batgovernor

[batgovernor]

Nonce form: RHL, 'Buccaneer'

These are the waters of the buccaneer– they live large lives and lounge around with liquor, floating on waters calm, gin-clear, their risks outrageous and their thinking thin, alert to bargain and to dicker and not averse to sin– a life erratic. The time of storms starts… ends… another year has gone by, always it seems quicker– thoughts of a distant home fade, disappear– beard covers sunken…

[batgovernor]

Simon MacCulloch, 'Mouth Harp'

The doctor raised an eyebrow. He’d pronounced the sentence (death) And expected her to die now; yet the patient still drew breath. The woman was a smoker, and the cancer had a hold That was strong enough to choke her. She was ninety-three years old. Her lungs must be a sump, awash with nicotine and tar, And with a clogged-up pump like that she wasn’t going far. Well, any trouble breathing? Not…

[batgovernor]

Sonnet series: Jean L. Kreiling, 'My Brother's Last Year'

What My Brother Says He says I’m not myself, but in my eyes and in my arms, he is. I hug him, feeling that he’s lost weight, but brother-warmth defies that deficit. Disease and “cure” both stealing small pieces of him, he has had to quit his role as family cook, and he can’t drive. But he retains his reason and his wit, so much so that it seems clear he’ll survive; they say he won’t. He says his…

[batgovernor]

Stephen Gold: Bored Room

It ran up the flagpole To not one salute. No win-win was won, We ate no low-hung fruit.  The long view was taken, We kicked every tyre. No needles were moved As we sang to the choir. There wasn’t the bandwidth To see this one through. Would the paradigm shift? We just hadn’t a clue.  Our cutting-edge plan To abolish cliché From the meetings we’re forced To endure every day In the final…

[batgovernor]

J.D. Smith, 'Monday in Las Vegas'

The skirts are off the tables. A bucket’s on the floor Until the plumber shows up. In comped rooms, whales still snore. An escort takes the day off For visitation rights. McCarran’s slots are ringing With scores of outbound flights. Housekeeping finds stray bits of What happens and stays here: Pawn tickets and a red chip, Three shoes and one brassiere. Booms or busts in housing Roll through the…

[batgovernor]

Villanelle variation: James B. Nicola, 'My MFA'

I thought I’d go and get my MFA since college never taught me how to write. It’s not that I had anything to say;  I needed somehow, though, to spend the day and, existentially I guess, the night as well. So I went for an MFA  in Creative Writing. I did OK, creatively. My grammar was a fright, and there was nothing that I had to say,  but you got extra points for this. The way you said squat was…

[batgovernor]

Julia Griffin: Translation: 'C.P. Cavafy's Waiting For The Barbarians'

Why are we here in the agora, say? We’ve got the Barbarians coming today. Why are the senators resting their jaws?Why don’t they legislate?  What about laws? We’ve got the Barbarians coming today.Nobody knows how it’s going to play;If any legislate, it will be they. Why is our Emperor out of his bed,Sitting in state at the gate there instead,Wearing a gorgeous great crown on his head? We’ve…

[batgovernor]

Sonnet: Gail White, 'Moving'

How difficult it is to move, Even from simple place to place. How hard to pack the books, to shove The cat into its carrying case. How hard to sit in Airportland Through one more endless flight delay While Trebizond or Samakand Wait half a universe away. How hard to get the papers filed That separate you from your past, Newly and legally enisled.   And yet, and yet my father’s last Great journey…

[batgovernor]

Nonce form: Stephen Edgar, 'In Search of Time to Come'

There’s not much noise above the sputtering fire.They don’t speak much.The children are settling to a private croon,Though the baby whimpers, palping blindly to clutchAt a breast. Farther back, picked out by aFinal index finger of the sun, someone squats.They’ll be changing their abode quite soon,No doubt.The time requires a tacit finishing touch,From women working at rough potsAnd men scraping a…

[batgovernor]

Marcus Bales, 'Rule Number One'

For Linda, who said it first  If you’re going to have a reading then no matter where you are for a minimum of breeding you have got to have a bar. You will fill up all the seating, they will come from near and far, if the best part of your greeting is “Why, yes we have a bar!” But the evening will be fleeting even if you’ve booked a star when it’s alcohol they’re needing and you do not have a…

[batgovernor]

Sonnet Crown: Amit Majmudar, 'Recourse'

1. Time, like love, is cyclic. Please come back to me. I’ll stand here waiting, wanting while the mare without her rider rounds the track. I want to weave a crown for you, design a daisy chain whose threaded stems become a bracelet that handcuffs your wrist to mine. My shadow’s gnomon tilts like a sun dial’s. I know you’re somewhere close. I feel a thrum, a thrill beneath the stillness of the…

[batgovernor]

Using form: John Gallas, 'travellin feet: a Camaguey sonnet"

Im walkin in my feet to Camaguey. The sun comes up. Im cracklin like a chicken … Takin time … . Now somethins comin, kickin clouds of yeller grit behind me – Hey! Stop! … It dont. Who cares? It whirls away. I seen inside the flyin cotton curtain – Business sat with Care … . My toes are hurtin … Whoa, I got to walk another day. How quick they drive to worry … What I got the other end improves with…

[batgovernor]

F.F. Teague, 'Lament of the Leaning Trees'

We were planted to stand, not to sprawl in this way   by the larger of lakes in the park, to stare straight at the sky through the night and the day,   not to ogle our own shades of bark. But the lake has swelled swampily over the years,   seizing soil in her cool clammy clench, with a treasure of twigs-and-grass, sweet chestnut spheres,   and a hoard of hard wood, once a bench. How we cling to…

[batgovernor]

Quatrains: D.A. Prince, 'Weeds'

for Helena Nelson Let’s celebrate those seeded in guttering high overhead — bird-dropped or wind-blown in shy, shaded corners, not cluttering the road-edge like litter or casually sown on the garden’s margins. Buddleia, birch — slender and whippy, fretful and restless, only a small claw-hold on their high perch, a loose version of themselves in endless inventive air. No one, much, bothers them,…

[batgovernor]

Sonnet: J.D. Smith, 'Behind the Epic'

The people’s greatest men go forth for years By land or sea, depending on the foe, Arrayed with shining swords, shields, helmets, spears And dazzling banners raised again to show  Who holds dominion over flocks and fields, Who levies tribute and is far renowned For showing mercy to the town that yields, That isn’t burned or leveled to the ground.  The singer of the tribe, near-sighted, lame,…

[batgovernor]

Semi-formal quatrains: Rachel Hadas, 'Roadblock'

Call me the bee buzzing in the museum. The younger sister fussing through a house still stiff with loss. The meddling goblin in the mausoleum. My dream: with three in the front seat, we drive under a bridge and halt. A huge gray bus blocks the whole road, including us, the only travelers who are left alive. It’s drizzling; the windshield wiper blades busily gesture, yet we’re nearly blind. You…

[batgovernor]

Sonnet: Barbara Loots, 'Climbing'

I have begun to narrow down desire. As though tracing a river to its source I climb, charting the change higher and higher from placid meander to the turbulent course where it began. I have loved much, not well, collecting worlds to carry on my back. What shall I leave? The spirits that compel this climb demand a spare and steady pack. Leave beauty, wonder. They are everywhere. Leave hope, and…