Poetry

War Is Natural To rise above the plane of earth Where war continues since my birth, I find that war is natural, And in this world habitual. It’s human nature, so it seems And nature’s calling in those screams— No scientist needs to figure it out War’s natural, without a...

  Heroes, Victims, and Poseidon The metre of ancient Greek poetry succeeds in “achieving a length and complexity that are unusual in the heroic verse of other literatures.” ~ Michael Grant, The Rise of the Greeks, 325, as quoted in Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 16. The heroes are heroic...

Obituary Late summer, when the bumblebees begin to die, You’ll see them clinging to the petals of a flower For dear life—or at least it seems so to an eye Untrained in entomology. They’ve had their hour, Have likely reproduced authentic replicas, And now are caught in the inanimate repose...

Glistening orbs Dance on air Drifting skyward Without a care Iridescent spheres Shimmering bright Reflecting prisms In the sunlight Luminous globes Fragile and frail Constructed of A diaphanous veil Fleeting bubbles Bursting free Illusive sight Imparting glee   Born in Wilmington Delaware in the early 1950’s, Ann Christine Tabaka has...

Canto 1 is the provisional name for a sequence of 33 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 meaninglessness of...

A sonnet of longing and of a glimpse of hope. July 17, 2016. We looked imploring to the starless sky; we worlds and worlds of darkness, seeking light, that we might momently forget our night; for that strange hope we held, we knew not why. And then it came, and...

By David B. Gosselin William Shakespeare (baptized April 26, 1564 - died April 23, 1616) is arguably the greatest writer in any language. His poetry is not only one of the most exalted examples of what an immortal sense of creative identity can accomplish, but it is in a sense...

Pigeon Cove, MA 1948 Above, the sky, remote and pure, Below, the earth, steadfast and sure. Between the two, the surging sea, Fighting both for mastery. Blue swell of wave, foam flung high, White flash of challenge to proud sky, The surge, the crash, the sounding roar Of wind-swept wave...

  I knew her when I could be called a youth And life had not uncovered certain truths Apparent to detectives, super-sleuths; Such as ‘Best clues are found within untruth.’ For boasting of a car with plushest trim, Expensive belted tires, alloy rims, Made me no better than deceptive crims...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) The Children's Crusade Amendment II of the US Constitution: 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. by Brice U. Lawseed While armed police protected thousands...

Leatherneck, you’re still my childhood hero With tales of firing flack at Jap Zeroes— After training camp in San Diego, You rode the railway home on furlough To elope with Rita in the Poconos. The coalmine cars filled up with snow. You only had a month before you had to...

  Young people go marching, the boys and the girls, They’re thinking like once we did, they’ll change the world. They claim government is a cure for our ills, They seem to forget, in fact, socialism kills. Lenin and Stalin put twenty million down, Left them to rot in dark...

    He pressed a rounded stone into my hand. He said, "Take care of this," and turned away To tend to things we needed for our trip: The boats, the lines, the paddles, and the rest. The stone was not like those about my feet. I wondered at the...

  I know why the red rose weeps Why she hides her tears in dew As the summer breezes sweep From those seas of peaceful blue, And then like our dreams She fades with the morning dew. I know why the red rose weeps Through the dreamy months of June...

  The Society of Classical Poets is reviving poetry with rhyme and meter and the response has been widespread and tremendous. Since the Society was founded in 2012, we have grown from a daily blog with weekly posts to a major non-profit organization publishing the highest quality poetry on a...

April Fools Easter: April 1, 2018 In dark Gethsemane I was betrayed By Judas’ kiss. I was arrested, tried, Found guilty, beaten, thorn-crowned, mocked, and flayed. Then nailed to the cross on which I died. My lifeless, piercéd body was deposed And quickly laid within a borrowed tomb; Enshrouded, then...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise)   On Secretaries of State: Falling from Grace by Brice U. Lawseed Across the World in India, while touring for her book, the former Secretary Clinton, trying to look cool, upon the steps of Jahaz Mahal palace in Mandu, slipped on the stony steps,...

. . The Sun The face above that shone below From space to hover, cast a glow And warmth afforded to the one Who in its path was found; the sun . . On Mass Shootings I cut loose the clod from the moorings of root I thought about God,...

Miles hastatus (spearman) of the Legio Decima Fretensis, stationed in Roman Judaea, A.D. 33 Vere, filius Dei erat iste. —Roman centurion at the crucifixion, noted in Matthew 27:54. They say he was the King of Jews. In fact We nailed a wooden title to his cross In Latin, Greek, and...

This Collar, Blue My elbows leak with grease And all my toes are laid with steel I'm rough of neck My knuckles specked with cuts that never heal The world I mend The swirls on plastic lens paints squalor's view Ah, but still, I'd never trade this collar, blue  ...

See the Music Mysterious the inner eye that hears the dancers flying by across the stage in grand jete' as woodwind, horn and cello play And there, just barely in the wings the graceful ballerina sings the song of butterfly and swan to the pirouette of the baton See the music! hear...

