Culture

Organ Harvest by Damian Robin, published by Fulton Verse, 2018. Read three sonnets from the work here.  by James Sale Damian Robin is well known to readers of the Society of Classical Poets web pages.  His poetry is frequently published there, as are his comments on others' poetry; and also, like...

Oak In quiet awe before a solid oak in summer bloom, I thought: to such as these my Saxon kin of long ago bespoke their pagan prayers—a source of great unease to Charlemagne, these heathens and their trees! He killed all those beyond baptism’s hope, Then celebrated Christmas with the...

  My candle burns at both ends Late into the night, And flickers fast, And bounces in my sight. My pen lies docile in my hand. The page is silent now. My eyes transfix; My thoughts do mix; The flame moves like her gown. I see her sway In silken...

I. But yesterday, your noble fathers bled Upon the fields of France, where countless dead Had found among the vines their final rest, To gild with fame a venerated crest Whose princely brandishing from age to age Outlasted armies and the tyrant’s rage. But yesterday, you bravely fought and won...

Sail Fever I knew some terms, the merest germs Of illness called ‘Sail Fever’: Tack starboard, port, keep mainsail taut, Steer boat by tiller lever! One Saturday, beside the bay, A salesman full of running Cast practised spiel of salty zeal, Sheer confidence and cunning. He said, “This boat will...

Where a lamppost spreads a white spot light Nursing silent night with canny purr, A racoon crosses there in sudden flight. Where an old man walks his dog this hour With a leash that’s buckled to his hand, The dog stands briefly pat in belled collar. Where a beggar sits...

Alzheimer's Disease I can feel your deep darkness closing in, With its harrowing sense of helplessness, Soon obscenity sours tongues gathering; Havoc’s wrought by every hellish djin As chaos kicks aside your selflessness, Guilt, aplenty, glee guilds in fathering: Flaunting tones of stricken folk fail true faith, Whilst naught stands...

Bristlecone Longevity The beauty of the tree is not how old, Indeed how ancient in its gnarling now, Not in its silent history yet untold, Nor in the pre-historic roots and bough— Their age—but in its newness ever new, Its torqued refusal to be caught by death, Rejection of defeat...

Translator's Preliminary Note This is an original translation of a poem by Sappho (630-580 BC), traditionally known as the “old age poem” or the “Tithonus poem” (in the standard numbering by Lobel and Page, it is “Fragment 58”). Tithonus, mentioned in the poem, was a mortal whom the goddess Dawn...

Heritage I like to say I’d an Egyptian father If that is too obscure for you, I’d rather Explain it just by citing preservation. They preserved mummies, he his indignation At how the world had gone awry, once all Ethics, society had gone on stall. My father then stepped gingerly...

Poet’s Note: I wrote this poem in the same metrical form as the song “America the Beautiful” (but without the internal rhyme). You can sing it if you want, but I think it is most effective when simply read out loud. This year our nation’s birthday seems a tad bit...

Two Lives by Michael Maibach When soldiers die, They give two lives. The one they had, And the one denied. The spouse not met, The child unknown, The life unsaved, The welcome home. The hill unclimbed, The beach unseen, The books unread, The field un-gleaned. The chance to see Their...

Garden Waltz a terza rima sonnet in dactylic pentameter with a truncated foot at the end of each line Radishes sway to the rhythm of sunlight and rainfall, Carrots to minerals present in alkaline soil. Onions, however, invite a due process most painful, Opening eyes to the sting of their...

You pushed Grace hard so you could have your book. She did the layout, made the pdf. I bought the thing so I could take a look but, when I read it, I found blatant theft. You’d stolen poems from anthologies of poets who had won the Nobel Prize. You...

The Lord’s Supper They’re gathered round, astonished, full of dread, round him who like a wise man must decide, and who leaves those with whom he’s broken bread, and who comes like a stranger from outside. Old solitude haunts him, Gethsemane, though once it bound him to astounding acts; now...

The Fall Revisited The implications of the fall are endless in their reach; that lowly serpent had such gall, Eve's failure to beseech. Though what they chose when they did bite that infamous red fruit was bad enough for God to smite them; He withheld pursuit. Preferring then to extricate...

Guess who is not invited to come to a dinner here? Rights are just for some people. Others have to disappear. There is no bias in denials of our services; we shall not break bread with those who do not think just like us. Injustice anywhere's a threat to justice...

“Only fools are positive.”  “You sure about that?” “I’m positive.” ―The Three Stooges “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” "Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.” “In a time of deceit telling the truth is...

  While strolling around an illustrious lair, I was caught by a breeze of regret in the air, For gazing I was on old buildings of stone, All graced with such courage and dignity their own, With worthy exploits and a mind once refined, These guardians of masses, once seeking...

Winners announced here. Scroll down and read the comments section to enjoy all of the submissions. What has no subject one can tell, Yet tries to make it ring a bell? What makes you scratch your head and think, “How does this blather even link?” RULES: Write a rhyming riddle...

