[Anna M Evans]

I've only had two poems in Light, of which this is the most recent, from Autumn-Winter 2009-2010:

The Critics

The Oscar-winning movie ends
the way all proper fiction should
with evil overcome by good.
The Oscar-winning movie ends;
we walk into the night with friends,
ignore the sneaking feeling: could
an Oscar-winning movie end,
surprising us, as fiction should?

Before I ever got into Light though, John did write me my favorite rejection letter of all time, which I immortalized here on my blog.

RIP John Mella. You will be sorely missed.

[Mary Cresswell]

Someone mention Goldsmith? Here, also, from Light 2008:

When men from wandering ways recover,
They’ve sampled life unto the dregs,
Then they limp back home to mother,
Same old tail between their legs.

They lie and contemplate their follies,
They dream of sowing what they’ll reap,
They twitch like ageing border collies,
Herding bimbos in their sleep.

[Carol Taylor]

I had the privilege of guest-editing the Fall 2002 issue of Light along with Tim Murphy. John Mella dedicated 44 pages of that issue to showcase a group of poems we had collected here on Eratosphere and compiled into an as-yet-unpublished manuscript called Classic Jokes, A Verse Anthology. John pretty much gave us carte blanche to choose which poems we would use. I did the layout by his specifications and was able to include about 64 of our collected poems. He wrote:

"...Clearing the tables of their more usual fare, the editors absconded through the scullery, leaving the doors wide open for the guest editors. And what a feast it is that they have spread! Tim Murphy and Carol Taylor (see page 11) have assembled a wide array of dishes, at once bawdy, witty, deadpan, inventive, and wildly hilarious. It opened up for us new vistas of talent from Britain, chief among them Jim Hayes. Robert Schechter, of New York City, was another such discovery. And there were dazzling new facets from familiar writers, prominent among them X. J. Kennedy, Richard Wakefield, R. S. Gwynn, and Murphy and Taylor themselves."

Here's one of mine from that issue:

Going Out In Style

An aging spinster phoned her young attorney.
"I have no next of kin who'll be bereft;
I've forty thousand dollars in my savings,
and want to designate how it is left.

"First, I'd like to have the grandest funeral
this town has ever seen--go out in style.
Can it be done for thirty-five thousand dollars?"
The lawyer said, "No problem," with a smile.

"But what," he asked, "about the last five thousand?"
The lady cleared her throat, then firmly said,
"There's one experience my life is lacking.
I'd like just once to take a man to bed

before I die. Do you suppose five thousand
is enough for you to find a gentleman
to do the job? Somebody young and handsome?"
The lawyer said, "Why yes, I think I can."

He told his anxious client not to worry,
he'd finalize arrangements right away.
That evening over dinner he broached the subject
when his sweet wife asked how he'd spent his day.

"Five thousand bucks would come in pretty handy.
What do you think? Ought I to take it on?"
"It's better than letting the money go to strangers,"
his frugal wife agreed. The deal was done.

He called his client and made the proposition--
she thought it almost too good to be true.
His wife then dropped him at the lady's condo.
"Just call and I'll come get you when you're through."

An hour and five thousand dollars later,
the wife picked up her ringing cellular.
Her husband said, "Come get me in the morning.
She's going to let the county bury her!"

Carol

[Susan d.S.]

Here she goes, from Issue 64-65. A toast, then, to Light:

Anacreontic

Polish the glass and heft it
bereft of what has left it,
ruby fluid consecrates
fleshless remnants of the grape.
Pith and pips and strangled stem,
crush of juice, a hint again
that we must cease with whining,
for grapes are yet divining
twisting paths down to the ground,
burying fury, dampening sound.
Perhaps we reap that which we sow,
but none escape the reaper’s mow.
Bury the groan, bottle the tear,
have a nibble at my ear….
Polish the glass and heft it,
Refilled with what has left it.
Darkened vessel, smoothly slide
the burgundy that burns inside.

[Ed Shacklee]

A selection of titles from Nos. 56-57, the Spring-Summer 2007 double issue of Light, which can be purchased here:

Let Me Count the Ways, by Edmund Conti
After Hearing an Unrhymed Triolet in a Worksop, by Midge Goldberg
The Piranha, by Carl R. Lombardi
The Duchess of Dishes, by the Countess of Flatbroke, Mary Meriam
Beelzebub Now, by Miles David Moore
Death Is the Mother of Beauty, by Vic Peterson
Epitaph in the Form of a Limerick, by Marion Shore
Sales Pitch Sestina, by Dan Skwire
Midnight Spin, by Alan Sullivan
Dirt, by John Updike

Plus an essay on the featured poet, Melissa Balmain, by Susan McLean, who contributed poems herself, and much, much more.

Let's help out the Light Brigade and snap up a few of their funny back issues in celebration of John Mella.

Ed

[Rose Kelleher]

On Perusing the Biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay

I'm Edna St. Vincent Millay, my friend,
I'm Edna St. Vincent Millay,
if you took her magnificent cinnamon hair
and redoubtable talent away.

I'm Edna St. Vincent Millay--that is,
if she were a bit Rubenesque,
and hadn't blue eyes or a Pulitzer prize,
and spent Saturday nights at her desk.

I'm Edna St. Vincent Millay! I'm just
as neurotic and flighty as she.
Though I'm no Aphrodite, my ego's as mighty;
my poems are all about me.

I'm Edna St. Vincent Millay, it's true,
as prolific with poems and prose;
I'd be just as promiscuous, too, if the right
opportunities ever arose.

I'm the Edna St. Vincent Millay of my day,
though I doubt she and I would be friends;
'cause I'm saddled with all of her character flaws
but that's where the resemblance ends.


(Autumn, 2003)

[Susan d.S.]

Great idea, Ed. Ed is being a bit modest, though. He has no fewer than 3 terrific poems in the current double issue (74-75), of which my personal favorite is "Lullaby."

[Janice D. Soderling]

Ed, please do post one of your Light poems.

[Ed Shacklee]

Thank you, