Randal A. Burd, Jr. is the editor of Sparks of Calliope. A Pushcart Prize nominee, his 2nd collection was "Memoirs of a Witness Tree" (Kelsay Books, 2020). Randal has published poetry in numerous literary journals, both online and in print. Follow him on X: @colonelrandal.
(Inspired by Ralph Albert Blakelock’s painting The Artist’s Garden — 1880 — American.)
An artist’s garden— too commonplace to think that it could happen here: the dusk gathering by degrees its forceful melancholy, demanding to be more than daylight’s dwindling, asserting itself until it changes with uncanny exactness into a state of mind.
While the hues of blooming flowers fade, the once-bright pathways turn gray— taper to blackened ends.
Fragrances linger in the springtime air that holds unanswered questions. The elm trees’ shadows deepen until they portray the void within the artist’s soul. Rows of cultivated flowerbeds bow to unrealized dreams. This, while the fading sky and indelible gloom suffuses the dimming hedges.
Diminutive, in the distance, a church spire, to which the dying day’s light clings. Faith, assurance, and hope give way to the moment when disillusionment renders every leaf and stem colorless.
Gregory E. Lucas writes fiction and poetry. His short stories and poems have appeared in many magazines, such as The Ekphrastic Review, The Horror Zine, and Blueline. He lives on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. Follow him on Twitter X @GregoryELucas.
As a literary journal, there is often more risk than reward, but as a labor of love we carry on. The more cynical among us might even agree that misfortune strikes eventually should you travel any road long enough. As an editor, you really want pick the diamonds in the rough, and while you try to vet every submission you receive meticulously, you tell yourself that you can’t possibly catch everything. So, while I have tried to do right by you and will continue to do so, it seems that on one occasion I failed. You see… there is a plagiarist among us.
On September 22, 2023, I published two poems entitled “Harbor” and “Dislocated” allegedly written by a Mr. John Kucera (aka John Siepkes). And while they say imitation is the best form of flattery, these poems were copied with only a couple word changes from poems published in The Hudson Review entitled “Neilah; Creature” by Bruce Bond and in Claw and Blossom entitled “The Q & A Section” by Dorsía Smith Silva. This is intellectual property theft on the part of Mr. Kucera. I am profoundly sorry for the editorial oversight and hope Mr. Kucera is appropriately ashamed of himself.
I am replacing Mr. John Kucera’s plagiarized work with links to the original poems and removing Mr. Kucera from our list of contributors. I commend Mr. Bond and Professor Silva on the quality of their poems and extend my apology to them as well.
I am grateful to the editor of another literary journal who also inadvertently published a plagiarized poem submitted by Mr. Kucera and was kind enough to bring this matter to my attention.
Elizabeth I, Queen of England and Ireland from 1558 to 1603, made significant contributions to English poetry during the Renaissance era. Her reign is often referred to as the Elizabethan Age, a period marked by flourishing arts and culture. Elizabeth I herself was not only a political figure but also a patron of the arts, supporting and influencing the literary endeavors of her time.
One of the notable aspects of Elizabeth’s impact on poetry was her support for poets at her court. She surrounded herself with a circle of talented writers, including some of the most celebrated poets of the period such as Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser. The court became a vibrant hub for literary activity, fostering creativity and innovation in poetry.
Elizabeth I also played a role as a poet herself. She was well-educated and fluent in multiple languages, allowing her to engage in literary pursuits. Her own works, often written in Latin, French, and English, showcased her intellect and poetic prowess. Her poem “On Monsieur’s Departure” is a poignant exploration of love and loss, reflecting the complexities of her personal life.
Moreover, Elizabeth I’s reign witnessed the rise of the Elizabethan sonnet tradition. The sonnet, a fourteen-line poetic form, gained popularity during this era, and poets like Sir Philip Sidney and William Shakespeare made significant contributions to its development. Elizabethan sonnets often explored themes of love, beauty, and nature, reflecting the intellectual and emotional richness of the time.
