Poetry

On looking into the mirror one afternoon An old buzzard once came and he knocked on my heart, And politely he asked to come in for a while. He had said he was looking for carrion to eat, “Oh no problem”, I answered, and gave him a smile. Then I...

  When cathedral bells toll through the morning and sunlight touches steeples with its glare, and arrows on the town hall clock stop turning, you will find him on the market square, sweeping leaves in shadows of despair. And in that instant you will cease your yearning. Hunchbacked, with a...

Charles the Bold was the last independent Duke of Burgundy. Killed at the Battle of Nancy by the Swiss, his realm was partitioned in subsequent decades by France and by the ascendant House of Habsburg, setting in motion the principle lines of conflict in northwest Europe for subsequent history. Beside...

  by James Green “Come live with me and be my Love, And we will all the pleasures prove That hills and valleys, dale and field, And all the craggy mountains yield.” —Christopher Marlowe These fervent lines are some of Marlowe’s most famous, and serve as an encapsulation of the...

In the painting, she has turned to look back At where her lover’s  corpse lies in the  ground. Her face is blurred; her dress, funereal black, Stands out from  greenery flourishing all round. Within the earth, nature will break him down Till he is one with all that living green:...

  Goose Sense A burden and a bore I must have been; As handy as another leg, I'd slouch The farm in borrowed overalls, and when My chores were done I'd nap on grandpa's couch. I thought of books and girls and being cool, Of anything but crops and barns...

In dactylic hexameter Turgid the sea as it billows and foams in the face of the tempest. Wind-lifted wave-crests explode into diamonds agleam in the sunlight. Surf-spray erupts atop surge-curled water descending in free fall Sweeping the beach leaving smooth-glistened sand in the wake of its ebbing Lonely I stand...

Ms. Wang Lixuan and her son, Meng Hao, were detained on Oct. 22, 2000. Mother and baby both died at the Tuanhe Forced Labor Dispatch Division in Beijing on Nov. 7, 2000. The coroner’s exam determined that Ms. Wang’s neck and fingers were broken, her skull was fractured, and she...

In my dreams, I always see you smiling, Your bright eyes twinkling like a million stars. In my dreams, there is no sense to crying, Your gentle touch has healed the painful scars. We stroll alone together, hand in hand, As if we cross the cosmos with our steps. The...

A Cello Knows Amidst the smoke and light and laughter Along the smiles and cheers thereafter A sound is bled, wrung free from strings It bounds and treads and wholly sings Inside each song, a secret’s moved Not right nor wrong or frequent proved The message dances from bow to...

April 26 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. Below are recommended rhyming poems for this day from contemporary classical poets and famous classical poets of the past....

The lamp holds sway along the shadowed streets A penumbra encircles its sweet shine As night rests softly like a feathered cloak Upon a multitude of dancing stars And night and stars and lamp become a song A story writ in music’s measured bars The lamp’s penumbra swings on shadowed...

Fear A ballad I said to Fear, “Away from here!” And, softly, he withdrew. But, lost in thought, I plain forgot To bar the door anew. So Faith and I sat down to try And chat the night away. But while we talked, outside, Fear stalked And waited for his...

From Lost Love & Other Lyrics A casida Sleep, the enemy of inspiration, An unlikely ally that hangs around, With dawn’s rebirth, cause for celebration. Dreams, their rites of passage are at my feet, There refuge lies in the revelation of sound, An archipelago, where lovers meet. A young heroine,...

  Wee hours, when crickets tune their eerie cords and hoot the yawning owls at twinkling stars; the night-maid roves seesaw, like a drunken bard, besmeared with stripes of billion moonlight-scars! A slithering thief along the parapet wall, a snaking beau crossing the forlorn street, a Robin chirping sweet on...

How Can We Know? A villanelle How can we know where we go when we die; Pondering signs, looking up at the sky, Wondering if Someone's hearing my cry? Which religion is right, which one a lie? Too much in common to outright deny; How can we know where we...

Part 1 Between a teardrop and the heart, We sense our feelings weakened, mourn, For sadness as the tones impart A sound perceived and now forlorn. Opposing songs composed, to ache, Before their scripted voices break, Imagined dreams, enthralled to wake, The haven of the thoughts we make. And moods...

“The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” ~ Louis L’Amour You are not alone on this wind-rush march, Itinerant ink scribing papyrus Upon demands and deadlines flaming torch; Or over ant-hills disturbed omnibus. Sometimes the hour is long as day or night, And eyes rebel to...

War Is Natural To rise above the plane of earth Where war continues since my birth, I find that war is natural, And in this world habitual. It’s human nature, so it seems And nature’s calling in those screams— No scientist needs to figure it out War’s natural, without a...

  Heroes, Victims, and Poseidon The metre of ancient Greek poetry succeeds in “achieving a length and complexity that are unusual in the heroic verse of other literatures.” ~ Michael Grant, The Rise of the Greeks, 325, as quoted in Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 16. The heroes are heroic...

