Category Archives: Uncategorized

Melissa Balmain: ‘What I’ve Learned From Museums’

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I.

In centuries past,
women seldom moved fast,
preferring to spend
hours on end
staring at pools,
stretching on stools,
or sitting on swings.
Now and then, they had flings
and were equally stirred
by a man or large bird.
If they did need to race –
to hunt deer or outpace
vicious hordes – they took care
that their clothing and hair
would cover, at best,
one perky breast.

II.

For generations, men were super jacked,
no doubt because they wanted to distract
observers from the fact that nearly all
their nether parts were vanishingly small.

III

Kids used to be mini adults,
with often impressive results –
even fresh from the womb
they could light up a room
and preside over sizeable cults.

Other children (nude, not a bit shy)
were great archers. I wish we knew why
they would soon have their fill
of that valuable skill
and, sadly, forget how to fly.

*****

Melissa Balmain writes: “Obviously, the museums and exhibits referenced in this poem are a specific breed—several of which I visited last summer during a heat wave in Paris. (Travel tip: if you’re looking for Louvre-quality art, but you’re running low on Euros, check out the Petit Palais. Not only is it free, it’s air-conditioned.)”

First published in Lighten Up Online.

Melissa Balmain edits Light, North America’s longest-running journal of comic verse, and teaches writing at the University of Rochester.  Her poems and/or prose have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Ecotone, The Hopkins Review, Literary Matters, McSweeney’s, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Nimrod, Poetry Daily, and Rattle. Her latest book of poetry is Satan Talks to His Therapist (Paul Dry Books). 

Illustration: Boucher, François – Le Repos des nymphes au retour de la chasse, dit Le Retour de chasse de Diane – J 10 – Musée Cognacq-Jay

Ed Shacklee, ‘So We Beat Them’

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One limped a little, and another had a stammer,
one was cross-eyed, swarthy, and employed atrocious grammar;
so we beat them with a pipe, and then a club, and then a plier,
bending them like pretzels after binding them with wire,
sending trite condolences with tappings of a hammer.

One was far too clever, another drolly thick,
one was hyper, one disfigured by a nervous tic;
so we beat them with a tire iron, then aimed a rolling pin
at tender ribs, boxed their ears, and kicked them in the shin,
pretending we were sorry while we plied the heavy stick.

A fear of heights gripped one; one lived in mother’s cellar;
one, depressed, developed gout and had a pasty pallor;
so we beat them in a mixing bowl till minds were scrambled eggs,
safe and snug at home because we’d manacled their legs,
and lent our ears but didn’t hear their squalls amid the squalor.

One ignored the hoi polloi as they were mouthing curses,
one kept her nose in books and mumbled antiquated verses;
so we beat them with the crucifix, an ankh, and shepherd’s crooks,
painted them like prison walls and hoisted them on hooks,
and pent them on their merry way in gilded, garish hearses:

and when they got to heaven with its lovely rolling beaches,
their uniforms restarched and blanched to white with holy bleaches,
we beat them with a lightning rod, the hand of God, and thunder,
for only strikes against the flint can spark a soul to wonder.
There is no balm in Gilead but serpent oil and leeches.

*****

Ed Shacklee writes: “Trying to write poetry comes from reading the poems of others aloud, I think. It doesn’t seem to matter if you’re smart or eloquent, or not. I started mumbling to myself sometime after coming across William Meredith’s The Wreck of the Thresher, in which a poem ends, ‘There’s flowering, there’s a dark question answered yes.’ I can’t reproduce the experience here, and I doubt anyone can unless they’re as immature, unlettered, and blue as I was back then, but that resonated; the unspoken question that could be any question, the modest, unconditional yes, and the sudden flowering of that line. It shook something till it was almost awake. Arise and walk, I guess you could say. A while later I heard Meredith give a reading, and I regret that I was too tongue-tied in his presence to go up and thank him.”

‘So We Beat Them’ was first published in Rattle, #50 – Winter 2015

Ed Shacklee lives on a boat in the Potomac River. His first collection, “The Blind Loon: A Bestiary,” was published by Able Muse Press.

And for those who like odd information and representations of animals, The Blind Loon: A Bestiary Facebook group is worth joining.

“Zimbabwean police beats fleeing protester” by Sokwanele – Zimbabwe is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Michael R. Burch, ‘The Toast’

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For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and gray,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak and scarred and lone,
for seas reflecting distant suns
and weeds that thrive where seeds were sown,
for waltzes ending in a hush,
for rhymes that fade as pages close,
for flames’ exhausted, drifting ash,
and petals falling from the rose, …
I raise my cup before I drink,
saluting ghosts of loves long dead,
then silently propose a toast—
to joys set free, and those I fled.

*****

Michael R. Burch writes: “The genesis of “The Toast” was that as a college sophomore I was either in love with a girl, or had a serious crush on her, then blew my chance when it finally materialized. I was like Hamlet and Prufrock in lacking the ability to act decisively.

