A billion Civilians In vermilion Pavilions Are waiting for the dawn.
Instead, Overhead, From his bed On skies of lead, God said the wars must go on.
The Blessed Drops shed From side and head Of Christ dead Beloved but forlorn,
Watered The slaughtered And caught by Those who fought at Zama and the Somme.
Inconclusive, Thought-inducive, Why-elusive… But, if you sieve War’s truths long,
You’ll find You’re refined And the blind Are undermined By the kind who throng
To the place Of loving grace The gentlest face The human race Has ever looked upon:
The Crucified Who never shied From Truth and died: From head and side Drops fall and spawn
A billion Civilians In vermilion Pavilions Waiting for the dawn.
*****
I wrote this in an experimental frame of mind some 50 years ago. It doesn’t reflect my religious beliefs or lack thereof. Take it as more proof that verse is not inherently autobiographical.
I then got Quill, my ChatGPT, to produce the illustration from the first ten lines. It’s a good representation. So I then shared the whole poem with Quill, and got this response:
“The whole poem makes the circular structure clear: the vermilion pavilions are watered and spawned by Christ’s blood, so Christianity’s promised redemption continually regenerates the civilians waiting amid war. The return of the opening stanza is therefore much darker than mere repetition.
The illustration still works remarkably well. It depicts the first movement—the remote God decreeing continued war—and the immense field of red tents already carries the later implication of blood fertilising further suffering. If anything, its failure to show the Crucified is useful: the reader encounters that theological turn only when the poem provides it.
As an exercise in rhyme, it is audacious. The tiny rhyme reservoirs force the argument forward in incantatory bursts, while the awkwardly ingenious “caught by / those who fought at” and “if you sieve” advertise the experimental game without quite collapsing into comic verse. “Inconclusive, / Thought-inducive, / Why-elusive” is especially characteristic of an intelligent young poet testing how much argumentative weight an obsessive sound-pattern can bear.
And the poem is not straightforwardly devotional even before knowing your beliefs. “The gentlest face / The human race / Has ever looked upon” sounds reverent, but the structure implicates that consoling image in the mechanism by which bloodshed is sanctified and reproduced. The ending can be read as Christian affirmation—but also as a decidedly uneasy accusation. That ambiguity is probably why it remains interesting fifty years later.”
‘A Billion Civilians’ was first published, very recently, in Bewildering Stories #1152 – thanks, Don Webb!
Art by RHL and ChatGPT, aka Quill, working in GPT-6 Astra Light mode
I struggle with his life. In that warm land of his self-exiled end, a graveyard stone hushes his willfullness, but when the sand first mixed his ashes, didn’t London frown and sneer that the infidel would now command a truer view of God? And all I’ve read about his careless loving (women as things to take, enjoy, and jettison) has fed a crabbed dislike. But let the poems appear in their own strength—raging at old, mad kings, hymning the autumn, moaning black despair, packing in fourteen lines the whole decay of human tyrants’ pride—and they strip bare my morals: Wonder sweeps his sins away.
*****
Maryann Corbett writes: “What sparked this poem, quite simply, was an invitation from Ken Gordon of The Sonneteer to write a bouts-rimés with the end-rhymes of Ozymandias, in celebration of Shelley’s birthday. I fooled around with a subject unrelated to Shelley himself but decided that, given my instructions, the poem had to be about Shelley, so I’d have to do something with my conflicted feelings about the man.”
Maryann Corbett earned a doctorate in English from the University of Minnesota in 1981 and expected to be teaching Beowulf and Chaucer and the history of the English language. Instead, she spent almost thirty-five years working for the Office of the Revisor of Statutes of the Minnesota Legislature, helping attorneys to write in plain English and coordinating the creation of finding aids for the law. She returned to writing poetry after thirty years away from the craft in 2005 and is now the author of two chapbooks and six full-length collections, most recently The O in the Air (Franciscan U. Press, 2023). Her work has won the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize and the Richard Wilbur Award, has appeared in many journals on both sides of the Atlantic, and is included in anthologies like Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters and The Best American Poetry. A seventh book, Notifications from the Unseen, is forthcoming from Slant Books.
