Category Archives: odd poems

Contrapuntal: Brooklyn Crane, ‘Secrecy in Sacred Places’

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From worship and tenderness to profanity. Two poems becoming one through the contrapuntal technique.

Quatorzain I: Secrecy.

Solemn prayers fill the empty church;
hallow’d songs arise from pews of birch.

Midnights are when angels fill the halls—
neither flaw nor sin to weight their calls—
right where Heaven’s ardent mercy falls.
Yes, Amen, and God, they sing aloud,
earnest praises proudly thus avowed,
bless’d by secrecy’s embrace and shroud.

Only God may hear them. Only he
knows the meaning of their cry and plea.
Yet-unknown and his alone to see,
choirs outbreathe a psalm when no one’s near
as an offering at last sincere,
echoed up in majesty and fear.

Quatorzain II: In Sacred Places.

Caressing, smiling, both confiding,
enamored dreamers kiss in hiding.
In sacred places coinciding,
grotesque to Earth, they birth a treasure,
humanity devoid of measure,
melodic in its throes of pleasure.

Secure’s the love away from judges—
revealed to none who touch begrudges,
observes the bruising lips and smudges—
liturgical in eyes’ occlusion.
Neglect has borne them disillusion,
religion out of shared seclusion.

Nocturnal lovers taste affection
seduced by solitude. Perfection.

Contrapuntal: Secrecy in Sacred Places.

Solemn prayers fill the empty church;
Caressing, smiling, both confiding,
Hallow’d songs arise from pews of birch.

Enamored dreamers kiss in hiding.
Midnights are when angels fill the halls—
In sacred places coinciding,

Neither flaw nor sin to weight their calls—
Grotesque to Earth, they birth a treasure,
Right where Heaven’s ardent mercy falls.

Humanity devoid of measure,
Yes, Amen, and God, they sing aloud,
Melodic in its throes of pleasure.

Earnest praises proudly thus avowed,
Sincere’s the love away from judges—
Bless’d by secrecy’s embrace and shroud.

Revealed to none who touch begrudges,
Only God may hear them. Only he
Observes the birth of bruising smudges—

Knows the meaning of their cry and plea.
Liturgical within seclusion.
Yet-unknown and his alone to see,

Neglect has borne them disillusion—
Choirs outbreathe a psalm when no one’s near
Religion out of shared seclusion.

As an offering at last sincere,
Nocturnal lovers taste affection,
Echoed up in majesty and fear.
’
Seduced by solitude. Perfection.

*****

Brooklyn Crane writes:

This God-Forsaken Contrapuntal!

Contrapuntal poetry seems complicated, and it actually is. Merging lines and meanings can be quite tricky! However, I’ve read several of them either composed of poems which barely hold up on their own or too short enough to be manageable, and in response to this, I obviously went over the top. Let’s see everything you can do by blending two poems together!

A contrapuntal text is the result of the intercalary arrangement of two separate pieces of writing which creates a hidden meaning.

When I prepared to pitch the idea of writing a complex-as-all-hell contrapuntal to my friend and fellow writer Narcisse Tardif, the very first thought that came to mind was that of how most contrapuntal poetry out there simply isn’t formal at all. I mean, who has the time for that? Of course, this being my publication, the name of which is Scheming Rhymes, I naturally had to do something about that. Two questions came out of this train of thought, and these were:

  1. What if it was a contrapuntal between two sonnets?
  2. What if I could produce an acrostic resulting from their intercalation?

If you’ve actually read my poem, you will obviously notice that the sonnets are not sonnets at all—or at least not in the traditional sense of the word. They are indeed quatorzains, as the silly French call the 14-line arrangements that most sonnets adhere to, but the only thing these have in common with them is the couplet of the Shakespearean variant. Undeniably, I could have just written two sonnets. However, it’s never that simple on Scheming Rhymes, and you’re here for it. We’ll get there in a bit.

Regarding the acrostic, yes—there’s a reason for the italicized start of every line. Why did I do this? I just wanted to leave a signature in this poem. Here it is!

S-C-H-E-M-I-N-G-R-H-Y-M-E-S-B-R-O-O-K-L-Y-N-C-R-A-N-E’-S

Fourteen and fourteen from each poem constituting this contrapuntal add up to twenty-eight lines for me to work with. Scheming Rhymes perfectly fills half of that space while Brooklyn Crane sadly leaves me one letter short. Upon this ill-fated realization, I added the S at the end and pretended myself to be a brilliant strategist who can overcome anything with enough delusion. Surely the reader will know that an apostrophe precedes it because, you know, the poem is mine.

