‘Much Too Small’ by Joseph Quintanilla The Society November 19, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 6 Comments Much too small for a plow, __but I dig anyhow __till there’s sweat on my brow __from the weeds that I fight. I know others may yawn __at that part of my lawn __that I spend my time on, __but it brings...
Poetry Found: ‘The Battery Horse’ by E.R. Henry The Society November 16, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Essays, Found Poem, Poetry 32 Comments Presented by Monty Phillips Given that the recent days have been rightfully occupied by the remembering of the humans who never made it home from World War 1, I thought I might highlight a less represented...
‘The Garden of Life’ and Other Poetry by Satyananda Sarangi The Society November 15, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 34 Comments The Garden of Life In wee, assuring spans of sunlit day, The sun awakened, rides his carriage fast To paint with crimson every corner passed, To cheer the silent buds of torrid May. My garden here in...
“When Clouds Roll In” by Michael Maibach The Society November 13, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 2 Comments On sunny days We’re filled with “me.” “I’m on my own And feeling free!” We have our job, And casual friends. The world feels strong Like it won’t end. Then clouds roll in, And...
‘To Cast Aside the Worldly Fishing Net and Join the Glorious Race’ by Joe Spring The Society November 12, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 4 Comments inspired by the Book of Hebrews To carry close a fishing net of gold or sea-green thread, __a-woven by some skillful hands, with ruby borders bound, a massive net, with onyx weights, and glass-blown floats,...
‘At Dusk’ and Other Poetry by Daniel Leach The Society November 10, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 10 Comments At Dusk At dusk, when high above the darkening trees, __The swallows in the deep blue dip and soar, As if in flying higher, still to squeeze __The last delicious moments that before ____The light into the...
‘Heritage’ by C. David Hay The Society November 7, 2018 Beauty, Poetry, The Environment 10 Comments Behold the cloud-graced monoliths That stretch against the sky Into the boundless sanctity Where wind swift eagles fly. Primal valleys bloom to life As tumbling waters sing, Resurrected from...
‘Write On! The Masters From the Shadows Cried’ by Ted Hayes The Society November 6, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 17 Comments "Write on!" the Masters from the shadows cried. "By your thin air we breathe, nor ever died; Your modest dress, our glorious raiment shares And witness to our sun, your candle bears. "Ignored,...
‘The Age of Poetry’ and Other Poetry by Michael Skau The Society November 4, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry 9 Comments The Age of Poetry They say that poetry’s a young man’s game, indulged while still limber, lithe, and healthy enough to dance all night with energy. Without concern for funding and fickle...
Review: In the Measuring, Carol Smallwood, Shanti Arts 2018 The Society November 3, 2018 Beauty, Essays, Poetry, Reviews 12 Comments 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...
‘Sonnet XXX’ by Joseph Charles MacKenzie The Society November 2, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 24 Comments 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...
Two Autumn Poems The Society November 1, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Human Rights in China, Poetry, Translation 9 Comments 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,...
‘John of the Mountains’ and Other Poetry by Tonya McQuade The Society October 30, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 24 Comments 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...
‘Morning Dew’ by David Paul Behrens The Society October 29, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 14 Comments 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’ and Other Poetry by Joe Tessitore The Society October 28, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Poetry 33 Comments 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...
‘Desolation’ by James A. Tweedie The Society October 26, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 16 Comments 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...
Rediscovering Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ The Society October 24, 2018 Beauty, Classical Literature, Culture, Epic, Essays, For Educators, Poetry 27 Comments 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...
‘Birthday Greetings’ and Other Poetry by David Hollywood The Society October 22, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 20 Comments 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...
Two Sonnets by Andrew Barker The Society October 21, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 33 Comments 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...
‘Lullaby’ by Kim Cherub The Society October 20, 2018 Beauty, Children's, Culture, Poetry 64 Comments Cherubic laugh; sly, impish grin; Angelic face; wild chimp within. It does not matter; sleep awhile As soft mirth tickles forth a smile. Gray moths will hum a lullaby Of feathery wings, then you and...
‘Solid Ground’ and Other Poetry by Clinton Van Inman The Society October 18, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 27 Comments 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...
Review: Selected Poems from Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, Translated by Helen Palma The Society October 17, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry, Reviews 10 Comments by Joseph Charles MacKenzie Read the Selected Poems from Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal online. Purchase the book here. Two arts are beautifully displayed in Helen Palma’s Selected Poems from...
‘The Two-way Wye’ by Mike Ruskovich The Society October 16, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 5 Comments 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’ and Other Poetry by C.B. Anderson The Society October 15, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 34 Comments 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...
‘The Mellow Season’ by Carole Mertz The Society October 14, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 45 Comments 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...
‘The Swallows of La Cienega’ by Joseph Charles MacKenzie (with Audio) The Society October 12, 2018 Beauty, Poetry, Readings 92 Comments 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...
‘Squandered Wealth’ by David Whippman The Society October 9, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 13 Comments 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...
The Eight Greatest Poems of William Wordsworth The Society October 6, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry, The Environment 12 Comments 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...
Two Translations from German by David Gosselin The Society October 5, 2018 Beauty, Poetry, Translation 7 Comments 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...
‘Gulag’ by Sam Gilliland The Society October 4, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Poetry 7 Comments 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...
‘To My Wife, Suzi Venus’ by Tod Benjamin The Society October 2, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 6 Comments 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’...
‘The Autumn Daylight Sky’ by Joe Spring The Society September 30, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 10 Comments 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...
‘‘Cause You’d Be Here’ by Gleb Zavlanov The Society September 29, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 11 Comments 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’ and Other Poetry by Jeffrey Essmann The Society September 28, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 11 Comments 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...
‘A Folded Note Beneath the Door’ by Shannon Rose Cummings The Society September 25, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 5 Comments 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...
Review: Two Poetry Books by James B. Nicola The Society September 24, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Essays, Humor, Poetry, Reviews 3 Comments 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...
‘The Country Club’ and Other Poetry by Alexander King Ream The Society September 22, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 9 Comments The Country Club To think about a country club Begun for whisky in a tub, Distilled from fields of golden corn In a town where I was born, For folks to gather, have a blast In golden days, in time long...
‘Check-Mate by a Pawn’ and Other Poetry by Amy Foreman The Society September 20, 2018 Beauty, Children's, Culture, Humor, Poetry 29 Comments Check-Mate by a Pawn for my sons We parry, thrust: This game of wits, Where each pawn must Deflect your hits. My mounted knight Skips overhead, First back, then right; Your knight is dead. But...
‘Sonnet for a Cosmetic Company’ and Other Poetry by Jan Darling The Society September 19, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry 21 Comments Sonnet for a Cosmetic Company Ah Youth! To whom each maiden plights her troth To coax and woo each winsome charm to stay ‘Tis difficult to match your coat to cloth So ill designed and irksome in its...
Three Sonnets by J. Simon Harris The Society September 18, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 19 Comments I. I’ve awed at the Atlantic’s bluest depths, and peered at the Pacific’s deepest blues; the warm blue summer waters of Key West, and cold blue winter on the Charles, too. I’ve watched the moon...