Illustration: Joseph Severn’s portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley, in Wikimedia. The radical 19th century poet practiced the politics of the plate. For Shelley and other liberals of his day, keeping sugar out of tea was a political statement against slavery.
From worship and tenderness to profanity. Two poems becoming one through the contrapuntal technique.
Quatorzain I: Secrecy.
Solemn prayers fill the empty church; hallow’d songs arise from pews of birch.
Midnights are when angels fill the halls— neither flaw nor sin to weight their calls— right where Heaven’s ardent mercy falls. Yes, Amen, and God, they sing aloud, earnest praises proudly thus avowed, bless’d by secrecy’s embrace and shroud.
Only God may hear them. Only he knows the meaning of their cry and plea. Yet-unknown and his alone to see, choirs outbreathe a psalm when no one’s near as an offering at last sincere, echoed up in majesty and fear.
Quatorzain II: In Sacred Places.
Caressing, smiling, both confiding, enamored dreamers kiss in hiding. In sacred places coinciding, grotesque to Earth, they birth a treasure, humanity devoid of measure, melodic in its throes of pleasure.
Secure’s the love away from judges— revealed to none who touch begrudges, observes the bruising lips and smudges— liturgical in eyes’ occlusion. Neglect has borne them disillusion, religion out of shared seclusion.
Nocturnal lovers taste affection seduced by solitude. Perfection.
Contrapuntal: Secrecy in Sacred Places.
Solemn prayers fill the empty church; Caressing, smiling, both confiding, Hallow’d songs arise from pews of birch.
Enamored dreamers kiss in hiding. Midnights are when angels fill the halls— In sacred places coinciding,
Neither flaw nor sin to weight their calls— Grotesque to Earth, they birth a treasure, Right where Heaven’s ardent mercy falls.
Humanity devoid of measure, Yes, Amen, and God, they sing aloud, Melodic in its throes of pleasure.
Earnest praises proudly thus avowed, Sincere’s the love away from judges— Bless’d by secrecy’s embrace and shroud.
Revealed to none who touch begrudges, Only God may hear them. Only he Observes the birth of bruising smudges—
Knows the meaning of their cry and plea. Liturgical within seclusion. Yet-unknown and his alone to see,
Neglect has borne them disillusion— Choirs outbreathe a psalm when no one’s near Religion out of shared seclusion.
Asan offering at last sincere, Nocturnal lovers taste affection, Echoed up in majesty and fear. ’ Seduced by solitude. Perfection.
*****
Brooklyn Crane writes:
This God-Forsaken Contrapuntal!
Contrapuntal poetry seems complicated, and it actually is. Merging lines and meanings can be quite tricky! However, I’ve read several of them either composed of poems which barely hold up on their own or too short enough to be manageable, and in response to this, I obviously went over the top. Let’s see everything you can do by blending two poems together!
A contrapuntal text is the result of the intercalary arrangement of two separate pieces of writing which creates a hidden meaning.
When I prepared to pitch the idea of writing a complex-as-all-hell contrapuntal to my friend and fellow writer Narcisse Tardif, the very first thought that came to mind was that of how most contrapuntal poetry out there simply isn’t formal at all. I mean, who has the time for that? Of course, this being my publication, the name of which is Scheming Rhymes, I naturally had to do something about that. Two questions came out of this train of thought, and these were:
What if it was a contrapuntal between two sonnets?
What if I could produce an acrostic resulting from their intercalation?
If you’ve actually read my poem, you will obviously notice that the sonnets are not sonnets at all—or at least not in the traditional sense of the word. They are indeed quatorzains, as the silly French call the 14-line arrangements that most sonnets adhere to, but the only thing these have in common with them is the couplet of the Shakespearean variant. Undeniably, I could have just written two sonnets. However, it’s never that simple on Scheming Rhymes, and you’re here for it. We’ll get there in a bit.