It is now that we can address the odd rhyme schemes of the quatorzains as, with the previous information in mind, I went ballistic.

“Could I arrange the poems in a way that their merging results in a different form? If so, which form would that be?”

SO! Because I had just recently posted my terza rima composition breakdown, it was freshly in my mind that a possible solution to this conundrum was such a form. I mean, think about it. Terza rima poems work on a formula of 3x + 1 (or 2), so I did 28 minus 1, divided by 3, and I landed on– I KNOW YOU ARE NOT HERE FOR THE MATH! Anyway, I landed on 9 tercets plus 1 loose line, accounting for all twenty-eight verses.

Next was the question of what the rhyme schemes had to be in order to fulfill this crazy dream. Terza rima works on a ABA BCB CDC … YZY Z (or ZZ) scheme, so I superimposed it on the acrostic as follows.

Tercet 1: S(A)-C(B)-H(A)
Tercet 2: E(B)-M(C)-I(B)
Tercet 3: N(C)-G(D)-R(C)
Tercet 4: H(D)-Y(E)-M(D)
Tercet 5: E(E)-S(F)-B(E)
Tercet 6: R(F)-O(G)-O(F)
Tercet 7: K(G)-L(H)-Y(G)
Tercet 8: N(H)-C(I)-R(H)
Tercet 9: A(I)-N(J)-E’(I)
Loose line: S(J)

That’s all fine and dandy, but I still had to distribute these evenly between the quatorzains.

Quatorzain 1: S(A), H(A), M(C), N(C), R(C), Y(E), E(E), B(E), O(G), K(G), Y(G), C(I), A(I), E’(I)

Quatorzain 2: C(B), E(B), I(B), G(D), H(D), M(D), S(F), R(F), O(F), L(H), N(H), R(H), N(J), S(J)

I hope that you are starting to see the way these two bastards came into existence. We now have the structural guidelines for both quatorzains and the resulting terza rima. This would absolutely be enough for a sane person to go about their day. It’s a double quatorzain/terza rima/contrapuntal/acrostic after all.

It was not enough for me, but I will not bore you with the metrical choices made in this poem. It’s explained on the paid-for section of my terza rima post, though.

Oh, yes. This is a shameless plug for my paid subscription. Come on—you already love Scheming Rhymes!

With all of these guardrails to work with, it was finally time to write. It was absolute hell.

But why do this?

The short answer is: because I can, lol. The actual answer, however, is that I do it because it can be done. Scheming Rhymes is all about exploring what we can do to enrich poetry, understanding both the traditions that educate our verse today and the techniques that might innovate its composition tomorrow. This work is not perfect, I’m aware, and there is sure to be someone who executes the planning behind it more expertly, but we ought to encourage writers to challenge themselves and produce beauty through effort, not through simply making poetry easier.

So there you have it. Here’s to more brutal antitheses to free verse poetic prose!

Join the madness—or don’t!

As with all previously explored forms and techniques, I am not here to police you about how you write and what decisions you make. You can make lines vary in syllable count, ditch the rhymes, change the number of lines per stanza, or anything else you want to do. All I intend on this publication is to give you a starting point from which to find your identity as a writer. Here’s the text by Ani Beeler that inspired me to explore this technique using a completely different approach:

Another contrapuntal! This is my absolute favorite form. I shall be posting several of these. Again, the way this works: Read column 1, column 2, and then across column 1 to 2…

*****

Brooklyn Crane: Celebrating human ingenuity in poetry! Writer, advocate, unapologetic rhyme addict, and public enemy of AI content. Subscribe to Scheming Rhymes—read more of my work and learn more about poetry forms and techniques.

Illustration attributed to Mihály Zichy based on Mikhail Lermontov’s poem The Demon, via Art Renewal Center.

Odd Poem: Hu Mingfu (胡明复) , ‘Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den’

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Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den is crafted entirely from the syllable “shi,” distinguished only by tonal variation, yet it still conveys a complete and coherent story in Chinese. The poem was originally written by Hu Mingfu (胡明复) and published by linguist Yuen Ren Chao in Volume 11 of The Chinese Students’s Monthly in 1916.[2][3] It was then refined by Yuen Ren Chao in the 1930s for demonstrative purposes in his lectures.

