Category Archives: Poetry

Using form: Double Dactyl: Alex Steelsmith, ‘Clairevoyance’

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Claire Ferchaud (fer-SHO) was a young French shepherdess and mystic who became a modern-day Joan of Arc during World War I, campaigning to add the image of the Sacred Heart to the French flag. Though her proposal was ultimately rejected as a merely symbolic gesture, it was taken seriously and honored by the distinguished General Ferdinand Foch, who became Supreme Commander of Allied Forces.

Fearlessly, peerlessly,
Claire the clairvoyant one
pushed a proposal that
fizzled, although

Foch the preeminent
generalissimo
said, “Let’s all try it—and  
not just Ferchaud.”

*****

Alex Steelsmith writes: “I tend to read widely and randomly, but ‘Clairevoyance’ didn’t come about in the usual way. Another double dactyl I had written, about the French mystic Marthe Robin, appeared in the previous issue of Snakeskin. In an email exchange I had with Snakeskin editor George Simmers about that poem, he happened to mention Claire Ferchaud, another fascinating Frenchwoman that Marthe brought to mind. I thought it would be a fun challenge to see if I could come up with one about Claire. That’s when I looked into her story and the pun leaped out for the last line of the poem. It felt a bit irreverent to be lightly punning on the name of someone who presumably was very serious and wouldn’t have been especially amused. In any case, I have George to thank for giving me the idea for the subject of the poem.” 

Alex Steelsmith’s writing has appeared in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Spectator, Light, Snakeskin, Lighten Up Online, and other venues. He has been a Light featured poet, and a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. More of his writing – and his artwork – is at http://www.alexsteelsmith.com/

Photo from Snakeskin

Using form: Iambic hexameter: Daniel Moreschi, ‘A Wing-stroked Spectacle’

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Segmented sets of starlings sharply elevate
towards candescent skies, suspend, then circulate
in sync. Their wingspans whisper sunset symphonies
while manifesting silhouetted symmetries.

With poise, finesse and swiftness, they transform the air
into an ever-changing scape; this canvas where
each turn and swirl unfolds a painterly display:
a moving mural, rendered on a dying day.

The starlings coalesce to make a checkered veil.
They crown the clouds and skim across a coastal trail,
then separate as if surrendering to gusts,
and cover summits like a desert’s storm-flung dust.

With tapered pace, their fevered flights revert to long
glissades of shimmering shades; a showy dance along
a latent stopgap stage. They stir, careen, decline,
retracing what remains of lofty lazuline,

before it all becomes a screen of red-specked gold.
The starlings falter in its wake; they cannot hold
their elegance in fading light. Their spirals wane
in streaming chains. They spill in spates of jet-black rain.

*****

This poem was originally published by the Society of Classical Poets at the start of the year, after being awarded 4th place in their annual competition.

Daniel Moreschi writes: “Through its descriptions of the flights of starlings, this poem is intended to evoke reflections on how moments of beauty can be transient; the starlings’ flight patterns are fleeting and subject to change, much like all beautiful moments in life. I felt that verse written in alexandrines, brimming with fluidity, was an appropriate means to depict such an aerial display.”

Daniel Moreschi is a poet from Neath, South Wales, UK, who experienced a significant turning point when his ongoing battle with severe M.E. upended his life. However, during this period, he also rediscovered his passion for poetry, which had lain dormant since his teenage years. Writing has become a distraction from his struggles. Daniel has been acclaimed by over 80 poetry competitions and published in numerous NFSPS anthologies of prize-winning poetry, as well as by Lunar Codex, The Lyric, Society of Classical Poets, The Dawntreader, Westward Quarterly, Wishbone Words, The Chained Muse, Every Writer Resource, and an array of other journals and publications.
Instagram: @daniel.moreschi

Photo: “STARLING MURMURATION” by Tony Armstrong-Sly is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Marcus Bales, ‘This Be The Verse’

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Post this, post that, post-modernists –
   Denying narrative’s cabal.
The story that they tell insists
   It’s not a story after all.

New Criticism made them see
   That reading closely what was said
Meant cutting off biography,  
   And authors might as well be dead.

