Director, Andromeda Simulations International, Bahamas: a global education company providing online and in-person workshops in business finance.
Series Editor, Sampson Low's 'Potcake Chapbooks'. Formal verse about traveling, family, love, etc...
I feel a kinship with those, never met, who live, uncertain and displaced in the wrong place on planet earth and sea: with different languages at home and school, without a passport from the place they’re raised, their natural faith despoiled by pointless war, their sex uncertain, orphaned from themselves, poets of restlessness, pilots adrift, obscure, uncertain in their rootlessness, chameleons of constant camouflage, and all the little that they know deep down forever hidden from some foreign frown.
*****
My sense of being displaced is largely one of nationality: in every country I’ve lived in, I feel the closest connection to other expats; and there is no country in which I don’t feel like an expat myself. But that also gives me a sense of commonality with all others in all forms of insecurity and displacement. And maybe it is a natural part of being human… after all, all adults have been displaced from the very different world of childhood.
“Auden thought the triolet was too trivial a form to bother with…” –James Fenton
Practally dactally W. H. Auden Mastered his verse forms with Scarcely a miss.
Some he found slight. There’s no Abecedarius, No triolet, and he Didn’t write this.
*****
When I first started thinking about double dactyls I made a list of words and when I saw that James Fenton quote I knew I had a poem. I no longer recall what word got paired with Kevin E. Federline.
Reese Warner lives in Toronto and does things with computers for money. Reese’s poems have shown up in journals such as Asses of Parnassus, The Malahat Review, The Rotary Dial, The Dalhousie Review among others. For more information see http://pubs.reesewarner.com
Double Dactyl was first published in The Asses of Parnassus.
Clip clop clip clop steady up yon stuntgrass rise, boy, long as low and stony-brown, slow like weeks with nothing in them: saddle-tick, dirt-crump, poker-face.
Clip clop clip clop privy-top and anchor-wires, church-cross, store-spike, steady boy, up yon one-street, just more-trodden dust: saddle-tick, dirt-crump, poker-face.
Clip clop clip clop steady, boy, through sad wood civics, rippled in yon saloon-glass store-side, road-end, horses maybe leaving: saddle-tick, dirt-crump, poker-face.
Clip clop clip clop rise, boy, steady, way ahead, purple-white mountains, nothing in them maybe, like weeks maybe: saddle-tick, dirt-crump, poker-face.
2.
My brother’s name was Crazy Sean. They shot him in the head. He rattled through the summer corn and turned the green shucks red.
I laid him in the willowbrake. I couldn’t stand to pray. I kissed his cheek for pity’s sake, and then I rode away.
The plains are full of buffalo. The woods are red and gold. The mountaintops are white with snow. His memory keeps me cold.
I’ve rode through Hope and Whisky Creek. I’ve rode through Faith and Love. I’ve laid in Hate and Hide-and-Seek, and run from God-Above.
The prairie shines, the buckdeer cry. The hawks hang in the heat. Clipclop clipclop, the world rolls by. They say revenge is sweet.
3.
Somewhere still, stark as an afternoon; Ached in long planks of sunshine; Like a gambler’s card dropped on an empty land; Vauntsquare, the nailed-up main street creaks Against the air. Clipclop – hotel, laundry, saddles, Telegraph, clap-houses, guns. The horse stops. Into this hollow spine of fellowship blows a slow O of wind. Three men clatter at a boardwalk: Nacarat boots, sharktooth mojos – oh my brother.
4.
I shot one on the shithouse board. His head smashed like a squash and sprayed the backboards red. He pissed his boots and died. The stinking hole spit up a fat, black fly, which was his soul. I shot one in the barbershop. The chair caught fire, and ate his o-colonied hair. He fell out like a slice of spitroast meat. The duster wrapped him in its winding-sheet. I shot one in the cornfield. Larks of blood flew off his skull and twittered in the mud. He rattled through the stalks. His mashy head threw up its brain and turned the green shucks red. I took a bath and threw away my gun. I rode away wherever. I was done.
5.
drizzle pops on his hatbrim, cord and wool and steam-sodden, saddleticks like an empty stomach.
windpump wires and tin-dump, like horizon-drowning, horse, then man, hat, gone, clipclop, dusk drips in.
paraffin lamplight pricks the town, glo-worms, night hunched above, coyotes carry their eyes like stars.
