Author Archives: Robin Helweg-Larsen

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About Robin Helweg-Larsen

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...

J.D.Smith, ‘Proposal’

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Resign yourself, my heart’s delight,
To me before a better offer
Comes along with hair and height,
A sea-deep chest, a bulging coffer.

Don’t wait for him: if love’s a song,
I am the toad’s primeval croak.
If love’s a wheel, then I belong
Among its rusty, broken spokes.

If I mean nothing in the world
To you, that nothing could be all,
A version of transcendence, curled
And primed to blossom from your soul.

Who else is equal to this test,
This cup of gall? You’ve had a sip–
In our shared life you’ll taste the rest.
Come join me on this sinking ship.

*****

J.D. Smith writes: “This poem explains, if nothing else, why I didn’t go into sales. It was not written for a specific person, but it does capture a time earlier in my adulthood when I was frustrated on all fronts. The poem also partakes of self-parody. If Philip Larkin had proposed in writing, it might have gone something like what I did.”

J.D. Smith has published six books of poetry, most recently the light verse collection Catalogs for Food Lovers, and he has received a Fellowship in Poetry from the United States National Endowment for the Arts. This poem is from The Killing Tree (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Smith’s first fiction collection, Transit, was published in December 2022. His other books include the essay collection Dowsing and Science. Smith works in Washington, DC, where he lives with his wife Paula Van Lare and their rescue animals.
X: @Smitroverse

Illustration: by Edward Lear for his poem ‘The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo’.

Using form: Limericks: RHL, ‘Attitudes in the Holy Land’

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Moses says God says: (Deuteronomy 20:16-18)

God’s ruthless. Just read Deuteronomy,
believers get zero autonomy:
“You must kill all non-Jews
in this land that I choose.”
Just back then? Or still now? (Love His bonhomie!)

Luke says Jesus says: (Luke 19:27)

Christ was often less peaceful than stormy,
with disciples both pushy and swarmy;
to the rest he made plain
if they’d not have him reign:
“Bring them hither and slay them before me.”

Muhammad says God says: (Qur’an 9:5)

“Polytheists, wherever you find them,
you should ambush and capture and bind them,
and only relax
if they pray and pay tax;
elsewise kill them, and in the dust grind them.”

*****

Given that Jews, Christians and Muslims all claim to be worshipping the same god, the only God, the God of Abraham, it’s somewhat surprising how much time they spend fighting each other. But then, factions within the same religion have been known to slaughter each other. It seems to be something inherent in religions, especially monotheistic ones – if you believe there is only one god, your god, then everyone else’s belief is blasphemy.

Somehow these tribal religions of preliterate herders have continued to the present. They are so illogical and – despite beautiful architecture etc – so frequently violent that the best response I can think of is the mockery of limericks and other forms of light verse. That, and mourning the dead children, and supporting efforts to impose peace.

These limericks were first published in The HyperTexts, Michael R. Burch’s enormous anthology which includes extensive poetry about both the Holocaust and the Nakba, the Palestinian Catastrophe.

“Moses causes the Levites to kill the idolators” is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

Shamik Banerjee, ‘A Meeting’

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We chose our old patisserie, Faheem’s,
One Monday noontime. Half the chairs were stacked.
The waiter Abdul’s smile displayed the fact
He knew our likes: fudge brownies with whipped cream.

Her clothes were simple, just a plain Salwar
Kameez—not what she mostly wore to meet me.
No dimples sat upon her cheeks to greet me;
Her body there, her mind was somewhere far

Away. “Must be a slight familial thing,”
I thought and asked, “A crossfire with your mother?
The usual hijinks by your puckish brother?”
It seemed no act or word of mine could bring

The truth out of her throat. After a pause,
She spoke (as if an old, corroded door,
Reluctant to be slid): “Just six months more.
My baba says it’s for my own good cause.

The boy’s an engineer from our own caste
With good emoluments.” She turned away
From me to hide her face, now moist and gray.
This news, like summer’s heat, wizened the last

Bright bloom of optimism in my heart.
“When is the day?” I wished to ask but could
Not voice a word — perhaps, for my own good;
Perhaps, to keep my soul a bit apart,

Veiled from the knowledge of her wedding date.
We sat, hands clasped, and watched the hour grow,
The people leave, the lightbulbs’ dimmish glow.
The food remained untouched on both our plates.

