Poetry

. On a Terrible Orchestral-chorale Concert Trapped here with vain musicians---what a fate! An echo chamber that I can't escape. Conductors lead, nude but for bandanas. On their right side, Carmina...

. Ever Flowing Upon the rushing river’s bank I stand, deep water, ever flowing as it goes. The turbulence of my life it reflects as if my mortal pain, it truly knows. I close my eyes while cruel heartache...

. John Adams in Heaven John and Abigail Adams are being guided through heaven by John Milton. He takes them to a villa in the Elysian Fields, where they meet a famous Roman who shows them a vision of their...

. A Note on Iambic Barktameter I have an Australian Shepard named Sunny who loves poetry. I didn’t believe it at first, but she proved it to me. She showed me her copy of Poetry magazine and said, “Look...

. Bats at Sunset The monster is rotund, vile, enormous, three-muzzled, and barking ---Vasily Trediakovsky, after Virgil The woods are lovely, dark, and deep ---Robert Frost Last night the bats were flying so...

. SCP Members and readers are invited by poet Michael Pietrack to his Virtual Launch Party on Saturday, January 21 at 12 Noon EST.  The book---Legacy: The Saga Begins---is a complete novel-length adventure...

. The Calendar You are the festive dregs of January,you liven February with Valentine’s.You are the March that gives spring sanctuary,you are the splashing rain April confines.You entertain the shaken buds...

. Moments from Dante’s Inferno Prepared to travel, if the gods allowed, I saw the woods were dreary, dark as death. I chose to heed a blessing there endowed, before emerging spirits took a breath. And that...

. Banish the Thought Who are you? Not me, I know You creep and crimp my edges fray, An apparition of Dickens’ play--- Who are you? Not me, I know. Push and prod and now you’re in, Little sprite you always...

. Swimming with Dreams and Memory My childhood dreams and memories remain through adulthood and old age. My doll speaks. My toy car surfs that tidal wave, again. I’m still afraid of darkness, and the...

. “Newquay, we have a problem” January 9, 2023 We’ve gathered in thousands to witness the blast-off, We’re sipping Champagne with our eyes full of stars. In five or ten years now, our guys will be...

. Greta's Smorgasbord of Hate I love the pretty trees, the trees love me! They make me dance and sing, they make me shout And sulk and give loud speeches: blah, blah, blah How dare you feed on cow meat and...

. Gloucester in July A thousand silent saints and angels Hewn from vertex, plane, and angle Raised by blow of mason’s hammer Raised from stone to watch the faithful Underneath the sinners stammer Pray and...

. Beatitude Be glad and smile, for they revile, The Truth they mock and put on trial, The Beauty they do not possess, The Good, they curse, and will not bless, For Christ foretold this world’s own bile. Sit...

. El Pescado They gloat: the age of Pisces, it is over. They chant to call Aquarius’ forces in. In the deep labyrinths we sought the sign, The two-stroke fish, walls clammy, glittering. The old Mass book...

. The Christmas Story An angel of the Lord, Came forth with joyful news, Of Him Who is adored, Messiah of the Jews. The angel hailed the one, A Virgin pure and bright, Who chosen for the Son, Would crush the...

. The Wind Listen, listen! Do you hear it?  It is on the march tonight--- The incessant winter wind that blows throughout the wood and glade. Like a spectral army passing through the night in grim...

. Worth Disguised The hammer lifts, the anvil rings, The room with screaming noises brings __A torture, here inflicted. The bellows pump, the fire smokes, A prodding chisel pries and pokes. __This trial seems...

. Cookies I bought a bag of cookies for a snack, But they were way too sweet… I took them back. I tried each one to make sure this was true. I really didn’t know what else to do. The woman in the store...

. Civilisations Forget the Taste of Their Own Tails To see a friend possessed By the time’s ideological incantations, To see a world soon blessed By mob rule and its dark infatuations; To glimpse a...

. Bingo Ladies Gray-haired gals meet twice a week, Have their luncheon with the clique At the Wendy’s in Coppell. After they have talked a spell Off to northwest part of Dallas To the Giant Bingo...

. Out, out, brief candle! ---Macbeth I am black-dog blue and blinded by the glitzy gaze of stars. Lucent moons will never light __my skyless eye. I am frequently reminded of my fear __of future scars--- when...

. This Side of Eternity I. Imagination, you’re a two-edged sword, The universe your oyster, opened wide; Conceiving all the boon life might afford In dazzling display: what may be tried, Perpetual...

. For Sophie Pakaluk Barrows based on The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God by Michael Pakaluk in pie quebrado meter Before God made her soul and mind, Before her parents’ genes entwined __To start...

. On the Banning of the Word 'Field' by the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work See the related news story here. In Southern California they’ve declared that field’s a word to...

. For the French Revolution Oh, this shall tell the tale of France’s past: the revolution brought in ‘eighty nine, when Frenchmen took a stand and rose, amassed, against the king from ocean to the...

. Be Gone an angry teenage daughter to her absconded mother What irritant incited you to leave And not come back while I was left to grieve? Was it the man you wed, the girl you bore, Your dispositions? Tell...

. The Fluctuations of Modernity and Antiquity a pantoum __Something is ahead, A solemn note on open sky, __It rises from the dead, A whizzing plane of time gone by. A solemn note on open sky, Reminds me of...

. Putting Settings in Their Place For dilettantes the world’s bereft When table settings aren’t precise. For if the forks aren’t on the left They’ll give their host some stern advice: “The fork goes...

. Letter from a DC Prison We’d seen the evidence, the ballots dropped In loads of boxes trundled in late-night With ballot counting claimed to have been stopped; The windows blocked to hide observers’...

. Antietam It was the bloodbath battle of the Civil War; Scores of men died, by musket, the gore; Was this brave dead soldier from north or from south, Left on the field, blood gushed from his mouth; He had a...

. Queen of Jubilees A Queen there was, revered, of global fame--- Elizabeth the Second was her name. For three-score-years-and-ten she ruled the roost and gave us Brits a self-assuring boost through walkabouts...

. Elegy for an Unremarkable Man Poor Niel is dead. He’d been off sick since May. Cancer, they said, as if we couldn’t guess, And, since we didn’t know what words to say, We stayed away. If pressed, we...

. Thorns Grow with Song It’s time to rend our hearts and look inside The chambered will, into the voices in The vein: thorns grow with song. A hope applied With mercy calls the tuner of the tidal Pull of...

. I Met a Shepherdess  by Guido Cavalcanti (c. 1250-1300) translated by Joseph S. Salemi I met a shepherdess in a small copse. More beautiful than starlight, the girl seemed. Her hair was blonde-ish, with a...

. Mourning Louis XVI We must not say in public that we mourn--- Sit still, Brigitte, and listen to your père! If we disclose our grief we court the hate Of France’s revolutionary swarm. These days are bleak...

. The Departing Year This night shall stand and stare with wintry rage Through half-closed windows stained in loss and gain; To measure all astounding feats and fame Against those bitter tears in blinding...

. "I Will Mock When Your Calamity Cometh"  "...but ye have set at nought my counsel, and would hear none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh..." ...

. Xi When Xerxes saw his bridge of boats which spanned The Hellespont destroyed, forthwith he laid Fetters of iron on the waves and flayed With whips the surf which had him dared withstand. So Gaius, too,...

. Cambridge Dictionary Women, 2040 In 2040 leftist sports fans Realized their greatest joys, With legendary women’s records Smashed by athletes born as boys. Serena Williams’, Brittney Griner’s Records...