Category Archives: Poems

Sonnet: Ernest Hilbert, ‘Friends of the Library Sale’

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It’s fallen half apart, a derelict.
The gatherings have sprung, the boards detached,
The spine perished, folding maps cut out.
The title page is splotched with ink and nicked
At the edge, the author’s homely portrait scratched—
A splash of beer, faint thumbmarks all about—
Discarded once, but now it’s yours. It lives,
Like you, diminished now by age and loss.
And so, it brings the breeze, the autumn sun,
The creaking door that with a push still gives
The afternoon, the birds and clouds, grass, moss,
The world still new, the journey not begun,
The path curling from sight in the soft glow
Of a fading day—and you, prepared to go.

*****

Ernest Hilbert writes: “I am a rare book dealer, so I spend my days surrounded by books. I love all kinds of books, and I have a particular affection for books no one seems to want but which are, nonetheless, worthwhile. There are, after all, far more books than there are readers. When a book is taken home, adopted, as it were, it finds a new life. Each book one acquires is, in its way, a hedge against the future, a small hope one might some day find the time to read it. When a book is read for the first time, however old it is, however many times it has been read before, it becomes a new book. The structure of the poem is designed to express this sense of renewal and hope, the litany of degradation and wear, the sense of hopelessness, one finds in the octave redeemed, after the volta, in the sestet. 

“I intended to communicate that sense of excitement I still feel when I first open a book, but I likely also had in mind Benjamin Franklin’s mock epitaph, written when he was 22, which begins “The Body of B. Franklin Printer / Like the Cover of an old Book / Its Contents torn out . . .” Finally, I must admit that there are few places I find myself happier than at a promising friends of the library book sale.”

*****

‘Friends of the Library Sale’ was originally published in The Sonneteer.

Ernest Hilbert was born in 1970 in the city of Philadelphia and educated at Rutgers and Oxford Universities. He is the author of the poetry collections Sixty Sonnets, All of You on the Good Earth, Caligulan—selected as winner of the 2017 Poets’ Prize—Last One Out, and Storm Swimmer, winner of the 2022 Vassar Miller Prize. He works as a rare book dealer in Philadelphia. Visit him at www.ernesthilbert.com

Photo: “Journey” by ~Matt LightJam {Mattia Merlo} is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Using form: rhymed univocalic: Susan McLean, ‘No-Show’

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Oh no, Godot!
So slow to show.
Who knows how low
two fools won’t go
to hold off sorrow?
How cold, how wrong
to con or ghost
hobos who long
for comfort most.
So go tomorrow.

*****

Susan McLean writes: “For its ‘Moon’ issue, Ecotone put out a call for submissions in the rarer French repeating forms and suggested that one way to evoke the moon was by using the word O or words in which a lot of o’s appeared. I wanted to write a rondelet using words whose only vowel was o, which made sense because the subject was the moon. Therefore, I made a list of as many words as I could think of that used no vowel but o, looking particularly for words that rhymed with one another. Luckily, that vowel can be used to represent many different sounds. I wrote a rondelet called “Solo” that later appeared in the journal.
I had heard of Christian Bök’s Eunoia, a collection in which each poem uses a single vowel, and I later learned from Pedro Poitevin that it is called “univocalic verse.” I had many words left over from my search for o-words, one of which was “Godot.” I have always been a huge fan of drama, and I attended and read many plays in my youth, when Theatre of the Absurd was still in vogue. But some of my most boring and irritating theatre experiences were at plays by Samuel Beckett. I decided to write a poem that was my critique of the premise of Waiting for Godot. The poem first appeared in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

Susan McLean has two books of poetry, The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and one book of translations of Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her poems have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Measure, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
https://www.pw.org/content/susan_mclean

“Waiting for Godot” by UMTAD is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Semi-formal verse: Rachel Hadas, ‘Ides of March, MMXX’

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New York, March 2020

Nothing new,
but it feels like an end.
An end that’s new.
This end is now?
No, I said new.
But who
could hear me through my mask?
Don’t ask.
Love
wears a glove.
I want to touch my friend.
.
This fear feels new.
We’ve all forgotten how
to live with it, to live it
day by day. And each
day begins anew,
begins a new
now we do not know,
oh no,
do not yet know.