Elizabeth I’s influence extended beyond her lifetime, as her patronage and support laid the groundwork for the flourishing of English literature in the subsequent Jacobean era. The cultural and literary legacy of the Elizabethan Age endured for centuries, shaping the trajectory of English poetry.
In summary, Elizabeth I’s contribution to English poetry was multifaceted. As a patron of the arts, she created a nurturing environment for poets at her court. Additionally, her own poetic endeavors and the cultural milieu she fostered contributed to the vibrant literary landscape of the Elizabethan Age, leaving an indelible mark on English poetry.
Two of Elizabeth’s better known poems can be read below.
On Monsieur’s Departure
I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.
My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from my breast,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.
Some gentler passion slide into my mind,
For I am soft and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.
Let me or float or sink, be high or low.
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die and so forget what love ere meant.
When I Was Fair and Young
When I was fair and young, then favor graced me.
Of many was I sought their mistress for to be.
But I did scorn them all and answered them therefore:
Go, go, go, seek some other where; importune me no more.
How many weeping eyes I made to pine in woe,
How many sighing hearts I have not skill to show,
But I the prouder grew and still this spake therefore:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.
Then spake fair Venus’ son, that proud victorious boy,
Saying: You dainty dame, for that you be so coy,
I will so pluck your plumes as you shall say no more:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.
As soon as he had said, such change grew in my breast
That neither night nor day I could take any rest.
Wherefore I did repent that I had said before:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.
The informational article above was composed in part by administering guided direction to ChatGPT. It was subsequently fact-checked, revised, and edited by the editor. The editor/publisher takes no authorship credit for this work and strongly encourages disclosure when using this or similar tools to create content. Sparks of Calliope prohibits submissions of poetry composed with the assistance of predictive AI.
Stitched into my brain, Dad’s favorite saying:
A job half-done is better not begun.
When I start a poem I’m only playing.
But it’s my job and I’m my father’s son.
And so my duty is to make you feel
as if the top of your head were taken off.
Anything short of that has no appeal.
To write a half-baked rhyme’s not good enough.
Is a job worth doing not worth doing badly,
the perfect not the enemy of the good?
So many questions I would have asked my dad,
but I was busy doing what I could
to garner his approval, honor the old man,
and emulate the little engine: I think I can.
The Swimmer
I undulate my body, dolphin kick,
windmill my arms to breach and dive back in.
With a flick of my fluked tail I’m dolphin;
airborne, I torque my pec-fins, flip and spin.
My podmates, wowed by my new tricks,
celebrate with whistles, squeaks and clicks.
Bobbing on sleep’s surface, drownproofing,
davening before the Wailing Wall,
I rise to clear my blowhole, stoke my lungs,
plunge into the depths of the Kabbalah.
Belly-up, spread-eagled, I embrace
the feathered pillows of the ocean-sky,
enter heaven’s rainbow-pattern gates,
see my face reflected in God’s eye.
John Whitney Steele is a psychologist, yoga teacher, assistant editor of Think: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction and Essays, and graduate of the MFA Poetry Program at Western Colorado University. His poems have been published widely in literary journals and both his chapbook, The Stones Keep Watch, and his full length collection of poetry, Shiva’s Dance, were published by Kelsay Books. John lives in Boulder, Colorado, and enjoys hiking in the mountains. You can visit his website at www.johnwhitneysteelepoet.com.
Every day caress my cat. Brush him to a golden sheen. Surf the Net and tour the world Here on my computer screen. See that every single meal Features cookies, pie, or cake. Resolutions on this list Surely I will never break.
“My New Year’s Resolutions” first appeared in The New York Times Metropolitan Diary.
The Guest Selects Her Own Indulgences
with apologies to Emily Dickinson
The guest selects her own indulgences, Then fills a plate With sweets whose sheer deliciousness Brooks no debate.
Unmoved, she notes the carrots waiting, Then turns away, Unmoved, until her eyes alight on The pastry tray.