6.
reckoning done how will he ever be warm
purpose gone how will he outrun the storm
bearings none how will he find another
riding alone how will he tell his brother
*****
John Gallas writes: “‘Western Man’ is a weird one: I have a quite spooky love of Westerns, jogging as they do some very deep links with Old En Zed, remnants (many remnants!) of which I grew up with and in. Those old wooden towns, the dim General Stores, the slightly grim and mostly silent (mostly) men, the cheek-by-jowlness of town and bush. It means quite a lot to me. I find the end of most Clint Eastwood films, and especially ‘Once Upon A Time in the West’, as the hero says ‘I gotta go now’, and rides away into lonliness after some bloody vengeance or other, inexpressibly moving.”
John Gallas, Aotearoa/NZ poet, published mostly by Carcanet. Saxonship Poet (see http://www.saxonship.org), Fellow of the English Association, St Magnus Festival Orkney Poet, librettist, translator and biker. Presently living in Markfield, Leicestershire. Website is www.johngallaspoetry.co.uk which has a featured Poem of the Month, complete book list, links and news.
Baby you’re the Reichstag I’m setting you on fire You no longer represent me I’m immediate desire Our constitution is suspended on a fence of barbed wire Baby you’re the Reichstag I’m setting you on fire
I’ve cancelled your election I’ve exposed your fatal flaw Trapped in your reflection we argued to a draw The people want perfection they love to be in awe Baby you’re the Reichstag my will is the law
Our union needs annulment our wedding was a sham The preacher stole the word of God now he’s on the lam He said he’d bless the devil he didn’t give a damn Baby you’re the Reichstag who do you think I am
Like lightning this befell me not you but I self-crowned No court can now compel me my power is unbound I dare you try to tell me my methods are unsound Baby you’re the Reichstag I’ll burn you to the ground
I’m rounding up your lovers each one of them a liar They tell me they don’t know you say it’s me they most admire Now I alone can save them or throw them on the pyre Baby you’re the Reichstag I’m setting you on fire
*****
Matthew King writes: “Many, not on only one side of the political divide, have been watching for a “Reichstag Fire moment.” The thing about historical echoes is you’re never sure what you’re hearing is exactly what it sounds like, but with some things sounding like them at all is bad enough. A hat tip to Leonard Cohen, whose shade I seem to be channelling in this poem, and who would have turned 91 on Sept. 21. Leonard! thou shouldst be living at this hour; lucky for you you’re not, I guess.”
‘Incendiary Song’ was first published in New Verse News.
Matthew King used to teach philosophy at York University in Toronto; he now lives in what Al Purdy called “the country north of Belleville,” where he tries to grow things, counts birds, takes pictures of flowers with bugs on them, and walks a rope bridge between the neighboring mountaintops of philosophy and poetry. His photos and links to his poems can be found at birdsandbeesandblooms.com.
Photo: Reichstag Fire, 27 February 1933, public domain.
They’re selling dreams, they like to say; their storefront photographs display the pricey, well-staged fantasies they call rare opportunities and gems. They hope you’ll overpay
for your townhouse, ranch, or chalet, your great investment, your doorway to debt. You’re lured in by degrees: they’re selling dreams
of closet space, kitchens (gourmet!), and pride. Why shouldn’t wants outweigh misgivings and realities? The realtors ply their expertise, and you’re an easy mark to sway— they’re selling dreams.
*****
Jean L. Kreiling writes: “The rondeau form seemed appropriate for suggesting a realtor’s technique—that insistent commitment to your purchase, both nerve-wrackingly relentless and, somehow, appealing.”
Jean L. Kreiling is the author of three collections of poems, with another forthcoming soon from Able Muse Press. Her work has been awarded the Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Prize, the Rhina Espaillat Poetry Prize, and the Frost Farm Prize, among other honors. An Associate Poetry Editor for Able Muse: A Review of Poetry, Prose & Art, she lives on the coast of Massachusetts.
There’s a cross in the field where the scarecrow stood And the ravens have all come back And the ravens would say, if they only could That a scarecrow is straw and a cross is wood And the wings of a famine black.
There’s a cross on the grave where the hero lies He whose war was to end all wars And his empty skull holds a thousand why’s And the crow that struts on his grave replies With a thousand triumphant caws.
There’s a cross on the hill where the scapegoat hung Like a scarecrow to ward off sin And the prayers are said and the hymns are sung And the gorcrows perch on their hills of dung Where the plagues of the world begin.
There’s a cross in the dark of the Southern sky Where the stars wink a long farewell As the ghosts of the ravens prepare to fly To return to the void of their black god’s eye With a tale that they’ll never tell.
*****
Simon MacCulloch writes: “This poem melds the Christian symbol of death and resurrection with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in an attempt to express how one feels after reading the world news in recent times.”