*****

Rachel Hadas writes: Mid-March 2020, as I look back, did feel like both an end and a beginning.  Any moment in time is that, of course, but one’s sense of discontinuity was certainly heightened then.  A lot of familiar features of life just stopped, and an uncharted period began.  The confusion of trying to wrap one’s mind around all this at once is echoed in the overlapping  and echoing words “no, new, knew, know…”

“Ides of March MMXX” is collected in my 2022 volume “Pandemic Almanac,” a book in which, contrary to my usual practice, I append date and place of composition to each poem.  In 2020 we were in Vermont from early April until late November; “Ides” was written before people who could began to leave New York City in large numbers.

My 2025 collection “Pastorals” groups together texts written in and about Vermont over a period of years, certainly including the years of Covid but also extending both before and after the pandemic (if indeed there is an after).  I mention “Pastorals” because in one of its pieces (they’re all prose poems), “Blue Book,” which was  written sometime later during the pandemic, I do something similar to the play  in “Ides” on “no, know,” etc:   “We were elsewhere; we travelled back and forth, here and there.  Now mostly here.  Now only here.  Now here: nowhere.”

Rachel Hadas (born November 8, 1948) is an American poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. Her most recent essay collection is Piece by Piece: Selected Prose (Paul Dry Books, 2021), and her most recent poetry collection is Ghost Guest (Ragged Sky Press, 2023). Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Ingram Merrill Foundation Grants, the O.B. Hardison Award from the Folger Shakespeare Library, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

https://www.rachelhadas.net/

Photo: “Not Available Hand Sanitizer Gloves Rubbing Alcohol Face Masks” by Duncan Rawlinson – Duncan.co is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Lisa Barnett, ‘Alien Flyover’

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On hearing that UFOs may be real

The UFOs check in, check out
upon our senseless, bloody rout —
the wars and strip mines, fire and drought.

Do aliens view with disdain
the overspreading human stain?
Our history’s heedless, speeding train?

Perhaps they’re laughing, laying odds
on our demise, we tin-pot gods
who live and die upon our frauds.

Why would they want to disembark?
They’ll wait until the final spark,
the whole world empty, clean and stark.

*****

Lisa Barnett writes: “This bleak little poem was inspired by an article suggesting that the scientific community now believes UFOs may be…real. I got to thinking about how disappointed aliens would be by the state of our world and the destructiveness of the human species.
Originally written in rhymed couplets, the poem grew to four-line monorhyme stanzas, before being edited down to the present tercets.” 

‘Alien Flyover’ was originally published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

Lisa Barnett’s poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, Measure, New Verse Review, Snakeskin, and elsewhere. She is the author of two chapbooks: The Peacock Room (Somers Rocks Press) and Love Recidivus (Finishing Line Press). She lives in Haverford, Pennsylvania with her husband.  

“Ufo” by Amanclos is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Sonnet variation: Marcus Bales, ‘Detective Story’

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“Have you ever thought, Holmes, all we are
Is one long tube around which are attached
As very mixed a cluster of bizarre
Accessories as ever were mis-matched
To move about to gain the wherewithal
To hunt and gather what it needs to eat
From things that grow or swim or fly or crawl,
And change them into matter to excrete?”
“Certainly, dear Watson — that’s a trope
That humankind has puzzled over, now,
And through the eons we’ve had love and hope,
And all philosophy’s no more than how,
Through grasping and digesting, we can cope
With nature’s discontents and discontentery.
You’ve heard me say it, Watson — it’s alimentary.”

*****

Marcus Bales writes: The Human Alloy

I’ve heard a lot of other poets say
   “This poem took me many years to write,”
And never understood, until today,
   What that was like, but now I think I might.

I heard the joke in second grade, or third,
   And didn’t get it. Nothing there for me
Who’d never heard of Sherlock Holmes, absurd
   As classmates made my ignorance out to be.

I read the books and stories then of course
   And hated Holmes’s bullying and sneers
At poor old Dr. Watson, so the source
   Of humor there eluded me for years.

Bit by bit, I finally came around
   To see superiority as fine
And feel such arrogance was something sound.
   You never heard such sneers and snarks as mine.

There’s nothing I would not pretend to know
   Nothing I had no opinion on
No lacerating length I would not go
   To show that all were ducks but I, a swan.