Also, my timing was terrible. The night she showed a sexual interest in me was the first night I ever got drunk, after celebrating a victory in a pool tournament with too many beers. I remember seeing her psychedelic panties, then nothing else. I must have passed out while making out. She was so pissed off that the next day she was dating a graduate student with a beard and a beer belly. I believe she ended up marrying him.

That sad episode explains my toast “to joys set free, and those I fled.”

I seem to remember submitting “The Toast” to a vanity press, before I realized there were such things as vanity presses. I even seem to remember it winning some sort of award: a commemorative coin or something like that. Not that it really matters. But I do think it’s one of my better early poems.

I wrote the original version of “The Toast” circa age 19 as a college sophomore. But I was never happy with the original opening lines:

For dreams descended into dust,
for love that lingered but a day,
for passion wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and grey, …

Many years later better opening lines occurred to me:

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and grey, …

So there is something to be said for never giving up on a poem and always being willing to improve it. I believe Valery said no poem is ever truly finished, the poets eventually give up. The trick is not to give up too soon.”

*****

The Toast’ was originally published by Contemporary Rhyme.

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.

“Making a toast” by Stimpdawg is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Elizabeth Hurst, ‘April’

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I have to admire their heartless lust
Performing with no emotional fuss,
And when it’s done, no flower cares
That its lover still sprawls bare
To bees and wind, to hummingbirds.
Petals don’t worry if they’re the third
Or fourth—it just doesn’t matter
After they’ve spread pollen’s splatter.
They live to turn their airy tricks.
No rumpled sheets, no mess to fix,
No wet spots stuck to sated thighs
And stamens aren’t concerned with size
Or any of our skillful lies
Or hearts destroyed as sorrows rise.
No flower mourns when another dies.

*****

‘April’ was first published in Snakeskin… in March.

Elizabeth Hurst is originally from Los Angeles and moved up to San Francisco many years ago. She lives out by the beach with her husband, Gerald Stack.

“April Flowers” by Jocey K is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Claudia Gary, ‘The Body’

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It catches up–sore teeth,
cramped neck or growing belly–
demanding our attention
once and for all. Beneath

a well-established brain,
above submissive toes,
the rest of it rebels
at our neglect, to gain

maybe not sympathy
but serious concern–
whatever is required
for us to stop and see

its loyalty. A steed
deserving of a gallop,
water and oats, in want
of love, it must be freed.

*****

Claudia Gary’s new book, Time and Other Solvents, will be available soon from Sligo Creek Publishing (See https://www.sligocreekpublishing.com/time-and-other-solvents). 

She lives near Washington DC and teaches workshops on Sonnets, Villanelles, Natural Meter, Persona Poems, Poetry vs. Trauma, etc., at The Writer’s Center (writer.org) and privately, currently via Zoom. Also the author of Humor Me (2006) and several chapbooks, most recently Genetic Revisionism, Claudia is an advisory editor for New Verse Review, as well as a science writer, visual artist, and composer of tonal art songs and chamber music. Her article about setting poems to music can be found online at  https://straightlabyrinth.info/conference.html. See also pw.org/content/claudia_gary.

‘The Body’ was first published in Amsterdam Quarterly

Photo: “The Old Cowboy” by Big Grey Mare is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Daniel Brown, ‘Lovely Ones’

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On some it will have not been lost
That lovely ones the world over
Expound, as part of their palaver,
On beauty’s costs—to take the most
Familiar, that they fear it’s never

Any but their outer traits
That captivate (a fear with cause)—
And yet consistently refuse
To speak of beauty’s benefits.
Perhaps because they’d sooner lose

Their loveliness, this company,
Than stand before the world and name
The gems that ever fall to them
For having it. Or possibly
A theory founded less on shame

Than mercy would be likelier:
That they refrain, these favored few,
From saying things that in their view
The rest could maybe bear to hear
But shouldn’t be required to.

*****

Daniel Brown writes: “This poem offers a couple of theories on why beautiful people don’t have much to say about the experience of being so. It appeared in The New Criterion, and in my collection What More?“

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 .

Photo: “Nature has the most beautiful colors (118/365)” by Tim Geers is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Valentine’s Day: Susan Jarvis Bryant ‘How Did You Woo Me? Let Me Count The Way’

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You didn’t sweep in on a snowy steed
Clad in armour buffed until it glittered –   
A shining knight of bright and mighty deed
Clutching ribboned gifts on which you’d frittered
A wad of dosh from coffers spilling splendour
To get your dazzled damsel to surrender.

You didn’t swing in on a torrid breeze  
With leopard-loincloth swagger and a smirk –  
A tawny Tarzan with a plan to seize  
His Jane from every predatory jerk  
Who prowled the concrete jungle for a chance
To whisk an ape-man’s darling off to dance.

You didn’t flounce in with a Darcy flourish 
Dripping in a nipple-clinging shirt,
Flushed from swimming with a need to nourish – 
An Austenesque Adonis hot to flirt
With she who fires the loins and kindles ire – 
That heady hex of angst and wild desire.

You didn’t breeze in with a crystal slipper –
A dishy prince of wit and pleasing means –
Keen to ogle toes and feeling chipper
Post dodging shrews in podgy-footed scenes
All fretting that their sweaty nether digits
Would fail to fit a sneaker made for midgets.

You didn’t burst in from the gale-whipped heights –
A fevered, black-eyed Heathcliff with a fetish
For ghouls who wuther through the squally nights –
Brash banshees with a smidgen of coquettish
To quell the hellish brooding of a beau
From moors where perished whores and ill winds blow.   

You didn’t float in cloaked in fanged mystique
With eyes aglitter in the gibbous moon –
A bold and batty beast of buff physique
With lust enough to make the bloodless swoon –
A peckish, gothic sucker at the beck
And call of maidens with a juicy neck.

You slid beneath my skin and lit my eyes
With beams of bliss that buoyed the bleakest day.
You hugged my heart. You rocked my lows to highs.   
You kissed my soul and stole my breath away.
No dreamy prose or rosy ream of rhyme
Can capture love that transcends tears and time. 

*****

First published in Snakeskin

Photo: “Vintage valentine” by seaside rose garden is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Valentine’s Week: Simon MacCulloch, ‘She’

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The people I know are an indistinct flow
The people I knew are a blur
No lover or wife in the drift of my life
No thoughts of such friends as there were.
But she, whether blessing or bane
Yes she, only she, will remain.

She took me to heart at the innocent start
She’ll take me again at the finish
No question of why, just a smile or a sigh
A memory no time can diminish.
She’s gone but she’s here all the same
Forever asserting her claim.

I don’t really care for the foul and the fair
The judgements of truth and of beauty
The rankings of love, the below, the above
The endless directions of duty.
For hers is an absolute essence
Whose value is simply its presence.

Return to your god or revert to the sod
Such outcomes are equally empty
Whatever damnation, whatever salvation
Her ownership serves to exempt me.
Wherever we go when we die
She’s there, so of course so am I.

The dancer’s the dance, the entrancer the trance
And all is as real as it seems
Her being’s persistence defines my existence
My life is the stuff of her dreams.
I ask for no more and no less
And she, only she, can say yes.

*****

Simon MacCulloch lives in London and contributes poetry to a variety of journals including Reach Poetry, View from Atlantis, Spectral Realms, Altered Reality, Aphelion and others.

‘She’ was originally published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

A goddess poem, not directly inspired by H Rider Haggard but perhaps reflecting a broadly similar romantic sentiment.

“Venus, Roman Goddess of Love” by 1way2rock is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Valentine’s Week: Elizabeth Hurst, ‘Hearts and Flowers’

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Genitals? They look like mouths
Splayed wide open to the south;
The backyard’s cool and scented tongues
Sing the lyrics of mud and dung.
They slobber pollen on the wind,
Obscenely, but without meat’s sin.
No lubricated pump and writhe
But floating leakage to contrive
Survival of their rooted kind,
Just letting loose to maybe find
Receptive innards gaping wide,
Exposing their perfumed insides
To dust from reproduction’s floor.
So why so sexy? Not called for
When all they need is neutral breeze
To engage in flowery sleaze
As one sweet self blows to another.
Most chaste of all the planet’s lovers
And we give them for Valentines
Along with silly little rhymes
To sanitize our sweaty humps,
And thickened fluids in a clump.
But all this grossness turns to joy:
The heart’s true love or blissful toy,
As sticky human lust conspires
To imitate the spring’s desires.

*****

Elizabeth Hurst writes: “This poem was inspired by the short California spring.”

‘Hearts and Flowers’ was originally published in Snakeskin.

Elizabeth Hurst is originally from Los Angeles and moved up to San Francisco many years ago. She lives out by the beach with her husband, Gerald Stack.

“Lady Orchid” by anataman is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Richard Fleming, ‘The Prayer’

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I remember the cold, high-ceilinged room
where they had laid him, the smell of incense,
brass coffin handles shining in the gloom,
an aspidistra, dusty and immense.

To this small boy dressed in a mourning suit,
he seemed reduced, much less than he once was:
his scalp, without his cap, bald as a coot,
his fingers criss-crossed on his chest like claws.

I thought back to the day we watched geese rise
high over wetlands blurred with morning haze,
the laughter always dancing in his eyes,
his warm, familiar smell, his turn of phrase.

Life is so short while memories are long.
We the bereaved are left with words unsaid.
At the day’s end, he’d sing a lulling song
as I rode his strong shoulders home to bed.

A prayer unbidden reached me on a whim:
Preserve in me the things I loved in him.

*****

Richard Fleming writes: “This is a shortened, rhyming version of a lengthy free verse poem that I wrote over thirty years ago when I relocated to Guernsey from Northern Ireland. Like many love poems, the original version, The Hidden Traveller, has stood the test of time. This version stands as a homage to its source.”

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