A rollerback and ballpoint, smartly standing inside the holder, flash their dignity. Illegible and lengthy roughwork, scrawled on sheets, hint at a poem still expanding or old stuff being polished thoroughly. Upon this cropland, labour’s never stalled.
Two well-stacked books of minstrels from the past refill this poet’s mental inventory when it’s devoid of stock. Some letters, furled and kept inside his drawer tell: he’s amassed a tonne of publications and the glory extended by the literary world.
Some white scrunched pages in the waste bin say discontent looms at times. The gooseneck lamp confesses how it stayed up with him through the nights bereft of words. What takes away such great distress? What remedy revamps his mind? Perhaps the ashtray gives a clue.
*****
‘A Poet’s Desk’ was originally published in Orbis.
Shamik Banerjee is a poet from Assam, India. He currently resides in Gurgaon, Haryana. Some of his recent publications include Spelt, Ink Sweat & Tears, St. Austin, San Antonio Review, Sheepshead Review, The Trinity Review, Third Wednesday, and Amethyst Review among others. He secured second position in the Southern Shakespeare Company Sonnet Contest, 2024, and was nominated for the Best of the Net by Flapper Press.
“Jansen, you gotta wear gloves when you work on the grinder. You want hurt yourself?” And then Kaczmarek looked down at Frank’s left hand. He saw the scar before the boy could jerk his arm away. “It’s nothing. An accident is all, ya know?” He’d done it Sunday night. Sometimes the burning made you feel alright when you were getting lonely. He had meant to do it somewhere hidden, but it felt good, the old man noticing like he had. That’s probably how it was to have a dad— he’d hit your backside with a leather belt when you were a little shit, but he’d care if you were hurt. He’d even stroke your hair.
*****
Alex Rettie writes: “Protection” was first published in the Summer 2026 issue of Nimrod International, edited by Boris Dralyuk. It’s part of an as-yet unpublished manuscript called “The Triangles,” which follows the lives of two gay men (including Frank, the speaker of the poem) and a nun (the former teacher of one of the men).”
Alex Rettie is a Calgary poet who has been published in print and online journals in Canada, Australia, the UK and the US. He co-edits the online poetry journal Poems for Persons of Interest (https://pfpoi.blogspot.com/). You can find more of his work on Substack at https://poemsforpoi.substack.com/.
At six o’clock, I wake, And plod down to the kitchen table In time to greet the sun, And hear the news on cable But focus on my sugar flakes; I don’t watch it none.
At eight, I hit the tees— I’m done faster without a foursome— And watch the wheeling hawks— At times, the game is boresome— And leave the club at ten oh three, In time for business talks.
At three, I call my mom, Who asks keenly about my meetings; I don’t have much to say. She wants to know I’m eating; I tell her yes to keep her calm. We do this every day.
At six I disconnect And meet friends at my favorite diner And drink a single glass. At eight, in my recliner, I grab my clicker to select The way the time will pass.
By nine, I’m back in bed, My teeth brushed and my body showered. The bed is soft and deep, My screens unplugged, unpowered. The pillow yields beneath my head. At four, I fall asleep.
*****
Narcisse Tardif writes: “I watch some crime documentaries here and there, and I’m struck whenever the murderer or would-be murderer just seems like a normal person. I wanted to use my poem to explore what life could be like for a “normal-person” murderer who got away with it. OJ was a big inspiration, but the poem is not meant to just be a retelling of the OJ story.
“The form is an ad hoc invention. I liked the double stress of “plod down” because of its evocative nature, so I built the second line around that, using a trochaic substitution in the second foot of each second line. The rest of the form is meant to be somewhat conversational, mimicking the ebb and flow of daily life, with some variation here and there, but the repetition of the exact form in every stanza still leaves enough sameness to evoke routine. I don’t know whether you have a policy regarding overexplaining poems on your blog, but the line about drinking a single glass is supposed to be a hint, as well as the more obvious sleepless night. On a more subtle note, the complete absence of a romantic partner is a bit of subtext throughout the whole poem.”
Narcisse Tardif self-describes as “Poet grappling with the ironies and incongruities of heartbreak, religion, meditation, and mortality. I write mostly in English, but also in French and sometimes other languages. First person ≠ autobiographical.”
What hovers above condenses below And the vagus nerve has wonders to show: Mill of the belly, invisible grind Slick convolutions sculpt all they find Smooth muscle contracts around traveling scat As sensual as the yawn of a cat. An abdominal chorus—how it gurgles! Saturn’s own voice, corruptly fertile. Cells split and shimmy, chromosomes boil Identity settles, signed with a coil,
Written in meat’s salty alphabet. Pulsing skin shimmers, scented and wet. Eyeballs disguised writhe over a dream. Our rubbery hearts, the genitals’ steam Carbon dioxide’s vegetable tang Ancient green song all vertebrates sang Wet from the lick of valence’s tongue. Leaping or lurching down star light’s descent Trailing our dreams and our excrement. From acids and stink the soul forges land: Thoughts in our heads, and work in the hand.