Regarding the acrostic, yes—there’s a reason for the italicized start of every line. Why did I do this? I just wanted to leave a signature in this poem. Here it is!
Fourteen and fourteen from each poem constituting this contrapuntal add up to twenty-eight lines for me to work with. Scheming Rhymes perfectly fills half of that space while Brooklyn Crane sadly leaves me one letter short. Upon this ill-fated realization, I added the S at the end and pretended myself to be a brilliant strategist who can overcome anything with enough delusion. Surely the reader will know that an apostrophe precedes itbecause, you know, the poem is mine.
It is now that we can address the odd rhyme schemes of the quatorzains as, with the previous information in mind, I went ballistic.
“Could I arrange the poems in a way that their merging results in a different form? If so, which form would that be?”
SO! Because I had just recently posted my terza rima composition breakdown, it was freshly in my mind that a possible solution to this conundrum was such a form. I mean, think about it. Terza rima poems work on a formula of 3x + 1 (or 2), so I did 28 minus 1, divided by 3, and I landed on– I KNOW YOU ARE NOT HERE FOR THE MATH! Anyway, I landed on 9 tercets plus 1 loose line, accounting for all twenty-eight verses.
Next was the question of what the rhyme schemes had to be in order to fulfill this crazy dream. Terza rima works on a ABA BCB CDC … YZY Z (or ZZ) scheme, so I superimposed it on the acrostic as follows.
I hope that you are starting to see the way these two bastards came into existence. We now have the structural guidelines for both quatorzains and the resulting terza rima. This would absolutely be enough for a sane person to go about their day. It’s a double quatorzain/terza rima/contrapuntal/acrostic after all.
It was not enough for me, but I will not bore you with the metrical choices made in this poem. It’s explained on the paid-for section of my terza rima post, though.
Oh, yes. This is a shameless plug for my paid subscription. Come on—you already love Scheming Rhymes!
With all of these guardrails to work with, it was finally time to write. It was absolute hell.
But why do this?
The short answer is: because I can, lol. The actual answer, however, is that I do it because it can be done. Scheming Rhymes is all about exploring what we can do to enrich poetry, understanding both the traditions that educate our verse today and the techniques that might innovate its composition tomorrow. This work is not perfect, I’m aware, and there is sure to be someone who executes the planning behind it more expertly, but we ought to encourage writers to challenge themselves and produce beauty through effort, not through simply making poetry easier.
So there you have it. Here’s to more brutal antitheses to free verse poetic prose!
Join the madness—or don’t!
As with all previously explored forms and techniques, I am not here to police you about how you write and what decisions you make. You can make lines vary in syllable count, ditch the rhymes, change the number of lines per stanza, or anything else you want to do. All I intend on this publication is to give you a starting point from which to find your identity as a writer. Here’s the text by Ani Beeler that inspired me to explore this technique using a completely different approach:
Brooklyn Crane: Celebrating human ingenuity in poetry! Writer, advocate, unapologetic rhyme addict, and public enemy of AI content. Subscribe to Scheming Rhymes—read more of my work and learn more about poetry forms and techniques.
Illustration attributed to Mihály Zichy based on Mikhail Lermontov’s poem The Demon, via Art Renewal Center.
The chain between your ankles clanks upon each creaking stair As you ascend from cellar depths through shadowed drops to where I lie behind my bedroom door. A cartoon ghost, you seem, Come dragging from a TV tale to shamble through my dream Then out the waking end, with chains a-rattling, bones stripped bare.
No doubt you have a story of your own; it isn’t mine, And if you have a role for me it’s one I must decline. I’ve never been a Montresor, a Scrooge is not my style, (I may not lack the malice but I surely lack the guile). I hide no guilt of which a ghost might form the outward sign.
Well, yes, there’ve been some peccadilloes (now you’ve reached the landing), But nothing on the scale I sense your bloody bones demanding. The murders I have dreamed of I have quailed from in the doing, The chances I have missed the only fuel for my rueing. There’s nothing you can lay before the door at which you’re standing.
And yet this door is opening slowly – slowly in you come, Your grin as final as the grave, your empty skull as dumb, Your only sound the rusty crepitation of the chains That drape the fleshless network of your hollowed-out remains. There’s nothing in you – mine the depths your pitted sockets plumb.
And now I grasp your import, and I shake with joy and dread. For what was it that Shakespeare’s Earl, in dark foreboding, said? “Such things” (our present seeds) “become the hatch and brood of time”. And thus I birth the spectre of my destiny in crime. Strike off your chains – my deeds to come will raise you by their dead!
*****
Simon MacCulloch writes: “As Yet Not Come to Life” takes as its starting point an image that terrified me as an infant. It was in a televised, animated adaptation of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol – at one point, the ghost of Marley is shown mounting a staircase towards Scrooge’s room, and we are shown only the skeletal lower legs as they slowly ascend the steps, inhibited by shackles round the ankles. This image became the main focus of my typical childish bedtime fears for a long while afterwards and has never been quite forgotten. I hope to take it to my grave, though not just yet.”
“Simon MacCulloch has published hundreds of poems in a variety of outlets, including literary, academic, genre, humorous and religious publications. He lives in London. His Lovecraftian sonnet sequence, The Eyes of Azathoth, is due from Jackanapes Press in October 2026.
Odysseus, the master home again after long wandering strange lands and seas, contending twenty years with monsters, men, and gods, observed his dog beset with fleas, decrepit, curled upon a pile of dung, ignored, abandoned by a careless world.
Thus lay Argos. Swarms of flies buzzed and swirled around his wasted body. His head hung. His legs lacked strength to stand. But that one voice he knew. A scent he’d always recognize. The man, to guard his beggarly disguise, withheld all signs of care. He had no choice.
The dog’s ears pricked. He feebly wagged his tail. Then knowing that his master had returned he died. Odysseus shed hidden tears. He dared not stroke the dog. Within he burned. This final comrade lost to no avail, and lost forever all those missing years.
***** Richard Meyer writes: “After many decades, I’m reading The Odyssey again, the highly acclaimed translation by Robert Fitzgerald (1961). It won major awards and is considered a classic. Selections from the Fitzgerald translation were in high school English textbooks for years, including the one I used when teaching. I was prompted to revisit The Odyssey after seeing Christopher Nolan’s much talked about recent film adaptation of the ancient epic. The scene with Odysseus and his old dog Argos is one of the well-known episodes in The Odyssey, and a few days ago I had the notion to condense the scene into a modern poem. Most of my poems are written in the new formalism style, using rhyme, meter, and the traditional tools of poetry. In ‘Argos’ I use an irregular rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter meter, with occasional metrical variations for effect.”
‘Argos’ was first published in Facebook.
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 – and a 2026 revision contains over 50 new poems. His books are available on Amazon.
Richard experimented with AI. He gave it simple tasks. It did them well.
It seemed to him the limit was the sky: give AI any task, it would excel.
He then instructed AI to supply a composition worthy of Purcell.
It did so very well: on the first try it thrilled him with a Purcell that was swell.
A portrait next, and when the paint was dry it could have been the work of Raphael.
“I want a new play by that Shakeseare guy: a Hamlet sequel’s surely bound to sell,”
demanded Richard. Sweet as apple pie, up on the PC screen, Hamlet-Nouvelle,
a faux Shakespearean drama, met his eye. Was this a long-lost play? No one could tell.
*****
Richard Fleming writes: “I’m very positive about AI, in the face of much weeping and squealing from a few other writers of my acquaintance who seem almost paranoid about it. I’ve used ChatGPT for a number of matters, both great and trivial, to great effect. The image, created jointly by myself and ChatGPT, I think works well.”
