Poetry Forms

  Eternity in Our Hearts after Ecclesiastes 3 I contemplated all these matters from beneath the heaven, seeing things the way God sees them. For, no matter what may come, it has its place, and everything its day, in God’s economy. For everything there is a season; every purpose may...

Who is that smiling cherub whose huge wings, Open, extended, like a swan in flight, Lifts him above the angels to a height From which he conducts, for the King of Kings, Great open-air orchestral happenings And plays concerti to his soul’s delight, Nudging the brass to broadcast all their...

Palimpsest ...written in their hearts... Romans 2.15 We try, but cannot fully scrape away those ancient words engraved upon the soul. We would instead compose upon the scroll of our morality that which today appeals, although we understand that too will overwritten be at some point soon enough. Whatever pleasing,...

  Each poem below describes a phobia. Guess what the person is scared of in each. For extra credit try to name the phobia’s official name. Post your answers in the comments section below.   Phobia 1 There was a young lady from Snives Who was frightened to open her...

Intruders Beware If you but knew what weakness lies concealed Within this adamantine outer shell— What woes, what worries I'm too proud to tell; If you but once should tiptoe past this shield, Sidestep the anger I so fiercely wield In my defense; if you should break the spell, Subdue...

Hating Life after Ecclesiastes 2 Within my heart I said, “Come now, and I will test your soul with mirth.” For surely, so I thought, the man who would be wise must try out every pleasure, so that he can know all sides of life. But this was vanity. I...

  Palermo’s great basilica is still— All prayers are tongueless for a lonely hour. Here high and holy silence can be breathed Like incense from the smoking thuribles Swung by acolytes at solemn mass. Antonello’s Virgin turns her eyes Ever so gently to one side. Perhaps The sacristan has shuffled...

Still Going It may appear that I’ve run out of chances, No more to rise from absolute defeat, Victim of most hostile circumstances— I laugh, and drag myself back to my feet. Never assume you’ve seen the last of me; Can’t crush my spirit, can’t snuff out my light. I...

by Caud Sewer Bile Elitist, social climbing parvenu, reclusive expert in the CIA, in touch with DNC dirt-digging too, caught leaking from the White House in the day, came forth in utter anonymity in lieu of no-one doing anything, accusing Trump of quid-pro policy recoiled at corruption happening, a point...

originally published on MacKenzie Lyric Poetry Oh, run with the sun and the wind in your hair! Before the day-star sets in the west: Love flowers best in the wide, open air. Behold! The noon-tide waxes not more fair Than you, my one, as these my lines attest. Oh, run...

Wind and Vanity after Ecclesiastes 1 My name is Solomon, and you may know me as the king of Israel, David’s son, a man of wisdom unsurpassed. And so I was. And yet I write to you as one emerging from some near-insanity and folly. I have seen, beneath the...

Doublespeak Denial Rondeau Redoublé “Gender mattered a whole lot less to Shakespeare than it seems to matter to us.” —John Irving If I don’t care for words you have to share (a pitch which strips all speech of honesty) don’t force me to embrace all you declare then name and...

Dodgeball "But we have the mind of Christ." 1 Corinthians 2.16 Sometimes my thought-life is a dodgeball game— except that I’m the only one on my side of the line—and when at length I try to launch my views, distracting thoughts take aim at my attention; a barrage of lame...

a villanelle Ye let it flow, the bitter brine, let flow! How long you hold it back, those snowy streams! Don't stop their course, until they touch your toe! Your past congealed as solid misery and present still a volatile daydream! Ye let it flow, the bitter brine, let flow!...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Haiku by W. "Cured Eel" Sabi I came to the sea. I saw mountains of water. I conquered nothing. *** The fisherman drops his line with bated breath down to a certain depth. W. "Cured Eel" Sabi is a poet of Japan and the...

Haiku   When a newborn cries, locked in a room by itself, does it make a sound?   Fog enshrouds the night. Woven in the heavy mist, a thread of fireflies.     In Time - a Limerick When a beautiful moment transpires, In the midst of the smoke and...

After the Rain After the rain, it’s time to walk the field again, near where the river bends. Each year I come to look for what this place will yield— lost things still rising here. The farmer’s plow turns over, without fail, a crop of arrowheads, but where or why...

A Clerihew is a four-line comic poem with a rigid rhyming scheme, aabb, but no metric requirements. It stands in stark contrast to the strict metric requirements with no rhyming scheme in the Iliad. This poetic form was invented by E. C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley (1875-1956), British humorist and author....

Roots in the Sky, Boots on the Ground: Metaphysical Poems C.B. Anderson, Kelsay Books, 107 pages paperback, ISBN-10: 1949229688 2019, $17.00 by Carol Smallwood Smallwood: Joseph S. Salemi commented on Roots in the Sky, Boots on the Ground: Metaphysical Poems: “On the one hand it aspires to a high level...

A Haiku My mirror shatters and what most clearly matters remains to be seen.   You and Me Some sins do not offend Our Lord - in fact with mine, I think He’s bored. But sadly though, I must report that yours are of a different sort. They constitute the...

