Tag Archives: life

Ballade: Gail White, ‘After the Opera’

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Although we came in hopes to find
the most amazing staging yet,
the final act still filled the mind
with all the trappings of regret.
Although the happy lovers met
with joyous singing – hers and his –
we’ve seen from Carmen to Cosette
how sad the ending always is.

Why do we cry for womankind,
for Tosca on the parapet,
for Butterfly, her love declined,
for Manon and for Juliet?
Haven’t we seen the sweetest pet
fall victim to the wily Wiz?
Haven’t we seen – from death to debt –
how sad the ending always is?

The villain always lurks behind
the arras, holding out the net
that will entrap the golden hind,
the mark of arrows ready set.
At first we didn’t feel the threat;
we never thought our hopes a chiz,
But now we’ve learned our alphabet:
How sad the ending always is!

But pour champagne, my friends, and let
the golden bubbles rise and fizz!
For just a moment we’ll forget
how sad the ending always is.

*****

Gail White writes: “It was Barbara Loots who called my attention to the fact that the plots of many operas could end with the words “and then she dies.”  Being an opera heroine is almost always fatal.  My first poem on this theme was a short one,  “Opera Rondeau”.  Then it occurred to me that the same idea would support a ballade.  Writing this was fun, as finding enough rhymes for “is” pushed me into the realm of slang.  And, of course, life is indeed a process of finding happy distractions from an inevitable tragic ending.”

‘After the Opera’ was first published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

Gail White is a widely published Formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light. Her new chapbook, Paper Cuts, is out on Amazon or from Kelsay Books. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats.

“This picture makes me happy” by James Jordan is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Sonnet: John Gallas, ‘Ascension Sonnet’

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you can’t unload the caravan for one lame donkey

It’s six a.m. We’re swarming up a drain.
Someone up the front knows what we’re doing.
Me and Tich are flying up the flueing.
Snap! My leg falls off. You can’t complain:
you can’t expect an army on the trail
of half a dog and sugar-sick to stop
and say Oh dear, Goodbye. I squirm and flop
along the gutter’s edge. A wizened snail
laced up in cobwebs grins across the slime.
I hear a million footsteps fading. Tich!
The sun smacks like a snare-drum. Life’s a bitch.
My head goes dry. I’m running out of Time.
I climb a twig to face the Ant Unknown.
We have to face our last few pricks alone.

*****

John Gallas writes: “Ascension: a slightly cruel Proverb to modern ears, but of course often the case as we all bustle forwards in life. The sad demise of this Ant is done in a cod-Existential drama, and tries to mix some black humour with the Final Stand (even with a leg missing). The also-once-left-behind snail a warning to us all. Who knows how Ants talk, but they are sociable, so …”

Ascension Sonnet is one of the 100 sonnets collected in The Coalville Divan (part of John Gallas’ ‘Star City’ from Carcanet), which use as their beginnings Persian Proverbs from the Wisdom of the East series by L.P. Elwell-Sutton.

John Gallas, Aotearoa/NZ poet, published mostly by Carcanet. Saxonship Poet (see www.saxonship.org), Fellow of the English Association, St Magnus Festival Orkney Poet, librettist, translator and biker. 2025 Midlands Writing Prize winner. Presently living in Markfield, Leicestershire. Website is www.johngallaspoetry.co.uk which has a featured Poem of the Month, complete book list, links and news.  

“Trail of Ants” by McLevn is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Tom Vaughan, ‘Stuff Happens’

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Bad stuff happens.
Some survive
but it’s a risky business
being alive.

Good stuff happens
too – though don’t
count on it lasting
long. It won’t.

*****

Tom Vaughan writes: “Stuff Happens was of course part of a remark by US Secretary of Defense/Defence Donald Rumsfeld in 2003 in response to widespread looting in Baghdad following the US/US military ‘intervention’. Although I wrote the poem on the eve of the current war in the Middle East, it was intended as a more general comment on what a long-ago Roman called the nature of things, in personal as much as in global affairs.”

‘Stuff Happens’ was first published in Snakeskin.

Tom Vaughan is not the real name of a poet whose previous publications include a novel and three poetry pamphlets (A Sampler, 2010, and Envoy, 2013, both published by HappenStance; and Just a Minute, 2024, from Cyberwit). His poems have been published in a range of poetry magazines, including several of the Potcake Chapbooks and frequently in Snakeskin and Lighten Up Online. He currently lives in Brittany.
https://tomvaughan.website

Photo: “Stuff Happens” by Chris Piascik is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

RHL, ‘Fifty Year Argument: Old Fool, Young Twit’

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1. To Myself in Fifty Years Time

Old fool!  You really think yourself the same
As I who write to you, aged 22?
Ha!  All we’ve got in common is my name:
I’ll wear it out, throw it away,
You’ll pick it up some other day….
        But who are you?

