one, Must not be reported. The reason? __It could be your fate __That you’d be charged with “hate.” A crime worse by far than to be...
‘A Pleased Jaques’: A Poem by Bruce Dale Wise The Society January 15, 2025 Beauty, Poetry 10 Comments . A Pleased Jaques ---after a soliloquy in Shakespeare's As You Like It At first there is the infant, grinning widebecause he has escaped his nurse's armsand her chagrin, in short shirt takes his stridearound...
‘My Soul Is at Home in the Depths of the Ocean’ and Other Poetry by Corey Elizabeth Jackson The Society January 15, 2025 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 7 Comments . My Soul Is at Home in the Depths of the Ocean My soul is at home in the depths of the ocean; My soul is at home in the cosmos above, Always adventuring, seeking to grow and Wreathing my body in infinite...
A Rondeau on the Fish Behind the California Water Shortage, by Susan Jarvis Bryant The Society January 14, 2025 Poetry, Rondeau, Satire 28 Comments . O Delta Smelt O Delta Smelt of silver scale, O threatened gem of fin and tail, In brackish waters made just so By crimson hands as ill winds blow, Your saviors sing of Toad and Whale. As fires rage and...
‘The Lemon Tree’: A Poem by Satyananda Sarangi The Society January 14, 2025 Beauty, Poetry 18 Comments . The Lemon Tree We leave the house, the nurtured lawn is gone; The garden still resembles lifeless works Of abstract art; at times banana leaves Seem painted by a brush. I look upon The fruiting lemon tree, a...
‘Out in the Open’: A Poem by Steven Frattali The Society January 14, 2025 Beauty, Poetry 5 Comments . Out in the Open The slanting rain comes on and on! The cold drops blear and blur the sun When they hang in my eyelashes. My heavy stomp in the mud mashes The leaves and twigs and mud together. I plough on...
‘Payday’ and Other Poetry by C.B. Anderson The Society January 13, 2025 Culture, Poetry, Satire 14 Comments . Payday Before the crash, the market looked so strong. I doled out cash and credit, buying in While others sold. But, sadly, I was wrong About this, confidence my greatest sin, And I have duly suffered, if...
‘Magna Lex’: A Poem by Jeff Kemper The Society January 13, 2025 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 10 Comments . Magna Lex ---to the choirmaster, a Psalm (19) of David. . I The heavens herald God’s resplendency; The skies above display his artistry. By day the discourse spills like falling rain; Deep verities the...
‘Let There Be Light’ and Other Poetry by Cheryl Corey The Society January 12, 2025 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 11 Comments . Let There Be Light From beyond, there came the Word—a cosmic “Om”That pierced the void with one colossal bang of sound,Releasing undulating waves of hallowed humThat thundered through the geodesic grid...
‘Unnoticed and Unknown’ and Other Poems by James A. Tweedie The Society January 12, 2025 Culture, Poetry, Terza Rima 13 Comments . Unnoticed and Unknown Unnoticed and unknown, she passes through The homeless strewn along the downtown street. Unnoticed and unknown by people who Drive past in cars where high-end Niked feet Press...
‘Emergent Occasions’: A Poem by Maura H. Harrison The Society January 11, 2025 Beauty, Poetry 6 Comments . Emergent Occasions “And even angels, whose home is heaven, and who are winged too, yet had a ladder to go to heaven by steps.” —John Donne, Meditation II, Emergent Occasions __Affliction is a sea, a...
‘Three Cascading Endings on Fallen Civilizations’ and Other Poetry by Cynthia Erlandson The Society January 11, 2025 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 17 Comments . Three Cascading Endings on Fallen Civilizations I. Everywhere, the sands are endless. Look: A joke is made of all my glory. On Stone once sculpted in my image, my High authority, my grandest works’ Marks,...
‘Winter Night’: A Poem by Martin Rizley The Society January 10, 2025 Beauty, Poetry 15 Comments . Winter Night A full moon fills the sky with lustrous light And gives the vault of heaven in the night A golden sheen that gilds the cloudy wisps That drift across the sky like phantom ships. The moon's glow...
‘My Inner Attorney’: A Poem by Warren Bonham The Society January 10, 2025 Culture, Poetry 25 Comments . My Inner Attorney "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord,...
Two Idylls of Bion of Smyrna, Translated from Greek by Joseph S. Salemi The Society January 9, 2025 Culture, Poetry, Translation 20 Comments . Two Idylls by Bion of Smyrnatranslated by Joseph S. Salemi . Idyll V Great Cypris stood before me in a dreamy hazeHolding by her fair hand the hand of baby DesireWhose head hung heavily downward, in an...
‘None for All’ and Other Poetry by Peter Lillios The Society January 9, 2025 Beauty, Culture, Poetry, Readings 15 Comments . . None for All Backbones wilt and waistlines grow; Brightness dims as diodes glow. It’s history’s course, a simple fact, Declared with pride—or else with tact. Vigor falters, wits regress; The...
