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...
A delicate fabric of bird song Floats in the air, The smell of wet wild earth Is everywhere.
Red small leaves of the maple Are clenched like a hand, Like girls at their first communion The pear trees stand.
Oh I must pass nothing by Without loving it much, The raindrop try with my lips, The grass with my touch;
For how can I be sure I shall see again The world on the first of May Shining after the rain?
*****
Sometimes clean and simple is best for capturing the uncomplicated emotion of appreciating nature. Sara Teasdale in her element. As Louis Untermeyer commented on her verse: its “beauty is in the restraint” of its “ever-present though never elaborated theme.”
I’ll flow slug-slow, go naked (naked’s fine). My only mission is to glisten. Watch me shine.
*****
Annie Fisher writes: “I wrote the slug poem a year ago when I was on a writing retreat on the island of Iona in the Inner Hebrides. I was writing all sorts of other stuff on the retreat and that little poem popped into my head during a free-writing morning splurge. I guess the idea of slowing down, going with the flow, being true to oneself and letting one’s inner radiance shine is very much in keeping with the vibe of Iona, but it wasn’t a conscious thing. I do love short poems. I’ve had others published on Snakeskin, including:
SONG THRUSH, MAY MORNING
Bird at my window, early, early, Something to say, to say, to say, This morning will not come again, Make the most of today today.
That poem plays with the fact that the song thrush repeats its song. I sometimes sing it with some friends as a round using a tune we wrote. Here’s one other from the Snakeskin archive which I’m rather fond of:
GRANNY ON THE NAUGHTY STEP
Granny sits on the Naughty Step Thinks about what she has done Wishes she’d been a bit naughtier It might have been fun…”
Annie Fisher’s background is in primary education, initially as a teacher and later as an English adviser. Now semi-retired she writes poetry for both adults and children and sometimes works as a storyteller in schools. She has had two pamphlets published with HappenStance Press: (2016) and (2020), and is due to have another pamphlet published in the next couple of months with Mariscat Press. It will be called ‘Missing the Man Next Door’. She is a member of Fire River Poets in Taunton, Somerset and a regular contributor to The Friday Poem https://thefridaypoem.com/annie-fisher/
What a worthless thing is poetry, a product of hard labor I adore; a counter full of year-old toiletries will always fetch considerably more.
A merchant selling gift-wrapped bars of soap will come away with profit and some change; to sell a poem is no more than a hope washed clean of what a market can arrange.
Here! Have a few of mine, two for a quarter— a dime apiece—the bargain of the day… just name it! I’m here to take your order. Hard labor’s even hard to give away.
*****
Donald Wheelock writes: “I have spent most of my life as a composer of vocal, orchestral and chamber music. While remuneration for song cycles and string quartets is not unknown, the profits from commissions and other sources rarely exceed the expenses. I don’t have to tell the readers of formalverse that the same could be said for formal poetry. The conceit of this poem has been an assumption in my life for many years, and equivalent jokes among composers of “classical concert music” are not uncommon.
I have written formal poetry for almost as long as I have music, often to set to music. But it is relatively recently that I have submitted it to journals welcoming formal poetry. Snakeskin (where this poem was first published), Able Muse, Think, Blue Unicorn, Rue Scribe, Quadrant and many other journals have published my poems. My first full-length book, It’s Hard Enough to Fly, was published by Kelsay Books in 2022. My second book, With Nothing but a Nod, will appear in May of this year from David Robert Books.”
His words are witty, with a twist. He says they’re “pithy”; note the lisp.
*****
This is one of my three short poems published in the current Rat’s Ass Review – thanks, Roderick Bates – where the good and the rude, the mocking and shocking, all coexist harmoniously.
On the twilight mountains leopards change their spots distributing their cast-off coats to helpworthy have-nots –
lions and lambs and lynx lie down and tell each other tales of how at sea the seals now go for walks with killer whales –
lovers linger hand in hand promising to be truthful, faithful, thoughtful, kind, supportive company –
and peace seems deep and peace seems long until the morning sun wakes us from our ancient dream like a starter gun.
*****
Tom Vaughan writes: “The poem (published in Snakeskin 316, April 2024) is among several inspired by my current reading of Robert Alter’s magnificent – and magnificently thought-provoking – translation of the Hebrew Bible. However gloomy the concluding stanza, and however accurately that gloom may reflect the violence and slaughter always at the heart of the world, I hope the poem also catches some of the equally permanent and however illusory yearning for things to be otherwise.”
Tom Vaughan is not the real name of a poet whose previous publications include a novel and two poetry pamphlets (A Sampler, 2010, and Envoy, 2013, both published by HappenStance). His poems have been published in a range of poetry magazines, including several of the Potcake Chapbooks: Careers and Other Catastrophes Familes and Other Fiascoes Strip Down Houses and Homes Forever Travels and Travails. He currently lives in Brittany. https://tomvaughan.website
Illustration: ‘The Peaceable Kingdom’ by Edward Hicks, via Snakeskin
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’.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
Form in Formless Times 