My life’s before me; can you say the same?
I choose its how and why and when and who.
I’ll choose the rules by which we play the game;
I may choose wrong, it’s not denied,
But by my choice you must abide….
        What choice have you?

If, bored, I think one day to see the world
I pack that day and fly out on the next.
My choice to wander, or to sit home-curled;
Each place has friends, good fun, good food,
But you sit toothless, silent, rude….
        And undersexed!

Cares and regrets of loss can go to hell:
You sort them out with Reason’s time-worn tool.
Today’s superb; tomorrow looks as well:
The word “tomorrow” is a thrill,
I’ll make of mine just what I will….
        What’s yours, old fool?

2. Reply to Myself – Fifty Years Later

Young twit! You really think we’re not the same?
That means you’re too young to extrapolate.
You’re the mere seed of what I since became:
    a husband, father, game creator,
    global skills facilitator…
        well paid; thought great!

You claimed to thrive, renting some garbage heap;
you travelled: hitchhiked, froze, thought life’s a bitch,
and ate whatever you could find that’s cheap;
    I travel too, and I eat well,
    and choose to sleep in a hotel…
        not in a ditch!

Your search for happiness was excellent;
you lived with several countries, faiths and girls,
though little lasted from those years you spent;
    for when you can’t tell love from lust
    and never work out who to trust…
        of course life whirls!

Your limited perspective proved a sham.
Your rude invective, though a load of shit,
helped fertilise my growth to what I am.
        My resumé –kids raised, loves gained,
        a business built –shows much attained…
            what’s yours, young twit?

*****

I was proud of the form I created when I wrote the first bratty poem, with both the rhyme scheme (abaccb) and the lines getting shorter (3 pentameter, 2 tetrameter, and a dimeter) contributing to the effect of each stanza ending with a punchline. But after I wrote that first poem to my future self at age 22, I was nagged by the need to respond as I got older; and I was never able to produce anything I liked. Finally, a full 50 years later, I produced the 72-year-old’s point by point rebuttal in the same form as the original. The original took a couple of hours over two days to write; the response was done in a couple of hours in one day.

The argument was first published in Snakeskin.

The illustration is one of Tenniel’s for Lewis Carroll’s “You are old, Father William“. And, yes, I still do headstands.

Ekphrastic verse: Wendy Videlock, ‘Before You Put Your Armor On’

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Each morning when you wake to put
your armor on, remember this:
all the world’s a spinning stage,

all the world’s a carnival—
and though it doesn’t have your back
or love the cover of your book

all the world’s a turning page.
Just when you thought the minstrels, fools
and dragon cats had lost their way

inside the inflammation age,
they shed the husks of self defense
and enter stage, not from the right

or from the left, but from behind.
They sneak right up and inch ahead
into the distance of your mind.

The sun will melt. The moon will find
your part has not yet been assigned.
You blink, and take your armor off.

The lights will blaze before they dim.
It’s not a sham. It’s not a con.
The curtain falls. Show must go on.

*****

The illustration is ‘Not Dancing’ by Marina Korenfeld, and was the subject of Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2026. Wendy Videlock’s response, ‘Before You Put Your Armor On’, was selected as the Rattle Editor’s Choice.

Wendy Videlock lives on the Western Slope of the Colorado Rockies. Her work appears widely and her books are available wherever books are sold. Her upcoming book, Desert Kin, will appear in August, 2026.

Isabella Hsu, ‘Villanelle of Quiet Desperation’

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Frustration’s edge is finer than you thought:
life sinks its teeth in you in little ways.
No, nothing ever works the way it ought.
 
There is no coffee in the coffee pot.
The milk’s gone bad; you suffer more delays.
Frustration’s edge is finer than you thought.
 
You want a break. This wasn’t what they taught
in school. Your life is one unending maze
where nothing ever works the way it ought.
 
The tie you wear to work’s a gordian knot
you can’t untie until you get a raise.
Frustration’s edge is finer than you thought.
 
You held out hope (which never gave you squat).
Your father died without a word of praise.
No, nothing ever works the way it ought.
 
Your kids don’t look like you; your nerves are shot.
You’re not a person but a paraphrase.
Frustration is the only thing you’ve got.
Things never work the way you think they ought.