Until at length I came to read Ayn Rand
   Whose heroes do and say such nasty scat
That even I could finally understand
   The breach of faith it is to be like that.

And flawed, addicted Holmes no longer seems
   The snarling height of genius on its throne
Pursuing all the best of human dreams,
   But just another man almost alone.

And it’s by Watson’s decency we gauge
   Cooperation making common sense
Without which Holmes’s self-destructive rage
   Would flail against the world without defense.

My view of Holmes and Watson rounds at last
   To my acceptance of the central hoax
Of life: it’s only teamwork that can cast
   The human alloy. That and silly jokes.

*****

Not much is known about Marcus Bales, except he lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and his work has not appeared in Poetry or The New Yorker. His latest book is 51 Poems; reviews and information at http://tinyurl.com/jo8ek3r

“sherlock-holmes-thomas-watson” by JARS / JMPC / HN is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Using form: dactyls: Max Gutmann, ‘Junípero Serra’

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Critics of Father Junípero Serra
Maintain that the priest was a murderous churl,
Killing American natives religiously.
(“Serra,” too, sounds like the name of a girl.)

Minor official in Spain’s Inquisition, he
Saw many heretics tortured and burned.
Some people frowned on such zealous conversion modes.
Serra took copious notes. And he learned.

Later, his ministry in the Americas
Opened a chain of magnificent missions.
There, after doing the building, the natives were
Shepherded out of their base superstitions.

Serra’s supporters admit that the shepherding
Sometimes went overboard. “Perfect he ain’t.”
Many who died, though, were first brought to Jesus and
That is enough to make Serra a saint.

*****

Max Gutmann writes: “The poem may be a bit behind the times. In my youth, Serra’s sainthood didn’t seem to me widely controversial, but after writing the poem, I started seeing that that had changed. Shortly before the poem appeared in Snakeskin in November, even the statue of him overlooking a highway I grew up near was removed. Of course, given all the reactionary revision of history going on, this remains a good time for light verse to tell the truth.”

Max Gutmann has contributed to New Statesman, Able Muse, Cricket, and other publications. His plays have appeared throughout the U.S. (see maxgutmann.com). His latest book, Finish’d!: A Pleasant Trip to Hell with Byron’s Don Juan, is forthcoming from Word Galaxy..

“Titelprent voor Nederlantsche Oorloghen van Pieter Bor, 1621, RP-P-OB-79.017” by Rijksmuseum is marked with CC0 1.0.

Sonnet variation: Gail White, “The Left Hand of Saint Teresa’

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When the saint died, her best friend and confessor
cut off her hand. (What are friends for?) The shrine
at Ronda keeps it as a sacred treasure,
covered with glass and gold. I can’t assign
a special magic to those long-dead fingers,
lacking the power or the will to bless.
But with the faithful some enchantment lingers
over the bones, some touch of holiness
that once informed a living heart. I know
the spell I feel here will not come outside
with me, will never cheer me in the dark,
but for Teresa’s lovers, every tree
breathes miracles, and Ronda’s grassy park
abounds in babies whose young mothers planned
their nursery colors once they touched her hand.

Gail White writes: “This is one of about 3 poems based on my attraction-repulsion relationship with the cult of holy relics.  I’ve seen a number of relics, including Catherine of Siena’s head, which is really a creepy sight.  But after all, holiness is in the believer’s heart rather than in the subject’s bones, and that is what I have tried to get across with this poem for St. Teresa.”

This poem is the winner of Plough’s 2025 Rhina Espaillat Poetry Award.

Gail White is a widely published Formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light.  Her latest chapbook, Paper Cuts, is out on Amazon or from Kelsay Books. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats.

Photo: The Hand of Saint Teresa in the church of Nuestra Señora de la Merced in Ronda, Spain. This piece is traditionally visited & kissed by Christians.

Sonnet: Michael R. Burch, ‘Happily Never After (the Second Curse of the Horny Toad)’

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He did not think of love of Her at all
frog-plangent nights, as moons engoldened roads
through crumbling stonewalled provinces, where toads
(nee princes) ruled in chinks and grew so small
at last to be invisible. He smiled
(the fables erred so curiously), and thought
bemusedly of being reconciled
to human flesh, because his heart was not
incapable of love, but, being cursed
a second time, could only love a toad’s . . .
and listened as inflated frogs rehearsed
cheekbulging tales of anguish from green moats . . .
and thought of her soft croak, her skin fine-warted,
his anemic flesh, and how true love was thwarted.

