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Poetry

Home
Poetry

‘Sonnet For All Who Follow Me’ by Leo Yankevich

The Society
October 30, 2019
Beauty, Poetry
12 Comments
  Leo Yankevich passed away in December 2018. This poem was submitted by Sally Cook. Crows and leaves beyond the windowpane, a cup of steaming coffee on the stool, my lines reflected in your eyes,...

‘Divorce – Brexit Style’ by Susan Jarvis Bryant

The Society
October 29, 2019
Culture, Humor, Poetry
10 Comments
  My husband posed his need to leave; a family vote was cast. The outcome brought me to my knees and left my heart aghast. Now, I’m a tad controlling – of that I will admit; “LEAVE” just...

‘The Constant Truth’ by Tod Benjamin

The Society
October 28, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry, Short Stories
10 Comments
  The Constant Truth A Reflection on the Times of My Life   I. The Old Days A sheep filled meadow lay adjacent to our street Where from March throughout spring one could hear the lambs...

A Poem by Michelangelo, ‘The Woman Who Passed Me’ by Charles Baudelaire: Translations by Michael Coy

The Society
October 27, 2019
Beauty, Poetry, Translation
39 Comments
He Wishes to Immortalise His Mistress by Michelangelo Buonarroti How is it, ma mignonne, (as we all know) that figures carved in mountain marble stay exquisite, pristine, everlasting, though the hand...

Sonnets on the Four Seasons and Other Poetry by Peter Hartley

The Society
October 26, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
17 Comments
Spring In spring the crocuses broke out as bold As brass from refuge in their barren clay. They speared the air in colourful array And blazoned they their petals proudly told Of azure and of purpure and...
poem/kemper/culture

‘Destiny in Blue’ by David Watt

The Society
October 25, 2019
Beauty, Poetry
14 Comments
  In a town by the sea, where the salt air’s free, Lived a widower and his daughter. She was known as Claire-Kate; or by title First Mate On those days when their boat sailed the water. And it...

‘Campaign of 1940-1952’ and Other Poetry by Christopher Fried

The Society
October 24, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
11 Comments
Campaign of 1940-1952 True Cincinnati spirit is the love of hearth, the principles of isolation, a life in works of service to the nation. Could he reverse the course and release the doves of peace,...

‘In Memory of the Lake’ by James Christy

The Society
October 24, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry, The Environment
4 Comments
  I hear Boeung Kak has now been filled with gritty sand, turned mud, now earth. The lake’s become a dusty field, yet memory preserves a berth for fishermen in long canoes, just toothpicks...

Ecclesiastes 1, Recast in Classical Poetry, by T.M. Moore

The Society
October 23, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry, Terza Rima
16 Comments
Wind and Vanity after Ecclesiastes 1 My name is Solomon, and you may know me as the king of Israel, David’s son, a man of wisdom unsurpassed. And so I was. And yet I write to you as one emerging...

‘Life’s Woes’ by Michael Maibach

The Society
October 22, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
2 Comments
In every life Woe presses down, We falter then— Face to the ground. This woe in me— Am I alone? Without high ground, Can’t see my home! I reach for earth— Find only sand. No foothold...

‘Let Me Go Gentle into That Dark Night’ by Rohini Sunderam

The Society
October 21, 2019
Beauty, Poetry
22 Comments
  after Dylan Thomas Let me go gentle into that dark night Let me not rage against the dying light There is another light that beckons me That from this garish light will set me free It softly glows...

‘Time’ and Other Poetry by Paul Oratofsky

The Society
October 21, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry
34 Comments
Time Time to time to time—from tock to tick, to wall to window topple, stop, then stop: a tower, wrist, a rest, a clerk, a click— around around the sound (a drip) (a drop)— and tripping,...

Four Garden Poems by Anna J. Arredondo

The Society
October 20, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry
33 Comments
Ultimatum  To My Friendly Neighbor Regarding His Overly-friendly Pet* Dear neighbor, do you love your cat? (I'm sure you must, they're such enchanters) I've got a bag of poo (for you) It left in all my...

Lord Byron’s Darkest Secrets and Greatest Poetry

The Society
October 19, 2019
Beauty, Best Poems, Culture, Essays, Humor, Poetry
12 Comments
This piece is sponsored by KidSecured by Evan Mantyk and Kathy Brellan Lord Byron was born George Gordon Byron in London on January 22, 1788 and died just 36 years later in 1824. Yet, despite his short...