*****

Isabella Hsu writes: “The process of writing formal poetry is always fascinating. It is a seemingly cooperative act: the form makes its demands, I acquiesce as far as I am able, it responds. In the case of a repeating form, I’m always looking for ways to ensure the repetend carries more and more weight every time it is repeated. What better choice than the villanelle for expressing the minor falls and failures of everyday life?”

‘Villanelle of Quiet Desperation’ was originally published in Poems for Persons of Interest

Isabella Hsu is a poet from Southern California. Her poems and essays have appeared in Poems for Persons of Interest, New Verse Review, and The San Diego Reader among others. Her poem “The Young Man at Nain” was included in The Colosseum Book of Contemporary Narrative Verse.
https://isabellahsu.substack.com/

“Aargh” by Peanuts Reloaded is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Sonnet: Ernest Hilbert, ‘Friends of the Library Sale’

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It’s fallen half apart, a derelict.
The gatherings have sprung, the boards detached,
The spine perished, folding maps cut out.
The title page is splotched with ink and nicked
At the edge, the author’s homely portrait scratched—
A splash of beer, faint thumbmarks all about—
Discarded once, but now it’s yours. It lives,
Like you, diminished now by age and loss.
And so, it brings the breeze, the autumn sun,
The creaking door that with a push still gives
The afternoon, the birds and clouds, grass, moss,
The world still new, the journey not begun,
The path curling from sight in the soft glow
Of a fading day—and you, prepared to go.

*****

Ernest Hilbert writes: “I am a rare book dealer, so I spend my days surrounded by books. I love all kinds of books, and I have a particular affection for books no one seems to want but which are, nonetheless, worthwhile. There are, after all, far more books than there are readers. When a book is taken home, adopted, as it were, it finds a new life. Each book one acquires is, in its way, a hedge against the future, a small hope one might some day find the time to read it. When a book is read for the first time, however old it is, however many times it has been read before, it becomes a new book. The structure of the poem is designed to express this sense of renewal and hope, the litany of degradation and wear, the sense of hopelessness, one finds in the octave redeemed, after the volta, in the sestet. 

“I intended to communicate that sense of excitement I still feel when I first open a book, but I likely also had in mind Benjamin Franklin’s mock epitaph, written when he was 22, which begins “The Body of B. Franklin Printer / Like the Cover of an old Book / Its Contents torn out . . .” Finally, I must admit that there are few places I find myself happier than at a promising friends of the library book sale.”

*****

‘Friends of the Library Sale’ was originally published in The Sonneteer.

Ernest Hilbert was born in 1970 in the city of Philadelphia and educated at Rutgers and Oxford Universities. He is the author of the poetry collections Sixty Sonnets, All of You on the Good Earth, Caligulan—selected as winner of the 2017 Poets’ Prize—Last One Out, and Storm Swimmer, winner of the 2022 Vassar Miller Prize. He works as a rare book dealer in Philadelphia. Visit him at www.ernesthilbert.com

Photo: “Journey” by ~Matt LightJam {Mattia Merlo} is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Sonnet variation: Marcus Bales, ‘Detective Story’

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“Have you ever thought, Holmes, all we are
Is one long tube around which are attached
As very mixed a cluster of bizarre
Accessories as ever were mis-matched
To move about to gain the wherewithal
To hunt and gather what it needs to eat
From things that grow or swim or fly or crawl,
And change them into matter to excrete?”
“Certainly, dear Watson — that’s a trope
That humankind has puzzled over, now,
And through the eons we’ve had love and hope,
And all philosophy’s no more than how,
Through grasping and digesting, we can cope
With nature’s discontents and discontentery.
You’ve heard me say it, Watson — it’s alimentary.”

*****

Marcus Bales writes: The Human Alloy

I’ve heard a lot of other poets say
   “This poem took me many years to write,”
And never understood, until today,
   What that was like, but now I think I might.

I heard the joke in second grade, or third,
   And didn’t get it. Nothing there for me
Who’d never heard of Sherlock Holmes, absurd
   As classmates made my ignorance out to be.

I read the books and stories then of course
   And hated Holmes’s bullying and sneers
At poor old Dr. Watson, so the source
   Of humor there eluded me for years.

Bit by bit, I finally came around
   To see superiority as fine
And feel such arrogance was something sound.
   You never heard such sneers and snarks as mine.

There’s nothing I would not pretend to know
   Nothing I had no opinion on
No lacerating length I would not go
   To show that all were ducks but I, a swan.

