Category Archives: quatrains

Marion Shore, ‘The Lies I Tell’

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The lies I tell you, little ones,
I hope may be be forgiven:
Of course there is a Santa, hon,
Yes, Tiger’s up in heaven.

When lies forsake you, as they must,
And leave you lost, alone,
Will you forgive the broken trust?
Perhaps when you are grown,

And try to shield your children from
The darkness and the cold,
You’ll find that you are telling them
The lies your mother told.

*****

Marion Shore is the author of For Love of Laura: Poetry of Petrarch, a collecion of Petrarch’s poetry in translation published by the University of Arkansas Press in 1987. Her work has also appeared in Poems from Italy; Petrarch in English; 150 Contemporary Sonnets; and Rhyming Poems: A Contemporary Anthology. Her poems and translations have been published in numerous journals including The Formalist, Light Quarterly, Iambs and Trochees, First Things, and Measure. Recipient of the 2010 Richard Wilbur Award for Sand Castle (from which this poem is taken) and two-time winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, she lives in Springfield, MA.

“Framed White Puppy Dog Angel with Wings, Luna, American Pit Bull Terrier, Staffordshire, In Heaven from the Rainbow Bridge” by Beverly & Pack is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Translation: Émile Verhaeren, ‘Storm’ translated by John Gallas 

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So there you are, clambering amongst 
the topmost golden apples when – ker-boom!
A storm! an avalanche! comes hurtling through, 
ripping round the orchard-side. And you? 

Down that ladder smartish. Catch your breath.
Shelter in the shed, whose wobbly walls 
squeal with lightning-snaps , whose old roof pings 
and rattles in the hail. And then? Then things

go back to normal. Rosy sky. The grass, 
perky with flowers, says No Damage Done.
So up you go again, and pick the fruit, 
that beckon, brighterwetter, in the sun. 

by Émile Verhaeren, translated by John Gallas

*****

L’orage

Emile Verhaeren

Parmi les pommes d’or que frôle un vent léger
Tu m’apparais là-haut, glissant de branche en branche,
Lorsque soudain l’orage accourt en avalanche
Et lacère le front ramu du vieux verger.

Tu fuis craintive et preste et descends de l’échelle
Et t’abrites sous l’appentis dont le mur clair
Devient livide et blanc aux lueurs de l’éclair
Et dont sonne le toit sous la pluie et la grêle.

Mais voici tout le ciel redevenu vermeil.
Alors, dans l’herbe en fleur qui de nouveau t’accueille,
Tu t’avances et tends, pour qu’il rie au soleil,
Le fruit mouillé que tu cueillis, parmi les feuilles.

*****

John Gallas writes: “Loved doing these – 3 months, off and on, 50 mornings, to do 50 Verhaeren poems – the ones from ‘The Flems’ (‘Les Flamands’) are wonderful, objective descriptions of loft, orchard, pond, farmyard, cow, cowherd, espaliers, milk, breadbaking etc. Did ’em all. So the whole 50 set is with Carcanet – just sent last week – awaiting a decision: the little feature for ‘Storm’ might be a good sign!”

John Gallas, Aotearoa/NZ poet, published mostly by Carcanet. Saxonship Poet (see www.saxonship.org), Fellow of the English Association, St Magnus Festival Orkney Poet, librettist, translator and biker. 2025 Midlands Writing Prize winner. Presently living in Markfield, Leicestershire. Website is www.johngallaspoetry.co.uk which has a featured Poem of the Month, complete book list, links and news.  

Photo: “DSC08278” by Capt Kodak is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Quatrains: Melissa Balmain, ‘For My Mother-in-Law, Trapped in Her Nursing Home by Another Viral Outbreak’

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(after A.E. Housman)

Loneliest of trees, a cherry blooms
Unseen by you whose spartan rooms
Have windows that are far too high
For views of anything but sky.

Now with your nineties in full swing,
You’ve doubtless started wondering
If last year’s rides to see spring’s glory
Were the last ones in your story.

And so you’re gamely making do
With what’s available to you:
A faded sprig from Mother’s Day;
Pink sneakers; blushing fruit puree.

*****

Melissa Balmain writes: “This poem was indeed written for my mother-in-law, the irreplaceable Anne Cilurzo FitzPatrick. She died the following winter, in 2023, after a life devoted to family, music, writing, volunteer work, and the tireless pursuit of dark chocolate. Her obituary can be found here.”

‘For My Mother-in-Law’ appears in Melissa Balmain’s third poetry collection, Satan Talks to His Therapist, 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 comic verse, and has been a member of the University of Rochester’s English Department since 2010.  