*****
Elizabeth Hurst writes: “Below” was inspired by the concentration of nerves in our guts that functions as a second brain, the alchemical axiom “As above, so below” & “Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement” from Yeats’s Crazy Jane poem.”
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.
“The strong survive, and all of that,” he’d tell the limply dangling cloth between his beak, a former moth, but doesn’t sense the lunging cat,
who doesn’t think the wheels that run consider cats their proper prey. Yet, now he’s just a dead display beneath the slowly dying sun.
Who knows if later down the road that truck won’t strike a rotting tree and bring to bear on top of me its paralyzing wooden load?
Though like a reel of comic scenes, it’s also how our stories go: the endings are the same, we know, but brought about by varied means.
*****
Paul Burgess writes: “Earlier in the summer, a bird appeared in front of me casually holding a dying moth and looking almost cheerful. The encounter got me thinking about deaths that come suddenly, without malice, and without much meaning to the creatures or things that have caused them. I can’t say exactly why, but some combination of my mood and the circumstances made the sight more vivid and significant to me than it might have been on another day.”
‘Another Old, Familiar Story’ was first published in Snakeskin.
Paul Burgess is the sole proprietor of a business in Lexington, Kentucky that offers ESL classes in addition to English, Japanese, and Spanish-language translation and interpretation services. He has recently contributed work to The Road Not Taken, Blue Unicorn, Light, The Orchards, Pulsebeat, Snakeskin, Lighten Up Online, and several other publications. https://paulburgesswritingandlanguage.blog/
From forefathers’ farmstead hunger me hounded With woman and bairns and some wretched remains: Leaping alone on the deep, our boat bounded Away from the homeland of Angles and Danes.
For days the deck dandled on wastes of grey water, And shivered and shook in the growl of a gale While sea monsters daunted my wife and my daughters And I drew deep draughts from an ox-horn of ale.
The strong ones – the heroes – they breasted and braved Those terrible fathoms of fearfullest depth, And steadily steered us through wind and through wave While cursing all cowards, disdainful of death.
But Njord sent a silver-winged gannet to guide us. Impatient for cornlands by weal or by war, We raced with the wind and the sunrise behind us, And sure was our way to a grey wooded shore.
On the flood, up a watercourse muddily canting Through marshes where mist devils wreathed among reeds, Where pastures awaited our ploughing and planting We oared ourselves bravely, emboldened by need.
But furtive eyes followed our struggle upstream As we ventured our vessel in menacing silence. The landscape seemed empty, yet sometimes the gleam Of a blade in the coverts of blackthorn spoke violence.
Whoever they were, they were ready for raiders; And we, to contest our new home to the last. Still no-one molested, still no-one waylaid us. At length we approached apprehensive, and passed,
As we warily, wearily rieved up the river, A barrack abandoned, a half-ruined hall. Within arrow’s reach but wavering never While Britons looked on from those broken-down walls
Some long-vanished Legion had left there, and stared From their crumbling defences of rubble and stones. We were outnumbered, but though we prepared For foray or ambush, they left us alone.
Where the shallows gave out and we grounded the keel At a bend in the vale, shipped oars and dropped sail, An auspicious white egret wheeled over the field Where we sit by this hearth where I tell you this tale.
So here we sowed barley, roots, rye and wheat; Brewed strong Saxon beer, baked good Saxon bread; Our sheep grazed and grew, gave us wool, milk and meat. Brides were my daughters for Britons – both wed
Sons of the tribe we had troubled when first Setting foot on their dale in that dangerous dawn. Then you came along, with lungs fit to burst, Your grandfather’s joy from the day you were born.
Well, we followed the fashion for Cross and for Christ, Acknowledged His kingship to keep a calm life, Forswore the old gods, and got us baptised. I bowed to His will when He took my young wife….
Your grandmother’s happy in heaven, they say, Spinning and weaving a wool of pure gold Where angels sit feasting and drinking all day. Another turf on the fire, boy, these evenings are cold.
Yes, I, a dull peasant, she thought me so grand, Me, shy of adventure and frightened of pain…. But these fields were fertile, four cows bore my brand, And I, a true Saxon, lived up to my name
Of Earth-Brother. They’ll tell you in our mother tongue That heroes are warlike, wield swords, win more land, Yet I was content among swine and their dung. The ploughshare I chose; but, boy, understand:
All-Fatherly fortune has favoured my choice. You wonder, wide-eyed, would I do it again? The ocean, the fear? Hear an old voice: The heart in the breast of my broodiest hen
Beats brave as the heart of a hero – but then, No courage is needed to counter the new. Heroes are merely a notion of men. The future must happen; will happen to you.
*****
Martin Briggs writes: “Saxon” began as an experiment. I wanted to think myself into the frame of mind of men forced by circumstances to seek out and colonise new lands – a situation being re-enacted tragically today in response to environmental and other pressures. The heavy alliteration reflects the Anglo-Saxon predilection for the same, and the persistent rhythm is intended to convey a sense of bardic tradition.”