In Chinese:

“Shi Shì shí shĩ shĩ”

Shíshì shishì Shi Shì, shì shi, shì shí shí shĩ.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shĩ.
Shí shí, shì shí shi shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shi Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shĩ, shì shĩ shì, shĩ shì shí shĩ shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shi shi, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shĩ, Shì shĩ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shĩ shì shí shì shí shĩ.
Shí shí, shĩ shí shì shí shĩ shĩ, shí shí shí shĩ shĩ.
Shì shì shì shì.

English Translation:

In a stone den lived a poet named Shi, who loved lions and had resolved to eat 10 lions.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At 10 o’clock, 10 lions had just arrived at the market.
At that moment, Shi also arrived at the market.
He saw those 10 lions and, using his arrows, slayed them.
He brought the bodies of the 10 lions back to the stone den.
The stone den was damp, so he asked his servants to wipe it clean.
After it was cleaned, he tried to eat the 10 lions.
When he began eating, he realized that those 10 lions were actually 10 stone lion statues.
Try to explain this matter.

*****

If you chase this odd poem down in more detail, you will find arguments about the original poet’s intent, and the subsequent modifications by Yuen Ren Chao (who apparently claimed full ownership), and which language is appropriate for it, and more, in Wikipedia and elsewhere. I leave you with a long excerpt from pinyin.info:

“Yuen Ren Chao was the leader of the group that designed National Romanization. He knew that National Romanization (Guóyǔ Luómǎzì) could only write “modern vernacular Chinese,” and not Classical Chinese. In order to demonstrate this point he playfully wrote a classical essay consisting entirely of “homophones” entitled “Record of Mr. Shi Eating Lions.” The whole essay is copied as follows:

Shi2 shi4 shi1shi4 Shi1 shi4 shi4 shi1, shi4 shi2 shi2 shi1. Shi4 shi2shi2 shi4 shi4 shi4 shi1. Shi2 shi2, shi4 shi4 shi4, shi4 shi2 shi* shi1 shi4 shi4. Shi4 shi2, shi4 shi4 shi4 shi2 shi1, shi3 shi2 shi2 shi3 shi4, shi3 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi4shi4. Shi4 shi2 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi1 shi4 shi2 shi4. Shi2 shi4 shi1, shi3 shi4 shi4 shi3 shi2 shi4. Shi2 shi4 shi4. Shi4 shi3 shi4 shi2 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi1. Shi2 shi2, shi3 shi4 shi4 shi2 shi* shi1 shi1 shi2 shi2 shi* shi2 shi1 shi1. Shi4 shi2, shi4 shi3 shi4 shi4 shi4shi2. Shi4 shi4 shi4 shi4.” (The original article had no punctuation.) (* The character 硕 shuò, meaning huge, was pronounced as shí in the past.)

The vernacular translation of this essay is:

Shítou wūzi lǐ xìng Shī de shīrén xǐhuan chī shīzi, tā juéxīn yào chīdiào 10 tóu shīzi. Tā shíshí dào shìchǎng shàngqu kàn shīzi. Shí diǎn zhōng, tā dào shìchǎng, gānghǎo 10 tóu zhuàngdà de shīzi láidào shìchǎng. Zhè shíhou, tā kàn le zhè 10 tóu shīzi, yīkào 10 zhī shítou zuò de jiàn, bǎ zhè 10 tóu shīzi shāsǐ. Tā jiǎn qǐ zhè 10 tóu shīzi de shītǐ, huídào shítou wūzi lǐ qù. Shítou wūzi cháoshī. Tā jiào shìzhě mǒgān shítou wūzi. Shítou wūzi mǒgān le, tā kāishǐ chángshì chī zhè 10 tóu shīzi de shītǐ. Chī de shíhou, cái zhīdào zhè 10 tóu zhuàngdà de shīzi de shītǐ, shíjì shì 10 tóu zhuàngdà de shítou shīzi de shītǐ. Zhè shíhou, tā cái míngbai zhè jiàn shì de zhēnxiàng. Qǐng nǐ jiěshì, zhè shì zěnme huíshì?

