Márgarét, are you gríeving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves, líke the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! ás the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you wíll weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It ís the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.
Losing one glove is certainly painful, but nothing compared to the pain, of losing one, throwing away the other, and finding the first one again.
*****
Piet Hein’s original Danish version, ‘Trøstegruk’ reads: Den, som taber sin ene handske, er heldig i forhold til dén, der taber den ene, kasserer den anden . . . og finder den første igen.
Hein did his own translation into English (as he did with hundreds of his Grooks), and sacrificed word-for-word translation for the sake of keeping the rolling rhythm and the rhyme: the original’s word “lucky” has gone, the word “pain” is introduced to rhyme with “again”. I am glad to see a poet translating his own work, and keeping the versifying more important than the literal words. This is what poetry translation is all about, surely.
The poem has an interesting origin story: it was written right after Germany occupied Denmark in April 1940, and was published in the newspaper Politiken’s daily short poem spot. While it passed German censorship as a light comment on the vicissitude of things, the Danish resistance movement (which Hein was active in) spread it as graffiti across the country, a coded message with losing one glove representing losing freedom, and throwing away the second glove representing giving up your patriotism, collaborating, which you will eventually come to regret.
‘Consolation Grook’ was the first Grook published by Piet Hein. He had a rich and varied life, with an academic background in science, art and philosophy; he was a script writer, an inventor, a furniture designer, a game creator; someone Niels Bohr would bounce ideas off, a friend of Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, and the puzzle creator Martin Gardner. Piet Hein was married four times, and before you think that his personal life would have been like his very civilised grooks, I suggest reading about his tendency to violence and the questions it raises about the death of his fourth wife, the Swedish actress Gerd Ericsson: https://pershmail.substack.com/p/piet-heins-problems
I hear an army charging upon the land, And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees: Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand, Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers.
They cry unto the night their battle-name: I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter. They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame, Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.
They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair: They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore. My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair? My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?
***** James Joyce is a fascinating author, from his novels dense with ideas, descriptions and wordplay, to his grotesque private love letters, normal short stories and formal verse. This poem is the last of the 36 in his 1907 collection ‘Chamber Music’, and the one that I come back to the most. Apart from the imagery, I am intrigued by the unnatural rhyming of the first and third lines, and not the second and fourth, in each stanza: the form is unsettling, and works very well with the inverted reality of dreams and with the discomfort of these particular emotions swirling through fear, loss and loneliness.
It’s sad to lose a friend, you know, In bloom of youth, In healthy glow, Full of vigor, ethics, truth. It’s sad to lose that friend.
It’s sad to lose a friend of old, His fumbling brain, Old jokes retold, Full of misery, aches and pain. It’s sad to lose that friend.
But sadder still to lose a friend To politics, The ugly end. To hate and scorn and fascist tricks. Oh, how I miss that friend.
*****
Janice D. Soderling writes: “This is one of those poems that sometimes comes in a rush and you have to grab a pencil to write it down before it disappears. But of course I had been ruminating, pondering; who has not in these divisive times? We are many who have lost a dear friend, perhaps even a family member, someone who once was compassionate and kind and fun to be with, but suddenly, or gradually, has become unrecognizable, full of blame and contempt, even hate, for the Other. Not for a person, but for a vague collective, the Other.”
Janice D. Soderling has poems, short stories, and flash in many literary journals and anthologies. Her most recent poetry collection is Namingthe Names which includes “Lost Friends.” Soon to be released is Short Circuits, about one hundred very short poems, none longer than twelve lines. Both collections are published under the Kultivera Production imprint.
Her cashmere sweater, navy blue, was passed to me when Mother died. Though soft and warm, with little wear, it has a hole that needs repair. Mending it from the other side, I spot another, then a few. I hold the sweater to the light. Small holes shine out like stars at night.
From her I learned this homely art, as well as not to toss or waste what might be saved. I thread and sew and knot and thread again. Although I salvage what the moths defaced, I cannot patch my threadbare heart, for I can never, never, never suture what is gone forever.
*****
Susan McLean writes: “I got the idea for this poem and began writing it in my head as I was mending the sweater, and since, as I mention, the mending took quite a while, I had several lines completed before I was done with the sewing. The rhyme scheme, ABCCBADD, rather mimics the activity of closing up a hole and tying off the thread with the final couplet, though that was not something I was conscious of as I was writing it. My unconscious does its own thing while my conscious mind struggles with finding what to say. However, I was quite conscious of echoing Lear’s lament for Cordelia in the repeated “never, never, never” of the next-to-last line. That repetition and negation have always struck me as being the epitome of grief.”
‘Mending’ was first published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.
Susan McLean has three books of poetry: The Best Disguise, The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and her latest, Daylight Losing Time (Able Muse, 2026). She had also published a book of translations of Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her poems have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Crab Orchard Review, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
When spring’s ghost joins me on the deck to watch Gilt city lights click on across the bay, Some downtown maid squeaks windows, wipes the splotch Between us. Here, this quiet view. Soft clay And pungent eucalyptus, thick with rain, Exude their essence. Summer’s gloom unwinds, A pane has shattered, and each rampant cane Of luscious juicy blackberries reminds My grief entwining August’s humid air. A wedge of geese pries open autumn, herds Fat purple clouds toward dusk above the glare Of distant offices. Your murdered words Of love on voicemail echo you were dead Before you put that bullet through your head.
*****
Beth Houston writes: “Regarding the sonnet: This is one poem I’d prefer to let the reader chew on without me explaining anything. It does have some tricky time aspects…”
She adds: “I have announced the submission period for the next anthology on the Rhizome Press website. Included are updated guidelines and new emails for submissions and general mail (no longer gmail). Folks will have plenty of time to submit. I just hope I don’t get an avalanche at the last minute. But better loads of poems than not getting them. I’m eager for people to let their poet friends know. I’d love to get LOTS of submissions.
Beth Houston(www.bethhouston.com) has taught writing (mostly creative writing) at ten universities and colleges in California and Florida and has worked as a writer and editor. She has published a couple hundred poems in dozens of literary journals. She writes free verse and formal poetry, mostly sonnets, and has published a novel, two nonfiction books, and six poetry books (out of print). She edits the Extreme formal poetry anthologies via one of her indie presses, Rhizome Press (www.rhizomepress.com).
He draws back curtains on a winter’s day. It’s eight a.m. A charcoal sketch of trees confronts him. All the world is grey and unappealing. Nothing guarantees a lowering of spirits as do scenes like these. He peers outside. The thuggish sky scowls back at him. Of all his small routines this is the worst: he knows that, with a sigh, he’ll draw these selfsame curtains yet again in no more than a few hours’ time, when night comes slouching from its prehistoric den and all the birds of fortitude take flight. He is a detainee, his heart in chains. Love is a star long dead whose light remains.
*****
Richard Fleming writes: “Titles are often an afterthought in poetry, with first lines pressed into service as titles. For this writer, titles matter, and Curtains is a case in point. For those who grew up in the 1950s, curtains implied an ending, often death, a sense reinforced by noir cinema. The poem Curtains treats the word both literally and symbolically: the daily opening and closing of curtains in winter becomes a measure of time passing and of life nearing its end.”
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
Our lost ones drift down a dark stream, surfacing at the brink of dream. The crack of dawn: they’re gone again. What have they left for us to keep? Night’s dialect, a coded speech beyond our reach.
Birds on the bank of a calm pond: each one is still and poised, then dives. Mornings we wake into our lives, blind to what lies beyond, below, the chasms where black rivers flow, and flickering deeper, darkly clear, that coded speech beyond our reach, words we can’t hear.
