“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
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.”
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.
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!”
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.
Notes left behind by strangers long since dead entranced my mother—not the squiggles, dots and lines themselves, but what musicians read from them on radio, the sounds ink spots had spelled. In quartets and in Claire de lune, her young ears heard what many can’t discern: enchanting, complex things—beyond the tune— about which she had little chance to learn. When she grew up, her voice was warm and rich as those of many singers who’d been schooled in breath control and quarter notes and pitch. She was as musical as some who’ve ruled the concert stage—but she sang in the car and kitchen; we heard her wide repertoire.
We heard her car and kitchen repertoire of opera arias, concerto themes, and deep regret she never got as far as piano lessons. Her childhood daydreams were seeded by the sagging upright housed at her Aunt Margaret’s—maybe she’d learn there?— and fed by radio: Puccini roused her love of opera, Brahms made her aware of string-sung drama. She pursued her chances to learn and listen—and also to plead for lessons, though her parents’ circumstances made that impossible. But she’d succeed in giving her kids what she’d never had— assisted in that effort by my dad.
It took substantial effort. Mom and Dad lacked wealth, but not love or imagination. Wrong turns became adventures, plans gone bad would show up later in a wry narration. Fun for us kids was low-cost, even free: a paper crown on birthdays, or a game made out of raking leaves, or a decree that it was Ice Cream Tuesday. We became as skilled as they were at composing joy: we heard another music in our days of sibling harmony, learned to deploy exuberance and laughter as one plays an instrument. And then catastrophe and cleverness brought opportunity.
Our clever dad saw opportunity when fire destroyed a nearby school, with all its contents lost—including, doubtlessly, the old piano. But Dad made a call and had the badly damaged upright brought to our garage. It was a rescue mission: the smoky wreck could be revived, he thought. He’d never played, and he had no ambition to do so, but he always had been good at fixing things. And so he scrubbed the keys, patched felts and hammers, and restored the wood of the disfigured case. And by degrees, the sooty hulk became something we prized. Untrained, unmusical, he’d improvised.
With talents of his own, he’d improvised, so we could, too. And he and Mom had planned and saved so we’d have lessons. Though advised to start us at age seven, Mom had grand ambitions for my younger hands. At six, I got to know the keys and clefs with smart, no-nonsense Mrs. Steffen, who would mix high standards and commitment to the art of making music with kid-friendly stuff. I played a little Mozart (simplified), a piece called “Crunchy Flakes” and other fluff, some basic boogie-woogie, drills that tried my patience. And my two sisters and I all played—too loudly—Brahms’s lullaby.
We all played Brahms’s famous lullaby, and argued over which of us would get to practice next; I knew the time would fly when it was my hour. Paired in a duet, two sisters often bickered just as much as we made music, but we learned to work together, synchronize tempo and touch, forget the other could be such a jerk. Years later I made music my profession, and it became both job and joy, a route to self-sufficiency and self-expression— a gift whose worth I never could compute, from parents who would never read a score, but who would give us music and much more.
They gave us music, but a great deal more than just the audible variety. Their well-tuned lives—examples set before us kids—were also music. They taught me to practice patience in both work and play; to face discord and my mistakes with poise; to transpose trouble to keys far away; to find and share the song within the noise. My mother’s dreams, my father’s diligence, and love composed a priceless education. And those gifts all enrich the resonance I hear in Bach and Brahms—in my translation of small black symbols in the scores I’ve read: notes left behind by strangers long since dead.
*****
Jean L. Kreiling writes: “I often find myself reminding readers that poems are not always autobiographical—but ‘Another Music’ is thoroughly autobiographical, and it’s meant to honor my devoted and fun-loving parents. My mother’s love of music and my father’s brilliance did shape much of my life, and my parents gave me (and my siblings) a richly happy and secure childhood. My parents’ legacy has lived on in the lives of all of their children: music has been important in all our lives, and family has been a top priority and a joy for all of us. Mom and Dad supported my work as a poet just as enthusiastically as they supported my musical endeavors, and I’m grateful that they both lived to see my first book of poems published.”
Jean L. Kreiling is the author of four collections of poetry; her work has been awarded the Able Muse Book Award, the Frost Farm Prize, the Rhina Espaillat Poetry Prize, and the Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Prize, among other honors. A Professor Emeritus of Music at Bridgewater State University, she has published articles on the intersections between music and literature in numerous academic journals.