‘Daguerreotype’ and Other Poetry by James A. Tweedie

The Society
October 18, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
28 Comments
  Daguerreotype An old once-treasured memory engraved On glass to keep the dying past alive. A fractal blink of time preserved and saved So that the tableau-ed moment would survive. Three men,...

‘The Three Graces in the Trinket Shop’ by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
October 17, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
17 Comments
  Aglaia, Euphrosyne, Thalia I find them there, no longer young, Though neatly dressed and well preserved: Three sisters in the trinket shop— Polite and helpful, but reserved. They guide me...

‘Doublespeak Denial’ by Susan Jarvis Bryant

The Society
October 16, 2019
Culture, Humor, Poetry, Rondeau, Villanelle
20 Comments
Doublespeak Denial Rondeau Redoublé “Gender mattered a whole lot less to Shakespeare than it seems to matter to us.” —John Irving If I don’t care for words you have to share (a pitch which...

Essay: Richard Wilbur, C.S. Lewis, and the Imaginative Power of Poetry

The Society
October 15, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry
7 Comments
by T.M. Moore   Our Image-hungry Age Increasingly, our postmodern generation prefers its communications to be in as few words and as many images as possible. Hence, the curious success of...

‘Harvest Sonnet’ and Other Poetry by Landon Porter

The Society
October 14, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
18 Comments
Harvest Sonnet If, in June, clouds crack and seeping, Leak their cache upon beast and field, Surety no longer keeping, This payment, late, defaults the yield; Lest the rain delay the reaping Another...

‘Fleas’ after Kilmer, ‘The Toad Not Taken’ after Frost, by Rob Crisell

The Society
October 13, 2019
Poetry
10 Comments
Fleas with apologies to Joyce Kilmer I think that I shall never see A creature horrid as a flea. A flea who makes a little nest Inside the fur of doggy’s chest; That treats us like a free...

How NOT to Hate Shakespeare: TED Talk by Rob Crisell

The Society
October 13, 2019
Culture, Education, Poetry, Shakespeare, Video
2 Comments
...

‘Why Pterodactyls Make Great Pets’ by Mark F. Stone

The Society
October 12, 2019
Children's, Culture, Humor, Poetry
38 Comments
  Choosing a pet can be vexing and yet it’s important to vet all the choices you’ve got. If you’re in search of a pet who will perch on your silver white birch, it’s the best of the...

A Reading of Petrarch’s Sonnet No. 7, in Italian

The Society
October 11, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry, Readings, Translation
25 Comments
  This recording was made by M. P. Lauretta for the Southend Poetry Group in August 2019.   Sonetto n. 7 dal Canzoniere di Francesco Petrarca La gola e ’l sonno e l’oziose piume hanno...

‘Snapshot’ by David Paul Behrens

The Society
October 10, 2019
Beauty, Poetry
11 Comments
The wind and balmy breeze Blow softly through the trees. All the darkness of the night, Disappears in morning light. The shadows on the ground, They do not make a sound. Birds awakened, singing...

‘Dodgeball’ and Other Poetry by T.M. Moore

The Society
October 9, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry, Villanelle
28 Comments
Dodgeball "But we have the mind of Christ." 1 Corinthians 2.16 Sometimes my thought-life is a dodgeball game— except that I’m the only one on my side of the line—and when at length I try to launch...
poem/gardner/culture

‘The Last Evening in Eden’ by Martin Rizley

The Society
October 8, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry, Short Stories
18 Comments
  This is an abridged version of the original. A reading of the original can be found here. A chilling breeze blew through the trees, which filtered beams of light That danced in play as dying day gave...

‘Autumn Sonnet’ by David Whippman

The Society
October 7, 2019
Beauty, Poetry
11 Comments
  This season’s colours will be brown and gold Fading to sepia, like a photograph. The leaves, still splendid, are already old, Their richness is a kind of aftermath. This, like all seasons, is...

‘A Treble’s Song’ and Other Poetry by Leo Zoutewelle

The Society
October 6, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
24 Comments
A Treble's Song Is there a thing to match a treble’s song? The joy perhaps of spring-time larks in flight, Or how the migrant birds so deftly throng? What of the mane that speaks the lion’s...

‘The Human Skylight’ by Satyananda Sarangi

The Society
October 5, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
31 Comments
  The skylight lets the nascent streak Of gold inside this darkened room; Some wisp of scent invades therein, A perfumed faith to counter gloom. Those orbs of light cast patterns old, Of...