“Saxon” was first published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal. This version has been subject to very minor revision.
Martin Briggs only began writing in earnest after retiring from a career in public administration, since when his work has appeared in a variety of periodicals and formats on both sides of the Atlantic. He regards form, rhyme and metre as a liberating force rather than a constraint, and as a means of perpetuating a tradition which is as old as poetry itself. He lives in Suffolk, a part of England where Anglo-Saxons settled quite densely.
The inside of the collar’s badly frayed; the pink and sky-blue stripes began to fade a while ago. I’ve worn it for twelve years, she wore it for a few, and it appears it might not last much longer. I’ll be sad to lose it, and to lose the sense I’ve had, each time I slip it on, that she would grin to see it on me. She was short and thin, I’m not, so when I wear it, I expose a bit of leg, while it reached to her toes. And she’d wear slippers with it, taking care they matched the robe; my bigger feet are bare. I put this robe on and I put on all the ways we differed—though I don’t recall we argued much. She listened to Garth Brooks, I favor Brahms; she was the best of cooks — those famous meatballs, cookies of all kinds — while takeout is my strength. Sometimes what binds two sisters may be each one’s readiness to be amused by her antithesis when it’s wrapped up in measureless affection — as I still feel wrapped up in our connection, and not just when I wear her robe. Although I’ll let it go soon, with regret, I know I won’t let go of her until the day the world lets go of me. Some things don’t fray.
*****
Jean L. Kreiling writes: “This poem is entirely autobiographical; my sister Susan’s premature death to brain cancer broke my family’s heart. Wearing her robe has been therapeutic—as was writing this poem—but I’ll miss her every day for the rest of my life.”
Jean L. Kreiling is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Home and Away (2025). 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.
What spurs me, in this breathing grave of coffee mouths and cheeks unshaved, to stand upon my chair and shout, “I’m out! I’m out
of this forever-widening coop where glumness, going on a loop, entraps, within its strangling mesh, the mind and flesh?”
I should be sitting by my table immersed in some sweet ancient fable or search, within some lyric verse, joy’s universe.
But here I am—jailed in a row of coffee mouths and heads that bow to despots (dressed in cotton coats) who grab our throats.
*****
Shamik Banerjee writes: “Written in a Cubicle took root in the very cubicle where I spend nine hours a day typing incessantly and passively listening to the heavy buzz of my colleagues. I know that this poem doesn’t carry an optimistic tone, but it is also true that this very cubicle helps me clear my bills. It was just one of those days when I felt like writing it. It was cathartic, I admit.”
Shamik Banerjee is a poet from Assam, India. He currently resides in Gurgaon, Haryana. Some of his recent publications include Spelt, Ink Sweat & Tears, St. Austin, San Antonio Review, Sheepshead Review, The Trinity Review, Third Wednesday, and Amethyst Review among others. He secured second position in the Southern Shakespeare Company Sonnet Contest, 2024, and was nominated for the Best of the Net by Flapper Press.
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.
Shouldn’t the moment be more–well, dramatic? Shouldn’t it toll like Donne’s dead-bell? But no. Mere paper-rustling. It’s a burst of static That stutters off to silence, while late snow Alights outside and melts forgettably, A numb reminder. Nothing I can see In the small print addresses dread, or God, Or love. Somber reflection? Not a bit. Forms in quadruplicate: White over yellow, pink, and goldenrod,
For a dead end. No hymns, no holiness– No funeral; every gathering spreads the plague. Perfunctory forms depress me, and they press Me now, because I’ve left so much so vague. When until now has dying loomed so real I shrank from my dead flesh? Or when did I feel This keen to leave less horror for my son And daughter? Save them shock-and-awe about Choices, when mine run out? I mutter grimly, I will get this done.
And still I sit here, playing my numbers game, Tossing my rhyme-pairs into the winds of fear. Back to the labor. Back to the minor shame Of shuffling off my life (check there, sign here). Earth gets my ashes–grudgingly, on terms That reek of real estate and legal firms. Transfer-on-death arrangements and new will Spew gray phrases: drone and drone and drone. Like worrying a bone, This work to stifle terrors I can’t kill.
So work–bending the spirit to the letter, Bowing the head at how the flesh unweaves– Goes down like a stiff drink; the ache’s no better Yet, for the iron aftertaste it leaves. Here, plague: take this dull prose; spare those I love. I sign at all the Xs (and to prove My resoluteness, press hard on the pen), Scribble the check and seal the envelope. Clinging weakly to hope, I thumb the stamp on. No one says Amen.
*****
Maryann Corbett writes: “It’s clear, I think, that this poem (first published in Modern Age) dates from the worst days of the Covid pandemic, in 2020 when there was no vaccine, when isolation was the only control, and when the thought of death was pervasive. As my own age cohort was dying in droves, I did think it prudent to make plans in case the worst happened. My ruminations on the process arranged themselves in a shape like that of Larkin’s Aubade.”
‘Buying a Plot in Plague Time’, first published in Modern Age, is collected in The O in the Air.
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.”
Form in Formless Times 