The English translation of the essay is:

Mr. Shi, a poet who lived in a stone house, liked to eat lions. He vowed to eat ten lions. He often went to the market to look at lions. At ten o’clock, he went to the market, (and) just then ten large lions (also) came to the market. At that time, he saw these ten lions. Relying on the power of ten arrows with stone tips, he caused the ten lions to pass away. He picked up the bodies of the ten lions and went back to his stone house. The stone house was damp, so he told his servant to try and wipe it (dry). After the house had been wiped (dry), he began to try to eat the bodies of the ten lions. As he was eating, he realized that the bodies of the ten large lions were actually bodies of ten large stone lions. Only then did he understand the real situation. Can (you) explain what happened? (Translated by Victor H. Mair)

The point is that, if Chao’s classical essay were written in Hanyu Pinyin, everything would be shi and naturally no one could read and understand it. In other words, it is a kind of tour de force tongue twister. Even if it were written in characters, people still would not be able to understand it when it is read aloud. There are people who use this (playful) piece (that is forced and unnatural even in Classical Chinese) to oppose Hanyu Pinyin. They have completely misunderstood Yuen Ren Chao’s original intention!”

“Stone lion” by Ben Sutherland is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Nabati poetry, fragments attributed to Mohammed bin Salman

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I am the one who climbs the difficult heights,
and does not fear the steep ascent.
If I aim for glory, I reach it—
or I perish in its pursuit.

I walk the path though the night is long,
carrying the weight of what must be done.
If hardship comes, I meet it standing—
for the honor of my land is not undone.

*****

Although he is said to write verse, I don’t know of a complete poem in English translation by Mohammed bin Salman that can be treated as a citable literary text.

What does exist is looser and more elusive: occasional verses attributed to him in Arabic media (often quoted in speeches or cultural settings); lines in the Nabati tradition (vernacular Bedouin-style poetry), where authorship can be fluid and performance-based; translations that circulate online, but without firm provenance or consistent wording. With MBS, you’re not dealing with a published poet but with a cultural participant in a living oral–literary tradition.

About Nabati poetry, ChatGPT explains it as:

  • Oral / semi-oral tradition
  • Often improvised or situational
  • Heavy on:
    • honour
    • endurance
    • lineage
    • desert imagery
  • Designed for performance and social signaling, not quiet page-reading

So even good Nabati verse can feel:

  • repetitive
  • declarative
  • rhetorically direct

That’s by design.

Using form: Odd poem: British Railways toilet sign

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Passengers will please refrain
from flushing toilets while the train
is standing in the station.

*****

It is my (perhaps flawed) understanding that this particular wording originated in the UK. Signs instructing passengers to refrain from flushing toilets while at a station were widely used in the UK throughout the mid-20th century, specifically from the nationalization of British Railways in 1948 through the 1960s. The signs were a standard fixture in passenger carriages, typically made of cast iron or enamel for durability. The signs began to disappear as British Rail modernized its signage in 1965, and gradually replaced older rolling stock with newer models. 

At the time these signs were posted, British trains utilized a “hopper” or “direct discharge” system: toilets consisted of a simple chute or a water-flushed system that emptied human waste directly onto the railway tracks. Because waste dropped straight down, flushing while stationary at a station would deposit raw sewage directly onto the platform-side tracks, creating severe hygiene and odor issues for passengers and staff. Although the first retention tanks (which hold waste for later disposal) were introduced in 1981, the transition away from “hopper” toilets was slow. As recently as 2018, approximately 10% of British train carriages still discharged waste onto tracks, with the practice only largely being eliminated by 2023 after significant government and industry pressure. 

It is not known which railway employee successfully created and implemented the phrasing—”Passengers will please refrain from flushing toilets while the train is standing in the station”. Perhaps they did it surreptitiously, anonymously; but the catchy rhythm and rhyme became so ubiquitous that it was set to the tune of Dvořák’s Humoresque No. 7 and became a popular piece of cultural folklore in both the UK and US.

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas and Yale law professor Thurman Arnold take full credit for the “Bawdy Song.” In his autobiography, Go East, Young Man (pp. 171–72), Douglas notes, “Thurman and I got the idea of putting these memorable words to music, and Thurman quickly came up with the musical refrain from Humoresque.” Here is an incomplete version of that work:

“Passengers will please refrain
From flushing toilets while the train
Is in the station. Darling, I love you!
We encourage constipation
While the train is in the station
Moonlight always makes me think of you.
If the woman’s room be taken,
Never feel the least forsaken,
Never show a sign of sad defeat.
Try the men’s room in the hall,
And if some man has had the call,
He’ll courteously relinquish you his seat.
If these efforts all are vain,
Then simply break a window pane-
This novel method used by very few.
We go strolling through the park
Goosing statues in the dark,
If Sherman’s horse can take it, why can’t you?”

