September 2018 Vol. III No. VIII
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Formal & Rhyming Poetry with Vera Ignatowitsch
Getting Current
He must have heard a grownup say,
“We’re getting current.” That’s the way
in later years he thought of it.
One night a neighbor’s barn was lit
by stark electric light, so clean
it made the muted kerosene
look smudged and yellow. Driving back
from town along the narrow track
of gravel ruts, his father at
the wheel, the seven-year-old sat
in silence, and turned his head to watch
the glowing barn behind a swatch
of windbreak willows along the road
that made it flicker, as if in code,
now on, now off, a message beamed
from some bright time ahead. It seemed
to say that life would change and change —
and change. For now, the new-lit grange
proclaimed an end to early night.
Before the month was out, the light
came on inside their milking shed:
“Work first, then play,” his father said,
as if it were frivolity
for people in a house to see
their way upstairs and down, to read
a book, to dress, without the need
to burn a smelly, smoky wick.
His mother’s protests did the trick;
from pole to pole the line progressed
from shed to barn to house. The rest,
as people say, is history.
The rural folk at least were free
of living and working by the sun.
And that, they found, was only one
of many blessings. TV soon
would bring these rural folk the boon
of never feeling quite content.
And that’s what “getting current” meant.
Richard Wakefield’s first poetry collection, "East of Early Winters" (University of Evansville Press), won the Richard Wilbur Award. His second collection, "A Vertical Mile" (Able Muse Press), was short-listed for the Poets Prize.
Heartbeats in the Gravel
Maple leaves drop, pumpkin, pink, maroon,
copper, ochre, crimson, cream, and lemon;
like flocks of Monarch butterflies, they light
on shallows where magenta-barred chum salmon
churn the golden gravel with their tails
and loose their eggs, each globe a rosy moon,
to troll the redds in milky ways of milt.
Then dusk. As spawners fail, their pewter scales
glint weakly; fallen leaves, in shadows spilt
by leafless trees, turn gray. The summer over,
they swam upstream to dreams of autumn colour
through pools of memory. October night
turns vividness to lividness; the ova,
like lingering love, live on, not black, but mauve.
​
John Beaton writes metrical poetry. His work has been widely published, won numerous awards, and he recites it in spoken word performance. Raised in the Scottish Highlands, he lives in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island.
The Triumph of Roses
The young earth hardened, heated, split, then froze,
but still could not disorient the rose.
We kept the emails, pictures, cards in files;
But where, how, could we document a rose?
Sleepless without you, nights etched in glass,
I see the world through temperamental rose.
They grace the small, as if to taunt the great—
such beauty humbles monuments and pharoahs.
The poetry of petals is the science
of opening the hub, the pent-up rose.
With thorny vines like pythons winding hard,
Who crushed what seemed so permanent . . . the rose?
Immobilized with longing, I sent hope
and dreamed of your reply—but you sent arrows.
One day the oceans will turn flaming orange;
The sky, a dusky firmament of rose.
A man may practice cruelty and thrust
But these will never circumvent the rose.
Your love, Siham, dispersed by wasps and wind,
returns fecund and innocent as a rose.
First published in The Ghazal Page.
​
Siham Karami’s poetry has been published in The Comstock Review, Able Muse, The Rumpus, Measure, and Orchards Poetry, and has been nominated multiple times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
Limericks & Lighthearted Verse
Treat — OR ELSE
So precious are wee trick or treaters,
much-loved by us generous greeters.
With sacks overflowing
and bright faces glowing,
they are grateful, sweet candy-eaters.
Then droves of six-footers come brawling
For buckets of candy they’re calling.
In fake kiddie voices,
they make clear the choices:
I treat or they'll trick. So appalling!
“No treat” starts the six-footers scheming.
Those ghosties and ghoulies start screaming.
My pumpkins they’re smashing.
Through fences they’re crashing.
By midnight the Charmin is streaming.
​
Janice Canerdy’s poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Better Than Starbucks, The Lyric Magazine, Parody Magazine, Westward Quarterly, Light, and Lighten Up Online.
TWO MUFFLED REPORTS
Strung Out
​
A trainee professional harpist
Felt his fingers were not at their sharpest,
But his test turned out fine
So he went out for wine
And was found, late at night, in a bar . . .
Field Trial
​
(On learning that hops belong
to the family Cannabinaceae)
A student with lots up on top
Stuffed his pipe with a species of hop.
He said that he planned
For his mind to expand,
Which it did, until suddenly . . .
From Herefordshire, Jerome Betts edits Lighten Up Online in Devon. His verse has appeared in Light, The Asses of Parnassus, New Verse News, Parody, Per Contra, Snakeskin and other places.
