Poetry

Poet's Note: The Apology of Socrates is Plato’s account of Socrates’ defense of himself in a court of law. The present work is a poetic interpretation of Plato’s account. I would like to thank my friend Dr. William Engels for his constructive criticism and helpful editorial suggestions.   Part 1:...

  The Boncompagni Dragon The Boncompagni Dragon, by Bartolomeo Passerotti (1529-92). Pen with brown ink, over black chalk. Tobey Collection of Renaissance Drawings, Metropolitan Museum of Art A gorgon’s head on a swanlike neck, furred with a middle-aged mane, the ears two mismatched scimitars like a hedge about the brain....

. Juneteenth---the Day After by Joe Tessitore Witness the collapse And see the dust clouds rise. Hear the sound of taps And feel the shroud of lies. Hear the harpies laugh And as the willow cries, Read the epitaph--- It comes as no surprise. Will you take the knee? I...

Twisted Reckoning If pain can produce beauty, and if beauty causes pain, then how can I be reconciled to more loss than I gain? If love is also longing, and if love is loss refined, how can I move ahead and mourn when love has been unkind? I look afar...

  Johann Sebastian Bach Truly loved music, yet Managed to wed twice And father a gang. The kids took their tonics, Eschewed bad harmonics, Bach said Bohemian Life could go hang! Frederick Chopin was Never a well man. His Love for Maria Was only a yearn. George Sand, who helped...

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZUryvFffTQ   Some Sunny Day A tribute to Dame Vera Lynn who died today, June 18, 2020 (aged 103). She was the British Forces' Sweetheart who sang to the soldiers (including the poet's grandfather) during World War II, such songs as "We'll Meet Again." by Susan Jarvis Bryant Birds...

Translator's Note: John Gower (c.1330–1408) wrote his Traitié de Matrimoine in French (with Latin notes throughout) to reach the widest possible audience. Seventeen ballades supply instructive examples from history and literature; the poems are packed with sound doctrine on marriage and warnings against every error on the subject, even errors...

  A Reminder to Our Young People To say life has no hardship's to deceive, But trials and tribulations help us grow. Commensurate with giving we receive, Reward reflects the effort that we show. Existence without challenge would be bland, Though it may seem desirable to some. Responsibility goes hand...

All of the below poems were read on May 31, 2020 at The Society of Classical Poets Symposium, which was held online due to the pandemic. Below are poems from Session I. Session II readings are forthcoming.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p33P5Y-_Ptg&t=2s What’s love got to do with it? (With apologies to Tina...

  “Laudamus te” from J.S. Bach’s B-minor Mass This aria so beautifully sung, Its obbligato part ethereal; Such coloratura from one so young, So evanescent, immaterial. Her limpid voice would almost somersault, While dancing back and forth in swift ascent Until it seemed to reach the heavens’ vault The very...

Two Tattoos   Tattoo One: On the Corporate and Politic Bodies Across my town, the shops and offices are short. Its buildings don’t blot out the sun. There’s sky to spare. However, needling, thin, construction cranes consort With straight-edged arms and steel-thread lines to pierce the air. Soon architects’ designs...

  On Antifa, Coming to the Country A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. ---Amendment II by Reid McGrath I’ll warn you now: We like our guns out here. Our safes...

  Consider black’s effect; when it’s combined With other colors just a little trace Creates a shade but more will hide, erase The hue till just the dark is left behind. Is white black’s opposite? Its presence tints When tweaking tones, but mixes that diverge To mostly white begin to...

The Society of Classical Poets, a New York-based 501(c)(3) non-profit with Members across the nation and around the world, wishes a happy birthday to the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump (born June 14, 1946).   The 45th Pen by Rod Walford In the land of...

  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 conversation continues in Journal VIII (drawn from poetry published on our website between February 1, 2019 and January 31, 2020). It's a conversation we...

  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 discuss. Your devotion to truth is supreme. You work so every one of us can live the...

  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 arose from hell And visited the U.S.A. He found a group of protestors And called to them: “One word, I pray— “America is...

  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 is, has been as God ordained ____As human will is free enchained, ____As in the...

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 sleepwear to rugs, all the 10.5 floors. Fill backpack and bags. Come...

  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, and once when Louis Armstrong died. This song is for a...

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 work, Thousands who’ve gone berserk, Rest trying just to survive, Why do these pretenders Who chose to surrender To hype 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 reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings,...

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 California, has for decades been an indispensable resource for poets seeking to find possible places for their work. It...

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 Prick.   To the Hong Kong Police by Damian Robin Outstanding. Where...

  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 Suleyman __And Sultan Ahmet are beyond the pale. __But Hagia Sophia’s lavish span __Is beauty, wrapped in wonder—nonpareil. What next?...

  “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 our brave. A crimson sea of soldiers paved the way. At Normandy they had the world to save...

  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 chagrin. The captain stood amidst his crew, a round been drunk and...

  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 proof’s before your eyes, But, twixt these lines exists a masterpiece; A svelte and blithesome, lithe, linguistic prize...

  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 Dizi Gui translated by Evan Mantyk.   Disciples rules are what the Sage is teaching:...

  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 WHO, His pompous mouth suppressed the Wuhan flu. He talked of “global solidarity,” But...

  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 grace and suave gentility. The music conjures up a spectral scene, A world lost long—but not so long—ago, A memory...

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 reviewed in Cilicia, along with the barbarian armies Cyrus raised in Asia Minor. Xenophon, like...

  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. There’s hist’ry here, of course--- somewhere, I’m sure---but it is not the kind you read in high school,...

  Video and reading by Rob Crisell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDEnIR5ziHI&t=8s&fbclid=IwAR1pAlRNwLHVVh1LP0RlZIDMEJslUOhD1MZqoCPCHcvxHQtFK9EwlF8sJt8    

  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 you, You now trust this--- With her, can do. And...

  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 shatter man! An empire built on bricks of blood...

  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 examples of distress A person is expected to endure Within this agonizing wilderness Until his passage to...

  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 to hear, is neither good, nor valu'ble; it is a kind of fear. One needs to get...

  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, the small village lies dead as a tomb; Its few humble dwellings, enshrouded in gloom,...

  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 I crawl across the banks of snow, As yearnings for your...