A Translation from Goethe’s Roman Elegies V

The Society
October 4, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry, Translation
8 Comments
  Here stand I happ’ly on classical grounds, inspired; the voices speak distinctly in enchanted tone from worlds of today and former times expired. Taking counsel, I leaf through beloved elders’...

A Cento from the Political Poetry of Presidents Lincoln, Taylor, and Taft by Beverly Stock

The Society
October 3, 2019
Culture, Poetry
2 Comments
Political Voice (A Cento) A cento or collage poem takes bits of poetry from past poets and puts them together in a new order. The below poem draws on the poems written for the political campaigns of U.S....

‘Irrelevant’ and Other Poetry by Joe Tessitore

The Society
October 2, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry
10 Comments
  Irrelevant If the room is the tomb then the elephant is irrelevant.   Haiku From my heart was shown how very much I loved her— could she not have known?   I have found my...

Poems on Helen Keller, the Wright Brothers, and Others, by Martin Elster

The Society
September 30, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry
13 Comments
Helen Keller (1880-1968) Your eyesight and hearing were gone, yet you felt just as blithe as a fawn ___when you learned that a word ___could stand for a bird or the flowers that bloomed in your...

Essay: ‘A Breeze Came Out of the North…’

The Society
September 29, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry
6 Comments
A breeze came out of the North one day, and cried, "September's begun!" A breeze came out of the North one day, declared, "The Summer is done!" by Jack Ahlers You know the fall air—it is somehow...

‘Writer’s Block’ and Other Poetry by Theresa Rodriguez

The Society
September 29, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
15 Comments
Writer's Block I feel like I am plodding through cement; My mind is full of cotton batting. Dull, And dense, and empty-headed, thinking spent On trying to find clarity. To mull About within and come up...

‘Don’t Flog Yourself When Playing Golf’ by Raymond Gallucci

The Society
September 28, 2019
Culture, Humor, Poetry
23 Comments
A ball that’s lost should never cost ____A one-stroke penalty. Where now it dwells finds someone else— ____It’s stolen property! When perfect putt lips ‘round the cup, ____No stroke need added...

Mourning Verse by Michael Curtis

The Society
September 27, 2019
Beauty, Love Poems, Poetry
8 Comments
Sandprints Yes: Life is pleasure, life is grand, __Life is sweet and fleeting; Alike a stroll upon the sand, __Alike a heart that’s beating In measured pace, step after step, __In meter through our...

‘The Pain of Foreign Occupation’ and Other Poetry by Leo Zoutewelle

The Society
September 26, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
16 Comments
The Pain of Foreign Occupation The land lay naked under hobnailed boots Of German occupiers in The Hague. The Blitzkrieg had commenced with parachutes And covered sedate Holland like a...

‘Spoke the Mansion’ and Other Poetry by Alec Ream

The Society
September 25, 2019
Beauty, Poetry
5 Comments
. . Spoke the Mansion All around be the space of a halcyon day, Some salon where discussion meets wine and croquet; There are salads of crab, on the sun-mottled court For my gracious old neighbor, the...

‘Knowledge as a Mixed Blessing,’ Three Sonnets by Philip Keefe

The Society
September 24, 2019
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
17 Comments
  I. Is curiosity the bane of man As seeking knowledge often leads to woe? Do only fools pass their allotted span Disclosing some things better not to know? Or is pursuit of truth its own...
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  1. James Sale on A Video Reading of the Poem ‘The Loons of Colby Lake’ by Michael PietrackSeptember 13, 2025

    Fine poem, great reading, and excellent production - well done both Michael and ABB.

  2. James Sale on ‘An American Explains (to a Curious Brit)’: A Poem by Scharlie MeeuwsSeptember 13, 2025

    Never mind how it's pronounced CB: she is obviously a cat (for it's a form of cat language) and the…

  3. Margaret Brinton on ‘A Ballad of Fortune’: A Poem by Margaret BrintonSeptember 13, 2025

    Thank you , Roy. Despite the disturbing state of the world, a person can still find a bit of harmony…

  4. Margaret Brinton on ‘A Ballad of Fortune’: A Poem by Margaret BrintonSeptember 13, 2025

    Thank you, Roy. There is , indeed, a variety of "gold" to be discovered in this state that I have…

  5. Paul Freeman on ‘A Ballad of Fortune’: A Poem by Margaret BrintonSeptember 13, 2025

    I can see this as a three-hour epic movie, Margaret. What fun you could have with the husband and wife…

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