Obituary Late summer, when the bumblebees begin to die, You’ll see them clinging to the petals of a flower For dear life—or at least it seems so to an eye Untrained in entomology. They’ve had their hour, Have likely reproduced authentic replicas, And now are caught in the inanimate repose...

Glistening orbs Dance on air Drifting skyward Without a care Iridescent spheres Shimmering bright Reflecting prisms In the sunlight Luminous globes Fragile and frail Constructed of A diaphanous veil Fleeting bubbles Bursting free Illusive sight Imparting glee   Born in Wilmington Delaware in the early 1950’s, Ann Christine Tabaka has...

Canto 1 is the provisional name for a sequence of 33 Cantos that James Sale is attempting to write in the style - and using the terza rima - of Dante. His aim is to create a contemporary epic of heaven and hell that stands four-square against the meaninglessness of...

A sonnet of longing and of a glimpse of hope. July 17, 2016. We looked imploring to the starless sky; we worlds and worlds of darkness, seeking light, that we might momently forget our night; for that strange hope we held, we knew not why. And then it came, and...

By David B. Gosselin William Shakespeare (baptized April 26, 1564 - died April 23, 1616) is arguably the greatest writer in any language. His poetry is not only one of the most exalted examples of what an immortal sense of creative identity can accomplish, but it is in a sense...

Pigeon Cove, MA 1948 Above, the sky, remote and pure, Below, the earth, steadfast and sure. Between the two, the surging sea, Fighting both for mastery. Blue swell of wave, foam flung high, White flash of challenge to proud sky, The surge, the crash, the sounding roar Of wind-swept wave...

  I knew her when I could be called a youth And life had not uncovered certain truths Apparent to detectives, super-sleuths; Such as ‘Best clues are found within untruth.’ For boasting of a car with plushest trim, Expensive belted tires, alloy rims, Made me no better than deceptive crims...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) The Children's Crusade Amendment II of the US Constitution: A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. by Brice U. Lawseed While armed police protected thousands...

Leatherneck, you’re still my childhood hero With tales of firing flack at Jap Zeroes— After training camp in San Diego, You rode the railway home on furlough To elope with Rita in the Poconos. The coalmine cars filled up with snow. You only had a month before you had to...

  Young people go marching, the boys and the girls, They’re thinking like once we did, they’ll change the world. They claim government is a cure for our ills, They seem to forget, in fact, socialism kills. Lenin and Stalin put twenty million down, Left them to rot in dark...

    He pressed a rounded stone into my hand. He said, "Take care of this," and turned away To tend to things we needed for our trip: The boats, the lines, the paddles, and the rest. The stone was not like those about my feet. I wondered at the...

  I know why the red rose weeps Why she hides her tears in dew As the summer breezes sweep From those seas of peaceful blue, And then like our dreams She fades with the morning dew. I know why the red rose weeps Through the dreamy months of June...

  The Society of Classical Poets is reviving poetry with rhyme and meter and the response has been widespread and tremendous. Since the Society was founded in 2012, we have grown from a daily blog with weekly posts to a major non-profit organization publishing the highest quality poetry on a...

April Fools Easter: April 1, 2018 In dark Gethsemane I was betrayed By Judas’ kiss. I was arrested, tried, Found guilty, beaten, thorn-crowned, mocked, and flayed. Then nailed to the cross on which I died. My lifeless, piercéd body was deposed And quickly laid within a borrowed tomb; Enshrouded, then...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise)   On Secretaries of State: Falling from Grace by Brice U. Lawseed Across the World in India, while touring for her book, the former Secretary Clinton, trying to look cool, upon the steps of Jahaz Mahal palace in Mandu, slipped on the stony steps,...

. . The Sun The face above that shone below From space to hover, cast a glow And warmth afforded to the one Who in its path was found; the sun . . On Mass Shootings I cut loose the clod from the moorings of root I thought about God,...

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 King of Jews. In fact We nailed a wooden title to his cross In Latin, Greek, and...

This Collar, Blue My elbows leak with grease And all my toes are laid with steel I'm rough of neck My knuckles specked with cuts that never heal The world I mend The swirls on plastic lens paints squalor's view Ah, but still, I'd never trade this collar, blue  ...

See the Music Mysterious the inner eye that hears the dancers flying by across the stage in grand jete' as woodwind, horn and cello play And there, just barely in the wings the graceful ballerina sings the song of butterfly and swan to the pirouette of the baton See the music! hear...

About the Lady Godiva and her famed naked ride through Coventry Once in the town of Coventry, Leofric Earl had held decree; Too great the tax that he appealed, Greater than his folk could yield. They had endured their master’s needs, None but one spake ‘gainst misdeeds; His dearest wife,...