Tag Archives: life

Len Krisak, ‘A Life’

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The streets, albeit not with gold, were paved,
The path both broad and even; wide the way
And easy, with no uniform to don.
By almost nothing was he put upon.
Old age had been foreseen, and so he saved,
The modicum matched with its rainy day.
The sheets were clean, as were the neat clothes worn
From bawling babe, to teen, to man, and on.
Few were the oaths required to be sworn,
And almost nothing had been sacrificed,
Or found worthwhile, or worth the dying for.
As to the depredations brought by war,
None had been undergone. All things sufficed,
Since almost nothing crucial had been needed.
Yes, easy, broad, and even, he conceded,
Though through it all, what all of it had meant
He couldn’t say. No, not in any event.

*****

Len Krisak writes: “the speaker, slightly morose (?), confesses both to a life of no particular hardship and to an inability to decide on the meaning or quality of such an existence.”

‘A Life’ was first published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

Len Krisak’s translation of the Aeneid appeared in 2016. His translation of the Inferno will be out from Routledge in September, as will his own poems, Magpie. The past winner of the Richard Wilbur and Robert Frost prizes, he is a four-time champion on Jeopardy!

“empty suits” by paul goyette is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Sonnet: Paul Burgess, ‘Sea Turtles’

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The cruelest welcome party greets their birth.
Instead of feeding at a mother’s teat,
they’re stretched upon a table for the mirth
of birds and crabs that hunger for their meat.
No time for toddling, sprinting from the first,
the lucky reach a second party where
their thinning band of comrades is immersed
in pools of creatures glad to eat them rare.

The world’s so honest with them from the start —
no lullabies, no fairy tales believed,
no revelation of the brutal part,
no sudden grief at having been deceived.
They learn so young of running for one’s life
to earn the chance to swim in seas of strife.

*****

Paul Burgess writes: “Even though I’ve spent much of my adult life far from the ocean, my hometown is Hilton Head Island, which is a barrier island off the southern part of the U.S.’s East Coast. There are many provisions there to protect the loggerhead sea turtle nesting sites and to avoid disturbing the hatchlings scrambling to get to the ocean. However, even when humans refrain from making things worse, the reality of what the turtles face from the second they hatch is one of the bleakest existential scenes nature has ever produced. The image and its symbolic potential suddenly hit me one day out of the blue, and I had to write this poem.”

‘Sea Turtles’ was originally published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

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/

“seagull eating baby turtle” by maveric2003 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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.