Category: Poetry

“Umbrella” by W. Roger Carlisle

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

You were my first imaginary friend,
my sword for attacking
pirates, the trusted keeper
of my own black magic, a large leaf
of cool and shade, my witches broom.

Your canopy protected me from the dark clouds
of my mother’s illness, the critical voices which fell
in sheets, the accusations raining from bottles of alcohol;
your fan of blackness
kept me safe in the darkness of my room.

As I grew older, the circumference of my umbrella grew,
it’s presence became the spirit of my father,
always with me night or day,
rain or shine, stubborn, stable, resilient, strong,
so quiet in his love.

I trusted the stories we wove together
into the stretched black cloth
over the ribs of his old skin and bones,
through the patient listening of his old soul.

He was the one who walked beside me
the rest of my life, a listening presence,
a forgiving voice; straight or collapsed,
always ready to spring into action.

My shield against bad weather,
my copilot in a storm,
I could hold on to him in a breeze,
fly above the clouds,
see the world through his eyes.

He was the wind at my back,
a parachute of courage,
frail yet strong,
easy to carry, always keeping me dry.




W. Roger Carlisle is a 75-year-old, semi-retired physician. He currently volunteers and works in a free medical clinic for patients living in poverty. He grew up in Oklahoma and was a history major in college. He has been writing poetry for 11 years and is a nominee for a 2021 Pushcart Prize. He is currently on a journey of returning home to better understand himself through poetry. He hopes he is becoming more humble in the process.

Two Poems by M. J. Gilbert

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

When Molding Disappointments

When molding disappointments,
From best intention’s clay,
Let anger’s fires turn them stone
For heirlooms of dismay;

Display them in the open,
In plain and public view;
Keep them well and pass them on
As some were passed to you.


Funnel

Life is a funnel
All traverse

In full career
And in reverse

Propriety
A funnel too

That bids me travel
Forward through

What darkling virtue
May decree

Circumference vast
Or Decency




M.J. Gilbert was too businessy for the academic world and may be too academic for the business one. We’ll see. He has a Ph.D. in Literature from SUNY Stony Brook and is the author of The Riddle of Firelight, a Most Curious Winter’s Tale. He loves poetry, lives in awe of good poetry, and appreciates the rarefied irony of sending lyric pieces to Sparks of Calliope.

Two Poems by Judith O’Connell Hoyer

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

My Friend and I

Drive to this garden of wildflowers
set around a glacial pond,
the heavenly opposite of thirst.
Water shinnies down crystal ropes.
We walk on a path of crushed stone.
There are asters and lady slippers.
There is yarrow. So much in bloom.
We pause to hear a herd of sudden rain
stampede across our raised umbrellas.
Ferns lick the wet air
wanting more of what they already have.
We speak loudly to be heard,
“Look, witch hazel. Look, iris.
Look, white violets.”
There are voices beyond.
We are not alone. They are not alone.
We follow them – the spiderwort, I mean,
the moss, the turtles on a log,
until we are where we began,
outside where the car is parked.


Who I Am

I want to remember my imaginary friend Mary,
then call her in from where I left her in the street
when I was five, before she gets run over again.

I want to remember my grandmother calling me
a brazen hussy, a proud haughty when she caught me
preening in her bedroom mirror.

I want to remember when I wished my name was Deirdre,
wished for a night at Billy Bob’s Fort Worth honky tonk
stomping in my straight-legged jeans and killer cowgirl boots.

I want to remember to shinny into my aqua St John knit
when I’m 80, the one with the gold belt buckle that clicks shut,
the one I bought for my 40th.

I want to remember the fine powder of anticipation, how it clings
to everything that’s vital and worth being bad for.

I want to remember that you are the only one, you with your
left-handedness and shirts with a pocket over your heart.

I want to remember being out there with Mary, feet bare,
lifting the hems of our sundresses to catch a summer shower
as it dashes down noisy and necessary.




Judith O’Connell Hoyer’s 2017 chapbook Bits and Pieces Set Aside was nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award by the publisher of Finishing Line Press. Her full-length book, Imagine That, is forthcoming from Future Cycle Press in March 2023. Judith’s poems can be found in publications that include CALYX, Cider Press Review, Southwest Review, The Galway Review (Ireland), The Moth Magazine (Ireland), The New York Times Metropolitan Diary, and The Worcester Review among others. She splits her time between Massachusetts and Rhode Island. 

“Bach” by Arthur L. Wood

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Bach is playing sweetly,
The flowers are in bloom,
My lady moves so gently
With her hands upon a broom,
She’s sweeping all the ashes
Into piles by the door,
And never ever need I ask
What are we fighting for?

For Bach will suit our toil
And Bach will suit our rest;
I gently peel an orange
And look upon the west,
Our lovely sun is setting,
The evensong begins,
The birds and Bach are singing
Unaware of sins.

