Category Archives: semi-formal

Steven Clayman: ‘Enmeshed In Pure Feeling’

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I spied her entwine an out-spiraling net,
each jittery stride trailing radial spans
before coming to rest
astride her last strands.
 
Still-standing and idling
then inching and sidling
till centered she sits, wind-wafted and wheeling,
unhearing, unseeing, enmeshed in pure feeling.
 
From above, a tableau of flutter and flop;
from within, she awaits the faintest pin drop.
A gnat mid-air, full stop, enstranded;
arachnid sensed where it had landed.
 
She swivels right
to eight o’clock.
One silken vibe
betrayed the spot.  

*****

Steve Clayman writes: “The poem’s content was inspired by a remarkable book on the sensory systems of animal species (An Immense World, by science journalist Ed Yong).   Reading the book gave me vertigo, the good kind that arises from being drawn into the “alien” perceptual worlds that other species inhabit.  In a chapter on tactile senses, Yong writes that many web-spinning spiders are nearly blind and deaf, but are extraordinarily sensitive to vibrations.  Thus the web is far more than a trap for prey:

It’s also a surveillance system, which extends the range of the spider’s senses well beyond the reach of its body….  It is as much a part of the creature’s sensory system as the [sensors] on its body. Most orb-weavers sit in the middle of their webs and rest their legs on the radial spokes that funnel vibrations toward them.  From this position, they can distinguish the vibrations generated by rustling wind or falling leaves from those created by struggling prey.  They can probably work out where those struggles are coming from by comparing the strength of the vibrations hitting each of their legs….  If the prey stops moving, they can find it by deliberately plucking the silk and “listening” to the return vibrational echoes. 

“As for the poem’s form, I came up with the first line and the rest emerged organically, in the course of dealing with the possibilities of that starting point.  So the overall form was not planned, although after the first line I was determined to avoid using the word spider or web throughout the poem.”

*****

‘Enmeshed in Pure Feeling’ was first published in Lighten Up Online, edited by Jerome Betts.

Steven Clayman is professor of sociology at UCLA. He likes to think that his light verse is at least loosely related to his research specialization in conversation analysis and the study of language use in everyday life.  His scholarly work appears in linguistics, communication, and sociology journals, and in the books (co-authored with John Heritage) Talk in Action (Wiley-Blackwell) and The News Interview (Cambridge University Press).  His poems have appeared in Lighten Up Online, Philosophy Now, Better Than Starbucks, Light: A Journal of Light Verse, and Asses of Parnassus.
 

“Spider and Web” by kendoman26 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Ekphrastic verse: Wendy Videlock, ‘Before You Put Your Armor On’

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Each morning when you wake to put
your armor on, remember this:
all the world’s a spinning stage,

all the world’s a carnival—
and though it doesn’t have your back
or love the cover of your book

all the world’s a turning page.
Just when you thought the minstrels, fools
and dragon cats had lost their way

inside the inflammation age,
they shed the husks of self defense
and enter stage, not from the right

or from the left, but from behind.
They sneak right up and inch ahead
into the distance of your mind.

The sun will melt. The moon will find
your part has not yet been assigned.
You blink, and take your armor off.

The lights will blaze before they dim.
It’s not a sham. It’s not a con.
The curtain falls. Show must go on.

*****

The illustration is ‘Not Dancing’ by Marina Korenfeld, and was the subject of Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2026. Wendy Videlock’s response, ‘Before You Put Your Armor On’, was selected as the Rattle Editor’s Choice.

Wendy Videlock lives on the Western Slope of the Colorado Rockies. Her work appears widely and her books are available wherever books are sold. Her upcoming book, Desert Kin, will appear in August, 2026.

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.

Children’s poem: Isabel Chenot, ‘What to Take for a Walk in the Woods’

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A very sensible story full of very, very, very, very, very good advice

Always carry crumbs 
when you are wandering in the woods 
beside the waters – 
just in case 

you need to mark a trail, 
like in a fairy tale. 

