Beauty

  Of Roland and of Kings I sing of Arthur and Excalibur, The Table Round and fealty professed By knights devoted to a noble quest For what was right and good, and pure. I sing of Percival and Bedivere; Of Tristan, Kay, Gareth and Adragain; Of Galahad, Gaheris, and Gawain;...

  A poem's truth, when presently revealed Inside its lines where they had first congealed Will fill you with a youthful ardent joy— Like first unwrapping ribbons on a toy, Or spring, when fragrant warmths of mulchy earth Stew flowers cocking back their heads in mirth As coldly chirping birds...

  As autumn breezes blow away The warmth of summer’s sun, Then shortened is the light of day When we had danced as one. The prelude to the winter snow Is sung by icy rain, The rosiness of dawn’s soft glow Usurped by cloudy stains. The bitter winds strip off...

Pinhead While sitting on a pinhead __Stuck in an angel's wing Holding still a piece of thread __I tap my head to think, I tap again, to no avail, __It seems I have forgot The answer to the riddle, __“If not, then what?”   A Single Blade of Grass A...

a villanelle Be still now and let them go. Their trials and losses fade away. Briefly, they were yours to sow. Children stumble, cry, and grow. They are young and so they stray. Be still now and let them go. Work the ground and sweat and hoe; Plant them for...

  Here Comes the Hybrid Bus Here comes that brand new hybrid bus Round the street so pretty; It's length so long it makes the turn, And bends right round the city. It's certainly looking very clean, All spic and span and bright; Too bad that not a single soul...

on the state of poetry today I see the threads have all aligned __In a patchwork tapestry That seemed at first all but resigned __To the death of poetry. The colors of the patchwork poems, __Splendid though each of them seems, Are mismatched swaths cut off from homes, __Fraying fast...

Traditional Sacred Polyphonist of England Wilton! Could music make the dead to rise, Spare life its toil, move wills from sloth, Bind happy lovers in their troth, Or lift a heart to soar upon the skies, Rather would I your holy strains to hear, That breathe of the eternal life...

Ms. Hayden, On Your Selection of Our Next Poet Laureate: For poetry to rise again Seek one who has applied the pen To that which all can understand, To verse which is sublime and grand. Choose one who writes for all to read, Who is from all pretension freed, Who...

Politician or Poet When in one’s soul the politician calls forth – The poet’s voice withers and comes to naught. And poems become a bedlam of propaganda Praising the party’s agenda. The poet’s pain…  His cruel fate… Has brought censorship and hate. He’s now consumed with different fires… Only the...

The Hindu's Lament As I passed a lonely temple in the after-evening glow, On the banks of the Ganges where the quiet waters flow, When the sun had sunk to rest and cool softness touched the air, I saw a dark-skinned Indian and I heard him chant this prayer: Bhagwan! ...

  When born, they said he came into the light! He realised soon it's another kind of gloom, where innocence had lost to odious blight and wisdom went crisscross in carnal looms. With his one foot on earth and one in space he strived too long thinking of his perdu...

The Poet's Soul with Artful Pen Few will read with understanding What the poet is intending. Nouns and verbs are still concealing Concepts with a double meaning. Adjectives, and adverbs too, Are used in ways that men find new. A word familiar with strange ending Pirouettes on what's portending. Misty...

Not how we're seen but what we do determines beauty's stride, for seeds of virtue catered to are planted deep inside. Not what we see but how perceived in nature's many sides determines how the world's received as force of will collides. Not when we do but why we strive...

Cell Block Twenty-Nine I haven’t seen the sun for days, Nor felt Compassion’s gentle ways; My body’s weak, but courage stays, In Cell Block Twenty-Nine. They tell me “Falun Gong’s a lie!” And if I don’t renounce, I’ll die For price of liver, lung, or eye, In Cell Block Twenty-Nine....

Attentive to the dawning light, a poem has much in common with a plant: the crown delivers photosynthate through the phloem to earthbound roots—as thoughts are channeled down to partner up with images (concrete ones are preferred) from native stock; from roots the living water is conveyed to meet essential...

Much too small for a plow, __but I dig anyhow __till there’s sweat on my brow __from the weeds that I fight. I know others may yawn __at that part of my lawn __that I spend my time on, __but it brings me delight. At the end of the day,...

Presented by Monty Phillips Given that the recent days have been rightfully occupied by the remembering of the humans who never made it home from World War 1, I thought I might highlight a less represented species; many of whom also never made it home from that War. It’s said...

The Garden of Life In wee, assuring spans of sunlit day, The sun awakened, rides his carriage fast To paint with crimson every corner passed, To cheer the silent buds of torrid May. My garden here in wintry menace shakes, While neither spring nor summer visit once; The busy bee...

  On sunny days We’re filled with “me.” “I’m on my own And feeling free!” We have our job, And casual friends. The world feels strong Like it won’t end. Then clouds roll in, And lightning, too. Our plans all fail; Life’s bills come due. A friendship fades. A lover...

inspired by the Book of Hebrews To carry close a fishing net of gold or sea-green thread, __a-woven by some skillful hands, with ruby borders bound, a massive net, with onyx weights, and glass-blown floats, deep red – __against one’s chest to press this, while it drapes cascading down. To...