And as the song increases
The ash is in my hand,
The birds become frenetic,
My lady’s in command,
Bach is in his tremor now,
My frightened hands are curled,
My lady breathes upon the ash
And blows away the world.




Arthur L. Wood is a poet from Winchester, UK. He has published two collections, Poems for Susan (2020) and Scarlet Land (2021).  His poetry takes inspiration from the lyrical poetry of the early twentieth century, notably Walter de la Mare and William Butler Yeats. Wood’s poetry has been described by Raymond Keene, OBE, as functioning “as an overview of the entire English tradition of poetic creation.” He is widely published in poetry journals and runs his own YouTube channel, Poetry from the Shires, where he shares classic and original verse. Wood’s third collection, Lysander, is expected in September 2022. Find him on Twitter @ArthurLWood.

“Toccata” by Johnny Payne

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Best played as encore, fast, light
hitting keys hard, like Yuja Wang
did, trounce, the queen of broken strings.
Fiendish, fleet, pristine clarity
accurate right-hand octaves, span
of her hand the toccata grasps.

Prokofiev would surely gasp
for her fury at speed of light
sailing over dropped bridge spans
because her hands are instead wings
merciless, without charity
a mad wasp whose softest touch stings.

How can I make each last word sing?
Can a poem simply have no gaps?
Must my craft outwit, charily
making lines break almost too late
or is the secret about Wang’s
force, how the note like a coin spins?

The left-hand octave fourths, keys spring
as if they will detach from the springs
like joy in the pain of birth pangs
first gasp and last gasp the same gasp.
Wang attacks, attacks and won’t let
sound loose from grasp, she’s too wary.

Spectators upright, none weary.
First chairs, conductor and unsung
stagehands watch cracks of light
peep between her fine, quick fingers
ones even the light can’t quite grasp.
Wood pegs pop while steel strings ping.

Toccata not four minutes long
for her a sprinter’s mile, clearly
the fastest on record. You gasp
though not because it’s fast. You’re stunned
because its beauty lingers
long after she’s gone in the night.

Wang’s strings, keys bring light, clarity.
Our attention span grows. We grasp
for the emotion, and it flees.




Johnny Payne is Director of the MFA in Creative Writing at Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles. He has published two books of poetry: Vassal  (Mouthfeel Press, 2014) and Heaven of Ashes  (Mouthfeel Press, 2017).

“Fortnite on a Friday at Home” by Kevin Blankinship

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 1 Comment
After the 7th century Black Arab warrior-poet Antarah

The enemy calls me. I answer
with my flint-knock pistol,
more faithful than any friend,

and my death-dealing SMG,
shattered in the thrust.

Clasped in my iron mech suit,
no chinks, not even when iron itself
refuses to hold. I rush onward into—

Honey, where did you put the keys?
A minor setback at base.

I return after a moment’s distraction,
health points full again.
I rush headlong into the fray,

no bombs to startle me here,
no sniper to learn my hiding place—

Why didn’t you tell me we’re out of toilet paper?
It’s serious now. Before the enemy can
strike, I crouch and roll, restock supplies,

then sprint back to the front.
Back to the work of death.

I build a mansion with the bones of the slain.
Opponent’s blood is my drink, the screams
of foes are mother’s milk. None is spared—

Can you take the trash out, please?
Damn. They’ve been spared. For now.




Kevin Blankinship is a professor of Arabic at Brigham Young University. His essays and poetry have appeared in The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Gingerbread House, Blue Unicorn, Wine Cellar Press, and more. Follow him on Twitter @AmericanMaghreb.

“The Feelings Our Life Has Forgot” by Peggy Everett

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 1 Comment

Dew christens our world at the crowning of night,
When dawn kindles dew with a wakening light.
With intents to rise in the formative phase,
The incoming morn sets the embers ablaze,

Then gilds all our realm ‘til creation is gold!
When sight has more treasure than coffers can hold.
While birds warble lyrics candescent as art,
Sweet night’s consolations rescind and depart.

Then out in the country and cities and towns,
We’re grasping for cigarettes, glasses, and gowns.
Quick showers, gulped coffee, newspapers to face,
Swift dressing, fast eating: our world is a race.

Then slamming of doors and car engines ignite
To tear through the streets where the dew glistens light.
By bustle of noonday, we likely will not
Vent grief for the feelings our life has forgot.

While street-dwelling poor whom success doesn’t see,
Whose nights have a price, but whose daylight is free,
Now bolstered by beauty and salvaged by heat,
Revive in the sun and subsist on the street.

We rush through rose sunsets the same way we left,
Our scruples consigned and our spirits bereft.
We’ve fam’lies to fend and news broadcasts to scope,
Calamities climb ‘til concern cannot cope,

‘Til twilight arrives and the darkness descends…
Though dark should bring respite and stars make amends.
For dream-desperation and competent sin,
Our common affliction restricts how we win.