*****

Shamik Banerjee writes: “If, in the battle between love and societal norms, the latter wins, then no doubt humanity’s end days can be counted on fingers. My poem speaks about this battle and faintly (if not fully) gives a peek into my own experience of it. I hope it speaks to all those who lost the love of their lives to the hands of caste, salary, name, pride, honour, and religion.”

Shamik Banerjee is a poet from India. He resides in Assam with his parents. Some of his recent works will appear in York Literary Review, Willow Review, Thimble Lit, and Modern Reformation, to name a few.

Photo: “in the distance” by Viva La Marx is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Edmund Conti, ‘Class Action’

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Forty farty arty asses
Taking “Art and Humor” classes.
We can easily dispense of
Ten of those who have no sense of
Why they’re spending time in class.
Perhaps they hope the time will pass.

Thirty dirty-thinking students
Driving cars with one or two dents
All with New York license plates
(no one comes from other states).
None of them are Trappist Monks.
Three of them are from the Bronx.

Twenty seven, several standing
All of them aloud demanding
Knowledge and some satisfaction
Looking for a little action.
Which brings in play some other factors:
Like, the class has fourteen actors.

Thirteen thirsty knowledge seekers
Most of them in hi-tech sneakers
Fast-lane Yuppies causing sparks
Passing Jeffs and passing Marks,
Easily outclassing Freds
Four of them are wearing Keds.

Nine no-nonsense neophytes
New to Art and its delights
Also new to thoughts of Humor
Each of them a Baby Boomer.
Mostly what they make is money.
Eight don’t think that humor’s funny.

One remaining arty ass
Thirty nine aren’t in his class.
He has a strong artistic bent
A witty and amusing gent
But he (who is the poet) copped out,
Fell between the cracks and dropped out.

*****

Edmund Conti writes: “I think was inspired by a reference somewhere to an “Art and Humor” class. And naturally I had to have students dropping out, one by one, or two by two or more. The poem immediately became a lab for rhymes and puns and whatever could go under the banner of art and humor. Just riffing mostly.”

Edmund Conti has recent poems published in Light, Lighten-Up Online, The Lyric, The Asses of Parnassus, newversenews, Verse-Virtual and Open Arts Forum. His book of poems, Just So You Know, is published by Kelsay Books,
https://www.amazon.com/Just-You-Know-Edmund-Conti/dp/1947465899/
and was followed by That Shakespeherian Rag, also from Kelsay
https://kelsaybooks.com/products/that-shakespeherian-rag

“Students in class, Pitzer College” by Claremont Colleges Digital Library is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

SF Sonnet: RHL, ‘Transhuman Evolution’

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The humans crowd the riverbanks in cities
while you, would-be transhuman in your boat,
trust to your dreams and luck as on you float,
ignoring all the land’s static committees,
the buildings taller with their strident voices,
the citied banks ever more crammed and loud,
leaders and statues oversize and proud,
fixed in their views. But you see other choices.

And then there’s no more land. Only the sea.
You deso-, iso-, yet e-lated find
after the Desolation of the Years,
sailing and searching past humanity
in the vast oceans of the future mind,
a life within the music of the spheres.

*****

This sonnet has just been published in Space and Time #146, a magazine where fantasy, science fiction, horror and whatever else are presented in a variety of print, online and audio forms. The sonnet owes something to one of my favourite Matthew Arnold poems, ‘The Future‘, which begins

A wanderer is man from his birth.
He was born in a ship
On the breast of the river of time;
Brimming with wonder and joy
He spreads out his arms to the light,
Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream.

and ends flowing out into the ocean:

As the pale waste widens around him,
As the banks fade dimmer away,
As the stars come out, and the night-wind
Brings up the stream
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea.