“plum and wall” by OiMax is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Jeff Sypeck, ‘January Report from the Food Pantry Coordinator’

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The sign. The side door. Come inside.
We’re here by nine or ten. She sobbed.
Pack extra peas. The dealer robbed
His boss. No soups. They need a ride

To get their tags. Some coffee too.
He’s had a stroke. It’s just a sprain.
She can’t mow lawns for all the rain.
She’s starved, but not for food. She’s blue

But cackles. Eggs. A constant cough.
No chicken. You apologize:
We don’t have diapers in that size.
We’ll pay before they cut you off

And let you freeze. Her son’s on pills
And so’s the wife. For seven weeks
They’ll keep the kids. His engine leaks.
She’s out of propane. Bring the bills

But come by five. Her swollen knees
Are healing slow. His wife dropped dead
On Christmas. Have some frozen bread,
A bladder wash, a bag of cheese,

A pack of chocolate shakes, a pound
Of venison, a protein bar,
A couple sleeping in their car,
A case of noodles, barren ground

On farmhands’ faces, cracked and worn.
When silence falls, go find a shelf,
Collect your neighbors as yourself
And stack them up, like cans of corn.

***** 

Jeff Sypeck writes: “Usually I write about history, and my poetry tends to focus on the past, but sometimes the here and now come calling, with tough and immediate needs.”

This poem was originally published in Rattle.

Jeff Sypeck is the author of the pop-history book Becoming Charlemagne and co-author of I Have Started for Canaan, the first full-length history of a Reconstruction-era African American community in Maryland. His latest book is an annotated, peer-reviewed translation of a Carolingian calendar poem. He lives in an agricultural reserve an hour outside Washington, D.C.
www.jeffsypeck.com
www.quidplura.com

“Shutdown Food Line” by Geoff Livingston is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Aaron Poochigian, ‘The Old Man’

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The old man wakens to a mute caregiver
pushing his chair past gulls along a railing.
This is the morning when he gets the river.
Surrendering to wind and a prevailing

saline tang kicked up from the Atlantic,
he lets whatever strikes him resonate.
A taut rod wrangling with a snagged and frantic
flounder whisks him to a lake upstate

where he, a wee one, tumbled off the dock,
his virgin perch still flapping in his grip.
A ferry, then, so very on the clock,
transports him to the boxy convoy ship

he steered through moonlit breakers toward Pyongyang
with perfect timing: his approach kissed land
at dawn. He dropped the ramp, and roughnecks sprang
out of the gangway onto commie sand.

Joggers, though, tug him back home from the war.
Whole herds of them keep gallivanting by
as thunder like they own the slate-paved shore.
He has to sit there coveting their high.

Sneakered and young as far as he can see,
they just keep leaving him behind to long
for liberty and the serene esprit
he got to savor when his legs were strong.

*****

Aaron Poochigian writes: “About the poem, all I want to say is that I think of it as flash fiction. I’ve started doing more studies of fictional characters in verse.”

‘The Old Man’ was first published in Portico Quarterly.

Aaron Poochigian earned a PhD in Classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University. His latest poetry collection, American Divine, the winner of the Richard Wilbur Award, came out in 2021. He has published numerous translations with Penguin Classics and W.W. Norton. His work has appeared in such publications as Best American Poetry, The Paris Review and Poetry.
aaronpoochigian.com
americandivine.net

Photo: “Bognor Regis Pier – Mar 2011 – Portrait of a Working Man at Play” by Gareth1953 All Right Now is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Richard Meyer, ‘Sapiens’

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By evolution born and bred
with something extra in the head
(and maybe also in the heart)
that sets us markedly apart

from all the teeming life on Earth,
we sapiens, for what it’s worth,
create and feel and comprehend,
but to what purpose, to what end?

Wisely foolish, cruelly kind,
with jumbled passions, muddled mind,
we’re oxymorons through and through.
In what we do or fail to do

a pestilential gifted ape
with a history we can’t escape.
Our future tenuous and stark,
we stumble onward in the dark.

*****

Richard Meyer writes: “I’ve always been amused that our species defines itself as Homo sapiens, meaning “wise man” or “wise human.” The history of humanity contains much that is wonderful, beautiful, and commendable, but it also records much that is horrible, dreadful, and appalling. The verdict as to which tendency will prevail remains uncertain. It’s difficult to be optimistic when the Doomsday Clock was recently set at 85 seconds to midnight. In addition, the political situation in the United States is grim. So, we stumble onward.”

‘Sapiens’ was originally published in the Alabama Literary Review (2023, Vol. 32)

Richard Meyer, a former English and humanities teacher, lives in Mankato, MN. His book of poems Orbital Paths was a silver medalist winner in the 2016 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards. He was awarded the 2012 Robert Frost Farm Prize for his poem “Fieldstone.” His poetry has appeared in a variety of print and online journals and has also received top honors several times in the Great River Shakespeare Festival sonnet contest. He is also the author of Wise Heart, a memoir of his mother Gert who was born in poverty, came of age during the Great Depression, enlisted in the army during World War II, served overseas, achieved the rank of first sergeant, and was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service performed during the Battle of the Bulge. Richard’s most recent book is Stumbling Onward, a collection of new and selected poems. His books are available on Amazon. 

Photo: “Homer Sapiens” by Brett Jordan is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Gail White, ‘Heresiarchs’

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Blessed now be Arius,
although condemned as odd:
his Jesus was created and
was thus distinct from God.

