We aim to sing Boldly as the brave acrobat on his thin string Across the air. But yet, no matter how we juggle words and dare, And think ourselves stupendous, We’re risking nothing… we’re no Flying Wallendas.
Though buds, light-headed, arrow to the sun, Wood-pigeons cautiously descend to drink As through the roof the first faint cheepings run From half-fledged nestlings in some straw-warm chink, While welling far and near − to float and sink Like spidery fibre silvered on the lawn − Mercurial lark song trails out link by link, Rocking serrated-throated crows have drawn Their broad indelible raw weals across the dawn.
Jerome Betts writes: “Have only tried the intricate patterning of the ‘Spenserian stanza‘ a couple of times. On the first occasion it seemed to suit a comment on the design of a 4th century Roman mosaic floor and on the second, in ‘Morning Calls’, appearing inSnakeskin, a memory of the rich dawn chorus in rural Herefordshire many years ago. The point of particular interest for me is the phrase ‘rocking serrated-throated crows’ in Line 8, unchanged from one jotted at the time. The words fitted a rocking or bobbing movement, but why ‘serrated-throated’? This is appropriate for ravens with their ‘shaggy throat feathers’ (RSPB Handbook 2014) but not, I thought, crows. The words resisted attempts at tweaking and the stanza stalled. Some weeks later I saw a crow standing on top of a Devon street light rhythmically calling and rocking . . . and as it did so its neck feathers briefly parted on the upstroke of the movement. The line had preserved an exact observation made when young and then forgotten.”
Jerome Betts edits the quarterly verse webzine Lighten Up Online in Devon. His work has appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, Angle, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Pennine Platform, Light, The Rotary Dial, and Snakeskin, other American, British and Canadian publications and two Iron Press anthologies. www.lightenup-online.co.uk
Where do they go, the days, twirling around? Leaves in a dust-devil, swirled on the ground – Water makes whirlpools just touching a drain – Then the basin is empty. And no days remain.
September, heading towards the equinox and (in the northern hemisphere) winter. The end of the summer, back to school, back to work, loss of freedom, into the cold and the dark. Another year gone–having a September birthday doesn’t help!–the trees giving up, dry leaves falling and whirling in outside corners of asphalt and concrete… Head south, where it is still summer!
This short poem was published on a page of short pieces in the September issue of Lighten-Up Online – thanks, Jerome Betts!
The sun comes out. Street-closing hills that climb Below the scoops of cumulus from Wales Are woodland backdrops lit for pantomime, Bright as the ribbons round the horses’ tails.
Where steam-frilled dung and strawy puddles mix In iron pens, the mud-scaled cattle groan; The auctioneers outbawl the rapping sticks And rattling bars and hobnails scraped on stone.
Lost in the din, the gaiters, boots and wheels, The lambs cry, unregarded. Overhead, The clock, white marble up in front, conceals That all behind is brickwork’s weathered red.
A stray dog pauses, sniffs, then, deaf to shouts, Swings up its leg against a net of sprouts.
Jerome Betts writes: “I’m attached to this piece, first printed in Pennine Platform, as it began as wispy free verse in university days and gradually metamorphosed over many years. The bellowing from the market punctuated lessons in a West Midlands cathedral city and other elements were attracted, like the ribbons in the horses’ tails and then a reminder of the street-ending hills in a small town in Castilla y León, and the closing couplet from another in the East Midlands.But, aided by the grappling-hook of rhyme, something unexpected emerged from the depths and took over with the lambs and the clock, often an intriguing result of struggling with formal constraints.”
Jerome Betts was born and brought up on the Welsh border, but now lives in South Devon, where he edits the quarterly Lighten Up Online. In addition to articles and verse in consumer and specialist magazines his work has appeared in Pennine Platform, Staple and The Guardian, as well as anthologies like The Iron Book of New Humorous Verse, Limerick Nation, Love Affairs At The Villa Nelle, and The Potcake Chapbooks 1 & 2, and online at Amsterdam Quarterly, Angle, The Asses of Parnassus, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, The Hypertexts, Light, The New Verse News, Parody, The Rotary Dial, Snakeskin, and other sites.
Every youngest daughter’s
Always Cinderella:
Never at the party,
Always in the cellar;
Tired of washing dishes,
Tired of sweeping dirt;
Wants to be a lady,
A scientist, a flirt;
Wants to travel world-wide,
Read till reading’s done;
Wants to be a mother,
Playing in the sun;
Wants to be the princess,
Beauty of the Ball –
Fairytales happen –
Watch, she’ll have it all!
First published in Lighten-Up Online (“LUPO”), the quarterly edited by Jerome Betts in the UK; republished in The HyperTexts, the massive anthology of poetry curated by Michael R. Burch. Good poets, both of them.
When the deep darkness dulls the dirty land
Before the moon meanders through the stars,
Invisibly the sea creeps up the sand
As night-blind drinkers lose keys to their cars.
Ah, the winter, with its delights and hazards! Escape it when you can, and explore fresh delights and hazards! That’s life, isn’t it.
This little poem was published in Lighten-Up Online, aka LUPO, the UK’s top light verse online magazine. Editor Jerome Betts carries on the work begun 12 years ago by Martin Parker: a quarterly issue of some 30 full-length poems, and as many again of the 4-to-8-line variety. Contributors include every current poet you have heard of who can write light engaging verse that rhymes and scans – unless, that is, they expect to be paid for their poems!
Form in Formless Times 