Author The Society

An Ode to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern 50 Years Later A Poetic Summary of Tom Stoppard’s Award-Winning Play As Seen Through the Eyes of Its Two Leading Characters Says Rosencrantz to Guildenstern, “I...

Venting Be angry, and do not sin. —Ephesians 4.26 We're told a large volcano roils and seethes beneath the soil of Yellowstone. The steam that rises all throughout the park, and wreathes its many...

On Time’s Memory Time is a sieve of our own brand. A net Made not to catch but to let go: of gold, Of fish, of bread, or dust; a knotted mould Formed from ourselves, to let us so forget. Or else time is...

The Fall of the Fourth Estate a rondeau The Media: the Fourth Estate* Performed disgracefully of late: Delivering the news askew, Allowing certain viewpoints through To fuel the discontent and...

Translation by Matthew Wildermuth Note: In the time of its composition—the first decade of the 13th century—Tristan was already a timeless story of heroism and romance, yet in the hands of a great...

  Birthday Apology William Shakespeare was born April 26, 1564 If all the world’s a stage, and all the men are women, myne eye be true, I gauge; her beard doth need a...

Towards the End of Chinese Communism Through Shanghai’s packed glissando peaks and Beijing’s glossy miles, As though to keep out counter breaths and polish glassy smiles, The dazing days of blinding...

Here shut behind an oaken door I stay, left in a room paneled with times long gone, and learn to know the passing of the day, for day and I await the selfsame dawn. My window faces west, my door is...

Gallipoli, 1915 There are none left on earth can ever tell At first hand of this mortal waste of war Hard-fought one hundred years ago and more, The stench of death, of corpses left to swell, Their...

  I face the day with unexpected strength, to know we’ll meet when the sun has disappeared. Your hand in mine we’ll walk the forest’s length, with peace of mind and nothing to be feared. I...

  O, curse Zahran Hashim and, yes, Abu Mohammad too, for evil at the Shangri-la and Batticalao, just two, of all those vicious men, who hit Sri Lanka's calm. O, Lord, the people cry aloud; they long...

  Tosspot tulip, withered, bowed and bent; __Severed stem embedded in a vase. __Natal bed a now-forsaken place. __Glory passed; its bloom and beauty spent. Birthed, bedecked, betrothed, by bulb and...

  It is a moment or a spot in time, When time is quieted and put away; A simple thing becoming the sublime, Suspended and eternal in a day And all around me just dissolves to naught; I feel my...

A special holiday post featuring "My Cross" by Joe Tessitore of New York, New York; "Pietá" by Tonya McQuade of Los Gatos, California; "The Pietá" by Michael Charles Maibach of Alexandria, Virginia.

They fell into a numbing sleep Perchance to darkly dream. The kettle for their tea was boiling; The plants were rich and green. They stoned themselves on television And marriage habits bad; Their...

  Luckily for the bereft grieving through darkness alone, dawn is abundantly deft at its medicinal tone. When a new morning appears, duty abruptly commands focusing thoughts on careers and...

The Cathedral, Burning by T. M. Moore Flames wreck the walls and ceilings that had stood for centuries, scorch ancient timbers, raze to ash that sanctuary made for praise, and cruelly crumble sacred...

  The Life That Is Not Life “I’m getting ready for my trip now.” —Aurelia Brouwers (who chose to be euthanized at age 29 in the Netherlands) You said it was the humane thing to do __For those...

The Society of Classical Poets is holding its first Poetry and Culture Symposium at the Princeton Club in Manhattan, on Monday, June 17, 4 to 8 p.m. Register here. The Symposium will feature prominent poets...

  Today poetic form is ostracised. It’s stifled and suppressed, deemed obsolete; classed as archaic, stuffy and effete, a vestige of the past to be chastised. Make no mistake, the ‘advice’...

’Twas just a fleeting moment when our journeys crossed, When you were walking roadside, munching on the moss, On Christmas, we were driving, dinner on our mind, To share with friends and fam’ly at that...

Where the Heart Goes Where the heart decides to go, The feet must go along. The heart is first to know A thing is right or wrong. The heart knows who to trust. The heart knows who to fight. The feet...

  The Canada Geese used to migrate each year. They’d summer up there and spend winter down here. Their nests were in Canada, home of their birth. From there they would fly to the ends of the...

District E for former Greenpeace Activist Patrick Moore by Eric Awesud Ble It always was at night when people simply disappeared. Names were removed from registers; such memories were seared. The...

Wings Oh, to catch the winds of flight And soar where eagles go, To leave the woes of troubled souls Behind me far below. I'd listen to the song of birds And sail in endless flight, Then chase the sun...

  The Graeco-Roman historian Lucius Dio Cassius, in his Roman History, describes “dark dinners” that were given by the emperor Domitian to specially chosen guests.   Domitian’s dinners...

Damon’s Song (from Eclogue 8) by Vergil / translation from Latin by Olivia May Translator's note: Vergil’s Eclogue 8 presents a singing competition between two shepherds, Damon and Alphesiboeus, whose...

When we listen To his sweet song, Did he then know It'd live this long? A song that gives To every age, A timeless sense Of history's page. Reminding you, Reminding me, Love songs can...

The Melancholy Snowman Though stony-eyed, I watched the finches glide. The chimney smoke, the builder slide, At night, I gave the constellations words, The House, the Builder, and the Birds. My silver...

  The Water of Life To die Of thirst Is nigh The worst And saddest way A life may end, Since quickened clay Cannot transcend Its fundamental need For fluid that's designed To irrigate and...

April 18, 2019 is Poem in Your Pocket Day, part of National Poetry Month. On this day, people are encouraged to carry a poem in their pockets and share it with others. This day is primarily used by teachers...

  It seemed a wolf had terrorized the town. Well, isn’t that what wolves are wont to do? The people said, “Say, put that wild thing down.” “Or else, instead, give it a talking to.” A...

translation from Italian by Luigi Pagano Maybe because you are the image of eternal peace O evening, you are welcomed by me with open arms when the summer clouds and the gentlest breeze beguile me with...

In the Garden In Paradise there is a place where ruby-colored roses grace the trellises of precious pearl - so splendidly their buds unfurl! She and her Child oft’ wander here among the flowers they...

Curve It’s just a simple curve, gouged by a string to make a tidy border in between the walkway and the yard. On one side, green grass glistens, wearing morning dew like bling. And on the other side,...

That I Might Learn to Love a villanelle That I might learn to love I sorely prayed with hopes that God might teach me by romance as yearning I the empty sky surveyed. Yet lovers marched in cumbersome...

The following are excerpted from James Sale's upcoming book Divine Comedies.   Exit from Hell I did well in life. But everything is real in Hell –Dante, Canto 29 The exit from Hell is always...

  When May became P. M., she had a doggéd view - Her Parliament majority would fly us through: All Brexit documents on leaving the E. U., All Acts of Parliament, all formal how-d’ya-do, All...

  The Pregnant Woman The Pregnant Woman nests a baby seed Who's ever pressing on her very core While her body adapts to baby's needs She's feeling aches she's never known before. A linea alba...

  —from A Gallery of Ethopaths The world is filled with brainless brats Who all insist on having tats. These morons with their inked-up bods Walk about like savage gods Displaying, to the...