I assume Matthew Arnold limited this vision to the individual life, but I see it also as an image relevant to the progress of the human species into something vaster and unknowably different – not far removed from Nietzsche’s sense of Man as being a bridge between animal and… superman, or transhuman. Not the nasty small-minded punks of Nazi and neo-Nazi superman stupidity, but something far grander in a far larger development towards what life could become.

Photo: “Millennium Dome/O2 Arena from Trinity Buoy Wharf, Blackwall” by wirewiper is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Melissa Balmain, ‘The Marital Bed’

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You always hog the blankets
and steal my magazines.
No need to ask what smells so rank–
it’s you, the king of beans.

Your toenails cut my shin.
You blow your nose: I jump.
I’m sanded by your bristly chin,
then bulldozed by your rump.

You scratch your back and sigh,
you grunt, harrumph and bray.
And yet the crazy truth is I
can’t sleep when you’re away.

*****

From Walking in on People © Melissa Balmain, 2014. Used by permission of Able Muse Press.

Melissa Balmain writes: “As with many of my poems, I owe my husband for being a good sport about seeing such things in print.  And I owe Light‘s founding editor, John Mella, who advised adding a foot to the third line of each stanza, for a 3-3-4-3 pattern. (That pattern has a name that I don’t recall. Could someone please remind me?)”

Melissa Balmain’s third poetry collection, Satan Talks to His Therapist, is available from Paul Dry Books (and from all the usual retail empires). Balmain is the editor-in-chief of Light, America’s longest-running journal of light verse, and has been a member of the University of Rochester’s English Department since 2010. She will teach a three-day workshop on comic poetry at the Poetry by the Sea conference in Madison, CT, in May 2024.

Photo: “#oneperson #AdultsOnly #onlywomen #onewomanonly #people #Adult !indoors #humanbodypart #Bed #realpeople #BlackBackground #closeup #day #awakenings” by nikdanna is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Sonnet: Marcus Bales, ‘Walking in the Rain’

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Today when we went walking it was raining,
Not so hard to keep us from it — still
Distinctly wet. We thought about abstaining,
But March this year has lost its normal chill,
So on we went. She did her bombs away,
I bagged, and she looked up, with fur-soaked skin,
And shook some water off, as if to say,
Open up the door let’s go back in.
Well you’re the one who brought us out this far
I said as if I thought she had a plan.
She body-languaged Well, since here we are,
We’ll sniff back slow and get wet as we can.
And now we’re on the rug here, somewhat dryer,
Breakfasted, and dozing by the fire.

*****

Marcus Bales writes: “If ever a poem cried out for explication, this poem is that poem. Its hidden meanings and elusive innuendos chase each others’ tails with such sly allusions that even the b in subtle seems to thrust itself forward in comparison.

“The depths this poem sounds, the heights beyond which it reaches, evinces nothing of the feline grace other poets aim for and achieve. Nothing here looks at the reader and refuses to respond to the call for extra petties. This is a poem that trots wetly over and rubs eagerly against knees, and receives the towelling-off and the “Who’s a wet one, eh, who’s a wet one, today?” with effervescent attempts to put its muddy feet on the reader’s shirt. This poem has but one thing to say, and it says it by leaning in for another pat on the head, and then swiftly shaking that fine final spray of mist into the reader’s face before they can back quickly enough away.

“It is the doggily doggish dogness of the thing that dogs the dogging dog of this poem, and makes it so, well, dogilicious.

“Cry havoc, and let slip the hounds of love.”

*****

Not much is known about Marcus Bales except that he lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio, and that his work has not been published in Poetry or The New Yorker. However his ‘51 Poems‘ is available from Amazon. He has been published in several of the Potcake Chapbooks (‘Form in Formless Times’).

“Walking in the Rain” by h.koppdelaney is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

RHL, ‘Everyone’

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Everyone’s naked under their clothes,
everyone’s bald under their hair;
hide if you like, everyone knows!
Everyone sees what you’re like under there.

Everyone’s meat under their skin,
everyone’s bones under their meat;
we know what your outside is hiding within:
hiding will always end in defeat.

So banish the words and censor the book,
draw little clothes on the cartoons for kids;
everyone knows where your dirty eyes look,
everyone sees that your life’s on the skids.

