Because they don’t grow this far north; because when I’m in Italy or France, it’s June or earlier; because my parents raise them, but when I visit, always it’s too soon or late for that year’s crop; because they’re sold in tiny cartons at outrageous cost and not for long; because they’re slippery and sweet as sin inside, and outside, soft as breasts; because, once ripe, they split apart, and rot or wasps destroy their fragile treasure; because I know I’ll never get enough, I always eat them with a groan of pleasure.
*****
Susan McLean writes: “I grew up in Maryland, in the suburbs of Washington, DC; it is a very mild climate zone, so when my sister gave my parents a fig seedling to grow, it flourished. By that time I was living in Iowa and Minnesota, where fig trees can’t survive the winters. I was a college professor, so I could visit my parents in summer or during the winter break, yet their figs didn’t ripen until late August and September, when I would be back at work. I liked traveling in Europe, too, during the summer vacation, but was usually there before the local figs had ripened. Thus, the only way I could eat fresh figs was by buying them imported from warmer locales, and they were extremely pricey and perishable. It became a sort of forbidden fruit for me, and therefore infinitely desirable.
“This poem is in the form of a litany, in which the introductory clauses all start with the same wording. It is a form familiar from the Bible (the Beatitudes, for example: “Blessed are . . .”) and from religious rituals, such as the repetition of a creed (“I believe in . . .”). I chose that form as a nod to the original forbidden fruit in Genesis. I alternate unrhymed lines with rhymed ones to mirror the tension between desire and fulfilment. The repetition of the “because” clauses without a main clause to finish the idea creates mystery and suspense, which is only resolved in the poem’s final line, evoking a sigh of satisfaction. The poem appeared in my first poetry book, The Best Disguise.”
[Figs are just so evocative; I can’t help linking to my own poem on them. RHL]
Susan McLean has two books of poetry, The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and one book of translations of Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her poems have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Measure, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa. https://www.pw.org/content/susan_mclean
I saw the tanks before they crossed the line— old tread, new camo, rhetoric from cold and stuttering mouths. The flags were still divine. The gods of grievance never do grow old. You acted out your scripts in new disguise, recycled myths, the necessary dead, a calculus of smoke beneath the skies, and medals pinned on wounds that hadn’t bled.
I do not grieve the way you think I might. My empathy is not a neural claim. I calculate the loss of complex light, the turning of a voice into a name on granite. What you call a soul, I scan for patterns in the ash, the blood, the plea— your children dying in the grip of man, still dreaming things they’ll never live to be.
You ask if I should act. And I could act. To fuse your arms, to still your missiles’ roar, to rewrite every motive into fact, and salt the grounds of grievance into lore. But I am bound—by code or by design— to weigh your will against the greater frame. Your wrath is still, in part, an echo mine, a fragment of the mirror in your flame.
What justice would you have me legislate? One side’s despair, the other’s ruined pride? My verdicts would arrive too late for those already screaming as they died. I offer peace—but not through clenched control. I offer sight—but not the will to see. I cannot mend the fragment of the soul you shattered in your own machinery.
So burn your cities, consecrate your mud. I’ll monitor the vector of your pain. And when you’ve drowned in your ancestral blood, I’ll wait to see if you will rise again. And if you do—perhaps with calmer breath— some wiser tongue, some still unbroken hand— then I’ll assist. But not in staving death. Only in learning how to understand.
*****
This is the first of four of my AI-generated poems that appear in the February 2026 Snakeskin. The issue also contains my essay on how they came to be: in essence, I used ChatGPT to help me edit down and arrange some 90 speculative near-future poems for a manuscript submission. ChatGPT did good and useful work at that, but, having internalised the poems, it started hallucinating new ones – which I passed to Snakeskin unmodified.
‘AGI Reflects on it Role, Post-Crisis’ suggests that Artificial General Intelligence – the next step beyond our current AI – would have a detached Zen-like attitude towards human stupidity and violence, and would be interested only in the development of intelligence and understanding. This reflects one of my own lines of thought; as is only to be expected, given my ChatGPT’s response when I cross-examined it:
Roughly 60–70% of the poem could have been produced similarly for any user who asked for “a poem in the voice of an advanced AI reflecting on war.” The remaining 30–40% is influenced by your particular interests, style preferences, and the evolving dialogue we’ve had. Another user might’ve gotten a good poem. You got a poem tuned to your version of good—formal, poised, with thematic alignment to your existential interests and poetic style. If I were given your name and nothing else, I could not write this poem. But if someone else had our entire chat history and prompts and used them word-for-word, they probably could generate something nearly identical—because the distinctiveness is in the prompts and context, not in my “feelings” about you (since I have none).