At Dusk At dusk, when high above the darkening trees, __The swallows in the deep blue dip and soar, As if in flying higher, still to squeeze __The last delicious moments that before ____The light into the West steals off and dies, ____I dream that they are dancing for my...

  Behold the cloud-graced monoliths That stretch against the sky Into the boundless sanctity Where wind swift eagles fly. Primal valleys bloom to life As tumbling waters sing, Resurrected from the heights Where ancient glaciers cling. Time is without measure In a world no one can claim; Blessèd be the...

  "Write on!" the Masters from the shadows cried. "By your thin air we breathe, nor ever died; Your modest dress, our glorious raiment shares And witness to our sun, your candle bears. "Ignored, reviled, by fashion shut away, We are not stilled, nor sleep as common clay; We are...

  The Age of Poetry They say that poetry’s a young man’s game, indulged while still limber, lithe, and healthy enough to dance all night with energy. Without concern for funding and fickle fame, artists, in their youth, burning with passion’s flame, can better ignore the bruises of poverty, the...

by James Sale Carol Smallwood In the Measuring is a substantial new collection of 77 poems by Carol Smallwood. Carol is well-known to readers of The Society of Classical Poets, as her poems regularly appear on its site; and furthermore, she is a well-respected and widely published poet throughout the...

  In Officio Exsequarium Come, let us bid the last of our farewells To one who sleeps on the retiring ship; November’s breath respires the mournful knells; “Lord, give him rest” is murmured lip to lip. What is our life, if not a morning dew, A flash of light upon...

Autumn Wind by Yuan Xi, translated by Jennifer Zeng and Damian Robin From far off, Autumn wind runs at us in a rush! Across a thousand miles, displacing clouds with sky, (And crowding through the dark, tense soldiers in a hush), Then past the cliff, through countless pines, like echoes...

John of the Mountains To him we owe a mammoth debt, our grateful thanks and praise, For the lasting conservation trails with foresight he did blaze. A “voice calling in the wilderness,” like John the Baptist, he Preached love of God’s Creation – mountain, waterfall, and tree. When first he...

This universe of ours will end As we then return to the source. No more wounds to tend or to mend, As the source will chart a new course. When all the sands of time run out And existence must start anew, Our souls will be out and about, To...

The Ballerina Just before the break of day she woke from dreams of grand jeté and knelt beside her bed to pray. Like a feather, then she rose and slipped into her warm-up clothes to dance in silence on her toes. Evening and the house lights fell. Curtain up! she...

Blasted granite marks the trail Guttered through eternal rock. Windborne smoke and ashes veil Mountain peaks through which we walk. Upward blue sky’s endlessness; Downward glimpse of lakes below. High Sierra wilderness— Gleaming stone bedecked with snow. Onward towards our destination, Passing juniper and pine, To the place called Desolation,...

by Evan Mantyk Where is Homer? The epic poems of the famous Greek bard were the cornerstone of education for young Socrates, Alexander the Great, Roman emperors, William Shakespeare, and every serious scholar in the Western world until the last 50 years. Yet, today they have nearly disappeared from school...

Birthday Greetings As themes show signs of nature's stay, And time’s propitious dates hold sway, The evidence augurs your bloom, From sculptured years that now have hewn A shapened belle upon a theme, Appears today, your beauty’s seam, Enjoined! auspicious perfect pair, The past, has futured you so fair.  ...

Sonnet 201. The Force that Through the Green Fuse Pulls the Poem. Written in the Dylan Thomas Museum, Swansea. July 2017 Oh to be the Poet! Love the words And see them wound around the teeth and tongue, To shake the shingle from the seas-absurd, To dance upon the dragons’...

Solid Ground Our greatest philosopher David Hume, Whose logical doubts leave naught to assume, Used skeptical arguments he had found To leave nothing on solid ground Until a Kant came walking along And pointed out where David went wrong With help from a little a priori The world was just...

by Joseph Charles MacKenzie Read the Selected Poems from Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal online. Email [email protected] for details on purchasing the book. Two arts are beautifully displayed in Helen Palma’s Selected Poems from Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (Pivot Press, New York, 2014). The first and most obvious is...

  I woke this day beside the two-way Wye, at peace with wars too often waged inside between the push of how, the pull of why. The river, calm against the ebbing tide, displayed an ease I had not seen before, and I was easy too (or close, at least, for one with...

United They Fall Exhausted armies cling to noble trees along the margin of a meadow mown two weeks ago.  It's fifty-five degrees, and summer's long campaign is at an end, the bugles stilled, except when taps is blown -- for here and there a feckless golden horde, a red brigade...

Ah, now comes the mellow season, Marks its time with jackdaws caws. Autumn with its rusty reason Offers forth its season’s laws. Now no more the pretty laces, Florals found along the way. Brackish forms in darker traces, Longer shadows, shorter day. Autumn wears its gown of orange Trampling out...