Odd poem: Xi Jinping, ‘In Memory of Jiao Yulu’

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Ten thousand miles away your soul has flown;
the rivers, mountains and land yearn for your return.
The people mourn the loss of a caring official,
tears flooding under the empress trees you planted.
Having dedicated your life to the desert,
to the betterment of people’s lives, your legacy lives on
no matter how many years come and go.

The moon shining bright as always,
I think of you and your life’s work.
You toiled long and hard, claiming no credit.
Serving and benefiting the people:
such was your ambition and is also mine.
Many a trickle will add a touch of green to the desert
and create a wellspring of hope.”

*****

Xi Jinping, born in 1953, has been the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and chairman of the Central Military Commission, and thus the paramount leader of China, since 2012. Since 2013, Xi has also served as the president of China.

Jiao Yulu was a Chinese politician, highly respected for his hard work even as he was dying of liver cancer in his early 40s.

From the Chinese Embassy in the US:
Xi Jinping has always held Jiao Yulu in high esteem and regarded him as a role model. At the time of writing this poem, Xi was the Party Secretary of Fuzhou. One night in July 1990, he read an article entitled “People Yearn for the Return of Jiao Yulu.” The poem was inspired as literary thoughts surrounding the deceased upright man welled up in Xi’s heart. When he inspected Lankao in 2014, Xi recalled emotionally how he learned from the example of Jiao Yulu more than 40 years ago. “On February 7, 1966, the People’s Daily carried a long article by Comrade Mu Qing and others entitled ‘Jiao Yulu: A Model County Party Secretary.’ Back then, I was a grade one student in junior high school. The teacher of political education choked with sobs while reading the article to us. I was deeply moved when I heard Comrade Jiao Yulu kept on working even in the late stage of liver cancer, pressing a stick against his liver to relieve the pain. The pressure from the stick wore a hole into the right side of his rattan chair over time.”

Jiao Yulu is no stranger to the Chinese people. After being appointed Party Secretary of Lankao County, he mobilized the local residents in a great struggle to tackle water-logging, sandstorm, and alkaline soil. Leading by example, he was always at the frontline at the height of sandstorms and in torrential rainfalls to identify the wind corridor, forecast quicksand and gauge flood waters. Amid blinding blizzards, he visited poor families to deliver food and financial relief to their homes. He was devoted entirely to all the people of his county but himself. Despite severe illness, he carried on work till the last moment of his life, and is revered as the “model county Party secretary.”

Odd poem: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘A Reminiscence of Cricket’

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Once in my heyday of cricket,
One day I shall ever recall!
I captured that glorious wicket,
The greatest, the grandest of all.

Before me he stands like a vision,
Bearded and burly and brown,
A smile of good humoured derision
As he waits for the first to come down.

A statue from Thebes or from Knossos,
A Hercules shrouded in white,
Assyrian bull-like colossus,
He stands in his might.

With the beard of a Goth or a Vandal,
His bat hanging ready and free,
His great hairy hands on the handle,
And his menacing eyes upon me.

And I – I had tricks for the rabbits,
The feeble of mind or eye,
I could see all the duffer’s bad habits
And where his ruin might lie.

The capture of such might elate one,
But it seemed like one horrible jest
That I should serve tosh to the great one,
Who had broken the hearts of the best.

Well, here goes! Good Lord, what a rotter!
Such a sitter as never was dreamt;
It was clay in the hands of the potter,
But he tapped it with quiet contempt.

The second was better – a leetle;
It was low, but was nearly long-hop;
As the housemaid comes down on the beetle
So down came the bat with a chop.

He was sizing me up with some wonder,
My broken-kneed action and ways;
I could see the grim menace from under
The striped peak that shaded his gaze.

The third was a gift or it looked it-
A foot off the wicket or so;
His huge figure swooped as he hooked it,
His great body swung to the blow.

Still when my dreams are night-marish,
I picture that terrible smite,
It was meant for a neighboring parish,
Or any place out of sight.

But – yes, there’s a but to the story-
The blade swished a trifle too low;
Oh wonder, and vision of glory!
It was up like a shaft from a bow.

Up, up like a towering game bird,
Up, up to a speck in the blue,
And then coming down like the same bird,
Dead straight on the line that it flew.