This poem was a response to the news out of Florida that elementary schools are being forced to draw clothing on cartoon characters in children’s books if the printed images show nakedness of either front or back. The right-wing nutcase group ‘Moms For Liberty’ is causing the trouble.
This link https://popular.info/p/pressed-by-moms-for-liberty-florida gives details and shows some of the results.
Incidentally, one co-founder of the Moms for Liberty group is Bridget Ziegler. Apparently she and her husband Christian Ziegler had sexual threesomes with another woman; and when Bridget backed out of a planned threesome event in October 2023, Christian went along anyway; the third party declined sex, saying she was in it more for Bridget; so Christian raped her. The woman then filed a complaint with the police.
Why is it that the hysterically over-moral types seem to be the ones causing most of the problems?

This poem was published in the March 2024 issue of Lighten Up Online (aka LUPO); thanks, Jerome Betts!

Photo: illustration from ‘No, David!‘, written and illustrated by David Shannon.

Using form: Villanelle: Discoveria, ‘October 7’

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Your actions have unleashed a living hell.
Each day Israelis, Palestinians die;
Netanyahu, Hamas: go fuck yourselves.

October 7: gunfire and the smell
of death in the kibbutzim testify:
your actions have unleashed a living hell.

The siege of Gaza, ground invasion, tell
the UN of the “risk of genocide”.
Netanyahu, Hamas: go fuck yourselves.

And when the hospitals are bombed as well,
and there’s no water, food, or power supply,
your actions have unleashed a living hell.

Across the world the rage and hatred swell
and everyone feels forced to pick a side.
Netanyahu, Hamas: go fuck yourselves.

This one cannot be silent, for the bells,
they toll for everybody; none shall hide.
Your actions have unleashed a living hell;
Netanyahu, Hamas: go fuck yourselves.

*****

Discoveria writes: “I wrote this piece as a response to what was, at the time, a perception that people were being demanded to pick a side in the conflict between Hamas and the Israeli government, leaving no room for legitimate criticism of both. I wanted to express my anger and frustration at the situation, in which both sides have chosen the path of death and cyclical violence. The repeated refrains in the villanelle form emphasise these emotions. The piece was written overnight and posted in the early hours of Remembrance Day, 11/11/2023, after a little doomscrolling. I cannot pretend that there is much subtlety to the poem; it is what it is.”

Discoveria publishes much of their work at AllPoetry, saying “Due to the politically sensitive topic of the poem I would prefer to be credited under my username.”

Photo: “17 year old boy killed by Israeli army during demonstration in solidarity with Gaza” by ISM Palestine is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Parody: Brian Allgar, ‘If you can …’

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If you can make her laugh, that’s half the battle,
Especially if she’s married to a bore;
If you can make her glad to be your chattel,
Yet treat her like a lady, not a whore;
If you can undo bra-straps single-handed
While murmuring enticements in her ear;
If you can make her think you’re being candid
When telling her just what she wants to hear;
If you, my friend, can easily persuade her
To sample things she’s never tried before,
Or if she sighs with pleasure when you’ve laid her,
And smiles as you sneak out by the back door;
If you can tolerate her endless prattle,
(And never tell her “Darling, get a life”),
Her gossip and her foolish tittle-tattle—
Then you’re the bastard who seduced my wife!

*****

Brian Allgar writes: “Written with a particularly amoral friend of mine in mind, although I am glad to say that the narrator is not me.”

Brian Allgar was born a mere 22 months before Adolf Hitler committed suicide, although no causal connection between the two events has ever been firmly established. Despite having lived in Paris since 1982, he remains immutably English. He started entering humorous competitions in 1967, but took a 35-year break, finally re-emerging in 2011 as a kind of Rip Van Winkle of the literary competition world. He also drinks malt whisky and writes music, which may explain his fondness for Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony.
He is the author of “The Ayterzedd: A Bestiary of (mostly) Alien Beings” and “An Answer from the Past, being the story of Rasselas and Figaro”, both available from Kelsay Books and Amazon.

Photo: “Making Her Laugh II” by kahala is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.