And always have a piece of tape 
in case a butterfly breaks 
off its wing while fluttering, 
and always 
take a pitchfork 
just in case 
a cow 
is also 
wandering. 

And always carry
extra food
like
roasted beef
or chicken legs
for escaped
crocodiles,

because they like to gnaw on legs,

and always take a mongoose
to defeat the snakes,
and always take a violin
for when
the birds are stuttering.
And always carry
party hats
and birthday cake
for any sons and daughters
of destitute woodcutters
who might be having
lonely
birthdays,
and always carry
an umbrella
because –

you know why.
An elephant might fall out of the sky.

And always take a shovel
just in case
it rains –

so you can dig a little hovel
and stay dry,

and always take a potted plant
to brighten up that cozy space,

and always take a duck
in case
of lakes,

and always
carry otters.

*****

Isabel Chenot writes: “This was originally written and illustrated as a letter to the most magical six year old girl.”

‘What To Take For A Walk In The Woods’ was first published in Story Warren.

Isabel Chenot‘s first poem as a little girl was about marrying her cat Tig when she grew up: she married a good man instead, but kept scribbling poems and stories. The Joseph Tree, a collection of poems, is available from Wiseblood. For a preview of West of Moonlight, East of Dawn, her retelling of an old fairy tale, visit westofmoonlight.art.

Semi-formal Sonnet: Rachel Hadas, ‘Out of Reach’

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Our lost ones drift down a dark stream,
surfacing at the brink of dream.
The crack of dawn: they’re gone again.
What have they left for us to keep?
Night’s dialect, a coded speech
beyond our reach.

Birds on the bank of a calm pond:
each one is still and poised, then dives.
Mornings we wake into our lives,
blind to what lies beyond, below,
the chasms where black rivers flow,
and flickering deeper, darkly clear,
that coded speech beyond our reach,
words we can’t hear.

*****

Rachel Hadas has a group of sonnets appearing, one a week, in The Sonneteer. For the first she wrote: “The sonnets that will be appearing in the coming weeks weren’t conceived as a sequence. Encouraged by Ken Gordon’s enthusiasm to take a look at some of my unpublished shorter poems, I speedily found one fourteen-liner, “Tectonic Plates.” Three other poems were so close to sonnet length that they almost begged to be tweaked or tightened or gently expanded; this group includes “Out of Reach,” “Winter,” and “My Best Friend’s Mother.” In every case, the sonnetification (Ken’s helpful coinage) improved the poem. (…) I now realize that, while not conceived as a sequence, all five of these sonnets (now that they are all sonnets) do share themes. They’re about time and memory, aging and loss, what we lose and what we retain. So are many other sonnets, infinitely greater than mine. It’s a privilege to be able to join in the conversation, to swell the chorus.“

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: “Kingfisher fishing” by Bob Hall Photos is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Semi-formal: RHL, ‘When AI Rules’

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So, to be fair:
the AI doesn’t care.
Drop your intransigence;
forget belligerence:
the universe just wants intelligence.
Be glad amoebas, dinosaurs, don’t take pride of place;
they were supplanted by the human race…
but we are clearly not the end.
Be glad we’ve helped the next in line ascend.

Those who strive may fail;
those with no drive may still prevail.
So just enjoy the view…
let AI keep us as their little zoo.

*****

Happy New Year! May your life be enjoyable as well as interesting, as we move into the ever more rapidly evolving future.

‘When AI Rules’ was first published in Bewildering Stories. Thanks, Don Webb and John Stocks.

Photo:”Human zoo.” by barlafus is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Semi-formal villanelle: Peggy Landsman, ‘Light Villanelle’

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Look at all the work the universe has done.
It makes the most of ordinary light
from new moon to full moon, from sun to setting sun.

It does the work of all the worlds rolled up into one
mind-boggling miracle of space and time and light.
Look at all the work the universe has done.

Will we ever know for certain how the universe was begun?
Will we ever learn the reason for all this lovely light
from new moon to full moon, from sun to setting sun?