Like raisin oatmeal cookies, picked
   In hopes of chocolate chip, they bust
Your faith in how things seem. You’re tricked
   To only trust in doubting trust.

Without the person or the text,
   No human mind, no human heart,
I guess we know what’s coming next:
   Let the AIs do the art.

*****

Marcus Bales writes: “This is one of what I call my habitual poems. I have a perfectly good stand-alone idea, and start to work on it, but the parody turntable in my head takes over and the needle slides down into the groove and instead of stealing only the world-weary and faintly snarky Larkin tone it turns out I steal the whole poem. 

I have a file of these to be revised away from parody and into something that is less parodic, or at least less immediately noticeable as theft. 

The problem is I’m lazy about this stuff. There is a straightforward tradition of doing these kinds of parodicish things in song, called ‘filks’, and I’ve done some of them. It’s carried over into the same sort of thing in poems. The groove is there, the tonality is familiar, the original is familiar, and like the soap coming out of your hand in the shower, clunk, it hits the floor. 

So, since Robin asked me to write this, I’ve got a revised version for you. It loses some of the immediacy of Larkin’s opening, of course, but I’ll bet if you hadn’t got that in your head associated with this one first, this second version would only have marked a faint echo — and you might not of noticed how Larkinesque it is at all.”

Editor’s note: Bales revised the first and fifth lines; the originals read:
They fuck you up, post-modernists,
(…)
But others fucked them up to see
Hence his Larkin references.

Not much is known about Marcus Bales except that he lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio, and that his work has not been published in Poetry or The New Yorker. However his ‘51 Poems‘ is available from Amazon. He has been published in several of the Potcake Chapbooks (‘Form in Formless Times’).

Photo: “Post-Modern Urinal” by ~MVI~ (warped) is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Using form: Ottava Rima: Max Gutmann, ‘Conscious Agents’ (from Don Juan Finish’d)

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You sages aren’t surpris’d to learn that cowardice
Is courage. Truths illumine and conceal.
The dulcet affirmation and the sour diss
Can equally be true. That’s no big deal.
The world is full of paradox — and now word is
That even space and time may not be real.
We only think we see and smell and touch things.
The “world” is like, say, Donkey Kong and such things.

It’s all just icons on an interface:
The sound of rain, that contract you just sign’d,
The microbe on a slide, the feel of lace,
The smell of skunks, the corner you were fined
For parking at, your arm, the very space
You (think you) move through — products of your mind.
And even little quarks, atomic particles,
Are not, as thought, the fundamental articles.

No, “conscious agents” are what’s fundamental.
The theory says it’s they and they alone
We’re sure of. Space? Time? Objects? Incidental.
They hint at some reality unknown.
The dawn, the dung, the breeze, the brain, the lentil:
In all of these, our faith is overblown.
Those conscious agents compass us and we
Create those things — though not, um, consciously.

*****

Max Gutmann writes: “Don Juan Finish’d fancifully completes Lord Byron’s unfinished comic epic. Excerpts have been contributed to Light, Lighten Up Online, Orbis, Slant, Think, the website of the Byron Society, and Pulsebeat, where ‘Conscious Agents’ is among the excerpts to have appeared. Formalverse has also reprinted another excerpt. ‘Conscious Agents’ is part of a digression from the plot, digression being an aspect of Byron’s epic mimicked in Don Juan Finish’d.”

Max Gutmann has contributed to dozens of publications including New Statesman, Able Muse, and Cricket. His plays have appeared throughout the U.S. and have been well-reviewed (see maxgutmann.com). His book There Was a Young Girl from Verona sold several copies.

Photo: “Consciousness Awakening on Vimeo by Ralph Buckley” by Ralph Buckley is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Using form: alliteration: RHL, ‘How Brashly Brave’

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How brashly brave, embroiled in this brief life,
we chance our challenge to the unchanging gods!
Strike poses, strut the strident stage of strife,
take optimistic oaths against all odds.

Fearless of foes, false friends, futility,
we wrack our reason to reach, undestroyed—
though usually of no utility—
a burst of brightness bettering the void.