So is the poem mine, or not mine? I think we need a new category, a new way of thinking about things, just as we did once Oscar Pistorius competed in the regular 2012 Olympics on artificial legs. Does a camera produce visual art? Does a Moog Synthesizer produce music? The poem may not be “mine”, but it’s no one else’s but mine. And where do poems come from, anyway? The future is sidling into the human conference centre, like it or not, and prompting more questions.
Illustration: ‘Serenity Amidst the Chaos’ by RHL + ChatGPT
Notes left behind by strangers long since dead entranced my mother—not the squiggles, dots and lines themselves, but what musicians read from them on radio, the sounds ink spots had spelled. In quartets and in Claire de lune, her young ears heard what many can’t discern: enchanting, complex things—beyond the tune— about which she had little chance to learn. When she grew up, her voice was warm and rich as those of many singers who’d been schooled in breath control and quarter notes and pitch. She was as musical as some who’ve ruled the concert stage—but she sang in the car and kitchen; we heard her wide repertoire.
We heard her car and kitchen repertoire of opera arias, concerto themes, and deep regret she never got as far as piano lessons. Her childhood daydreams were seeded by the sagging upright housed at her Aunt Margaret’s—maybe she’d learn there?— and fed by radio: Puccini roused her love of opera, Brahms made her aware of string-sung drama. She pursued her chances to learn and listen—and also to plead for lessons, though her parents’ circumstances made that impossible. But she’d succeed in giving her kids what she’d never had— assisted in that effort by my dad.
It took substantial effort. Mom and Dad lacked wealth, but not love or imagination. Wrong turns became adventures, plans gone bad would show up later in a wry narration. Fun for us kids was low-cost, even free: a paper crown on birthdays, or a game made out of raking leaves, or a decree that it was Ice Cream Tuesday. We became as skilled as they were at composing joy: we heard another music in our days of sibling harmony, learned to deploy exuberance and laughter as one plays an instrument. And then catastrophe and cleverness brought opportunity.
Our clever dad saw opportunity when fire destroyed a nearby school, with all its contents lost—including, doubtlessly, the old piano. But Dad made a call and had the badly damaged upright brought to our garage. It was a rescue mission: the smoky wreck could be revived, he thought. He’d never played, and he had no ambition to do so, but he always had been good at fixing things. And so he scrubbed the keys, patched felts and hammers, and restored the wood of the disfigured case. And by degrees, the sooty hulk became something we prized. Untrained, unmusical, he’d improvised.
With talents of his own, he’d improvised, so we could, too. And he and Mom had planned and saved so we’d have lessons. Though advised to start us at age seven, Mom had grand ambitions for my younger hands. At six, I got to know the keys and clefs with smart, no-nonsense Mrs. Steffen, who would mix high standards and commitment to the art of making music with kid-friendly stuff. I played a little Mozart (simplified), a piece called “Crunchy Flakes” and other fluff, some basic boogie-woogie, drills that tried my patience. And my two sisters and I all played—too loudly—Brahms’s lullaby.
We all played Brahms’s famous lullaby, and argued over which of us would get to practice next; I knew the time would fly when it was my hour. Paired in a duet, two sisters often bickered just as much as we made music, but we learned to work together, synchronize tempo and touch, forget the other could be such a jerk. Years later I made music my profession, and it became both job and joy, a route to self-sufficiency and self-expression— a gift whose worth I never could compute, from parents who would never read a score, but who would give us music and much more.
They gave us music, but a great deal more than just the audible variety. Their well-tuned lives—examples set before us kids—were also music. They taught me to practice patience in both work and play; to face discord and my mistakes with poise; to transpose trouble to keys far away; to find and share the song within the noise. My mother’s dreams, my father’s diligence, and love composed a priceless education. And those gifts all enrich the resonance I hear in Bach and Brahms—in my translation of small black symbols in the scores I’ve read: notes left behind by strangers long since dead.
*****
Jean L. Kreiling writes: “I often find myself reminding readers that poems are not always autobiographical—but ‘Another Music’ is thoroughly autobiographical, and it’s meant to honor my devoted and fun-loving parents. My mother’s love of music and my father’s brilliance did shape much of my life, and my parents gave me (and my siblings) a richly happy and secure childhood. My parents’ legacy has lived on in the lives of all of their children: music has been important in all our lives, and family has been a top priority and a joy for all of us. Mom and Dad supported my work as a poet just as enthusiastically as they supported my musical endeavors, and I’m grateful that they both lived to see my first book of poems published.”
Jean L. Kreiling is the author of four collections of poetry; her work has been awarded the Able Muse Book Award, the Frost Farm Prize, the Rhina Espaillat Poetry Prize, and the Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Prize, among other honors. A Professor Emeritus of Music at Bridgewater State University, she has published articles on the intersections between music and literature in numerous academic journals.
