Category Archives: short poems

John Gallas, ‘Timmer’s new specs’

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See the horses run.
Mares’-tails in a row.
Yurt No 1
a toy drum way below.

Del-skirt sponged with dew,
up the hill goes Timmer:
bright the early air,
grasses waft and shimmer.

Brand new SPFives.
High above the plains
he counts the hairs of horses
and sees the songs of cranes.

*****

John Gallas writes:

*’Timmer’ is often used in Mongolia as a short-name version of Timmerlane/ Tamerlane/ Tamburlaine – adds a little heroic element to fat-boy’s climb and specs. 

*SP5s – SP (with an H) means (according to Specsavers!) ‘Sphere’ and is a power-measure of a spec lens: and ‘the higher the number the stronger the lens’ – so Sp(h)5s are a power. I’ve cheated for the rhythm (with no ‘h’), but hopefully all will understand they were the specs!

This little poem is from a set of 10 formal pieces describing scenes from YURT life in Mongolia. I made books full of notes when travelling there years ago, and mined them for the whole set. They range from bike-generating electrics, a horse-riding tiny-tots’ ‘raid’, a new felt lining, and a wash-your-yurt product, to a quiet Winter camp, a visit from a People’s Painter, and a ‘moving house’ journey. The poems are intended to have no ‘meaning’ beyond what they are and say: something I’ve tried hard to do for the whole of ’10X10′.

’10X10′ is:  

  1. 10 formal, 3-verse poems called ‘ffenstri’ (people-sketches/resurrections from Welsh gravestones)
  2. ‘Southern Critters’: 10 not-real Aotearoa/NZ animals, made to look real. Spot the lies.
  3. as set 1, but telling the sad tale of ‘Lawrence of Australia’.
  4. ‘Wasted by Whitemen’: 10 awful colonial disasters: all true, fully researched. 4 prize-winners amongst the 10. 
  5. YURTS as above. 
  6. ‘The Persian Version’: my take on 10 medieval Persian poems, redone from a 1931 booklet by the Rev. H. Minkin.
  7.  ‘It’s Your Sam’: as 1/3/5, 10 formal little poems dedicated to Samuel Beckett.
  8.  ‘News from Niue’: 10 brief travel-poems from my favourite Pacific island.
  9. ‘Luminosities’: little formal poems from literal ‘bright spots’ on my travels over the years.
  10. ‘Episodes from the Cuban Revolutionary War’: 10 utterly objective poems from Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s writings: these intentionally a ‘bowing-out’ of the poet as him/herself an interesting person with interesting thoughts and feelings. Guevara’s unselfish eye is a lesson to all.

I try not to ‘explain’ the poems in ’10X10′ as they are truly an exercise in not-me writing: or, when there, using the ‘unselfish eye’. I’ve always preferred telling tales to parading my thoughts and emotions, except in ‘The Extasie’ (Carcanet) – which is the Big Download of personal Love. 

*****

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: “_WIL0594.jpg” by Paul Williams www.IronAmmonitePhotography.com is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

R.I.P. – X.J. Kennedy, ‘Epitaphs’

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I who in life stood upright as a tree
Have found a still more basic way to be.

—

Dirt was I made from, back to dirt I went.
Envy me now. I’m in my element.

—

The hardest part of dying is to turn
Your back on that deep calm for which you burn.

*****

X.J. Kennedy, one the greatest and most active formalists of the late 20th century, died last week at the age of 96. Short pieces like his ‘Epitaphs’ can be found in the Brief Poems blog; longer and somewhat less flippant pieces all over the place, including in Poetry. He published dozens of collections of verse for adults and children.

Midge Goldberg, ‘Words My Mother Didn’t Know’

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Starting with the obvious:
iPad, cell phone, cannabis,

Mitochondrial DNA—
but science changes every day—

sushi, pad thai, jasmine rice,
almost any kind of spice,

zipline, snowboard, kayaking,
tongue or belly-button ring.

Then, things she’d heard of, so she knew,
but not imagined one could do:

Go to Iceland, make French bread,
care what anybody said,

watch a sunrise, touch a bug,
want to give your child a hug.

*****

Midge Goldberg writes: “Often I’ll find myself in situations or places that my parents never would have encountered or dreamed of. That got me thinking of even words that they would not have known. I started writing the funnier couplets, then all of a sudden the poem took a darker turn that I hadn’t expected. Writing in rhyme and meter does that for me sometimes, leads me to a more complicated poem than I had originally imagined.”

‘Words My Mother Didn’t Know’ was originally published in Light, and nominated by them for a Pushcart Prize.

Midge Goldberg has published three books of her own poetry, including To Be Opened After My Death, a children’s book, and was the editor of Outer Space: 100 Poems, published by Cambridge University Press. She lives in New Hampshire, where her newly expanded tomato garden is now under two feet of snow. She still has the same approximate number of chickens.

Photo: “Untitled” by Leon Fishman is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Short poem: Daniel Brown, ‘So Large’

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Big world when I was very young.
The shopping aisles a mile long …
Our lawn, though anything but wide,
Unfolding like the countryside …
The sky! So large and far away …
Exactly as it is today.

*****

Daniel Brown writes: “In his brilliant tome ‘The Poem’, Don Paterson says  “[I]f you ‘get a good idea for a poem’, I’d suggest you run a mile, as this generally isn’t the way poems make themselves known.” Advice worth attending to, though it’s also worth noting the little ‘out’ Paterson gives himself with that ‘generally’. I’m glad Robert Frost didn’t run from the powerfully suggestive idea–that “the people along the sand” are always looking out to sea, not back at the land–of his ‘Neither Out Far nor In Deep’; that W. S. Merwin didn’t run from the piercing premise–that “every year without knowing it” we pass the date of our death– of his ‘For the Anniversary of my Death’ . . . When the idea for “So Large” hit my hook, I felt like I had a big one on the line.”