*****

Although I prefer to maintain an unobtrusive persona myself, I subscribe to this philosophy of bravado existentialism. The florid alliteration suits the message.

This poem is published in the current issue of Light – thanks, Melissa Balmain and all.

Photo: “Flamboyant Emperor of the United States” by PeterThoeny is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Sonnet: Helena Nelson, ‘Dream’

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I found myself in bed with an old man.
His beard was silvery, his scrawny chest
a rack of ribs, his loose-lipped mouth open
and toothless as a baby. There he was,
there in our bed, as if he owned the place.
He snored and grunted like some ancient king
asleep after a banquet. But what feast
had led, dear heart, to this? What partying?
He turned his head to me. I saw his face—
a travesty. Some metamorphosis
had happened in our sleep, my love replaced
by a bag of windy bones. I need a piss,
he muttered, and got up. O then I knew
what age had done to us, and who was who.

*****

Helena Nelson writes: “Everyone experiences it eventually. You glance at your own reflection in the mirror and get a shock at how old you look. So that’s one of inspirations for this poem. The other spur to write this was a dream I had one night, though in the poem it’s intentionally unclear whether the experience is or isn’t real. I started with near rhymes in the octet and moved towards perfect rhyme at the end to convey the shock. I do hope the reader feels that shock at the end.” 

‘Dream’ was originally published in The Dark Horse.

Helena Nelson runs HappenStance Press (now winding down) and also writes poems, one of which appears in the Potcake Chapbook, ‘Lost Love’. Her most recent collection is Pearls (The Complete Mr and Mrs Philpott Poems). She reviews widely and is Consulting Editor for The Friday Poem.

Using form: SF sonnet: RHL, ‘On a Dead Spaceship’

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On a dead spaceship drifting round a star,
the trapped inhabitants are born and die.
The engineers’ broad privileges lie
in engine room and solar panel power.
The fruit and vegetables and protein co-ops
are run by farmers with genetics skills:
the products of their dirt and careful kills
help service trade between the several groups.
Others — musicians, architects — can skip
along the paths of interlinking webs.
Beyond these gated pods that the rich carve
for their own selves (but still within the ship),
in useless parts, are born the lackluck plebs.
Heard but ignored, they just hunt rats or starve.

*****

This sonnet was republished in Bewildering Stories in April 2024 – original publication had been in Star*Line five years previously. I find something very satisfying about using a formal sonnet structure to express science fiction and speculative fiction ideas – the ideas are by nature open-ended, unconstrained, and it feels good to tie them down as in a neat package with a bow on top. Topiary.

As for what political comments can be read into the poem, read away!

Photo: “Deepstar 2071 at Io” by FlyingSinger is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Melissa Balmain, ‘Notes From a Jaded Traveler’

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I dreamed I went to Heaven–
it wasn’t all that great.
The angel choir was tone deaf;
its harps were second rate.
St. Pete was glumly scrubbing
the bird shit off one gate.

I dreamed I went to Hell next–
it wasn’t all that grim.
I’d felt worse heat in Brooklyn,
worse torture at the gym;
Satan and his minions
were belting out a hymn.

I dreamed that neither visit
surprised me much–oh sure,
the Bible promised plenty
that wasn’t on my tour,
but what location ever
lives up to its brochure?

*****

From Walking in on People © Melissa Balmain, 2014. Used by permission of Able Muse Press.

Melissa Balmain writes: “This poem, first published in Light Quarterly (now Light), sparked one of my rare disagreements with LQ‘s founding editor, John Mella. He balked at the term “bird shit.” It might offend older readers, he said, and he asked for a substitute. This led to the following message, which is undoubtedly the sort of high-toned correspondence that poetry readers imagine happening behind the scenes:

Dear John,
Thanks for your latest note on “Notes from a Jaded Traveler.” I think we may have had a communication glitch—my preference is “bird doo,” not “doo-doo.” I agree with you that the latter does smack of the nursery. Plus, it doesn’t make the bird connection clear.
“Bird doo” is a fairly common expression—a Google search of the term yields more references than “bird poop.” But the main reason I prefer it to “bird poop” is that—at least among parents I know—“poop” is the nursery term for diaper contents.
So… if “bird shit” is out, I vote for “bird doo.”
All best,
Melissa

John went with “bird doo.”  When ‘Notes from a Jaded Traveler’ ran in my first collection, I finally got to change it back.”