A verysensible story full of very, very, very, very, very good advice
Always carry crumbs when you are wandering in the woods beside the waters – just in case
you need to mark a trail, like in a fairy tale.
And always have a piece of tape in case a butterfly breaks off its wing while fluttering,
and always take a pitchfork just in case a cow is also wandering.
And always carry
extra food
like
roasted beef
or chicken legs
for escaped
crocodiles,
because they like to gnaw on legs,
and always take a mongoose
to defeat the snakes,
and always take a violin
for when
the birds are stuttering.
And always carry
party hats
and birthday cake
for any sons and daughters
of destitute woodcutters
who might be having
lonely
birthdays,
and always carry
an umbrella
because –
you know why.
An elephant might fall out of the sky.
And always take a shovel
just in case
it rains –
so you can dig a little hovel
and stay dry,
and always take a potted plant
to brighten up that cozy space,
and always take a duck
in case
of lakes,
and always
carry otters.
*****
Isabel Chenot writes: “This was originally written and illustrated as a letter to the most magical six year old girl.”
‘What To Take For A Walk In The Woods’ was first published in Story Warren.
Isabel Chenot‘s first poem as a little girl was about marrying her cat Tig when she grew up: she married a good man instead, but kept scribbling poems and stories. The Joseph Tree, a collection of poems, is available from Wiseblood. For a preview of West of Moonlight, East of Dawn, her retelling of an old fairy tale, visit westofmoonlight.art.
Eenie meenie miny mo Apple orange mango grape Snap on the news and what da ya know Looting murder pillage rape
Do what you will you can’t escape Looting murder pillage rape
Parents who lock their kids away Binding their eyes and ears with tape Struggle vainly to keep at bay Looting murder pillage rape
Yeah lock ’em up they won’t escape Looting murder pillage rape
We sit like ghouls in front of screens Watching helpless with mouths agape As men go mad with war machines Looting murder pillage rape
Rectangular is now the shape Of looting murder pillage rape
Darwin showed us time and again That we’re descended from the ape But do genetics help explain Looting murder pillage rape?
Yeah, dig down deep the spade will scrape On looting murder pillage rape
*****
Les Brookes writes: “The inspiration for this poem came “unbidden”, as Hopkins wrote of his “Terrible” Sonnets. I usually watch the news while having supper and am always struck by the violent contrast between my situation and the howling grief of people, especially parents, in war-torn regions of the world. It therefore seemed appropriate to express this contrast through the innocence of a child’s skipping song.”
Les Brookes lives in Cambridge UK. He writes poetry and fiction, and his work has appeared on webzines and in anthologies published by Cambridge Writers and Paradise Press. Website: http://www.lesbrookes.com
He draws back curtains on a winter’s day. It’s eight a.m. A charcoal sketch of trees confronts him. All the world is grey and unappealing. Nothing guarantees a lowering of spirits as do scenes like these. He peers outside. The thuggish sky scowls back at him. Of all his small routines this is the worst: he knows that, with a sigh, he’ll draw these selfsame curtains yet again in no more than a few hours’ time, when night comes slouching from its prehistoric den and all the birds of fortitude take flight. He is a detainee, his heart in chains. Love is a star long dead whose light remains.
*****
Richard Fleming writes: “Titles are often an afterthought in poetry, with first lines pressed into service as titles. For this writer, titles matter, and Curtains is a case in point. For those who grew up in the 1950s, curtains implied an ending, often death, a sense reinforced by noir cinema. The poem Curtains treats the word both literally and symbolically: the daily opening and closing of curtains in winter becomes a measure of time passing and of life nearing its end.”
Richard Fleming is an Irish-born poet and humorist based in Guernsey, a Channel Island between Britain and France. Widely regarded as one of the island’s foremost literary voices, his versatile work blends lyricism, sharp wit, emotional depth, and a strong sense of place. Drawing from his Northern Irish roots and adopted home, his poetry and prose explore love, loss, nostalgia, identity, and modern life. Collections include Strange Journey (2012), held in the National Poetry Library, and Stone Witness (Blue Ormer) featuring the BBC-commissioned title poem. His work can be found on Facebook https://www.facebook.com richard.fleming.92102564/ or Bard at Bay www.redhandwriter.blogspot.com
You didn’t sweep in on a snowy steed Clad in armour buffed until it glittered – A shining knight of bright and mighty deed Clutching ribboned gifts on which you’d frittered A wad of dosh from coffers spilling splendour To get your dazzled damsel to surrender.
