Bench slats, warm-sleeved in lichen’s rough grey-green, Sandwiches, ivy’s shade, the garden scene, Dozens of white-tailed bumblebees, a hum Among the clustered heads of marjoram.
Background to thoughts that intertwine and drift . . . A sudden sombre sickle shape – a swift So low, so near, not distant in the sky, Skims past, a flash of wings and beak and eye.
Why come that strangely close? Drawn down in chase Of food, despite the human form and face? Why did it circle once, then speed away Towards the woods and cliffs that fringe Lyme Bay?
Soon, news – an old friend gone whose joy was birds. It almost seemed a farewell without words.
*****
Jerome Betts writes: “The passage of the swift so close I could glimpse its shining eye was a memorable moment in these times when I see only a very occasional two or three usually high in the sky. It resulted in a sunny and summery ten lines concluding, A brief encounter, but it made the day. Some hours later the news came of an old school friend’s death in France. This completely altered any feeling about the event. I suppose the subtext of the aftermath was something like Hardy’s Hoping it might be so, which nearly became the title.”
Jerome Betts edits Lighten Up Online in Devon, England. His verse appears in Amsterdam Quarterly, Light, The Asses of Parnassus, The New Verse News, The Hypertexts, Snakeskin, and various anthologies.
They’re insecure black holes of need and here they come to clog your feed with photos and confessionals shaped by PR professionals— a pool glows blue in the backyard next to a pull quote: “It was hard to fight those demons of self-doubt”— How brave you are for speaking out! (“Dinner? Umm…the rainbow trout?”) Some glossy shots show off the house where, on a massive sun-splashed couch the boyfriend lounges with a grin— familiar…what’s that show he’s in? “Yes, I’ve found love—I’m over the moon! My memoir’s coming out in June.”
But now hushed tones, dropped eyes reveal we’re ready for the big reveal— speaking to us as to a friend she grabs onto the latest trend and tries to humanize herself with references to mental health: “Depression and anxiety— none of the meds would work for me but a friend introduced me to this yogi, or—more like—guru? He teaches tantric meditation to reach this cosmic—like—vibration?— where all your energies align— Oh yeah, hey, my new makeup line is rolling out in every state— I promise the concealer’s great!” How nice for you. The problem is for those without advantages like wealth and fame, the proper cure for suffering is not so sure, and wasn’t there some news report about—“That settled out of court, so let’s move on,” smoothly insists the always-hovering publicist.
The only cure for their disease? Awards, red carpets, galaxies of flashbulbs dazzling their eyes, the swarms of fans, their ardent cries— the roar of being glorified drowns out the whispering voice inside that tells them that their fame won’t last but crumble into dust and ash leaving them lost and destitute— quick—schedule a new photo shoot!
*****
Brooke Clarke writes: “Celebrities was triggered by scrolling through the news app on my phone and being bombarded with coverage of famous people, which ranged from the adoring to the outright hagiographic. I resisted writing the poem at first, since celebrities seemed like a bit of an obvious target, but in the end I decided to give in & go with it. In terms of the form, I went back and forth a bit between tetrameter and pentameter couplets, but in the end I settled on the tetrameter. They always strike me as suited to a “lighter” satirical approach, and a slightly more throwaway, less sculpted feel — more Swift than Pope, if that makes sense — and I thought that worked for the subject matter in this one. One other point that might be of interest: the poem as I submitted it ended with one final couplet: Reality gets hard to take when everything about you’s fake. I thought it worked as a way to pull back from the specific content and give a final summary to tie things together. The editor who published it in Rat’s Ass Review felt it was heavy-handed and obvious, and belaboured the same points that had already been made, so we agreed to cut it. It might be interesting to know what readers think.”
Brooke Clark is the author of the poetry collection Urbanitiesand the editor of the online epigrams journal The Asses of Parnassus. He’s still (occasionally, hesitantly) on Twitter at@thatbrookeclark.
The Head was ambitious and nobody’s fool, A big man, efficient, and proud of his school.
At the start of the term, as he sorted his post, The item of mail that intrigued him the most
Was a piece puffing National Poetry Day, Including a list of the poets who’d stay
And workshop and somehow persuade the whole school That poets were ‘groovy’ and poems were ‘cool’.
‘Here’s status,’ the Head thought. ‘It’s not to be missed.’ The one problem, though, was the names on the list;
Though doubtless they wrote quite respectable stuff, Not one of them, frankly, was famous enough.
His school deserved more; his ambition took wing, And so he decided to do his own thing.
With his usual flair, and with chutzpah exquisite, He invited the whole English canon to visit.
Geoffrey Chaucer came first, on an equable horse, And Spenser, and Marlowe, and Shakespeare, of course
(Who was grabbed by the teachers of English, imploring ‘Do come and persuade the Year Nines you’re not boring.’)
Keats arrived coughing, Kipling marched vigorously; Matthew Arnold began to inspect the school rigorously –
Which delighted the Head, who with pride and elation Showed the bards of the ages today’s education.
Vaughan was ecstatic, though Clough was more sceptical. Ernest Dowson puked up in a litter receptacle.
Coleridge sneaked off to discover the rates Of an unshaven person outside the school gates;
Soon he’d sunk in a private and picturesque dream, While Auden was ogling the basketball team.
Plath lectured the girls: ‘Get ahead! Go insane!’ Algernon Swinburne cried: ‘Bring back the cane!’
Dylan Thomas soon found the head’s cupboard of booze, And Swift was disdainfully sniffing the loos.
And then the Head twigged, with a horrified jolt, That something had sparked a Romantic revolt.
Shelley’d gathered the students out in the main quad, And roused them to rise against school, Head, and God.
Byron soon joined him, and started to speak. (He showed his best profile, and spouted in Greek.)
The bards of the thirties were equally Red, And Milton explained how to chop off a head.
Decadents undermined all the foundations. Surrealists threw lobsters and rancid carnations.
Pre-Raphaelites trashed the technology room And the First World War poets trudged off to their doom.
Sidney with gallantry led a great charge in (Tennyson cheering them on from the margin).
The Deputy Head, who was rather a dope, Got precisely impaled on a couplet by Pope
(Who, while not so Romantic, was never the chap To run from a fight or keep out of a scrap).
Then the whole solid edifice started to shake As it was prophetically blasted by Blake.
Soon the School was destroyed. Eliot paced through the waste, And reflected with sorrow and learning and taste,
Which he fused in a poem, an excellent thing, Though rather obscure and a little right-wing.
He gave this to the Head, who just threw it aside As he knelt by the wreck of his school, and he cried
Salty tears that went fizz as they hit the school’s ashes. He said words that I’d better imply by mere dashes:
‘——– Poets! ——– Poetry – rhyme and free verse! Let them wilt in the face of a Headmaster’s curse!
‘Let poetry wither! How sweet it would be If all of the world were prosaic as me!’
*****
George Simmers writes: “Poets in Residence was written as a celebration of National Poetry Day many years ago. Several people had been mouthing blandly off about how lovely poetry was in contrast to that horrible pop music young people listen to. Schools were being encouraged to give children a lot of poetry because it was nice and beautiful, and would make them nice. ‘Do these people have no idea of how incendiary the English canon is?’ I wondered. I really enjoyed demolishing the school around the ears of the pompous and pretentious head. I was a teacher at the time.”
George Simmers used to be a teacher; now he spends much of his time researching literature written during and after the First World War. He has edited Snakeskin since 1995. It is probably the oldest-established poetry zine on the Internet. His work appears in several Potcake Chapbooks, and his recent diverse collection is ‘Old and Bookish’.
Form in Formless Times 