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.
The Universe is made of false analogies – flawed observations, secondhand “I see”s, discarded dreams. Nothing is truly as it seems. We build our intellectual shelter from life’s gales from scraps of lumber and found nails, anything within reach, rope washed up on a beach, a sliding glass door, still intact, used as a wall. And all because the Universe we sense has flaws, disobeys its own laws, is just a framework for the Mind That Plays, a sketch, hypothesis; a tract, not fact; a work in process, changing with the days. Dig deeper, and find fresh discrepancies. Our shelter, in fair weather, keeps us warm, can stand up to a breeze… will be no shelter in the coming storm.
*****
I marvel at the impossibilities of the quantum mechanisms of the universe being revealed. I enjoy Nick Bostrom’s speculations on everything being a simulation. I wonder at the powerful who are jockeying for development and control of AI, at our Nietzschean will to power, at our eternal quest for immortality. I am aware that nature constantly sacrifices billions in the process of advancing a few. I wonder if we are in that process now. I am not bothered that I have no answers.
This poem was first published in the current edition of Pulsebeat. Thanks, David Stephenson!
There’s just so many nows in forever if we’re apart or together as one, we’d better cherish them all if we’re clever make the most of our time in the sun,
‘coz it’s where we are led whether up or in bed there’s one funeral we all must attend, because somewhere ahead the sea kisses the sky and the name of that place is the end.
*****
Lindsay McLeod writes: “‘Harvest’ was made as an end piece for the second book I wrote for my daughter.” It was originally published in Grand Little Things.
Lindsay McLeod currently lives by the sea on the Southern edge of the world, where he trips over the offing every morning. He has been published here and there in the past and won a few awards. He has started messing about with words again lately after a few necessary years away. You might expect him to know better by now, but oh no.
Ya’ ever wanna go someplace? I mean…jus’ disappear. Leave ev’rythin’. But, leave no trace. Git your ass out o’ here To somewhere – could be far or near – Where you’re no longer you. Where you can dwell, year after year, Like normal people do.
Ya’ ever stare at your own face But still can’t see it clear? – Ya’ struggle hard jus’ keepin’ pace, While neighbors, they all steer ‘Tween college, marriage, an’ career, ‘Til – somehow coastin’ through – They barbeque, an’ drink col’ beer Like normal people do…
Ya’ ever think they won that race, But still, fall prey to fear Them dreams ‘n’ rainbows they all chase, Once gone, won’t reappear? Or, do they jus’ choke back each tear As one beer turns to two, Findin’ it’s Hell to persevere Like normal people do?
Ya’ see? You ain’t the first to veer Off course. That much is true. Or, last to lose all you hol’ dear Like normal people do.
Johnny Longfellow writes: “I’ve discussed the personal circumstances that partially inspired this poem in interviews at the Talk with Me podcast and at the now defunct Sonnetarium, both of which can be linked to in the bio below. So, I’ll just note here, the poem was written roughly six months after a heavy bout of depression. During said bout, I inadvertently stumbled upon The Geographies of Missing People website, hosted by Glasgow University, wherein I took special interest in their Stories of Missing Experience page. Listening to those mashed-up accounts of people who’d elected to go voluntarily missing was profoundly helpful to me during a dark period in my life. With that, I can only recommend to anyone going through a similar period in their own lives that they consider listening to those accounts. For, I can confidently say they helped inspire in me more than just a poem.”
Johnny Longfellow is a poet from Massachusetts. His work has appeared in The Five-Two, The Literary Hatchet, Misery Tourism, Punk Noir, and other fine literary venues, with more work forthcoming in Form in Formless Times. You can learn more about both him and his poetry at Heeeeeeere’s Johnny . . . Longfellow, that is.
My face is getting craggier. My pants are getting saggier. My ear-hair’s getting shaggier. My wife is getting naggier. I’m getting old!
My memory’s plumb awful. My eyesight is unlawful. I eschew a tofu waffle. My wife’s an Eiffel eyeful. I’m getting old!
My temperature is colder. My molars need more solder. Soon I’ll need a boulder-holder. My wife seized up. Unfold her! I’m getting old!
*****
Michael R. Burch adds the disclaimer “that the poem is pure comedy and my wife Beth is an absolute jewel. I’m lucky to have her. (Rodney Dangerfield put me up to it!)”
Michael R. Burch’s poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 23 languages, incorporated into three plays and four operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to classical, 75 times by 34 composers. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief of The HyperTexts.
Form in Formless Times 