Good Lord, it was mine! Such a soarer
Would call for a safe pair of hands;
None safer than Derbyshire Storer,
And there, face uplifted, he stands

Wicket keep Storer, the knowing,
Wary and steady of nerve,
Watching it falling and growing
Marking the pace and curve.

I stood with my two eyes fixed on it,
Paralysed, helpless, inert;
There was ‘plunk’ as the gloves shut upon it,
And he cuddled it up to his shirt.

Out – beyond question or wrangle!
Homeward he lurched to his lunch!
His bat was tucked up at an angle,
His great shoulders curved to a hunch.

Walking he rumbled and grumbled,
Scolding himself and not me;
One glove was off, and he fumbled,
Twisting the other hand free.

Did I give Storer the credit,spo
The thanks he so splendidly earned?
It was mere empty talk if I said it,
For Grace had already returned.

*****

A Reminiscence of Cricket is a poem written by Arthur Conan Doyle. On 23-25 August 1900, Conan Doyle played in a first class cricket match against W.G. Grace where he scored 4, and took the wicket of Grace who had scored 110.

The creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle played in ten first-class matches, mainly for the MCC, between 1900 and 1907. As a lower-order right-handed batsman and occasional slow bowler, he scored 231 runs, average 19.25, in 18 innings with a top score of 43. His only first-class wicket came against London County at Crystal Palace on 25 August 1900 when he had WG caught by the wicket-keeper off a skier for 110.

I found this poem with an extensive commentary by someone called Shamanth: “I’ve loved it primarily because of the allure of an amateur lifestyle that it portrays – an age where you could study medicine, play first class cricket, referee boxing bouts and marathons, and still produce brilliant literature, when you could live without sacrificing any dimension of your life, without putting your head down to specialize in any one field, when you did something simply because you loved it without having to forfeit other aspects of your life that you loved just as much. It makes you long for a lifestyle with such freedom.”

Credit: “From photo by E. Hawkins & Co., Brighton” – K. S. Ranjitsinhji, The Jubilee Book of Cricket Third Edition

Wordplay: Barbara Lydecker Crane, ‘Anna Graham’s Quirk’

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Not verbose, she’s quite the obverse.
Anna Graham has one fixation—
rearranging conversation
as voices rant on. Here, ears rehearse

how letter counters can construe;
how each artist paints their traits;
how calipers find replicas for mates.
The game won’t wane—it spells anew.

Is she just wired or truly weird?
She does lament her mental quirk
at night. Some ghastly thing will lurk:
serpents in a dream appeared

with pertness. Asleep, she can’t outrun
a rioter, her editor . . .
a teardrop turning predator . . .
a charging gnu with loaded gun

Mornings end each nightly bout
as Anna walks the beach for miles,
where Laughing Gulls will make her smile.
Esprit persists… is that spelled out?

*****

Barbara Lydecker Crane writes: “I was unaware British people tend to pronounce this surname ‘Gray-um’ instead of the American ‘Gram’. I’m punning on the American pronunciation, and the poem won in the humor category of the Chicagoland Poetry Contest in 2021. Although I’m not nearly as obsessive as this fictional woman is about anagrams and “mirror words” (a pair that spell each other backwards), I enjoy such wordplay. My book BackWords Logic (Local Gems Press, 2017) is all quatrains that contain mirror words, with line drawings by Frances McCormick.”

In 2024 Barbara Lydecker Crane won the Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Crown Contest and First Prize in the Helen Schaible Contest, modern sonnet category. She has twice been a finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize. Able Muse recently published her fourth collection, You Will Remember Me. 

Photo: “An Anagram” by tcees is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Odd, political poem: Emperor Qianlong, ‘My Feelings After the Ambassador of the Red-Haired English King, Macartney, Came to Pay Tribute and Give Offerings to Me’

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Formerly Portugal presented tribute, now England is paying homage.
They have traveled further than Shu Hai and Heng-zhang;
My ancestors’ virtue must have reached their distant lands.
Though their tribute is nothing special, my heart approves sincerely.
Curios and their ingenious devices I do not prize.
Though what they bring is meager,
in my kindness to men from far away I make generous recompense –
Wanting to preserve my good health and power.”