He draws back curtains on a winter’s day. It’s eight a.m. A charcoal sketch of trees confronts him. All the world is grey and unappealing. Nothing guarantees a lowering of spirits as do scenes like these. He peers outside. The thuggish sky scowls back at him. Of all his small routines this is the worst: he knows that, with a sigh, he’ll draw these selfsame curtains yet again in no more than a few hours’ time, when night comes slouching from its prehistoric den and all the birds of fortitude take flight. He is a detainee, his heart in chains. Love is a star long dead whose light remains.
*****
Richard Fleming writes: “Titles are often an afterthought in poetry, with first lines pressed into service as titles. For this writer, titles matter, and Curtains is a case in point. For those who grew up in the 1950s, curtains implied an ending, often death, a sense reinforced by noir cinema. The poem Curtains treats the word both literally and symbolically: the daily opening and closing of curtains in winter becomes a measure of time passing and of life nearing its end.”
Richard Fleming is an Irish-born poet and humorist based in Guernsey, a Channel Island between Britain and France. Widely regarded as one of the island’s foremost literary voices, his versatile work blends lyricism, sharp wit, emotional depth, and a strong sense of place. Drawing from his Northern Irish roots and adopted home, his poetry and prose explore love, loss, nostalgia, identity, and modern life. Collections include Strange Journey (2012), held in the National Poetry Library, and Stone Witness (Blue Ormer) featuring the BBC-commissioned title poem. His work can be found on Facebook https://www.facebook.com richard.fleming.92102564/ or Bard at Bay www.redhandwriter.blogspot.com
Earth, always the same distance from her star, induced no crane to migrate, lark to sing, chorus frog to trill, violet to spring, nor leaves to turn. The solstice was as far as the edge where galaxies all disappear. The sun kept glaring down, as on that shore where, from your tower, you chose to ignore the thing I most desired. Wasn’t it clear? Earth didn’t tilt. Her poles were locked in glaze, sea level never changed, and when I walked forever round your roost, you never talked of waves, or even sensed the sun-launched rays till yesterday when, with a sudden lurch, Earth tipped and threw you off your chilly perch.
*****
Martin Elster writes: “The title “Axis Denied” works in two ways. Literally, it refers to a world without axial tilt, and therefore without seasons or change. Phonetically, “axis” echoes “access”—suggesting denied emotional entry or withheld intimacy—until a sudden shift finally breaks the stasis.”
Martin Elster, who never misses a beat, was for many years a percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. He finds contentment in long woodland walks and writing poetry that often draws on the natural world and on scientific ideas, from animal life to larger planetary and cosmic patterns. His honors include Rhymezone’s Poetry Contest (2016) co-winner, the Thomas Gray Anniversary Poetry Competition (2014) winner, the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Poetry Contest (2015) third place, five Pushcart Prize nominations, and a Best of the Net nomination. His latest collection is From Pawprints to Flight Paths: Animal Lives in Verse (Kelsay Books).
This poem appears in Bewildering Stories #1122. His work has also appeared in the anthology Outer Space: 100 Poems (Cambridge University Press) and in the Potcake Chapbooks Careers and Other Catastrophes, Robots and Rockets, and City! Oh City!
What makes you think your husband’s what I want? Does he think that? He’s dumb as mud, if so. To me, a man’s a fast-food restaurant, just grab and go. Maybe that hurts to know, but joints like that are everywhere—and packed. It’s not a lifetime contract; it’s a meal. I don’t do long-term. Obstinates attract. I’m bad for him. He knows. Big fucking deal.
Nobody has a long attention span these days. So, what do you do when you’re bored? Binge-watch TV, drink white wine, find a man? You want security, but feel ignored and miss that fizz of come what may. Guess what: we all end up alone. You think you’re not?
*****
Susan McLean writes: “This poem got its start as an entry to a sonnet contest held by the online journal Better Than Starbucks in 2019. It won the contest, appeared in the journal, and was later reprinted in Extreme Sonnets II. I like the dramatic monologue form, and once I thought of the situation, an “other woman” being confronted by the outraged wife of the man she has slept with, the voice of a woman with an attitude just came to me.