‘Healing Hands’: A Poem for the National Health Service, by Drilon Bajrami The Society January 8, 2025 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 21 Comments . Healing Hands ---in appreciation of the care provided (free of charge) by the NHS, the National Health Service of the UK, while I was hospitalised as a pain patient. I thank the Lord for healing hands,...
‘Happy’: A Poem by Joseph Stuart The Society January 8, 2025 Beauty, Poetry 3 Comments . Happy ---for B.K. A ground to play, a set to swing, A slide to slide, a bell to ring: She walks the way of there and then. “Hap-py,” she says; “hap-py,” again. A ball for foot, a nut for...
On ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and Other Poems by Anna J. Arredondo The Society January 7, 2025 Children's, Culture, Humor, Poetry 21 Comments . Watch Out! Now, “The Three Little Pigs” is a tale More for cautioning than for amusing: Learn its lessons and you may prevail; Heed them not, and you may end up losing. For we, none of us, live in a...
‘A Hero in My Head’: A Villanelle by Phillip Whidden The Society January 7, 2025 Poetry, Satire, Villanelle 31 Comments . A Hero in My Head Though never even in the war he loomed A hero there. At least in my blond head, Our father braved it out where Jap planes zoomed And zapped his buddies. All but him were doomed To bit...
‘The Adoration of the Peacock’: A Poem for Epiphany by Rachel A. Lott The Society January 6, 2025 Beauty, Culture, Ekphrastic, Poetry 13 Comments . The Adoration of the Peacock ---on The Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi The world is a-gawk at a gaudy surprise, for kings walk on foot while the commoners ride, and I, though a...
A Poem and Video in Honor of Inauguration Day: ‘The Reincarnations of Donald J. Trump’ The Society January 6, 2025 Classical Poets Live, Poetry, Readings, Video 27 Comments . https://youtu.be/LRxp0nZS2hM . video by Andrew Benson Brownpoem by Evan Mantyk . The Reincarnations of Donald J. Trump . I. 218 B.C. Above the mellow grass, cliff faces soarLike walls to house a huge...
‘Bollical Dogs’ in Response to T.S. Eliot’s ‘Jellicle Cats’ and Other Poetry by Brian Yapko The Society January 5, 2025 Beauty, Humor, Poetry 26 Comments . Bollical Dogs I have a complaint! T.S. Eliot hogs All the fun with his stories of Jellicle Cats! So let me (inspired by zoo catalogs) Write of beasts ripe for versificational chats. But shall I vaunt...
‘Caleb in Canaan’: A Poem by Margaret Coats The Society January 5, 2025 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 21 Comments . Caleb in Canaan Green fields, walled towns, strong foes, but we are fit To overcome. Forward, I say. It’s ours. These forty days of foraging have fed Twelve spies good fare and knowledge requisite. Let...
‘The Shepherd God’: A Poem by Jane Schulert The Society January 4, 2025 Beauty, Culture, High School Submissions, Poetry 14 Comments . The Shepherd God On Autumn eves when solipsistic stars__Peer down on bloody, towering oaksWhose gnarled, twisted branches create bars__Encaging man in Fortune’s spokes,When groaning wind rustles through...
‘A Freshman Pep Talk’: A Poem by Julian Woodruff The Society January 4, 2025 Humor, Music, Poetry 10 Comments . A Freshman Pep Talk ---upon reading “Composers to Listen to While Studying,”by Andrew Benson Brown, in The Epoch Times, Nov. 2, 2024 You’re ready? Get down to it, cram the night through.What a...
‘Topics Over Time’ and Other Poems by Russel Winick The Society January 3, 2025 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 16 Comments . Topics Over Time At 10 boys talk about the games in which they’ve played. At 14 they discuss the girls and “progress” made. At 16 there’s the homework everybody’s got, At 18 work or college and...
‘Kill or Cure?’ and Other Healthcare Poetry by Susan Jarvis Bryant The Society January 3, 2025 Poetry, Satire 31 Comments . Kill or Cure? “The art of medicine consists of amusing the patientwhile nature cures the disease.” ---Voltaire . Possible Side Effects: May cause lacerations to lobes of the brain__Or clusters of...
‘Enduring Sight’ and Other Poetry by Mike Ruskovich The Society January 2, 2025 Culture, Poetry, Villanelle 3 Comments . Enduring Sight Our blindest heroes walk among us, here, where legendary blindness gives us sight. King Oedipus still lives, and so does Lear in texts that draw their distant fates too near by pulling us...
‘Americans in Florence’ and Other Poems by Mary Jane Myers The Society January 2, 2025 Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry, Satire 19 Comments . Americans in Florence Ooo David! Whoa, you’re well-hung! But why a foreskin, underslung? Your left hand, do you hold a sling or dead Goliath's severed thing? Stop giggling, girls, show some respect. You...
‘Oh, the Days’: A Poem on Motherhood, by Gigi Ryan The Society January 1, 2025 Beauty, Humor, Poetry 16 Comments . Oh, the Days Oh, the days of poop and vomit! My best dress had drool upon it While I walked my teething child Up and down the hall for miles. Oh, the days of poop and vomit! When the baby chose to not...