*****

Michael R. Burch writes: “Happily Never After (the Second Curse of the Horny Toad)” is perhaps my most mysterious poem, because it wrote itself and I didn’t know the surprise ending until the closing lines came to me “out of blue nothing” to quote my friend the Maltese poet Joe M. Ruggier. Also, the poem decided, without consulting me, to be a sonnet!”

The poem was originally published by Romantics Quarterly.

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, 86 times by composers.

Illustration: RHL and ChatGPT

Using form: Pantoum: Susan Delaney Spear, ‘Matryoshka’

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Mother, I am your only child.
I breathe inside your painted walls,
I am your only child. A daughter.
I nest inside your wooden halls.

I breathe inside your painted walls,
I have never touched your face.
I nest inside your wooden halls,
We share an inside out embrace.

I have never touched your face.
In retrospect, I understand,
We share an inside out embrace.
I have never clutched your hand.

In retrospect, I understand.
I have never seen your eyes,
I have never clutched your hand.
We are stacked, a quaint disguise.

I have never seen your eyes.
I am your only child. A daughter.
We are stacked, a quaint disguise.
Mother, I am your only child.

*****

Susan Delaney Spear writes: “Several years ago, I realized that the Russian nesting doll could be a metaphor for the complex relationship I had with my mother. Still, I was unable to put it into verse. But then, when my poetry group was writing pantoums (the poetic version of nesting), I wrote “Matryoshka.” Sometimes the Muse waves her magic wand and offers a form which perfectly aligns with the content.”

‘Matryoshka’ was originally published in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily.

Susan Delaney Spear is a retired professor and poet. Her two collections of poetry are Beyond All Bearing and On Earth….(Resource Publications, 2018 and 2022). She is the co-author, with David J. Rothman, of Learning the Secrets of English Verse (Springer, 2022). She and her husband live in Tampa, Florida, where she writes and serves as the interim music director and organist at the First Presbyterian Church of Dunedin. You can find her at www.susandelaneyspear.com.

Photo: “Cautious Matryoshka” by backpackphotography is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Susan McLean, ‘Figs’

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Because they don’t grow this far north; because
when I’m in Italy or France, it’s June
or earlier; because my parents raise them,
but when I visit, always it’s too soon
or late for that year’s crop; because they’re sold
in tiny cartons at outrageous cost
and not for long; because they’re slippery
and sweet as sin inside, and outside, soft
as breasts; because, once ripe, they split apart,
and rot or wasps destroy their fragile treasure;
because I know I’ll never get enough,
I always eat them with a groan of pleasure.

*****

Susan McLean writes: “I grew up in Maryland, in the suburbs of Washington, DC; it is a very mild climate zone, so when my sister gave my parents a fig seedling to grow, it flourished. By that time I was living in Iowa and Minnesota, where fig trees can’t survive the winters. I was a college professor, so I could visit my parents in summer or during the winter break, yet their figs didn’t ripen until late August and September, when I would be back at work. I liked traveling in Europe, too, during the summer vacation, but was usually there before the local figs had ripened. Thus, the only way I could eat fresh figs was by buying them imported from warmer locales, and they were extremely pricey and perishable. It became a sort of forbidden fruit for me, and therefore infinitely desirable.

“This poem is in the form of a litany, in which the introductory clauses all start with the same wording. It is a form familiar from the Bible (the Beatitudes, for example: “Blessed are . . .”) and from religious rituals, such as the repetition of a creed (“I believe in . . .”). I chose that form as a nod to the original forbidden fruit in Genesis. I alternate unrhymed lines with rhymed ones to mirror the tension between desire and fulfilment. The repetition of the “because” clauses without a main clause to finish the idea creates mystery and suspense, which is only resolved in the poem’s final line, evoking a sigh of satisfaction. The poem appeared in my first poetry book, The Best Disguise.”

[Figs are just so evocative; I can’t help linking to my own poem on them. RHL]

Susan McLean has two books of poetry, The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and one book of translations of Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her poems have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Measure, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
https://www.pw.org/content/susan_mclean

“Black figs on a vine leaf” by CharlesFred is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.