Poetry

  The Society of Classical Poets website receives millions of views every year. Visitors read engaging, beautiful, topical verse that enlivens Western Civilization's great conversation. That...

  Destined for the Mount Rushmore of Radio Triumphal times are on the way, America’s Anchor Man. We Dittoheads will toast the day when all is Right again. You cover what they won’t...

  Georges Danton's Ghost Counsels the Protestors “Yes, America is burning. But that’s how forests grow.” –Maura Healey, Massachusetts Attorney General (June 2, 2020) Georges Danton’s ghost...

  Repeal All the world and all the universe are still, ____All that moves, moves but as God wills; ____All that might be is by God’s grace, Slowing moving through forever at God’s pace. Whatever...

If I Owned a Macy's by Nancy Weber If I owned a Macy’s or other such stores… I'd tear down the plywood and unlock the doors. It used to be mine, but things change. Now it’s yours--- Men’s...

  My father wore his sorrow like a hundred millstone weight. I seldom saw him angry and I never saw him hate. And though he dressed for mourning, I only saw him cry Once in anguish, once for love,...

May 4, 2020 Response is Draconian, As if Napoleon’s Back on the emperor’s throne. Except now with “wanna-bes” Ruining economies, Governing states like his clone. With millions devoid of...

  The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place. Peering through...

I recently discarded some unnecessary texts, and among them were two past editions (the 17th and the 20th) of Len Fulton’s Directory of Poetry Publishers. This venerable publication, from Dustbooks in...

A Riot Limerick by Joe Tessitore The Most Evil has cast the first brick And his antics make decent folk sick. Though he rant and he rail His best efforts all fail--- He’s in fact the Most Impotent...

  Astride the Golden Horn, where Occident __And Orient collide, the silhouettes __of minarets co-mingle with the scent __of spice and sound of drums and castanets. The medieval mosques of...

  “London BLM riot: Cenotaph vandalised on the 76th anniversary of the D-Day Landing” –UK News headline, June 6, 2020 In nineteen forty-four, this very day, the barbarous bite of bullets felled...

  The captain stood amidst his crew, and wiped the bar for someone new. To make them laugh he'd tell a joke and light himself another smoke to cover up the smell of gin, And lasting feelings of...

  Dear Editor, My odes are grandiose and overblown With pudgy gluts of stodgy adjectives In floods of flabby babble prone to drone, All topped with tired, archaic additives. Forsooth, methinks the...

  The Dizi Gui (弟子规) is an ancient Chinese text for children that was written in the Qing Dynasty during the reign of Emperor Kangxi (康熙帝) (1661-1722) by Li Yuxiu. Below are excerpts from the...

  The Director General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom by Sarban Bhattacharya His accent’s weird, his hair is pretty grey, He is too calm to get into a fray. His moustache bears the villainy of the...

  The room fills with a charming melody— A choir of violins in soaring flight With basses, cellos pulsing—one, two, three— Drum-snaps, flute-trills, horn-calls, rich and bright— A dance of...

Poet's note: This poem is built upon an episode from Xenophon’s Anabasis, in which the Ten Thousand, Greek mercenaries in the employ of Cyrus the Younger, the ambitious brother of the king of Persia, are...

  When reading Irish hagiography, a few instructions should be borne in mind: First, don’t mistake this for the history you’ve read before, or might expect to find in some thick tome....

  Video and reading by Rob...

  When You Love When you love The heart of one, Life makes sense With each new sun. You start each day With thoughts of her. You do your best “We” must endure. To be the man She sees in...

  A Grave Sin by Satyananda Sarangi How grave's this sin of man to shatter man! The human touch is dreaded, faith has fled; I think of God to find a way and scan How grave's this sin of man to...

  Domain of Pain A piercing migraine or a throbbing toothache, A splinter underneath a fingernail, An upset stomach caused by too much fruitcake, And waiting for responses in the mail Are typical...

  Fake Checks by Esca Webuilder As Twitterites do fact-checks, which are really only fake, confusing truths with their opinions is their main mistake. But censoring the voices that they do not want...

  The Stranger Above the dark hill in the still Spanish night, The moon, a lone fountain of watery light, Demurely ascends, as she hides her fair face Behind misty veils of gossamer lace. Below,...

  Endless Dream I walk the trail, in hopes of reaching you, As winter sheds her tears of crystal ice. I rise above snow drifts, the trail to view, But find my steps alone do not suffice. On knees...

The Climber inspired by and dedicated to Chris Bonington and my erstwhile heroes Don Whillans and Dougal Haston He has conquered crags and chimneys Only eagles would have seen And the frozen lofty...

by David Whippman In 1984, Philip Larkin was asked to become the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. This position is, in principle, the most prestigious that any British poet can attain: in effect, court...

  At the Cemetery “Drowned together while playing with a sled on the ice of the Saw Mill Pond at Kensico. Dec. 5, 1871.” ---gravestone inscription She pauses here, what has been done? One...

Solemn Silent Soldiers Rest by Roy E. Peterson, written May 22, 2020 Solemn, silent soldiers rest Beneath the green earth’s sheltering breast. The bodies that were once in pain Became the ghost...

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  17 March 2019 When bleeds the heart with heartache harsh and deep, And coiling loins are toiling, boiling hot, And tears descend across the landscape steep, Cascading in their anguish, frail and...

  Mastering Magic Set the questing mind on fire with magic, Learn the ancient lore then follow through. Effortlessness must be automatic, Forcing sorcery will never do. Wizardry well done is...

  Oh, What Is Prayer? Oh, what is prayer? Is it a mystery, that bridges earth and heaven in a cry, that reaches to the infinite? A sigh, A groan, a whisper, tears that come to be admixed from faith...

by Sultana Raza In April 1820, Keats was already aware that he had tuberculosis, and in spring of that year, he was experiencing fever, a bad chest, and lots of anxiety, specially about not being able to...

Hummingbird Communion I watch them play at dawn of day, as molten gold is splashed their way, on feathers flecked with flashing green and rubies fused in morning’s beam, where sleepers dream and...

Clarity and Obscurity Part III Read Part I: The Essences of Classicism and Modernism Compared Read Part II: "Concrete" Poetry and the Fall of Metaphor by Adam Sedia Modernism produces obscure poetry...

  O do not chasten me with tales of fine __Fresh wells of wisdom and of warriors bold, __Or sacred veins of Ethiopian gold, Your more than oracles or muses nine, For I've drunk deep of a more...

  My Last Duchess The Duke of Ferrara recalls his last wife. by Robert Browning That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra...

  I. The rats infesting Kathmandu Airport Appear to co-exist in peace with man And have, it seems, since local time began, Been treated each like some great Juggernaut. Their teeming numbers...