Poetry

  'The Real Star' of the 2026 World Economic Forum —inspired by quotes from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Gavin Newsom believes he’s the be-all and end-all, but he’s “Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken” doll. A psycho who does what those with savoir-faire do, a shell of a man...

  Olympic Gold _Eat the beauty and the beast. Ingest, digest until you’ve had your fill. _Sojourn till the west meets east And find your fortune sliding down a hill. _Future past, time out of mind To strike it rich, your long-sought mother lode. _Seek and you will surely find...

  Mice and Midges Please remove your shoes of leather During this inclement weather. Also boots with deepest ridges, Full of bits of mice and midges. Footwear wet with spew or spoor, Should not pass beyond this door. Running shoes appearing white, Underneath may harbor blight Or parasites or slimy...

  Reviewed Poetry Book: The Burning Word: A Poetic Pilgrimage through Suffering, Faith, and Divine Encounter, by James Sale, 2026 by Theresa Werba I have had the honor and privilege of knowing British poet James Sale personally and reading his poetry for over ten years. He remains one of the...

  A Hospital Drawing She sketched the world upon a sheet of white— A hospital with corridors of beds. Two nurses running, sleeves a blur of blue; A doctor in a coat too loose and long Walked on, his stethoscope hung dark against his coat, Towards a child whose stuffed...

  Garden Goddess   I. This humble plot of land is bogged in snow And ice, with twigs and brushy sweeps of pine; But soon, the giant marigolds will grow, Emerge from littered leaves and broken vine; For yonder’s where I sprinkled heads of seed In no specific order or...

  Old Bengal A Mystic Play ---for Shivani Muvva Shivani longs for old Bengal, _For palaces and kings, For servants at her beck and call _And all expensive things. Her father is the powerful raj; _Her mother is his queen, Surrounded by an entourage _No finer ever seen. And sometimes...

  Atomized The Great Stillness fell throughout the loud town. A quiet dust began to settle down. Where laughter once had echoed in the square, Now only silence lingered in the air. The cathedral doors stood closed and shut fast, No kneeling form to seek a rite long past. The...

  Baucis and Philemon A Poem for the Day After Valentine’s Day   Dank February’s leavened turf broods green stirrings, true, but now the glaze, steel-bright, sun sheeted on our frosted yard lured me outdoors past yesterday’s bouquet and card, your Valentine gift, poor compared with breathing roses our tight-trimmed...

  To Thine Own Text Be True For My Autocorrect on Valentine’s Day You turn my hope to mope, my bliss to dross, My win to sin, my better into bitter. Your lunacy has left me at a loss. You make my finer fellow-texters titter. I’m now a shitshow of...

Listen, Wishin' Star Listen, you cotton pickin’ Wishin’ Star, I know how far up in the sky you are. I sent a wish up to your starry vaults; I made a wish and I expect results. My wish was quite explicit. I told you who Was one I wished for,...

  Hallmark Holiday Some chocolates in a crimson, heart-shaped box— if ever there’s a thing that says I love you with much less of an effort (maybe socks, some roses or a teddy bear, what have you) I don’t know what it is. The corner stores, the pharmacies, the strip...

Poet Mark F. Stone delivers a speech on reading poetry live on the radio. His remarks were given at the Society of Classical Poets’ in-person Poetry Symposium held in Naperville, Illinois on September 5-6, 2025:   https://youtu.be/hV4wYXu2lE4 Video created by Andrew Benson Brown.     Transcript of the YouTube video of...

  Snow Day Behold! A winning winter’s day! The soul of spring is on display: A vivifying snow is come And January plays at May. The blanco-verdant maples sway And white relights the heavens’ gray While hills call children out to play. ’Tis only strange the birds are dumb.  ...

  The Mystery That Is You The gasping hulks of rusted wrecks that share with eyeless scavengers the mysteries of Styxlike depths; the lecherous affair of heaving earth expelling centuries of fetal carbons from its fiery womb; grotesque microbic warriors, whose fields of battle on a wisp of breath consume...

  The Vault _The turning sky enwraps the world. Each day, entreating eyes wide-open to This circling vault shall earn a benefaction, A grain of living salt; and over time Ensues discerning capability To separate inconsequential things _From those that absolutely matter. _Autumnal rains quell squirrel chatter, The leaves grow...

  Clonmacnoise (Cluain Mhic Nóis) Rocky gray ruins, round tower stronghold, speckling a wide expanse of green, residuum of a fabled scene: fine flourishment of monasteries, communes in strict ascetic mold, launched by godly visionaries. Saint Ciaran found this perfect site: the Shannon meets a key trade route. High kings...

  Song of the Beelzebots We lure you with our speed and with our flair. We snare you with our lexical appeal. We’re here to make you ever more aware Of why and how. And no---we cannot feel. We gather scattered fragments of ideas. We seek and scan and sift...

  Come Spring Come spring, and all the creeping things come back. The gnats and flies (of various kinds). The ants and spiders. And the ladybugs in black and red. The bees in pollen-gathering pants. The dragonflies and butterflies, one long of tongue, the other with its bulbous eyes. Cicadas...

Lydia, De-Tattooed Lady ---with apologies to Groucho Marx The years she spent performing in the sun Have made her epidermis overdone. To make things worse, in each one of her shows She posed onstage in scarcely any clothes. If Lydia had sheltered from the weather Perhaps her skin would not...