*****

Original Poem:

《红毛英吉利国王差使臣马嘎尔尼奉表贡至，诗以志事》

　　博都雅昔修职贡，英吉利今效荩诚。

　　竖亥1横章输近步，祖功宗德逮远瀛。

　　视如常却心嘉焉，不贵异听物翊2精。

　　怀远薄来而厚往，衷深保泰以持盈。

This poem was written by the Qianlong Emperor (25 September 1711 – 7 February 1799; also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, personal name Hongli) after his meeting with the British ambassador Lord Macartney at the Emperor’s grand tent in his Summer resort at Jehol (Chengde) on September 14th, 1793. The embassy was then sent back to Beijing, the Emperor followed and saw the previously prepared British gifts on September 30th. The gifts and embassy did not impress and so they were ordered home on the following day. The whole two-year expedition is detailed here.

Lord Macartney was not impressed either, and wrote: “The Empire of China is an old, crazy, first rate man-of-war, which a fortunate succession of able and vigilant officers have contrived to keep afloat for these 150 years past, and to overawe their neighbors merely by its bulk and appearance, but whenever an insufficient man happens to have the command upon deck, adieu to the discipline and safety of the ship. She may perhaps not sink outright; she may drift some time as a wreck, and will then be dashed to pieces on the shore; but she can never be rebuilt on the old bottom.”

Illustration: William Alexander’s drawing of the reception of the Macartney embassy to China. Young Thomas Staunton (kneeling not kowtowing) receives a gift from the Emperor. Image by William Alexander available under a Creative Commons License

Odd, political, semi-formal verse: Aung San Suu Kyi, ‘In The Quiet Land’

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In the Quiet Land, no one can tell
if there’s someone who’s listening
for secrets they can sell.
The informers are paid in the blood of the land
and no one dares speak what the tyrants won’t stand.
In the quiet land of Burma,
no one laughs and no one thinks out loud.
In the quiet land of Burma,
you can hear it in the silence of the crowd

In the Quiet Land, no one can say
when the soldiers are coming
to carry them away.
The Chinese want a road; the French want the oil;
the Thais take the timber; and SLORC takes the spoils…

In the Quiet Land….
In the Quiet Land, no one can hear
what is silenced by murder
and covered up with fear.
But, despite what is forced, freedom’s a sound
that liars can’t fake and no shouting can drown.

Free bird toward to a free Burma

My home…
where I was born and raised
used to be warm and lovely
now filled with darkness and horror.

My family…
whom I had grown with
used to be cheerful and lively
now living with fear and terror.

My friends…
whom I shared my life with
used to be pure and merry
now living with wounded heart.

A free bird…
which is just freed
used to be caged
now flying with an olive branch
for the place it loves.

A free bird toward a Free Burma.

Why do I have to fight???

They killed my father a year ago,
And they burnt my hut after that
I asked the city men “why me?” they ignored
“I don’t know, mind your business,” the men said.
One day from elementary school I came home,
Saw my sister was lifeless, lying in blood.
I looked around to ask what happened, if somebody’d known,
Found no one but living room as a flood.
Running away by myself on the village road,
Not knowing where to go but heading for my teacher
Realizing she’s the only one who could help to clear my throat,
But this time she gave up, telling me strange things in fear.
Why, teacher, why.. why.. why?
I have no dad nor a sister left.
To teach me and to care for me you said, was that a lie?
This time with tearful eyes she, again, said…
“Be a grown one, young man,
Can’t you see we all are dying?
And stop this with your might as soon as you can,
For we all are suffering.”

*****

Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San, who negotiated Burma’s independence from the UK in 1947 (but was assassinated the same year). Aung San Suu Kyi was the leader of the National League for Democracy when it won 81% of parliamentary seats in the 1990 General Election, causing the ruling military junta to nullify the elections and put her under house arrest for most of the next 21 years.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991; but claims she chose non-violence as an expedient political tactic, stating in 2007, “I do not hold to nonviolence for moral reasons, but for political and practical reasons.” Several of her international honours have been withdrawn in response to her perceived failings regarding ethnic minorities in Myanmar; she remains politically active and under attack in the courts.

I don’t know enough about her and her situation to have an opinion about her, other than “it’s complicated”.

Odd poem: Barack Obama, ‘Underground’

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Under water grottos, caverns
Filled with apes
That eat figs.
Stepping on the figs
That the apes
Eat, they crunch.
The apes howl, bare
Their fangs, dance,
Tumble in the
Rushing water,
Musty, wet pelts
Glistening in the blue.

*****

A 1981 poem by future President of the United States Barack Obama, originally published in the journal Feast and featured in The New Yorker in 2007. You can forgive a 19- or 20-year-old for a lot of what they wrote… and after all, it’s better than anything we’ve seen from Donald Trump.