I’ve known her from an ample table, Choose four, Then set the force of her attention On more.
“The Guest Selects Her Own Indulgences” first appeared in The Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin.
Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has had over 280 poems published in a wide range of places, including twenty in past issues of Sparks of Calliope.
You’re driving back from out of state. It’s late at night; home’s far away. Your headlights on the interstate Give fifteen feet of not quite day In blackness from the cloudy sky, From hills ahead, from hills you’ve passed. Each big, black mountain flying by Looks no different from the last. The road’s white dashes lull your mind; You sing along to stay awake With every album you can find— Night driving’s more than you can take. A sign appears that lets you know: Two hundred miles more to go.
“Night Driving” first appeared in Snakeskin.
The Billboard
It’s propped along the route I roll—
A squatting square against the sky,
Atop a sturdy metal pole,
To tell me what new thing to buy.
A squatting square against the sky,
It blocks the airy, fluffy clouds,
To tell me what new thing to buy
To follow the unthinking crowds.
It blocks the airy, fluffy clouds,
A big sign saying come and shop
To follow the unthinking crowds
To buy that brand of soda pop.
A big sign saying come and shop,
Atop a sturdy metal pole,
To buy that brand of soda pop—
It’s propped along the route I roll.
“The Billboard” was first published by The Society of Classical Poets.
Joshua C. Frank works in the field of statistics and lives in the American Heartland. His poetry has been published in The Society of Classical Poets, Snakeskin, The Lyric, Westward Quarterly, Atop the Cliffs, Our Day’s Encounter, The Creativity Webzine, Verse Virtual, and The Asahi Haikuist Network, and his short fiction has been published in Nanoism and The Creativity Webzine.
Life is flowers In a plot of dirt With small stones around them In a rugged circle
And you and I Stand outside of the fence Where the flowers exalt the sun, Their green arms extended upward In their plot of dirt With small stones around them In a rugged circle.
You and I look into that place Impossibly bright and green And red and gold From our asphalt spot And we see the flowers that exalt the sun With their green arms extended upward In their plot of dirt With small stones around them In a rugged circle
And the flowers look like lovely young men and women Exalting God and the sun And once in a while a breeze catches their scent And brings it to us And there we stand, smelling the flowers that look like lovely young men and women Exalting God and the sun With their green arms extended upward In their plot of dirt With small stones around them In a rugged circle
From our impossible distance Outside that fence.
Cupped Hands
I kept trying to hold you in my cupped hands and most of you spilled through the spaces because you are thinner than water most of the time.
What little of you I could hold onto I splashed on my face and you danced in my hair, clung to my eyebrows, ran giggling down my shoulders, dampened the down of my chest.
Soon enough you had evaporated, not even cooling my skin anymore. I looked into my cupped hands where I once held but a small pool of you, each palmar crease tingling with memory and loss, a giddy little jolt of arousal and joy still pulsing up and down, up and down the heart line.
John Tustin has poetry forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Trailer Park Quarterly, Blue Unicorn and others. His first poetry collection is available from Cajun Mutt Press. He is also a previous contributor to Sparks of Calliope. Find links to his poetry published online here.
We went to visit our old neighbor after they moved her to a nursing home, an old English lady of ninety-one, still with that accent of east-end London and the sweet pleasantness of the kind.
She was too old, too alone to live alone. She would forget to turn off the gas range or how to turn on the thermostat or TV, She had trouble following a simple talk, but remembered the Blitz, 75 years past, as if the Nazi bastards were still at the door, and London was in turmoil: as though Hell had crashed through the gates of Heaven.
So her family moved her, leaving empty the house next door, empty of our friend of 30 some years, empty of her lilting English accent and her sharp sense of good old fashioned English humor… and it seemed like someone had died.
After a few weeks we went to visit her, my wife and I, taking some sweets and a small plant– oh yes, and our sadness too– though we made sure to leave it outside, unattended to for the moment.