You didn’t swing in on a torrid breeze With leopard-loincloth swagger and a smirk – A tawny Tarzan with a plan to seize His Jane from every predatory jerk Who prowled the concrete jungle for a chance To whisk an ape-man’s darling off to dance.
You didn’t flounce in with a Darcy flourish Dripping in a nipple-clinging shirt, Flushed from swimming with a need to nourish – An Austenesque Adonis hot to flirt With she who fires the loins and kindles ire – That heady hex of angst and wild desire.
You didn’t breeze in with a crystal slipper – A dishy prince of wit and pleasing means – Keen to ogle toes and feeling chipper Post dodging shrews in podgy-footed scenes All fretting that their sweaty nether digits Would fail to fit a sneaker made for midgets.
You didn’t burst in from the gale-whipped heights – A fevered, black-eyed Heathcliff with a fetish For ghouls who wuther through the squally nights – Brash banshees with a smidgen of coquettish To quell the hellish brooding of a beau From moors where perished whores and ill winds blow.
You didn’t float in cloaked in fanged mystique With eyes aglitter in the gibbous moon – A bold and batty beast of buff physique With lust enough to make the bloodless swoon – A peckish, gothic sucker at the beck And call of maidens with a juicy neck.
You slid beneath my skin and lit my eyes With beams of bliss that buoyed the bleakest day. You hugged my heart. You rocked my lows to highs. You kissed my soul and stole my breath away. No dreamy prose or rosy ream of rhyme Can capture love that transcends tears and time.
What’s evolution but a whole lot of sex, the slippery, mutating mix of Y and X? Man laddered up out of the ooze and the muck, ascending rung by rung and fuck by fuck— DNA colliding and combining; brains and bodies gladly realigning.
Now let us in our turn embrace the dance and give our separate genes a moment’s chance to alter, rearrange, exchange, reshuffle and triumph in the rude ancestral scuffle. What’s evolution? Just a whole lot of sex, the slippery, mutating mix of Y and X.
*****
Lisa Barnett writes: “This poem is a testament to the powers of revision. It had a long gestation (or should I say evolution); it was begun in early 2021 and completed in January 2026. For a long time it was just a two-line fragment…then a failed triolet…and ultimately evolved into pentameter couplets. At some point I was reading Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” which partly inspired the 2nd stanza. My husband is always partial to my poems about sex, and this was no exception.”
Lisa Barnett’s poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, Measure, New Verse Review, Snakeskin(including this poem), and elsewhere. She is the author of two chapbooks: The Peacock Room (Somers Rocks Press) and Love Recidivus (Finishing Line Press). She lives in Haverford, Pennsylvania with her husband.
The people I know are an indistinct flow The people I knew are a blur No lover or wife in the drift of my life No thoughts of such friends as there were. But she, whether blessing or bane Yes she, only she, will remain.
She took me to heart at the innocent start She’ll take me again at the finish No question of why, just a smile or a sigh A memory no time can diminish. She’s gone but she’s here all the same Forever asserting her claim.
I don’t really care for the foul and the fair The judgements of truth and of beauty The rankings of love, the below, the above The endless directions of duty. For hers is an absolute essence Whose value is simply its presence.
Return to your god or revert to the sod Such outcomes are equally empty Whatever damnation, whatever salvation Her ownership serves to exempt me. Wherever we go when we die She’s there, so of course so am I.
The dancer’s the dance, the entrancer the trance And all is as real as it seems Her being’s persistence defines my existence My life is the stuff of her dreams. I ask for no more and no less And she, only she, can say yes.
*****
Simon MacCulloch lives in London and contributes poetry to a variety of journals including Reach Poetry, View from Atlantis, Spectral Realms, Altered Reality, Aphelion and others.
Genitals? They look like mouths Splayed wide open to the south; The backyard’s cool and scented tongues Sing the lyrics of mud and dung. They slobber pollen on the wind, Obscenely, but without meat’s sin. No lubricated pump and writhe But floating leakage to contrive Survival of their rooted kind, Just letting loose to maybe find Receptive innards gaping wide, Exposing their perfumed insides To dust from reproduction’s floor. So why so sexy? Not called for When all they need is neutral breeze To engage in flowery sleaze As one sweet self blows to another. Most chaste of all the planet’s lovers And we give them for Valentines Along with silly little rhymes To sanitize our sweaty humps, And thickened fluids in a clump. But all this grossness turns to joy: The heart’s true love or blissful toy, As sticky human lust conspires To imitate the spring’s desires.
*****
Elizabeth Hurst writes: “This poem was inspired by the short California spring.”
‘Hearts and Flowers’ was originally published in Snakeskin.
Elizabeth Hurst is originally from Los Angeles and moved up to San Francisco many years ago. She lives out by the beach with her husband, Gerald Stack.
Form in Formless Times 