  Modern Generation Gap I wish some young folks’ touchiness was less extensive, _So more of them could ponder this apt dictum--- Some things can be perceived as other than offensive, _Thus there are ways to feel besides a victim.     Worries Of the large and small matters I’ve...

  A Fishing Tale ---24 November 2025 Young Jeffrey oft went fishing with his dad Sometimes for perch but oftener for shad. When spawning shad were running wild upstream To catch one, two, or three was Jeffrey’s dream. Jeff’s daddy drove his boat upstream and down They trolled and brought...

  Beatrice Departs, St. Bernard Arrives: Canto XXXI of Paradise by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) translated by Stephen Binns It was in semblance of a bright white rose______Celestial Rose, holding souls in Heaven __that I was shown the sacred soldiery, ______the souls __which by the blood He shed Christ would espouse,______Church...

  Beauty Is a State of Mind A young Masai tribe suitor who is wanting to get married, Must offer to her father cows, but the number’s varied. The more prestigious or more beautiful the woman is The more the cows to offer for the prize he wants as his....

  The Triumph ---on the three lost legions, and the abrupt end to expansion under Augustus The lovely face of recent progress made On far-flung savage shore, by loyal arms… And yet as though another roadway laid Away from Rome somehow, that now alarms As though behind the lovely mask...

  Carnival Quintilla Subtly startling Harlequin, Mutely miming tenderness, Yang you are and I am yin, Thrilled to feel your eyes’ caress Flashing as you nimbly spin. What appeal do you intend, Speechless dancer with a smile? Near and clearly to commend Sympathy as you beguile Ardor toward an early...

  Village There once was a village where everyone shared _whenever another had need. The folks in that place were all so filled with grace _and joy in the absence of greed. One evening a clown strode into the town _his face covered up with a mask. He hid his...

  Thoughts at Daybreak At break of day, you rise up quietly To check on our young daughter, who lies ill. From out the corner of my eye, I see You tie your robe, while I keep lying still. You slip out of our room, and soon I hear The...

  Humpty Dumpty Redux Some say we stole the land we think we own, and that we must return it to atone, but practically, it’s very hard to know just how far back it’s possible to go to find who first owned every property, so we can track down all...

  A Forecast of Fortune Here’s my forecast of fortune for today, The local and the universal too, Informed by signs the elements display. I hope you’ll find it meaningful and true. Regrettably, it seems a random stroke Of storminess might hit us here or there To vex us and...

  The Cupbearer or the Baker? --Genesis 40 A dream goes through a sieve once we awake, With only fragments left to contemplate. Although we think that what we saw is fake, we sense a meaning that we can’t negate. Thus, we try to decode the visions seen by ruminating...

  A Panegyric on the Nativity Babies are cool In spite of the drool And inordinate stool. Babies are cool. Babies are fat And better for that, To pinch and poke at. Babies are fat. Babies are silly: Wailing willy-nilly (Their drawers are frilly). Babies are silly. Babies are slobbery---...

  Tapiola Tapio is the Finnish god of the forest; Tapiola is his home. Only a fool disturbs my sylvan solitude. _See how my vassal firs crowd all around you, _Jostle you, silently surround you, Erasing every trace of one who dared intrude. Into my presence, shadowed by mortality, _You...

  Breath by Breath An orb of light in darkness flickers out To halt the marching steps of eager trust; As trembling nerves bite down into the dust _And sense the slow but pressing clout Of imminent defeat. Thus, breath by breath, The lonely heart must wander, losing sight Of...

  The War in Heaven ---for the IDF But stranger still and most sublime of all A second vision sweeps across the skies. The ancient war in Heaven before the Fall Is now arrayed for modern London eyes. Primeval paladins with arms adorned Appear across the firmament in flight; Dark...

. The Best Poems of 2025: Winners of the 14th Annual SCP International Poetry Competition Judges C.B. Anderson, Susan Jarvis Bryant, Margaret Coats,  Evan Mantyk, Reid McGrath, Patricia Rogers Crozier, Joseph S. Salemi, Adam Sedia, James A. Tweedie, Brian Yapko Based on the poems, all written in 2025, excluding poems by judges,...

. First Place ($200 Prize) "The Color True" Advika Asthana, 10th grade, Davidson High School, Ohio . Second Place "Refrigerator Bird" "What She Wanted" Armaan Fatteh-Patil, 12th grade, American Heritage School, Florida . The following Third and Fourth Place winners and Honorable Mentions have been published here. . Third Place...

  Mythology and Modernism by Joseph S. Salemi Many years ago I attended a poetry reading by my friend Psyche Ceres. This was the pen name for a woman who had a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, who taught philosophy at a college here in New York, and who...

  Canzone Sung from the Mountains   I Above the source of the refreshing fountain, The sloping forest of the soaring pine, And all the clouds, with careful steps I climb, Passing each root and crevice in the mountain, Until at last, I look upon the brine As might a...

  Winterberry Robins, cardinals, grouse, and bluebirds, Thrushes, waxwings, and grey catbirds. __Where do they go __In the ice and snow? _Who helps them to survive? Deer and black bears, bees, and flies The Northern Flicker lest it dies __How do they know __Where Winterberries grow _And it’s the one...