03.27.18 A smattering of rain above a hall That holds her earthy fragments, broken, spent, A woman who, in life, out-did them all, And e’en in death defies the elements. O, what would she make now of her dear France, Beset by enemies who walk among us, Tracing our very...

Written upon reading the book How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World. The beast once foretold for the end of days Crouched in a Karl Marx statue erected Last month in Germany, where it displays A villain’s face now praised and respected. The beast’s scales are the merchandise...

by James Sale FORMAL COMPLAINTS by Joseph S. Salemi, Somer Rocks Press, 1997 MASQUERADE by Joseph S. Salemi, Somer Rocks Press, 2005 SKIRMISHES by Joseph S. Salemi, Pivot Press, 2010 I first encountered Joseph Salemi’s work on the pages of The Society of Classical Poets, and a great discovery it...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Confucius Institutes "Three things cannot be hidden long: the sun, the moon and truth." —paraphrase of a Buddhist quote by Lu "Reed ABCs" Wei The Chinese Party-Communists use wily socialites, constructing a network of spying, propaganda sites, for outposts called evasively Confucian Institutes, attempting...

  I may have borne them each, but it was you, Whose shoulders carried weight I never knew, You set the bar so high, so straight, so true, The surest, strongest Dad?  Well, that was you. I may have dried their tears, but it was you, Who made them get...

Form Sonnet Turn the page and write again today Make something come out of an eager mind Make something in a new and different way In something both of earthy and refined For when I strive it seems that I can find What I am looking for in forms like...

See notes below for background and allusions. Olivia: Daughter, shall we sit and grieve together, And tie our two bêtes noires up with a tether? You had Ezra Pound and I had Yeats: Two poets now enshrined among the greats. God knows it was no picnic. We both fell For...

A short film by Gleb Zavlanov. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxnDmkKqaF4&feature=youtu.be Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,...

  Everlasting Chesterton The author, G.K. Chesterton: A playful epigramist, A master of the terse bon mot, And witty dithyrambist. He loathed pomposity and claimed (And I believe quite rightly) That angels fly simply because They take themselves so lightly. A staunch defender of his faith, He was a Roman...

  The sky boiled, As the earth ruffled, Clouds blew past, And the soil buckled. The dead came forth, And stood in wait, Believers noticed, Heavens Gate. As they watched, It opened wide, He bid them come, They stepped inside. They floated light, Went up above, Now eternity, To spend...

These three sonnets come from the newly released poetry book Organ Harvest, by Damian Robin, which exposes the murder of prisoners of conscience, particularly peaceful Falun Gong practitioners, for their organs in communist China today. For more information about this atrocity visit Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting.   Hard To...

by Con Chapman Nyla Matuk and I have a few things in common; we are both poets (or in my case, claim to be), and we both know what sumptuary laws are, she having written a book of poems using that term as its title.  Me?  I wrote a white paper comparing...

Canto 2 is part of a sequence of 33 Cantos called The English Cantos that James Sale is attempting to write in the style – and using the terza rima – of Dante. His aim is to create a contemporary epic of heaven and hell that stands four-square against the...

Wild Strawberry On summer strolls, I often find. Wild strawberry flowering in the wood, White leaf, gold bud, my cheerless mood Is ruffled clear, as fragrant wind Blows equally through flower, through mind, And makes it plainly understood, That I am one with nature's brood, To cone, am fused, to...

I have not been to Medford, nor Milan; I have not seen a war, nor won the peace; I’ve risen to six thousand cloudy dawns that – not once – promised sun, and storms to cease. I have not stood to spurn the March of Time; nor have I dreamed...

for Czesław Miłosz For a moment as brief and long as eternity he sees what the blind man sees in the blink of an eye: a sun that never sets, forms wrought from gold, purity before it falls or is restored to grace, the grey sky beheld from the far...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) The Cat in the Red MAGA Hat by Carb Deliseuwe Eugenior Joseph took girlfriend and mom on Mother's Day to Cheesecake Factory, Miami, for a piece of cake. Though he was simply having a good day, how dare he flaunt and bring a bright...

My Garden Lush, fresh-pruned verdure shades the cobbled path, It bursts with rich-hued blossoms strewn about Whence sweet aromas waft, blend, and enswathe, And droops with luscious, nectar-swollen fruit. But leaves spread greedily to hoard the light; And tendrils curl to choke a rival stem. And upstarts rise amid the...

The intricacies of script and figure are amazing. Kudos to the faithful who made contributions large or small. By far this volume is the greatest ever to present illuminated gospel. Ink was carefully applied to skins of calves bred for this very purpose. Just to think of such devotion—nothing done...

Song of Us Face to face, polite and careful, Tentative we were, and prayerful, Neither one of us would dare pull More from this than met the eye. . . . Yet Side by side we worked together, Hands of flesh with hands of leather, And we slowly pondered whether...