Until at length I came to read Ayn Rand
   Whose heroes do and say such nasty scat
That even I could finally understand
   The breach of faith it is to be like that.

And flawed, addicted Holmes no longer seems
   The snarling height of genius on its throne
Pursuing all the best of human dreams,
   But just another man almost alone.

And it’s by Watson’s decency we gauge
   Cooperation making common sense
Without which Holmes’s self-destructive rage
   Would flail against the world without defense.

My view of Holmes and Watson rounds at last
   To my acceptance of the central hoax
Of life: it’s only teamwork that can cast
   The human alloy. That and silly jokes.

*****

Not much is known about Marcus Bales, except he lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and his work has not appeared in Poetry or The New Yorker. His latest book is 51 Poems; reviews and information at http://tinyurl.com/jo8ek3r

“sherlock-holmes-thomas-watson” by JARS / JMPC / HN is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Sonnet: Marcus Bales, ‘This Bar’

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In the middle of their movie each arrives
Smiling in this gutter, still the stars
Of broad moments in their narrow lives.
They tell of other people, other bars,
Other husbands, lovers, friends, and wives,
Re-writing both their pleasures and their scars;
How one thing given up another strives
To get; how what one shines another tars
With one of the varieties of hate.
But here the villain is a dead-end job
Or marriage, or failing kids; it would be great
If Yankees, Nazis, drug lords, or The Blob  
Were why we’re lost, or losing, or alone –
But here the tales and failures are our own.

*****

Marcus Bales writes: “The bar culture was a mystery to me. For much of the western developed world, though, it seems central to the human experience. The only reason I went to bars for a long time was to see a performer, and then only for that. The genes for enjoying intoxication and for enjoying the taste of alcohol seem to have missed me. I’d have a soft drink, enjoy the show, and go home. I thought bars were noisy theaters full of fairly rude people who were missing the point of the entertainment. Yeah, well. 

“As usual in these sorts of tales, it was a woman who showed me I had mistaken the whole thing. 

“When I met Linda ‘going out’ for me meant a poetry reading. Linda’s idea of a good time was a fried baloney sandwich and a few glasses of wine at a bar. After a couple poetry readings we went to bars. And while everyone at a poetry reading has a story, they are there to tell those stories, often in the kind of detail, physical, mental, and emotional, that can be pretty harrowing. A  poetry reading is more like therapy than a lot of therapy. 

“The stars of the show, the featured readers, do not, for the most part, mix with the common folk of the open mic. Most of the time the feature readers come late, perform, and leave, giving no one a chance to chat with them or get to know them. There is a distinct class system, and if the performer is known more than locally, those exalted folks prefer to be kept separate from the audience, deigning to meet only a selection of the organizer’s favored few friends in a private room beforehand. You can judge your status in the local hierarchy by whether you are never, sometimes, or often invited to be in that room. 

“In bars, though, you can talk to anyone and everyone, if you’re willing. Well, middle-class bars, anyway. Dive bars are a whole other phenomenon. But in middle-class bars people talk to the people around them, and listen to one another, and drink. And talk some more. And drink. The point is the social drinking, the freeing-up, the letting-down. And for a collector of stories it’s a gold mine. 

“I still have a soft drink, but if you tip well you can get it served to look like it’s alcoholic. And you can remember what people said, afterwards.”

Not much is known about Marcus Bales, except he lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and his work has not appeared in Poetry or The New Yorker. His latest book is 51 Poems (which includes ‘This Bar’); reviews and information at http://tinyurl.com/jo8ek3r

Photo: “Down Drinking at the Bar” by swanksalot is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Lindsay McLeod, ‘Harvest’

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There’s just so many nows in forever
if we’re apart or together as one,
we’d better cherish them all if we’re clever
make the most of our time in the sun,

‘coz it’s where we are led whether up or in bed
there’s one funeral we all must attend,
because somewhere ahead the sea kisses the sky
and the name of that place is the end.

*****

Lindsay McLeod writes: “‘Harvest’ was made as an end piece for the second book I wrote for my daughter.” It was originally published in Grand Little Things.

Lindsay McLeod currently lives by the sea on the Southern edge of the world, where he trips over the offing every morning. He has been published here and there in the past and won a few awards. He has started messing about with words again lately after a few necessary years away. You might expect him to know better by now, but oh no.

Photo: “Another Timor Sea sunset from Casuarina Beach, Darwin, NT, Australia” by Geoff Whalan is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.