A reading of the below poems by the poet:   The Loan a villanelle This life we hold so dear is but a loan. For good or ill, its balance must be spent, For life is not a thing that we can own. The wasting of our fragile flesh and...

  This interview was conducted by Carol Smallwood with poet Theresa Rodriguez following the release of the first edition of Sonnets by Rodriguez; the second edition is published by Shanti Arts, 2020; the work is 77 pages and retails on Amazon for $12.95. Carol Smallwood: Your latest collection, Sonnets covers many topics among...

  I lift my eyes and pray to God above, deliver me, dear Lord, from Satan's Hell. I come to You with heart brimful of Love, content to drink life's water from Your well. And if, by chance, I do not measure up, perhaps a drop of mercy from Your...

Translator's Note: "Adiutor Laborantium" is an Irish poem attributed to Colum Cille (521-597), founder of the monastic community on Iona. It is an ABC poem, with the exception of two C-beginning lines in the middle, and a changed triplet at the end, where the rhyme also changes. In the Latin,...

Disappointment The waiting's not the hardest part: Much worse is when you finally know That what you craved with all your heart ____Will not arrive. Infatuations come and go, Bad luck upsets your apple cart, The gentle rains no boon bestow, ____But you survive.   Soul Mate an alexandroid My...

a satirical piece in Sapphic stanzas   Every day they come in a flood: unwanted Big manila envelopes stuffed with verses. Mostly garbage—that’s what we sift and filter Looking for talent. Like safari guides with their long machetes Hacking through deep tangles of vegetation, We confront a welter of mangled...

The clerihew is a kind of epigrammatic verse (normally) consisting of a pair of rhyming couplets. The first line will usually introduce the name of a famous person. The following three lines will describe some “fact” about that person which may contain a grain of truth or may simply be...

A truncated quatrain is a form I have invented in an attempt to find some appropriate English form similar—for its brevity and single-mindedness in theme—to the Japanese haiku. They consist in four lines of iambic rhythm, following the scheme tetrameter, tetrameter, and pentameter. The last pentameter line is broken into...

The Forlorn Hope—Vicksburg 1863 Back in Vicksburg, the town was surrounded With a battle line twelve miles long. U.S. Grant sought to conquer the city, But the rebel defenses were strong. An advance storming party was risky; They could possibly lose every man. But they must cross a ditch and...

by Lew Icarus Bede The way I dealt with T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland was to write a poem, equally desperate, in that same allusive style—with notes. That unpublished poem Cicadas' Voices, written in the mid-1970s, though unsuccessful on so many levels, remains the most Eliotic poem I have ever...

The Fall of the Fourth Estate a rondeau The Media: the Fourth Estate* Performed disgracefully of late: Delivering the news askew, Allowing certain viewpoints through To fuel the discontent and hate. Campaigning bullies will berate The citizens and educate Their friends to start deferring to The Media. All politicians propagate...

  The Graeco-Roman historian Lucius Dio Cassius, in his Roman History, describes “dark dinners” that were given by the emperor Domitian to specially chosen guests.   Domitian’s dinners served to terrify; Their purpose was to harrow and appall— Guests would imagine that this ghastly meal Was meant to be their...

The Melancholy Snowman Though stony-eyed, I watched the finches glide. The chimney smoke, the builder slide, At night, I gave the constellations words, The House, the Builder, and the Birds. My silver ear was filled with tree-ish taps, And twiggy fingers twitched with sap, I wondered if the rain would...

That I Might Learn to Love a villanelle That I might learn to love I sorely prayed with hopes that God might teach me by romance as yearning I the empty sky surveyed. Yet lovers marched in cumbersome parade so out of step and void of real advance that I...

  I am a captive of the wicked queen. My mind’s a blank; the temptress took my soul. I know too well  what this desire must mean. And oh! The evil beauty I have seen. Though loving her must take a dreadful toll, I am a captive of the wicked...

  Before the Darkness  a rondeau Before the darkness brings about the night and steals the world’s colors from your sight, paint all your memories in vivid hues. Let not the darkness be the path you choose. Nay! In your dreams, keep every color bright! You cannot halt the fading...

after Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" __Once upon an evening dreary, I searched for news, at least in theory, Over many a dubious and mendacious channel that I abhor— __While I surfed, nearly barfing, suddenly there came a harping, __There was someone roughly berating, berating everything I stand for. “‘Tis some moron,”...

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...

by James A. Tweedie My interest in Sapphic verse arose from a discussion thread on an SCP post some months ago. I researched the subject and decided to try my hand at it. Recently, I submitted my poem to SCP and had it returned along with a suggestion that I...

Choose Wisely Calling for the next U.S. Poet Laureate to be a traditional rhyming poet A double refrained chant royal in iambic pentameter O harken to my plea, as I implore, from need, true classic poetry to save. Sweet words in rhyming rhythms we adore, and metered lines, like those...