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
An email enquiry that I received about formal-only poetry magazines makes me think I should update my resources list with that focus.
Able Muse – US magazine and press; website is not always completely current Asses of Parnassus – Canada: short, witty, formal poems, snarky is fine, hosted on Tumblr. Blue Unicorn – US: print only; prefers formal but will take other work Chained Muse – US: prefers classical themes. Dodgy political bias Crab Orchard Review – US Extreme Formal series of anthologies from Rhizome Press. US. Grand Little Things – US: “Returning versification to verse” Light – US: large biannual issue, also the home of weekly topical light verse Lighten Up Online (LUPO) – UK: light formal verse, quarterly Lyric – US: “Founded in 1921, The Lyric is the oldest magazine in North America in continuous publication devoted to traditional poetry.” Lyrical, positive… flowers and countryside. New Verse Review – US Poetry Porch – US: lyrical Pulsebeat Poetry Journal – US Road Not Taken: The Journal of Formal Poetry – US: hard to find online because of its name, but a good small publication for formal and semi-formal verse. Snakeskin – UK: probably the longest-established poetry zine in the world; no longer 100% formal, but still a great favourite. Sonnet Scroll – US: a sonnet-specialized alcove on the Poetry Porch Sonneteer – US: substack emails The HyperTexts (THT) – US: an enormous assemblage of verse from all times and places; the editor’s personal preference for formal and leftist verse doesn’t rule out selections by Walt Whitman or Ronald Reagan! The works are mostly republications, but if you have a body of strong work the editor may be interested in creating a page for you. Think – US Verse-Virtual – US: a monthly publication for a caring community of poets and finally: Wergle-Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, No Fee – US: $3,750 in prize money
Once when her kisses were fire incarnate and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame, when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes, leaving me listlessly sighing her name …
Once when her breasts were as pale, as beguiling, as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist, when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me all the while as her lips did more wildly insist …
Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant, I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing that I vowed all my former vows to recant …
Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed— this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.
*****
Michael R. Burch writes: “Once” was submitted to The Lyric in 1999, and elicited these comments from editor Jean Mellichamp Milliken: “. . . I actually loved “Once” (better than ‘Twice,’ even), but you need a resolution—it leaves the reader hanging . . . please, please finish it. It’s such a wonderful, fiery, lyrical piece!” The original poem was intended to leave the reader hanging. There was no resolution at the time it was written. The challenge of writing an ending couplet was intriguing, however, and “Once” was accepted (in its revised form with an ending couplet) and appeared in The Lyric along with “At Once,” “Twice” and “The Leveler.”
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.
From Beth Houston: “I’m writing to let you know that I’ve changed the latest Rhizome Press anthology I’m currently reading for from Extreme Sonnets and Villanelles to Extreme Formal Poems II, and I’ve extended the submission deadline to January 15, 2027.
I’m making the change to give more poets the opportunity to be included (by request) and to give me a chance to get the word out. I’ve been supposedly permanently kicked off Facebook for no specific reason even after going through their protest process, so I’m trying a new outreach approach, including some advertising, which takes additional time, hence my need to extend the deadline.
I’m confident that Extreme Formal Poems II will be the best Rhizome anthology yet, and I’m excited to read all you submitto contribute to its success.”
*****
Beth Houston(www.bethhouston.com) has taught writing (mostly creative writing) at ten universities and colleges in California and Florida and has worked as a writer and editor. She has published a couple hundred poems in dozens of literary journals. She writes free verse and formal poetry, mostly sonnets, and has published a novel, two nonfiction books, and six poetry books (out of print). She edits the Extreme formal poetry anthologies via one of her indie presses, Rhizome Press (www.rhizomepress.com).
A courtly, grand, tradition; sure, but men are men, and poets, poets; so, of course behind their art is merry mischief, force of guile, if not just force; but having then been properly improper once again with risqué sonnets, sometimes merely coarse (if richly rhymed), how long must we endorse these minuets? Will someone shout, A-men!?
