Poetry

Proem In rhyming, timing is everything. Rhymes in wrong places make awkward spaces. A rhyme in rhyming knows more than prose. Rhymes are the rings you hear in the mind’s ear. Nature’s rhymes are free:...

A Villanelle  “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” —George Orwell From the first green grass we navigate— Through days & nights of wake...

by Cause Bewilder for Joshua Philipp Grave statue after statue falls with strict impunity. Memorials and monuments yield to community. The wind whips up no recollection; it cannot forget; the soldiers...

Higher Purpose Is there any higher purpose As they walk with faces down? Are they sure of destination As they shuffle through the town; With eyes grown unaccustomed To a world beyond their...

Passing of the Seasons When snow has melted, chill has gone, and winter turns to spring, The tender buds grow on the branches where the robins sing. The earth once brown is green again, blessed by the April...

Nesting Season Little sleep. The night heat did not relent. You startle me up as day breaks over the tent to show me the sea-turtle tracks you found through the bluestems behind the campground. I hardly...

He viewed the world with perfect form But upside down, not as the norm He lifted those who’d been down - trod And doing so, he followed God     Neal Dachstadter is a poet living in...

By Joshua Philipp Abbie Farwell Brown described the far north in his 1902 book, "In The Days of Giants," as "the land of the midnight sun, where summer is green and pleasant, but winter is a terrible time...

  I used to find it hard to lose at chess. I'd watch in disbelief the check and mate, think through the game and curse to find too late— I'd bought disaster with the bishop's press. In school,...

George and the Dragon In the Yorkshire dialect “Nah, sithee,” said Granny, “Just set thee dahn ‘ere, An’ I’ll tell thee a tale old and true, Of ‘ow good Saint George slew a dragon one...

The Journal It sat upon his bedside table, closed, And waiting to keep record of each day: The silent pages still and unexposed, A diary to come, his dossier. He saw it every evening as he bent To turn...

Meadows of Corn It seems but bland to every passing eye, These regal meadows dressed in ripened corn; They dance and few can such effects deny, The brows of greener grass their touch adorn. As dismal...

Argument The following poem is a dramatic monologue in four sections, based on a brief passage in a barbarian legal text. In the sixth-century law code Lex Burgundiorum, an account is given of the widow...

Thank you to everyone who participated! Judges Dusty Grein, Michael Curtis, and Damian Robin have selected the below winners for the first Rhyming Riddle Contest. Judge Curtis said meter was...

  To Solitude Come, Solitude, my first and truest friend! Long hours of careless converse burden me, And I have need of hospitality Such as art thou alone meet with to lend. What synthesis my past...

  What heights within my mind descend? To fall on peaks where faith shall end, As summits fail to comprehend, That lands beneath cannot ascend, The pinnacles my thoughts transcend. As...

  Windmill Song Alone it shudders on a hill, Defiant in the wind. A strong south gale could topple it, A hard rain do it in. Too many years its silver blades Whirled in the morning breeze While...

On Visiting the Tea Garden in Middletown, New York I. A harried daddy with two kids in tow, Maneuvering through city streets and cars, I look around quite nervously for crows Whose filthy bombs my head...

By C.B. Anderson Anyone writing formal poetry today has to be grateful for the arsenal of fixed forms—most of them bequeathed to us from masters of the past—that is available to lend structure to poetic...

A Villanelle To breathe the beaming silence of the sky I long, when dawn’s chill wakes my eyes, and see The oft-unseen yet boundless peace on high. When slumber’s velvety dim moments die, Pale...

  Untitled All older statues want to come alive, Those Greek and Roman ones, and Christian, too. Their skeletons and veins and muscles strive To break through marble skin.  They want their...

I. My brain just came back from the laundry they tell me it's perfectly clean and it's thinking the way it's supposed to though I'm not really sure what they mean They tell me I shouldn't be...

A Lifetime Day drifts into evening Evening into night All around me darkness With only stars for light Dawn awakes the morning The morning burst into day The cycle never ceasing Black to white to...

Upon the release of the Society’s How to Write Classical Poetry   When feeling some compulsion to compose, One wonders which of many forms to choose, Then tends to favor what one really...

For Elizabeth On the Poet’s Eleventh Wedding Anniversary   Though you behold me silent in this room, Know that I walk in fields of fresh-cut hay; Though I be still, my thoughts like roses...

  The Devil's New Mission The Devil went to every single school Across America to find a Faust— But no one wanted knowledge. Each dim fool Stared at a phone—the Devil could not roust A one to...

The important events in the life of Gaius Valerius Catullus (84-54 B.C.) are recounted through the poems he has left. The particular poem below was written on his return from Asia Minor, where he had attempted...

Inside the Dragon’s Teeth Maui, Hawaii From inside, you get a new perspective ___Of the tourist spot known as Dragon’s Teeth. The people who write about such things give ___This place, which lies on...

After the Peloponnesian Wars: a Microcosm A Villanelle At last I grasp what I could never get: As long as man has heart, hope can exist. Doom’s not your only master, then. And yet for years I...

It has long been observed that whilst the ego is useful in making daily and ordinary decisions in our life, it is less effective when it comes to more important issues; it is by nature competitive, and it...

  When, late in May, Memorial Day ____Inaugurates the season Of summer sun and summer fun ____(Much welcomed, with good reason), Then nature’s crowned with sight and sound: ____The sky is bright...

Unshaken Faith Forward Alliterative verse dedicated to Falun Gong practitioners who have faced persecution in China since July 20, 1999   The ground was broken, crusty, cracked for miles and...

LVII. On a Bodegón of Zurbarán From carbon darkness, splendor! Light comes forth. A painter knew the warm fidelity Of lemons pointing east and west and north, And praised the Thornless Rose’s...

  At last, the sunset’s knell forebodes the ceasing day— The merchants in their silken garments trudge their way Along, with Turkish camels and Koranic tunes. Diurnal light retreats from...

  And What Of Art? It used to be that there was a division Between the arts, and each had segments, too. A poem was just a poem, required revision, A painter mixed his colors – blue was...

Dante’s Inferno, Canto I (Poem by Dante Alighieri / translation by J. Simon Harris in terza rima) In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself again in a dark forest, for I had lost the pathway...

To Liu Xiaobo by Morgan Downs Xiaobo—you are from hence forever gone. Meanwhile, your executioners remain. Even now, they overcast where you have lain And scrape as best they can your measure on An...

On the Special Meeting of the Manchester City Council (Wed. 12th of July, 2017) to reflect on the terrible events that took place at the Manchester Arena on the 22nd of May   Amendments and agendas...

By Joshua Philipp The poetry of John Keats is known for its light and dreamy nature. Even in his time, in the early 1800s, he was considered old-fashioned, both in his topics and in his style of writing. He...

  A wind blew through the almond trees. The blossoms shook, the petals floated down Past where I sat on the cliffs above the sea. The waves reminded me a bit of the mounds Of snow I’d left...