While clocks by our beds dole allotments of flight,
We’ve blocks in our heads who are tyrants by right,
Which ration the moon and all possible bliss,
So even our romance is madly remiss.

While under the viaduct romance is strife,
Since embraces share heat, every love is for life.
While a symphony swells of euphonious frogs,
In chorus with crickets and jubilant dogs,
Emblazoned in silver of moon-rays conferred
In honor of music that nobody heard.




Peggy Everett is a blind poet who lives in the rural Pacific Northwest with her spouse and runs a small nonprofit for pets in need.

“Alexandrine for Orpheus” by Helen Jenks

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

If there were yet, O Muse, a greater myth than thee,
Then what reason would we, the poets, have to write,
To sing? To praise the verséd glory of your name––
Sweet tongue, embalmed in honeyed words so cruel and fair,
And nimble hands, so tender with the tortoise lyre;
What else could we, the poets, ever hope to be
But trapped like she in tragedy’s unforgott’n hold,
Eurydice! Does not enchanting Death fatigue
Of tears, even as he weeps and fears for your
Mangled body left to rot on such a lovely
Mountaintop as the wine-soaked hills of Pangaion ––
O Tragedy, you blithe and pithy thing! Your toys
Are weary of this game, as sure as spring again
Must rise, as does the lonely sun in every sky,
And just as do the rocks and stones and pavements of
The underworld sing draft and dreamless songs of love,
Along an old and winding road. Along an old
And treach’rous road, we watch and wait with bated breath
As Fate itself beguiles Death, and lovers young
Attempt to sway the oiled heart of King Hades––
And all the rocks that line the road call out to you
O Orpheus! Turn not the sweetness of your head,
For us, O Muse, look straight ahead! Perhaps this time
You’ll get it right, but still you fail, and still we die.




Helen Jenks is a poet from Dublin, bumbling history student, and avid knitter who writes of memory and myth, among other things. Her work has been published in various journals across Ireland, the UK, and the US, and she acts as the editor of The Madrigal, an Irish poetry publication focused on work that is emotive, sincere, and familiar.

A Translation of “Catullus 13” by Matthew T. Warnez

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 1 Comment

Catullus 13

Fabúllus, friend! Prepare to feast with me,
if fate allows, two days from now, or three.
But you must bring the meal—and make it great.
Yes, a good meal! And bring your charming date—
and wine, and salty speech, and jokes to tell.
If you bring these, my friend, you will dine well.

(Your dear Catúllus owns a spacious purse,
yet only cobwebs will the purse disburse.)

But, in exchange, you shall receive my love
or something more delightful from above:
I’ll share the fragrance that my bride applies,
which love supernal sweetly magnifies.
Once it is whiffed, you’ll beg that heav’n bestows—
this gift: to be in love, or be a nose.


***Original Latin***

Cēnābis bene, mī Fabulle, apud mē
paucīs, sī tibi dī favent, diēbus,
sī tēcum attuleris bonam atque magnam
cēnam, nōn sine candidā puellā
et vīnō et sale et omnibus cachinnīs.
Haec sī, inquam, attuleris, venuste noster,
cēnābis bene; nam tuī Catullī
plēnus sacculus est arāneārum.
Sed contrā accipiēs merōs amōrēs,
seu quid suāvius ēlegantiusve est:
nam unguentum dabŏ, quod meae puellae
dōnārunt Venerēs Cupīdinēsque;
quod tū cum olfaciēs, deōs rogābis
tōtum ut tē faciant, Fabulle, nāsum.

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a poet of the late Roman Republic whose poetry focused on everyday life instead of classical heroes. A significant influence of Ovid, Virgil, and Petrarch, his surviving works are still widely read and influential in contemporary poetry and art.




Matthew T. Warnez, B.H., is a Catholic religious brother and a campus minister.

“How Do I Reply to ‘Do You Love Me?'” by John Grey

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 1 Comment

Yes, that’s my head you see
sitting atop my voice.
It is responsible for the machinations
of the tongue, even the gestures
that conduct sound into meaning.
Behind my brow, are my thoughts,
my motivations.
Sorry you can’t chisel through
and see for yourself.
You’ll have to take my word for it.
And my head is perched
atop my word.
Containing a heavy brain,
it can’t help but exert pressure
on the throat.
So that’s why sometimes,
the explanation comes out garbled,
like a wrestler struggling
not to be pinned.
Or it’s whispered
as if it’s trying to avoid
the attention of the giant above.
Or it just gives up,
says nothing,
despite the head’s
stream of instructions.
Right now, I’m silent,
though the head is loud.




John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, and Hollins Critic. His latest books, Leaves on Pages, Memory Outside the Head, and Guest of Myself, are available through Amazon. His work is upcoming in Ellipsis, Blueline, and International Poetry Review.