*****
Rachel Hadas has a group of sonnets appearing, one a week, in The Sonneteer. For the first she wrote: “The sonnets that will be appearing in the coming weeks weren’t conceived as a sequence. Encouraged by Ken Gordon’s enthusiasm to take a look at some of my unpublished shorter poems, I speedily found one fourteen-liner, “Tectonic Plates.” Three other poems were so close to sonnet length that they almost begged to be tweaked or tightened or gently expanded; this group includes “Out of Reach,” “Winter,” and “My Best Friend’s Mother.” In every case, the sonnetification (Ken’s helpful coinage) improved the poem. (…) I now realize that, while not conceived as a sequence, all five of these sonnets (now that they are all sonnets) do share themes. They’re about time and memory, aging and loss, what we lose and what we retain. So are many other sonnets, infinitely greater than mine. It’s a privilege to be able to join in the conversation, to swell the chorus.“
Rachel Hadas (born November 8, 1948) is an American poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. Her most recent essay collection is Piece by Piece: Selected Prose (Paul Dry Books, 2021), and her most recent poetry collection is Ghost Guest (Ragged Sky Press, 2023). Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Ingram Merrill Foundation Grants, the O.B. Hardison Award from the Folger Shakespeare Library, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Night-train noises, muffled and low, nights when the Northern Limited left. Midnights, we’d hear its strange chord blow, a distant dissonance, treble-cleft. Languid in summer, dulled in snow, it spoke to me calmly: Trust and rest. The night world works on a steady clock. The barges ride on the river’s crest; at port in Duluth, the grain ships dock, and a streetlamp lit at the end of the block looks in at the window’s blind from the west–
I never learned: Did the schedule skew departure times into daylight hours, or did neighbors grouse, as neighbors do, that living close to a loud sound sours tempers and lives? I never knew, but it’s not there now, though we still see track. The freeway sound and the freeway grime color the nights. The snow turns black, and the block club frets over rising crime, and the sweet illusion of changeless time, though I wish for it fiercely, will not come back.
*****
Maryann Corbett writes: “When I wrote this poem, I was still participating on online poetry boards. I recall that there was a certain amount of argument about what a train–horn or whistle?–actually sounds like. The disappearance of the nightly sound has, in fact, a prosaic explanation: the schedule did change, and the station itself was moved to a downtown location. The name of the train route is fictional, chosen for alliterative purposes.”
‘Lament for the Midnight Train’ was first published in The Times (UK, online); appeared in the chapbook ‘Dissonance’; and is collected in ‘Street View’.
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.
Ya’ ever wanna go someplace? I mean…jus’ disappear. Leave ev’rythin’. But, leave no trace. Git your ass out o’ here To somewhere – could be far or near – Where you’re no longer you. Where you can dwell, year after year, Like normal people do.
Ya’ ever stare at your own face But still can’t see it clear? – Ya’ struggle hard jus’ keepin’ pace, While neighbors, they all steer ‘Tween college, marriage, an’ career, ‘Til – somehow coastin’ through – They barbeque, an’ drink col’ beer Like normal people do…
Ya’ ever think they won that race, But still, fall prey to fear Them dreams ‘n’ rainbows they all chase, Once gone, won’t reappear? Or, do they jus’ choke back each tear As one beer turns to two, Findin’ it’s Hell to persevere Like normal people do?
Ya’ see? You ain’t the first to veer Off course. That much is true. Or, last to lose all you hol’ dear Like normal people do.
Johnny Longfellow writes: “I’ve discussed the personal circumstances that partially inspired this poem in interviews at the Talk with Me podcast and at the now defunct Sonnetarium, both of which can be linked to in the bio below. So, I’ll just note here, the poem was written roughly six months after a heavy bout of depression. During said bout, I inadvertently stumbled upon The Geographies of Missing People website, hosted by Glasgow University, wherein I took special interest in their Stories of Missing Experience page. Listening to those mashed-up accounts of people who’d elected to go voluntarily missing was profoundly helpful to me during a dark period in my life. With that, I can only recommend to anyone going through a similar period in their own lives that they consider listening to those accounts. For, I can confidently say they helped inspire in me more than just a poem.”
Johnny Longfellow is a poet from Massachusetts. His work has appeared in The Five-Two, The Literary Hatchet, Misery Tourism, Punk Noir, and other fine literary venues, with more work forthcoming in Form in Formless Times. You can learn more about both him and his poetry at Heeeeeeere’s Johnny . . . Longfellow, that is.