About the Lady Godiva and her famed naked ride through Coventry Once in the town of Coventry, Leofric Earl had held decree; Too great the tax that he appealed, Greater than his folk could yield. They had endured their master’s needs, None but one spake ‘gainst misdeeds; His dearest wife,...

A tribe of trolls escaped their cage! Now rabid wrath and rancor rage. Hurling hurt from hidden hellholes (most notably, their toilet bowls), they flush their filth across your page … Anonymity sets the stage for this word-“warrior” rampage as today’s internet unrolls a tribe of trolls … Let’s hail...

by Jane Blanchard George Herbert was born into a well-to-do and well-doing family of Montgomery, Wales, in 1593. When he was three years old, his father died, leaving a wife and ten children. Herbert nevertheless received a marvelous education, including studies at Westminster School in London and at Trinity College...

The Fall Now, if you’re sitting comf’tably, then listen to my ballad; it is a Summer evening tale of pizza and of salad. “I’ll take the plates out, love,” I said, "for your hands tend to shake, but I am steadier and I’d hate the crockery to break." The threshold...

In garret lofts poor artists have quite often painted women bathing, combing hair inside a nearby mirror… __________________________Your eyes soften, and, pale as blossoms or flesh from a pear, your skin glints in the light. Snow falls outside amid the greyness and the winter cold, yet this one moment it...

  The Maid of Orleans A villanelle on Joan of Arc As I gazed at the flames of the fire my heart, with all there that day, broke – such strength could not help but inspire. A young woman burnt as a liar bound to a stake made of oak,...

  in the woods, I stop in twilight dim … as spring throws off the evening’s hoarfrost coat midst groaning fir and shivering bare limb I hear the spirit whisperings that float on ragged winter-worn breaths sighing through the ancient dark depths in capacious folds of days-end mystic green to...

By Amy Foreman A cold and rainy afternoon recently gave rise to this little idea of a poem-puzzle.  I challenged myself to write a poem where each word started with a different letter of the alphabet, in order, from A to Z.  I allowed myself up to three extra words...

Winter’s Nocturn       When angles of the sun are shining low, Intuition tells us we must sleep. Nocturnal tracks appear now in the snow To mark the chilly vigil some must keep. Enlightened constellations rule the skies, Reminding us that distant worlds must be, So vast the universe,...

Statues A Villanelle Two Buddhas now a lost reality, A crowd chants loudly near a pile of stone; Across the South you won’t find General Lee. The temples fell despite UNESCO’s plea And ISIS’ pledge to leave the past alone; Two Buddhas now a lost reality. For Durham’s statue lax...

  The wisest poem ever Was written by my daughter, Although I’ve never known her To be much of a scholar. She’s only five years old now, But wise beyond her years. My daughter wrote a poem That moved me into tears. She scribbled down her feelings; A napkin was...

For Bill Horn Send up on wings of blood our fathers’ cry, Though the unhearing dead brook not your sound, And flesh yet binds us to the groaning ground, Release your paeans to the boundless sky, And let your vibratory voices fly Beyond the veils of earth, above, around! O...

At night I hear Prokofiev and Liszt and dream of playing baby grands as sly Euterpe lures me towards the melodies of pianists. My fingers cannot meet the demands of Mendelssohn’s complicated chords; they dance instead atop computer keys and feign the sleight of Mozart’s hands, fluttering like hummingbirds, composing...

Theological But there’s a God, white-knuckled, jealous, His heart an anvil, and his mind a bomb. Take the crew of The Indianapolis,* Torn limb from sculling limb inside a storm Of sharks. There is no sleep within that slick Of blood, only that gray mumbling that turns A prayer into...

Sonnet I: Liu Haixiao Mr. Liu Haixiao (pronounced Leo High-shaow) is serving a 16-year prison sentence in Jilin Province, China, where he was arrested for tapping into the local TV network to broadcast programs that debunk state propaganda demonizing Falun Gong. He has been given opportunities to walk free contingent...

A rhupunt A modern place that maintains grace a safer place for all who come The airplanes fly the city sky the mountains high you're never numb never alone away from home in temples roam to gods you'll hum No silenced love no eyes above a place free of dictators...

I. As clear blue symbols dance before my eyes, And I lie still, my head upon the ground, Each part of me, in dappled sunshine crowned, Wants formal shape in selfish compromise, And hides itself in Nature’s rich disguise – I watch my youthful fragments form a mound Of former...

  You Decide Some know me as Destiny, The weaver of the cloth of Time. Although my looms are never stilled, They say I choose how high you’ll climb, How fast you’ll fall, how great your name; I am the ruler of the game. Others think of me as Fate....

By Con Chapman It has been a little more than eight years since poet Rachel Wetzsteon committed suicide at the age of 42 following the end of a three-year romance. At the time of her death Wetzsteon (pronounced “whetstone”) was the poetry editor of The New Republic and a faculty...