Poetry

I may as well be hired as his maid, the way I’m made to clean his toilet seat. Still worse, the only way I’m getting paid is that by cleaning the commode I treat myself to one as dry as that he pissed upon when targeting the toilet bowl with...

Poetry before Writing “Greece down through the fifth century has aptly been described as a ‘song culture’.” ~ Michael Schmidt in The First Poets, 10, quoting Leslie Kurke, “The Strangeness of ‘Song Culture’:  archaic Greek poetry” In ancient Greece the mainlands and the isles Held deeply in their peoples’ fireside souls The...

  Let us raise statues to the Prince of Peace: __Cain’s monuments are powerless to bind __Our hearts in summer’s sheaf, or to remind The world of our first fall through sin’s caprice. Our monuments recall the gods of Greece __Whose lifeless looks their marble temples lined: __Blank, frigid idols...

Poetry, as we have discussed in earlier parts of this article series, depends upon the Muses and accessing the deeper self or soul within each person; this is not an easy thing to do. In the 18th century Lord Chesterfield commented on how an individual could be anything they chose...

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: As you shall see, My rhyme’s beginnings are paid in endings.   Excerpts from “Bones...

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 & sleep— Down this road that leads to our house of hate. When the wise are...

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 dead in Dixieland must twice be crushed to death. Robert E. Lee must lose again; the bronze equestrian must...

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 screens; Affixed to apps unsocial, Missing people, places, scenes? If call could make connection Back to Life...

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 rain, And flowers shy peek out the ground to meet the sun...

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 rub my eyes when you unzip the mosquito mesh with insistence, gripped by the...

. 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 . . Alec Ream is a writer living in Virginia. His poetic work and creative fiction have been widely published. A...

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 of cold and gloom; where rocky mountains tower like huge giants, over...

  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, a "C" would cause the same malaise that sick regret: "I should...

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 day An’ all dressed in a metal suit too. It were like this…” she said...

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 the lamp off, then to lie at rest, Remembering her face,...

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 scenes of urban life have choked Our ageing glimpses hour by hour sans shame;...

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 Aunegild, who betrothed herself to Fredegisil, sword-bearer to King Gundobad, ruler of the Burgundians. Aunegild,...

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 important: "Poets may pun, and poets may rhyme, Poets may riddle, yet must keep the time." Judge Grein said he...

  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 encounters blend, What sweetness in the cup of memory Or bitter bile, I taste...

  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 inspirations aimed to call, Upon our heavened dreams enthralled. And knock upon its door for all, The altitudes no...

  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 spinning far across the plains A song it spun with ease. Those...

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 before had marred. I dashed in through the front door of the place, A...

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 ideas.  Where would we be without the villanelle, the heroic couplet, or the mighty sonnet? ...

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 crowds rush back and forth, although unfree To breathe the beaming silence of the sky; For...

  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 blue Eyes once again to see the world of living flesh. They want to sweat in love and...

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 troubled not really a cause for concern my sessions are soon to be doubled and there's nothing...

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 gray The rhythms of each moment The seasons of each year Time goes on forever...

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 knows, Where there is little left to gain or lose. But one may wait to see how process...

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 bloom And run with clouds across the vault of day. The west wind summons me beyond...

  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 lust for power, wisdom, art— None could be tempted for none had a...

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 at a public career by following Memmius, the patron of the poet Lucretius, into...

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 the ocean beneath A golf course and ritzy hotel, a dull, ___Scientific description: “Lava flow, Met...

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 thought―thought hard, without regret― the reverse, as fatalist and humanist. But now 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 tends to subordinate the greater good for more immediate gains and self-gratification....

  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 and clear, The flowers’ blooms and birds’ bright plumes ____Proclaim that summer’s here. The birds cheer on the...

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 miles, and ever on, and in the distance, black clouds called out death and doom, from Hell they hailed. The...

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 purity. Two silver patens, oranges enthroned, A crown of blossoms and ascending leaves, The rounded basket, finest that...

  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 dromedary’s dunes, And Bedouins arrive, commencing ev’ning hours And drive their caravans across Saharan bow’rs Where fading clouds announce the...

  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 blue, And didn’t need some trash, or added gravel To make it...

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 straight and right. Ah how hard it is to describe,...