On this page we publish selections of metrical poetry from our contributors. Submit your blank verse, metrical rhyming poems, villanelles, sonnets, sestinas pantoums, and other formal poetry to betterthanstarbucks2@gmail. We love both traditional and experimental forms and subjects, and please do submit limericks and lighthearted verse as well! Vera Ignatowitsch
LARRY NASSAR
For all those years, I loved the way I felt:
The first was like a pocket made of plush.
God would forgive, so it was not my fault.
The years passed. My check box was default:
Winning, man to man, and coach to coach.
For all those years, I loved the way I felt,
Underneath the sheet, below the belt.
It was a treatment, I said. There was no rush.
God would forgive, so it was not my fault.
When girls spoke out, I did not express guilt:
No. Because they all were mine to touch.
For all those years, I loved the way I felt.
I grew them, like small flowers, out of silt.
It was my hands that made them: velvet, lush.
God would forgive, so it was not my fault.
It was all right, I told myself. Self-styled,
Banal, I was their deepest, darkest wish.
For all those years, I loved the way I felt.
God would forgive, so it was not my fault.
LARRY NASSAR VICTIM
How did I know that it was wrong? You know,
Now that I’m older, it is obvious.
He was a god, and what he said would go.
He didn’t use the gloves, and touched just so.
He said that he was just relieving stress.
How did I know it was wrong? You know,
Some things give you sadness, vertigo,
And other things just make you hopeless.
He was a god, and what he said would go:
Convinced us all that we could not say no.
He told our parents, coaches, and their bosses.
How did I know that it was wrong? You know,
I thought of killing myself. I thought it was true:
That it was my fault. He fingered all my losses.
He was a god, and what he said would go.
Then, one day, his was not the word of law.
We spoke, each one a secret victim-witness.
How did I know that it was wrong? You know,
He was a god. That was not so long ago.
Kim Bridgford is the director of Poetry by the Sea, the editor of Mezzo Cammin, and the author of ten books of poems, including Human Interest. She is currently on sabbatical, reading about Antarctica.
Some Things
Some things happen when you sleep;
For all your vigilance and care,
You cannot always be aware,
Or keep the vigil you would keep.
Some things are changed when you awake,
And though the day's work goes as planned,
Your real work is to understand
The sense that things refuse to make.
​
It Scares Me
“The fault, dear Brutus . . .” Most times I agree
With those who choose to think our wills are free,
Although some choices willy-nilly lead
To such a choice as stanch the wound or bleed.
But now and then I view events in course
And wonder whether there must be some Force
Deciding every outcome, laughing at
The ones who think they can do this or that.
It scares me: If Someone preordains
One outcome, nothing of free will remains,
Because what happens anywhere must cause
Another thing to happen—nature’s laws
Cannot be brushed aside. Did Someone write
This poem that I only bring to light?
The late David Berman was a student of Robert Lowell and Archibald MacLeish. A dedicated Powow River Poet, his work appeared in many top journals and three chapbooks.
WITH THE BATH WATER
When data started to accumulate,
we didn't think the end would be so tragic.
Facts were such fun, we could eliminate
non-facts. And so we threw away the magic,
the charms, the spells, the powers that removed
all obstacles, the sacred images
that won our wars, brought lover to beloved.
Then we threw out the demigods, the muse,
the spirits in the fountains, planets, trees,
followed by symbols, sacraments — what use
did modern myth-free mortals have for these?
Our reason set no limit to our pride.
Did we kill God, or was it suicide?
First published in FIRST THINGS
​
Gail White is a Formalist poet whose work appears regularly in such journals as Measure, Raintown Review, and Rotary Dial. She is a contributing editor of Light Poetry Magazine. Her most recent collections are Asperity Street, and Catechism.
September
As the summer slows down to a crawl,
When the apples are nearly in season
At the threshold of fall,
It’s foreseeable then
That a rush of unreason
Will arise from endorphin-rich brains
Of indigenous women and men
Who applaud when it rains.
In the meadows they’d mown only once,
Where the forbs and perennial grasses
Are the groundwork for hunts
Yet to come, there’s no doubt
All the lads and their lasses
Are ecstatic and ready to roll
In unharvested hayfields, without
Any aim or control—
Though a seasoned partaker might say
That composure and caution don’t matter:
At the end of the day,
Whatsoever was planned,
There’s a wind that shall scatter
The most carefully husbanded seed
Far abroad on this bounteous land,
Irrespective of creed.
So lie down in the glistening dew
And behold the near reaches of Glory,
For the limitless blue
Is a channel whereby
The continuing story
Of affairs that have often recurred
Is transported direct from the sky
On the wings of a bird.
There are times when the will may forget
What the conscience must later remember,
But the deepest regret
Is the failure to live
To the full. It’s September,
And October’s no less an event
Where there’s nothing for God to forgive
And no need to repent.
first published in Blue Unicorn, Volume XXXVIII, Number 1
C.B. Anderson was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series, The Victory Garden. His poems have appeared internationally, and his first print book, Mortal Soup and the Blue Yonder, was published in 2013 by White Violet Press.
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