Blessed be Pelagius
who held there was no Fall.
Blessed be the Mormons
polygamy and all.

Blessed be the Adamites,
who (being free from sin)
went naked into churches,
dressed only in their skin.

Blessed too be Origen,
of mind so well behaved
he liked to think that in the end
the Devil would be saved.

Blessed be all doctrines held
in Christendom’s dominions,
and blessed be the Lord God
who varies men’s opinions.

*****

Gail White writes: “I wrote this the other day while attempting to put my own irreverent thoughts on theology in the form of a Jewish prayer.”

Gail White is a widely published Formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light.  She won the Rhina P. Espaillat Poetry Award from Plough magazine for 2025, and her latest chapbook, Paper Cuts, is out on Amazon or from Kelsay Books. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats.

“Halloween 2006, adamitic costume” by Franco Folini is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Barbara Loots, ‘A Note to my Old Age’

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By now you shall have counted out my fears
on many fingers, and I count them, too,
because I know I am already you
remembering myself from your old years.

How loved you were: your hands, your heavy breasts,
your laughter, and the secret talk of eyes,
the vivid mouth, the spreading lap of thighs
(beloved woman, warm and fully blessed

whose laughter lined our face with troughs for tears!)
I write this down in order to prepare
a kind of perfume for your sallow hair,
a kiss, a love song for your wrinkled ears.

*****

Barbara Loots writes: “Following a form of Yeats (“When you are old and gray and full of sleep…”) I wrote this note to myself in my 30s. Now closing in on my 80s, I feel not in the least wistful or decrepit, still waiting for that imagined “old age”. With the perspective of some fifty years, I can say that old age is not at all as dismal as this poem would suggest. For one thing, my hair turned a rather dazzling white. And love faileth not.”

After decades of publishing her poems, Barbara Loots has laurels to rest on, but keeps climbing.  The recent gathering at Poetry by the Sea in Connecticut inspired fresh enthusiasm. Residing in Kansas City, Missouri, Barbara and her husband Bill Dickinson are pleased to welcome into the household a charming tuxedo kitty named Miss Jane Austen, in honor of the 250th birthday year of that immortal. She has new work coming in The Lyric, in the anthology The Shining Years II, and elsewhere. She serves as the Review editor for Light Poetry Magazine (see the Guidelines at  lightpoetrymagazine.com)

Melissa Balmain, ‘Freud Drops by to Analyze My Remodeling Project’

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Your teeth are looking yellow
and your hands and face are spotty?
Don’t fret a smidge! Your stainless fridge
is one unblemished hottie.

Your arms have gotten squishy
and your gut’s no longer jocky?
Your counters (quartz!) are strong as forts,
and rockier than Rocky.

Whenever you feel foggy,
“smart” new lighting is omniscient.
Although you’re tired, your oven’s wired
and energy-efficient.

So never mind the birthdays
that you’re obviously rich in:
Spend big and—whee!—pretend to be
as youthful as your kitchen.

*****

Melissa Balmain writes: “If I have to become a middle-aged cliché, I at least want to get a poem out of it.”

‘Freud’ was first published in Crab Orchard Review.

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 comic verse, and has been a member of the University of Rochester’s English Department since 2010.

Photo: “New Kitchen” by Graeme_S is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Martin Parker, ‘Fifty Ways to Leave a Lover. No. 51’

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No bitterness and no recriminations,
no flesh hacked off in gladiatorial sport,
no claims for unpaid debts, no scornful laughter
to mock experience so dearly bought.

But differences all gently papered over,
cracks filled and memory’s cobwebbed cupboards cleared.
Receipts for all the good times carbon copied
our life divides more simply than we’d feared,

with dogs and books and vinyl all apportioned,
all ledgers balanced with forgiveness sought
and paid for with a parting smile.
For this had once been love – or so we’d thought.

*****

Martin Parker writes: “Sadly I can offer no significant thoughts about its background.  I simply wrote it then left it in a drawer for about ten years as it did not seem to fit with anything I was writing at the time.  But I do remember hoping that I had written something gentler and more civilised and sympathetic than much of what was appearing on the net at the time. And my ancient hope seems to have been justified in the light of recent reactions to the poem.

“My website at www.martinparker-verse.co.uk gives details and excerpts from my two hopefully humorous and only occasionally wrily depressing books in which parody, pastiche, satire, farce and poetic irreverence should appeal to all but the most po-faced of poetry fans.”

‘Fifty Ways to Leave a Lover. No. 51’ was originally published in Snakeskin.

Martin Parker is a writer of mainly light and humorous verse much of which has appeared in national publications including The Spectator, The Oldie and The Literary Review. In 2008 Martin founded the quarterly light verse webzine, Lighten Up Online at www.lightenup-online.co.uk, now edited by Jerome Betts.

Illustration: “|||||||| DIVIDER |||||||| — *** CAUGHT UP! ***” by Claire CJS is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.