Poetry

Translations from Belarusian by the poet's son Ihar Kazak.    The Explosion May mayhem never strike our good Earth; The fertile one deserves tranquility and gratitude, So that on earth where in...

  In the deep of the night do my restless thoughts roam ____To the moon-flooded fields of the sky, And they search for a pure and ethereal home, ____Where emotions and thoughts never die. Where...

  Out of the crooked timber laid by man, No straight foundation may ever be built. While Reason clinkers on across the span, The tunes of Sin jaunt forward with a lilt. To lie, to steal, to feel in...

“. . .  lest when thou hast eaten and art full  . . . then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt  . . .who led thee through that...

After the above black and white photograph by Jared Carter Who alive remembers who lived there seventy years ago? A family of WASPs set in their ways? The leafless tree in front was just a sapling then....

a villanelle The sun descends into the silent sea. As shadows lengthen in the fading light I journey on to seek what yet may be. As death from life yearns to be free, And grief seeks comfort in the...

Organ Harvest by Damian Robin, published by Fulton Verse, 2018. Read three sonnets from the work here.  by James Sale Damian Robin is well known to readers of the Society of Classical Poets web...

Oak In quiet awe before a solid oak in summer bloom, I thought: to such as these my Saxon kin of long ago bespoke their pagan prayers—a source of great unease to Charlemagne, these heathens and their...

My Soul awoke and yawned and stretched and pushed And seemed desired to break its earthly bounds Too anxious, I almost its Spirit crushed As birth pangs silenced all but sense’s sounds. Alive at last, it...

  My candle burns at both ends Late into the night, And flickers fast, And bounces in my sight. My pen lies docile in my hand. The page is silent now. My eyes transfix; My thoughts do...

I. But yesterday, your noble fathers bled Upon the fields of France, where countless dead Had found among the vines their final rest, To gild with fame a venerated crest Whose princely brandishing from...

  If seasons pass too fast you'd better run. If they proceed too slow indulge in fun. Sunups are best enjoyed in days of cold. Sundowns when heat waves linger fierce and bold. Old age returns...

Sail Fever I knew some terms, the merest germs Of illness called ‘Sail Fever’: Tack starboard, port, keep mainsail taut, Steer boat by tiller lever! One Saturday, beside the bay, A salesman full of...

The precious are so  easy to neglect: I let them down, my family and my friends. It’s futile if I offer my respect - Today is much too late to make amends. Nothing is left for me to do or say. The fact...

Where a lamppost spreads a white spot light Nursing silent night with canny purr, A racoon crosses there in sudden flight. Where an old man walks his dog this hour With a leash that’s buckled to his...

Nova Scotia and the Clouds of Summer So silently they march along, the clouds of summer, proud and strong; their grand approach from yonder shore majestically they wander o’er. Not for the likes of me...

For Elizabeth My morning’s mountain wears the lavish light Of candid clouds and truth-engendered white. Ah, heavens, spread your opalescent ray, And open earth-blind eyes to boundless sight, That love...

Alzheimer's Disease I can feel your deep darkness closing in, With its harrowing sense of helplessness, Soon obscenity sours tongues gathering; Havoc’s wrought by every hellish djin As chaos kicks aside...

Runnymede Revisited Note: Runnymede is the location where King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta. This poem was written in the 1990s when the English nation was debating whether to join the European...

Bristlecone Longevity The beauty of the tree is not how old, Indeed how ancient in its gnarling now, Not in its silent history yet untold, Nor in the pre-historic roots and bough— Their age—but in its...

Translator's Preliminary Note This is an original translation of a poem by Sappho (630-580 BC), traditionally known as the “old age poem” or the “Tithonus poem” (in the standard numbering by Lobel...

Heritage I like to say I’d an Egyptian father If that is too obscure for you, I’d rather Explain it just by citing preservation. They preserved mummies, he his indignation At how the world had gone...

Poet’s Note: I wrote this poem in the same metrical form as the song “America the Beautiful” (but without the internal rhyme). You can sing it if you want, but I think it is most effective when simply...

Two Lives by Michael Maibach When soldiers die, They give two lives. The one they had, And the one denied. The spouse not met, The child unknown, The life unsaved, The welcome home. The hill...

Garden Waltz a terza rima sonnet in dactylic pentameter with a truncated foot at the end of each line Radishes sway to the rhythm of sunlight and rainfall, Carrots to minerals present in alkaline...

You pushed Grace hard so you could have your book. She did the layout, made the pdf. I bought the thing so I could take a look but, when I read it, I found blatant theft. You’d stolen poems from...

The Lord’s Supper They’re gathered round, astonished, full of dread, round him who like a wise man must decide, and who leaves those with whom he’s broken bread, and who comes like a stranger from...

The Fall Revisited The implications of the fall are endless in their reach; that lowly serpent had such gall, Eve's failure to beseech. Though what they chose when they did bite that infamous red...

Guess who is not invited to come to a dinner here? Rights are just for some people. Others have to disappear. There is no bias in denials of our services; we shall not break bread with those who do not...

It's first of sweaty, sweltering daybreaks of summer new. The fewer trailing steps of parting spring are still moist-fresh with drakes' claw prints and redolent green pollen specks. The waters in the...

“Only fools are positive.”  “You sure about that?” “I’m positive.” ―The Three Stooges “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else...

  While strolling around an illustrious lair, I was caught by a breeze of regret in the air, For gazing I was on old buildings of stone, All graced with such courage and dignity their own, With...

Winners announced here. Scroll down and read the comments section to enjoy all of the submissions. What has no subject one can tell, Yet tries to make it ring a bell? What makes you scratch your head...

by Dusty Grein Like many of the old French refrain forms, the kyrielle originated in the 15th century with the traveling troubadours. It is a rhymed form, written in either 2 line couplets, or 4 line...

Born at Constantinople in 1762 of a French father and Greek mother, André Chénier grew up in pre-revolutionary France and studied at Paris. Well-read, and enamored with ancient Greece, he is considered one...

03.27.18 A smattering of rain above a hall That holds her earthy fragments, broken, spent, A woman who, in life, out-did them all, And e’en in death defies the elements. O, what would she make now of...

Written upon reading the book How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World. The beast once foretold for the end of days Crouched in a Karl Marx statue erected Last month in Germany, where it displays A...

Little Girl She's fishing in a rock pool just abandoned by the sea She's too engrossed within her world to notice you and me. She sprawls to draw a picture open book upon the sand Great masters never...

Note: Joseph Charles MacKenzie would like to offer a 25% discount on the first edition hardcover of Sonnets for Christ the King to his fellow poets and readers of the Society of Classical Poets, in gratitude...

by James Sale FORMAL COMPLAINTS by Joseph S. Salemi, Somer Rocks Press, 1997 MASQUERADE by Joseph S. Salemi, Somer Rocks Press, 2005 SKIRMISHES by Joseph S. Salemi, Pivot Press, 2010 I first encountered...