“Ironically, the poem’s content was influenced by my experience of teaching students to write essays in a college composition class. One of the subjects I typically had them write about was the obesity epidemic in America, what was causing it, and how the situation might be improved. I was surprised to learn that my students were often angry on being told that fast food might be hurting them. Many of them had been raised on it, loved it, and depended on it because it was what they could afford. They did not want to be informed of how many calories it contained or what it might be doing to their health. But the other influence on the poem was my sympathy for anyone trying to start a relationship in an era of short attention spans, instant gratification, and online dating sites. There’s a lot of loneliness out there, and not just among single people.
“Finally, for me what makes this sonnet work is the underlying humor in what is a very uncomfortable situation. The wife, who initiates the confrontation, seems to want the other woman to back off, but finds that the woman has no particular interest in the husband, and that the husband is only pursuing her because she is not interested in him. The wife is further thrown off balance when the other woman suggests that the two women have more in common than the wife may want to believe. When a clichéd situation doesn’t turn out the way you expect it to, the element of surprise contributes to the humor.”
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
My parents stacked the best years of their youth as Bricks to build me. Taught me words I taught Myself to shout them down with when we fought. My parents loved me, though I could be ruthless Hurting myself with things I poured or burned And those who loved me with the things I said. My parents never gloated once I learned, Just held me through my sobs, and kissed my head.
Now, in the living room I stormed out of, They tell me I can stay the month, or year, Because my room will never not be here No matter where I go, or who I love. I am their blood, they tell me. I depart From them as blood does from a beating heart.
*****
Amit Majmudar writes: “A homing pigeon knows where its home is by training, as the falcon knows the falconer’s arm. But there are deeper instincts at work in nature that science still struggles to explain fully, like the way birds know how to migrate by looking at the stars, and the way monarch butterflies find their way to the same vast swath of oyamel trees in Mexico every year. Human beings have something of that in them. Not just for the neighborhoods where we grew up, but for the people, the family, who were there with us. This poem is about that. I distinctly recall its writing; I woke up at the “witching hour,” as I often do, while visiting my sister-in-law’s house in Texas over Christmas break. Ten family members were asleep in the same house, and, unable to fall back asleep, I picked up my phone and found an invitation to submit to a new sonnet journal in my inbox. Immediately, still in the awoken, excited, “witching hour” state (which the Indian tradition calls the Hour of Brahma, the time of peak creativity), I wrote this poem about the bond between the far-afield child and the fixed star of family, first line to last.”
‘Homing’ was just published in The Sonneteer which can be accessed at thesonneteer@substack.com. It offers a free, partial service as well as an upgraded paid subscription.
Amit Majmudar’s recent books include Twin A: A Memoir (Slant Books, 2023), The Great Game: Essays on Poetics (Acre Books, 2024), and the hybrid work Three Metamorphoses (Orison Books, 2025). More information about his novels and poetry collections can be found at www.amitmajmudar.com.
Death will be harsher now, as, year by year, we solve the clues of immortality: emotions sink to animality as false hopes tighten screws of desperate fear. Hormone control will make age disappear— after false starts, most horrible to see— but those already old must beg to be frozen for the genetic engineer. While war, starvation, pipe Earth’s gruesome jigs, successful businessmen will fight to gain some dead teen’s body, to transplant their brain, the already-old beg to be guinea-pigs. Children, look back, hear our despairing cry: we bred immortals, but we had to die!
*****
I wrote this poem on 3 January 1982 – twenty years before I began to get poems published. (Formal verse was an almost absolute no-no in late 20th century magazines… although consistently taught and highly praised in schools and universities, of course.) It was finally published in Ambit in October 2007 – the magazine started and managed for 50 years by Martin Bax and the stomping ground of J.G. Ballard, Ralph Steadman, Carol Ann Duffy, etc.
In April 2018 the poem was reprinted in Bewildering Stories, an online weekly headquartered in Guelph, Ontario; and in 2024 I accepted Maryann Corbett‘s suggestion to change the title and first line and instead of “harder” use the word “harsher”… the earlier word incorrectly suggesting that we might be finding it more difficult to achieve death.
The ideas behind the poem were not new to science fiction, but were less common in formal verse. The ideas continue to inch their way towards reality; continue to be explored in popular culture (Piraro, Futurama…); and in the last 44 years I have continued to explore SF and existential themes in verse.
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.
Form in Formless Times 