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 light verse, and has been a member of the University of Rochester’s English Department since 2010. She will teach a three-day workshop on comic poetry at the Poetry by the Sea conference in Madison, CT, in May 21-24, 2024.

Photo: “Life’s Trail” by quinn.anya is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Using form: Sonnet: Max Gutmann, ‘How to Inspire a Sonnet – advice from the pros’

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Inspire amore first, but molto forte
If in sonetti dolci you’d be sung.
Then see that you stay bella. You’ll support a
Passione deep and long by dying young.
— Laura

If thou upon his stage the Muse’s part
Wouldst play, each act thou study’st must prolong
Thy Poet’s pain. ‘Tis pain shall prompt great Art.
Then con thy lines with style, and do him wrong.
— The Dark Lady

Stay always by her. Never for a day
Be from her cherished side. ‘Tis paramount
To share the highest love. (And, by the way,
It helps to choose a lover who can count.)
— Robert Browning

‘Tis mystery that fires the crucial spark,
So make him wait–and keep him in the dark.
— Milton’s blindness

*****

Max Gutmann writes: “A reader of Light Quarterly (the marvellous Light back in its days as a print journal) was so offended by a poem of mine ridiculing a lousy president that he cancelled his subscription. Beloved editor John Mella forwarded a copy of the note to me. It was a sonnet! I’d never thought I could inspire a sonnet. I had a ways to go before rivaling Laura or the Dark Lady, but I’d taken the first step. That inspired this poem.

“John declined the poem, so it first appeared in a journal that didn’t specialize in light verse, one highly thought of. (Digging it out now, I see that contributors to the issue the poem appeared in included, among others I admire, Updike, Espaillat, Turner, Gioia, and Hadas.) But the journal goofed. They changed sonnetti dolci to sonnetti dolce (plural noun, singular adjective). This must have been a typo, I imagined, but when I asked, the chief editor not only admitted the change had been intentional, but defended the decision. Dolce being the more familiar form, he argued, it was reasonable to make the change without consulting the writer. I never sent them anything again

“This story calls for a shout-out to Jerome Betts, who reprinted ‘How to Inspire a Sonnet’ in Lighten Up Online (LUPO). (To avoid the impression that Jerome is less than meticulous about acknowledgements–or about anything–I should make clear that I asked him not to acknowledge the earlier journal, and I didn’t name it for him.) Jerome, like most editors I’ve worked with, always asks before making changes–and his proposed changes are usually improvements, often big ones!”

Editor’s note: This poem suggests what might be appropriate ways to inspire sonnets, according to the subjects of sonnets: Petrarch’s Laura, Shakespeare’s Dark Lady, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Robert and Milton’s blindness. Self-referentially, the poem is itself a Shakespearean sonnet, written in response to being the subject of a sonnet. Gutmann is therefore both sonneteer and sonnetee, and has the credentials to write a “How to –“

Max Gutmann has worked as, among other things, a stage manager, a journalist, a teacher, an editor, a clerk, a factory worker, a community service officer, the business manager of an improv troupe, and a performer in a Daffy Duck costume. Occasionally, he has even earned money writing plays and poems.

Photo: “IMG_0323C Frans Wouters. 1612-1659. Antwerp. The rural concert. 1654. Dole” by jean louis mazieres is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Using form: simple, classical: Sara Teasdale, ‘May Day’

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A delicate fabric of bird song
Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
Is everywhere.

Red small leaves of the maple
Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
The pear trees stand.

Oh I must pass nothing by
Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
The grass with my touch;

For how can I be sure
I shall see again
The world on the first of May
Shining after the rain?

*****

Sometimes clean and simple is best for capturing the uncomplicated emotion of appreciating nature. Sara Teasdale in her element. As Louis Untermeyer commented on her verse: its “beauty is in the restraint” of its “ever-present though never elaborated theme.”

Photo: “Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens May 2022 18” by Timelapsed is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.