“So Large” first appeared in The New Criterion under the title “A Giant.”

Daniel Brown’s poems have appeared in Poetry, Partisan Review, PN Review, Raritan, Parnassus, The New Criterion and other journals, as well as in a number of anthologies including Poetry 180 (ed. Billy Collins) and The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets (ed. David Yezzi). His work has been awarded a Pushcart prize, and his collection Taking the Occasion (Ivan R. Dee, 2008) won the New Criterion Poetry Prize. His latest collection is What More?  (Orchises Press, 2015). Brown’s criticism of poets and poetry has appeared in The Harvard Book Review, The New Criterion, PN Review, The Hopkins Review  and other journals, and the LSU Press has published his critical book, Subjects in Poetry. His Why Bach? and Bach, Beethoven, Bartok are audio-visual ebooks available at Amazon.com. His website is danielbrownpoet.com .

“‘Odd Formations’, England, The Peak District, Kinder Scout Hilltop” by WanderingtheWorld (www.ChrisFord.com) is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Short poem: John Gallas, ‘Tywyn Promenade – John Longwen (1951-1971)’

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A telescope stands by the railing
its eye turned out to sea
the ocean is there for a sixpence
the Lounges of Dark are free.

A little brass coin can be bought
bickering gulls on the rails
fishingboats ride in the shelters
darkness fills their sails.

John John the wind is wild
I shall keep my sixpence for sweets
strangers hide in their raincoats
rain falls on the streets.

*****

John Gallas writes: “I’ve just completed (draft 10,000, or it feels like it) a collection called ’10X10′ which includes 5 sets of 10 small, 3-verse, rhyming poems (plus 5 sets of Otherwise). This is number 3 from the ‘ffenestri’ set (10 Welsh encounters). These are poems intended to be reader-led as far as any ‘meaning’ goes, and so purposely impressionistic, wobbly and fluid – but tucked into a strict rhythm-and-rhyme form).”

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: “Lost at Sea” by SimplSam is licensed under CC BY-NC-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)

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?”

Using form: Gwendolyn Brooks, ‘We Real Cool’

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The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

*****

Gwendolyn Brooks was one of the greatest 20th century American poets: stylistically creative, with haunting imagery and themes, emotionally engaging, socially engaged. She wrote formal verse, free verse and loosely structured ballads – sometimes all in the same sequence, as in The Womanhood.

Appropriately, ‘We Real Cool’ is her best-known poem: simple, poignant, striking at the heart of America’s structural inequality and moral failures, and presented on the page with a bizarre twist that is both unnecessary and essential: unnecessary because the three-word lines rhyme correctly without having ‘We’ at the end… essential because the reader is forced to emphasize the ‘We’, so that the last line seems (like the youths’ lives) unnaturally shortened, prematurely ended.

A simple poem. Maybe not her greatest, but iconic.

Photo: “Pool Players” by Johnny Silvercloud is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Vadim Kagan, ‘I Have Never’

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I have never in my lives
Met a girl named Arabella –
Captain Blood, the lucky fella,
Took them all to be his wives.

I have never been reborn
As a pirate quartermaster –
Long John Silver, lucky bastard,
Shouldered me aside with scorn.

I had never – strange but true –
Had a chance to rape and pillage;
Takes a crew to burn a village,
Takes much gold to get that crew.

So for now let’s all enjoy
Cold and wet northeastern snow,
How and why – we’ll never know…
Yahrr, my mates, and chips ahoy.

*****

Vadim Kagan writes: “We were visiting BVI, and I had this wonderful morning ritual – walking along the beach to the coffee shop, and then dragging a beack chair to the water so that my feet were in the surf… and coming up with a poem or two watching the sun rise and the clouds change colors. Since childhood I’ve been a huge fan of Rafael Sabatini’s “Captain Blood” novels, so the first two lines just happened, and then the rest kinda followed. I think back home the forecast called for snow that day, so the contrast was again already there for me to make use of.”

Vadim Kagan writes poetry and prose in English and Russian.  Vadim’s poems, bringing together traditions of Russian and English metered verse, have been put to music and performed by local and international artists. His poems have been published in The Lyric, Founders Favorites, The Road Not Taken,  the Lost Love chapbook and recently in the Maryland Bards Poetry Review 2025. Vadim lives in Bethesda, MD, where he runs an AI company providing advanced technology capabilities to Fortune 500 companies and government agencies.

‘I Have Never’ was first published on Vadim Kagan’s Facebook page, where you can find more of his work.

“RAYMOND, Alex. ‘Captain Blood’, 1935.” by Halloween HJB is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

R.I.P. Anthony Watkins – untitled poem

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Log some star date or another

All systems are failing
shadows flicker around
the darkened room

There is no captain
to report to, I am he.

Lost among the leaves.

*****

Poet, author, editor, publisher and digital creator Anthony Watkins passed away this week after a long illness. I knew him only through his creation of Better Than Starbucks, the wonderfully broad tent poetry-fiction-and-interviews magazine that came out monthly and provided for writers of all styles. It was a generous and inclusive publication, well reflective of its creator.

The poem above is one of the last messages posted by Anthony Watkins on his Facebook page, as everything was winding down.

Photo: “Hubble’s New Eyes: Butterfly Emerges from Stellar Demise in Planetary Nebula NGC 6302” by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC BY 2.0.