We entered a very large and rambling sort of building, with pleasant lawns and locked doors and intercoms for some voice to decide if you can enter. It was like sort of a prison, you think, but a very nice and very clean prison. Our neighbor was in a special wing, called rather romantically, ‘Cedar Cove’ and as we entered through yet another set of stout doors, we greeted her and she smiled back, but very much as one might greet a total stranger….
“The Time of Nostalgia” first appeared in Freshwater Literary Journal
Nolo Segundo, pen name of retired English/ESL teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] L.j.Carber, 76, became a published poet in his 8th decade in 165 literary journals and anthologies in 12 countries. A trade publisher has released 3 collections in paperback on Amazon: The Enormity of Existence [2020]; Of Ether and Earth [2021]; and Soul Songs [2022]. These titles like much of his work reflect the awareness he’s had for over 5o years since having an NDE whilst almost drowning in a Vermont river: That he has–IS–a consciousness that predates birth and survives death, what poets since Plato have called the soul.
“Hell isn’t other people. Hell is yourself.” —Ludwig Wittgenstein
We don’t even know if we really exist. We experience life in a soft, balmy mist. Our memories are suspect and partial at best. We’re happy to do what the voices suggest. The faces around us are rarely the same one day to the next, but they call us by name. They smile at us blandly with features serene, but when we reach out, we touch a glass screen. Our needs and our wants are supplied in an instant by mechanical hands of our robot assistant.
Our emotions are pale; no passions molest us, no griefs, no desires, no raptures to test us. We can’t help but wonder, while living like kings, what purpose we serve in the grand scheme of things. Why are we here? Who made us? What reason? Such thoughts are unpleasant, feel almost like treason. Perhaps we are dead, and this is our fate: not heaven or hell, but a limbo-like state, a warehouse for souls devoid of all merit, who should neither reward nor chastisement inherit.
Perhaps we are prisoners in Plato’s cave. We see lying shadows, but freed from this grave, by the light of our reason, someday we will see in philosophy’s glare the true reality. Perhaps, sent on an interstellar mission, we sleep a millennium on the expedition. Perhaps in some universe larger than ours, we are a child’s project to practice his powers. Perhaps we exist in a novelist’s mind, gestating characters, not yet defined.
Perhaps I am lost in dementia’s maze, or, terminal, kept in an opiate haze. The darkest of thoughts occurs to me then. Perhaps there’s no “we,” but just “I” in this den. Perhaps I’m Creator of all that I see, all the others, projections from deep inside me. The panic of loneliness freezes my blood. My muted emotions rise up in a flood. I reach for the pill, knowing where it will be, and pray for the darkness to set my soul free.
Glenn Wright is a retired teacher living in Anchorage Alaska with his wife, Dorothy, and their dog, Bethany. He writes poetry to challenge what angers him, to ponder what puzzles him, and to celebrate what delights him.
I saw him there in the morning cool, a pale sage bush his morning stool, silent, asking with a roar, which of us deserved it more; it was his place—he made that plain— and if I, foolish, should remain, I must acknowledge all his right to be there in the morning bright, so willingly I acquiesced in such opinion so expressed and left him in possession there for nothing else would I dare– it was his place, it was his then, that jaunty little cactus wren.
Family
she was over thirty, plain as she was old, favorite of her father, something of a scold; he was nearly forty, unbeloved by fate, last left on the homestead, happy with his state; somewhere one November lonely led the two on a star-sharp evening to try a something new– then there was a sudden, then there was a fall, though neither loved the other, no neither one at all, but such were then the seasons, such were then the times, not accommodated, close akin to crimes, so then upon the new year a brand-new tale was coined, the spinster and the farmer awkward bound and joined, till in the midst of August affection found its face and for the rest of living buried all disgrace– all this no puny purpose, in the scheme of memory, from this unplanned connection came a family.
J. A. Wagner holds a Ph.D. in history from Arizona State University and has taught classes in British and American history at Arizona State and Phoenix College. A retired editor, he has published a dozen reference works in English and European history. He splits his time between Wisconsin and Arizona.
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