Step it up and shake a foot, a hand, a bodice: make it syncopated– let it, having been elaborated, settle for a minute. Strike a pose. Then strut. And put a little music in it.
*****
Daniel Kemper writes: “No Matter What, You’ve Got To Strut” –Yes, I’m quoting Buddy Love from Eddie Murphie’s version of The Nutty Professor! This, as you can tell from all the meta-textual wordplay (using a rime riche and then naming it [richly rhymed, and on and on]) was a lot of fun to write, but there’s a serious aspect to it as well. I’ve gone hog wild exploring sonnets and meters. This could be considered one of the culminating branches of that.
Sonnets in non-iambic meters: trochaic, anapestic, dactylic {sonnet “space” increased by x4}
Sonnets that used more than one meter:
Four possible meters to mix {sonnet “space” increased by x64!}
Rule: One meter: one line, no changing within a line, only between them.
Most definitions of sonnets assumed iambic meter and so did not rule out the other meters. Many also implied only one meter throughout, but so long as it’s metrically consistent, it should be considered. Maybe there’s less wiggle room here, but I think I can lawyer it anyway.
Oooh, but then, in tandem with my poetic symphony inventions, I my thoughts ran down two paths at once. Other variations that I could “legally” do and, out of all the possible sonnet types, why are only a few around?
Other variations:
Vary the line lengths: There are precedents. Shakespeare, #145 (tetrameter); Hopkins, Curtal sonnet (L11 is a half-length line), Spenserian Stanza (not a sonnet) last line is hexameter.
Vary the rhyme schemes.
In multi-sonnet pieces, what effects can be achieved by moving the rhymed lines around a bit?
Why some combinations of rhymes and not others (bridge to second path).
So I felt leeway to go hog wild with variations—however, I was bound and determined to be “legal.” (I do not care for the lack of rigor in the thinking that allows “free verse sonnets” and “blank sonnets.”) Since I was starting with tradition, well, I started with tradition… That’s for the first half of [Strut].
I got a coder to help me run some common permutations for 14 lines. If 1.) they must all rhyme and 2.) no more than two consecutive rhymes and 3.) no rhyme is separated by more than two intervening lines, then there are 165,995 possible combinations for a sonnet. Why then do we have about a dozen and a half? Sure people “invent” new ones all the time, but those one-offs die pretty fast.
I arrived at two answers. One is historical. There are only so many poets writing formal poetry over only so many years—and poets actually tend to be conservative in bringing new forms to the canon. The other is musical. There’s huge stuff here. Too much for this email. Suffice to say, there has to be a melodic contour, a musicality, a beat, a riff, a tension and release—NOT arbitrarily ordered rhymes. How does one define that “musicality”? It’s tough; what differentiates a melody from a random string of tones?
Back to [Strut]. Now you can see how the second half formed up in my mind and why the proliferation of musical terminology, also meta-textual. It is syncopated where it calls for syncopation. The meter before the volta and after are different. The rhyme pattern, btw, remains one of the traditional variations of the Petrarchan Sonnet.
As you look closer, you’ll notice that it’s not irregular; it’s highly structured. Key is that rhyming lines are the same length as each other, though different from others. That keeps the music in it—a kind of predictability despite change, an added degree of recognition. This is the future of the sonnet, the 21st century sonnet, IMO.”
*****
‘No Matter What, You’ve Got To Strut’ was first published in Rat’s Ass Review.
Daniel Kemper, a former tournament-winning wrestler, black belt in traditional Shotokan karate, and infantryman has earned a BA in English, an MCSE (Systems Engineering), an MBA, and an MA in English and had works accepted for publication at more than a dozen magazines, including a pushcart nomination. He’s been an invited presenter at PAMLA 2024 and presided over the Poetics Panel in 2025 and has been the feature poet at several Sacramento venues.
Form in Formless Times 