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Blank Verse

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Blank Verse

In Response to the ‘In This House’ Sign: A Poem by Brian Yapko

The Society
May 11, 2022
Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry, Readings
27 Comments
. Read by Susan Jarvis Bryant . In This House... In this house... We value science so much we accept that male and female chromosomes exist and gender is not merely a suggestion. In this house... We know...

‘Guardians of the Sunset’ by J.B. Mulligan

The Society
May 3, 2022
Beauty, Blank Verse, Poetry
5 Comments
. Guardians of the Sunset III. The years go down like liquor.  Drink and pour and drink again, and laugh or sigh, and look behind you at the dark streets of the past, the rows of street lamp dandelions. ...

‘A Clamshell in Concrete’ (and a Short Note) by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
April 8, 2022
Beauty, Blank Verse, Essays, Poetry
24 Comments
. A Clamshell in Concrete  I was a child in kindergarten class. My mother held my hand as we trod on The sidewalk leading to the boulevard. This was 1951. The path Was paved in smooth cement, and at the...

Three Poems on Language by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
March 28, 2022
Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry
20 Comments
. The Hypodermic For a poet, the pen is merely part Of the apparatus of addiction. He emulates the frozen fly in amber Watching eons come, roll by, and pass. As motionless as veined quartz in a stone, He seeks...

‘Everlasting’: A Blank Verse Poem by C.B. Anderson

The Society
February 19, 2022
Blank Verse, Culture, Humor, Poetry
13 Comments
. Everlasting I must admit, when I arrived in Hell I was surprised.  Not, as you might surmise, Because I never reckoned it was real— And surely not because I thought I’d led A sinless life—but owing to...

A Valentine: ‘To a Girl Named Olivia’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
February 13, 2022
Beauty, Blank Verse, Love Poems, Poetry
19 Comments
. To a Girl Named Olivia What shall I say to you of untold love In this more than empty space that lies between Our two selves wound in tongue-tied reticence? I have touched your hand in images and dreams, As...

‘The Crucifixion of the Serpent’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
February 8, 2022
Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry
17 Comments
. The Crucifixion of the Serpent And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. —Numbers...

Three Poems on Religion (with a short note) by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
January 20, 2022
Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry
13 Comments
. Apocalypse The fractured sky splits, flaming at the edge— The earth heaves upwards in explosive wrath. No eye can bear the clay-caked risen dead Sleepwalking through the streets in blackened shrouds. The...

‘Pierrepoint on Capital Punishment’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
August 17, 2021
Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry
19 Comments
. Albert Pierrrepoint (1905-1992) served as one of GreatBritain’s chief executioners from 1931 to 1956, duringwhich time he hanged over 500 persons. All the namesand events mentioned here are real. My father...

Two Mythological Poems by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
July 19, 2021
Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Humor, Poetry
13 Comments
. Heliotrope Phaeton, son of the god Helios, attempted to drive his father’s celestial chariot. His inexperience caused him to burn up part of the earth and the heavens, so he was killed by a thunderbolt...

‘The Carnelian Ring: A Still-Life’ by Joseph S. Salemi, and ‘A Note on the Objective Correlative’

The Society
June 29, 2021
Art, Beauty, Blank Verse, Essays, Poetry
11 Comments
. The Carnelian Ring: A Still-Life Footfalls echo in the memoryDown the passage which we did not takeTowards the door we never openedInto the rose-garden. —T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton I think of a walled...

Two Poems about Stone, by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
May 19, 2021
Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry
17 Comments
. Isolde and the Men of Stone Who could believe, except on ancient trust? The stones grew pliant, yielding into shape When softer nature touched them; human forms Emerged, as marble figures...

Two More Poems with ‘Conceits’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
March 27, 2021
Beauty, Blank Verse, Essays, Humor, Poetry, Poetry Forms
10 Comments
. The Bibliophile’s Birth Certificate Marius Michel (1846-1925) was one of the most prominent and gifted bookbinders in France. He produced work in strikingly beautiful and unique designs, and today his...

‘Maurras at the Parthenon (Acropolis, 1896)’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
February 4, 2021
Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry
11 Comments
. Charles Maurras (1868-1952) was a highly influential French poet, essayist, and political journalist. He edited the rightist paper Action Française, and was a member of the French Academy. He wrote that the...

Two Poems Making Use of ‘Conceits,’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
January 9, 2021
Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Essays, Poetry
26 Comments
. The Death of Today’s Sequoia Flecte ramos, arbor alta, tensa laxa viscera: Et rigor lentescat ille, quem dedit nativitas, Ut superni membra regis miti tendas stipite. —Venantius Fortunatus (c. 530-609...

‘The Homeward-Bound Armada, 1588’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
December 1, 2020
Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry
21 Comments
X No tengo más que darte —Inscription on a Spanish sailor's gold ring, in the shape of a hand holding out a heart, found off the western coast of Ireland. Their splintered hulls well-raked with cannon...

‘Spindle, Shuttle, Loom’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
October 4, 2020
Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry
14 Comments
…anulbaṇáṃ vayata jóguvām ápaḥ. Weave ye the singers’ work without a knot. —Rigveda 10.53.6 Those pale cream swaths of handmade linen, brought From Sicily around 1905 Lay in our rag drawer...

‘On Antonello Da Messina’s The Annunciation’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
November 21, 2019
Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry
9 Comments
  Palermo’s great basilica is still— All prayers are tongueless for a lonely hour. Here high and holy silence can be breathed Like incense from the smoking thuribles Swung by acolytes at solemn...

‘Domitian’s Dark Dinners’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
April 9, 2019
Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry
3 Comments
  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...

‘Longinus, Spearman’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
March 30, 2018
Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry, Short Stories
18 Comments
Miles hastatus (spearman) of the Legio Decima Fretensis, stationed in Roman Judaea, A.D. 33 Vere, filius Dei erat iste. —Roman centurion at the crucifixion, noted in Matthew 27:54. They say he was the...

‘A History Lesson’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
February 22, 2018
Blank Verse, Culture, Humor, Poetry
14 Comments
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. The misreporting of great Caesar’s death Errs by one gross omission. We’re not told That when conspirators bared blades to strike, Caesar’s well-practiced...

‘For Patricia Smith’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
December 3, 2017
Beauty, Blank Verse, Poetry
11 Comments
Joseph Pulitzer Junior High September 1959 – June 1961 I think we spoke but fifty words, all told. No more than that, and most were just polite— A brief exchange of greetings or a comment On some...

‘Prelude to the Gettysburg Address’ by Arthur Mortensen

The Society
April 17, 2017
Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry, Short Stories
3 Comments
Posting atop the hill beyond the field in rain so thick he barely saw the bodies, the General tilted back his hat and sat, shaking his head. His horse shifted a foot and whinnied, a grazing wound across...




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