Category Archives: couplets

Julia Griffin, ‘Wasp Waste’

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The exoplanet Wasp in Pisces
Subsists despite unending crises:
It’s hard to keep an even keel
At near the melting-point of steel,
And even heroes’ hearts might cower
With winds 10,000 miles per hour.
The place can furthermore rely on
Incessant rain of molten iron.
All this might serve as a directive
To keep our problems in perspective.

*****

Editor’s note: Inspired by a story in The Guardian, “Scientists identify rain of molten iron on distant exoplanet. Conditions on Wasp-76b in Pisces include temperatures of 2,400C and 10,000mph winds”, this poem by Julia Griffin ran in Light’s Poems of the Week on 16 March 2020. It was reprinted in the Potcake Chapbook ‘Robots and Rockets‘.

Julia Griffin lives in south-east Georgia/ south-east England. She has published in Light, LUPO, Mezzo Cammin, and some other places, though Poetry and The New Yorker indicate that they would rather publish Marcus Bales than her. Much more of her poetry can be found through this link in Light.

Photo: “Most Earthlike Exoplanet Started out as Gas Giant” by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Poems on poets: A.M. Juster, ‘Houseguests’

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There’s shouting by the stove (it’s Plath & Hughes)
as Wystan wanders off without his shoes
and Whitman picks the Cheetos off his beard.
The Larkin-Ginsberg chat is getting weird,
for after countless hours they have found
bizarre pornography is common ground.
Old Emily is not
As prim as billed—
When Dylan finds her bra-hooks—
She is thrilled.
Poe strokes his bird; Pound yawps that it’s a pity
Eliot can’t sleep without his kitty.
Rimbaud’s on eBay searching for a zebra
while sneering, “Oui, a cheemp can write vers libre!”
The Doctor’s soggy chickens start to smell
and Stevens has insurance he must sell.
The readings are spectacular, I know,
but is there any way to make them go?

*****

A.M. Juster writes: “This was first published in The Barefoot Muse. It looks like I wrote it in late 2008, it was a fairly prolific period for me and I was a little distracted because I was running the Social Security Administration. (Under his unpoetic name, Michael J. Astrue. – Editor). I don’t remember now the impetus for writing it, but I did enjoy taking these poetry idols off their pedestals and making them more human for a few laughs. This was about the time that I finished my translation of Horace’s Satires in something like 1850 heroic couplets, so I was much more comfortable with the form than I would have been five years before. I think the imitation of Emily Dickinson’s form is an amusing touch for the reader, although it is undetected when I read it because it remains in rhymed iambic pentameter.”

A.M. Juster’s poems and translations have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, The Hudson Review and other journals. His tenth book is Wonder and Wrath (Paul Dry Books 2020) and his next book will be a translation of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, which W.W. Norton will release in early 2024. He also overtweets about formal poetry @amjuster.

Photo: “me drunk & chris’_MMVI” by andronicusmax is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Barbara Lydecker Crane: ‘The African Elephants’ Report’

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Small herds of Two-Legs roll across the plain
and stop to stare at us in our domain.

They rumble in their giant metal hunks,
which belch the fumes that irritate our trunks.

These creatures demonstrate a lack of strength.
They seldom run, nor walk for any length.

We assume their eyesight is defective:
the flat things that they click must be corrective.

Why do they retreat from every shower,
since rain-washed hide will dry within the hour?

When darkness comes these creatures enter tents
and miss the night-shift intrigue of events.

As for their young, we’ve spotted precious few—
a doubtful future, from our point of view.

We shake our heads when Two-Leg herds arrive.
We have concluded they will not survive.

*****

Barbara Lydecker Crane writes: “I wrote this while looking at videos of wildlife in Tanzania – in one, an elephant was peering into a tent with excited humans inside, whispering and filming; I had fun imagining that the elephant had been sent by his herd on a reconnaissance mission, and would report back to them.”

Barbara Lydecker Crane, a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist in 2017 and  2019, has received two Pushcart nominations and several awards.  Her poems have appeared in Ekphrastic Review, First Things, Light, Measure, THINK, and many others.  Her fourth collection, entitled You Will Remember Me (sonnets in the imagined voices of artists through history, with many color images of artwork) is about to be published by Able Muse Press. 

Photo: “Addo Elephant Park, South Africa” by exfordy is licensed under CC BY 2.0.