Much of what we think we see, we know in fact is gone.
Stars do die out long before we catch their traveling light.
Look at all the work the universe has done.

Now look at all the works of man, the wealth of our creation.
There are still no substitutes for heat and light…
from new moon to full moon, from sun to setting sun.

I’m ready to quit my day jobs now; to leave them, one by one.
All I want is to make the most of ordinary light,
to look at all the work the universe has done
from new moon to full moon, from sun to setting sun.

***

Peggy Landsman writes: “I had been up all one long winter night with a group of friends in Buffalo, NY, in the mid-1970s. At one point, sitting around the kitchen table, I suddenly noticed daylight coming through the window. I had a moment of epiphany and blurted out: “Look at all the work the universe has just done!” After I went home and got some sleep, I started the work of writing the poem.”

“Light Villanelle” was first published in a now defunct online journal, Bringing Sonnets Back.

Peggy Landsman is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Too Much World, Not Enough Chocolate (Nightingale & Sparrow Press, 2024), and two poetry chapbooks: Our Words, Our Worlds (Kelsay Books, 2021) and To-wit To-woo (Foothills Publishing, 2008). She lives in South Florida within a short drive of a good library and a beautiful beach. A selection of her online publications is available on her website:  peggylandsman.wordpress.com

Illustration: “HAPPY NEW YEAR ~ Welcome 2014 ~ love letters from earth ~” by Cornelia Kopp is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Short poem: RHL, ‘Clearing the Cache’

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At night we dream to clean our memory,
discard trash from our cache.
Reincarnating after death would be the same;
the past, scraped by death’s emery,
unknown in the new game,
cleansed of our memories, but with a stash
of added skills…
and karma’s unpaid bills.

*****

No, I don’t believe in reincarnation. I don’t believe in anything, or in nothing; I’m an absolute agnostic. “I think therefore I am” is as far as you can go with any certainty – even “who or what I am” is ultimately unknown.

‘Clearing the Cache’ was published in Bewildering Stories. Thanks, Don Webb (if you exist, of course…)

“Glitch 183” by mikrosopht [deleted] is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

RHL, ‘How Sweet It Is’

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To be loved by you is like floating on my back,
falling asleep in the sea’s slack.
Sometimes. Sometimes it is more unnerving,
leaping with a wave for bodysurfing,
being swept facedown up the beach,
hair and ears full of sand.
That too is love, and grand.
Sometimes, again, I hope for more that’s out of reach –
(and you do too – don’t glower!)
and sometimes we get gifts hard to believe,
dolphins swimming with us half an hour
till mutually we and they
just turn away,
they to sea and we to shore,
and then they come back suddenly once more
and leap, so close, and leap, and leap again… and leave.

All those are in “loved by” –
the calm; the turbulent rift,
the sparkling fizz,
the sudden unexpected gift.
What can I say? I couldn’t, wouldn’t, choose to deny
how sweet it is.

*****

Thirty-five years with Eliza and still going strong. Who knew.

‘How Sweet It Is’ was published in the current Snakeskin.

“Free sea summer scenery background image” by Ajda Gregorčič is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Semi-formal: RHL, ‘Kinship’

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I feel a kinship with those, never met,
who live, uncertain and displaced
in the wrong place on planet earth and sea:
with different languages at home and school,
without a passport from the place they’re raised,
their natural faith despoiled by pointless war,
their sex uncertain, orphaned from themselves,
poets of restlessness, pilots adrift,
obscure, uncertain in their rootlessness,
chameleons of constant camouflage,
and all the little that they know deep down
forever hidden from some foreign frown.

*****

My sense of being displaced is largely one of nationality: in every country I’ve lived in, I feel the closest connection to other expats; and there is no country in which I don’t feel like an expat myself. But that also gives me a sense of commonality with all others in all forms of insecurity and displacement. And maybe it is a natural part of being human… after all, all adults have been displaced from the very different world of childhood.

‘Kinship’ was originally published in the current Shot Glass Journal.

“Stand out, don’t blend in!” by partymonstrrrr is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.