“How old are you?” she asked. “Too old,” I said;
“sadly, my youth is gone.”
She looked like wanting to move on, though wed;
I had no wish to be the one moved on.
*****
Published yesterday in The Asses of Parnassus – thanks, Brooke Clark!
“how dark how cold” by Stuti ~ is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
One day we’ll all be dead;
survival chances: slim.
So concentrate instead
on aspects you prefer:
“I’m winding down,“ he said,
“but not as fast as him.”
“Losing my looks,” she said,
“but not as fast as her.”
*****
Speaking as someone now in the 4th quadrant of my 1st century, what other options are there? Anyway, this was first published in the Asses of Parnassus – thanks, Brooke Clark!
“Old people party 2” by weldonwk is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
“Auden thought the triolet was too trivial a form to bother with…” –James Fenton
Practally dactally
W. H. Auden
Mastered his verse forms with
Scarcely a miss.
Some he found slight. There’s no
Abecedarius,
No triolet, and he
Didn’t write this.
*****
When I first started thinking about double dactyls I made a list of words and when I saw that James Fenton quote I knew I had a poem. I no longer recall what word got paired with Kevin E. Federline.
Reese Warner lives in Toronto and does things with computers for money. Reese’s poems have shown up in journals such as Asses of Parnassus, The Malahat Review, The Rotary Dial, The Dalhousie Review among others. For more information see http://pubs.reesewarner.com
Double Dactyl was first published in The Asses of Parnassus.
Photo: “W.H. Auden” by Cecil Beaton is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
A pounding beat to drug, enhance, enfold –
iambics are the dance floor of the old.
*****
Published in The Asses of Parnassus, home of “short, witty, formal poems”. Thanks, Brooke Clark!
Illustration: ‘Iambics’ by RHL and ChatGPT
Lust –
Thrust –
Bust –
Dust.
*****
One of the things that intrigues me is the way certain word endings fall into groups, evoke a common mood, sometimes seem to tell their own story. Some of these groups seem natural with overall positive “light, bright, flight, height, white” or negative “dusty, musty, fusty, gusty”; “bumble, crumble, grumble, fumble, stumble, tumble” connotations… but I acknowledge that with the first set I’m ignoring “blight, night, shite” and so on. Some seem random, especially perhaps when the different spellings suggest unrelated origins: “beauty, duty, fruity, snooty,” but still lead to a story.
Happily, I’m not alone in these idle thoughts. Melissa Balmain’s Tale of a Relationship in Four Parts comes to mind… and from Maz (Margaret Ann Griffiths) we have ‘The Drowning Gypsy’:
Flamboyant
Clairvoyant
Unbuo
o
o
o
o
y
a
n
t
Maz’s work is collected in ‘Grasshopper‘; Melissa Balmain’s poem is collected in ‘Walking in on People‘ from Able Muse Press; ‘Heart Attack’ was recently in The Asses of Parnassus.
Photo: “heart-attack” by Pixeljuice23 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
We met one night at a book launch,
we drank, we talked, we laughed,
I said, “I’m writing a novel,”
and you said, “Send me a draft.”
So I sent it to your address
hoping a well-placed word
from you would get me started;
I waited, but never heard.
Now you’ve published your latest
and the critics fellate you in print,
it’s a runaway bestseller
and Hollywood’s taken the hint.
I read it myself last weekend
and my entrails turned to stone—
my book, but so badly rewritten
you’d almost made it your own.
*****
Brooke Clark writes: “This two-liner by Martial (Epigrams I.38) is the basis of my poem:
quem recitas meus est, o Fidentine, libellus:
sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus.
(The book you’re reciting is mine, Fidentinus; but when you recite it badly, it begins to be yours.)
Originally read in Wheelock’s Latin, I think, when I was learning the language, this was one of the first versions of Martial I did that I was happy with. I obviously expanded it greatly (I hadn’t learned to appreciate Martial’s concision) but I liked the swingy rhythm and the treatment of it as a mini-narrative that I landed on. Also one of the first epigrams I published, in Light, which gave me some confidence that the project of turning ancient epigrams into contemporary poems might be worth pursuing.”
Brooke Clark is the author of the poetry collection Urbanities and has published work in Arion, Literary Imagination, THINK, The Walrus, LA Review of Books, and other places. He is also the editor of the online epigrams journal The Asses of Parnassus and the book reviews editor at Able Muse.
Twitter: @thatbrookeclark
Bluesky: @brookeclark.bsky.social
Photo: “Treasures of Ushaw Book Launch in Westminster” by Catholic Church (England and Wales) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
Suggesting,
questing,
testing;
contesting,
besting,
resting.
*****
Humans, in any culture, seem naturally attracted to quests; often to more than one at a time, and contradictory. Maybe the universe is just a playground for questing…
Published this week in The Asses of Parnassus. Thanks, Brooke Clark!
Photo: “”The victorious knight” Berry Brothers hard oil finish vanquishes the field and receives the guerdon of merit. (front)” by Boston Public Library is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Easy to be young and sassy;
add experience, and it’s classy.
*****
I have absolutely no idea what inspired this couplet. Be that as it may, it was published in The Asses of Parnassus in October – thanks, Brooke Clark!
Photo: “Cece 220223 (1)” by ceciliajaner is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Lots of marriage is good –
go ahead! We all should…
but bigamy sadly‘s illegal.
The solution, of course,
is: Encourage divorce!
And remarry. Kings do it. Be regal!
*****
Just published in The Asses of Parnassus – thanks, Brooke Clark!
Photo: “Charles Camilla Jamaica 2008” by Mattnad is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
The fig leaf symbol’s one of History’s greats
As, inter alia,
It hides, discloses and exaggerates
Male genitalia.
The fruit itself suggests the female form —
Dripping with honey
The little hole breaks open, pink and warm…
The Bible’s funny.
First published in The Asses of Parnassus, this poem was republished in Better Than Starbucks, which earned a “Kudos on your brilliant ‘The Fig Tree'” from Melissa Balmain, editor of Light. And it has now been added by Michael R. Burch to my page in The HyperTexts. That’s a wonderful set of editorial acceptances – it makes me proud, and I have to erase my lingering suspicion that the poem would be thought too rude for publication. Now I rate the poem more highly, as being not just a personal favourite but also acceptable to a wider audience.
It sometimes feels that all I write is iambic pentameter. It is always reassuring when a poem presents itself with half the lines being something else, and the result is a lighter, less sonorous verse. The rhymes are good; the poem’s succinct and easy to memorise. I’m happy with it.
Photo: “Ripe Fig at Dawn” by zeevveez is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Form in Formless Times 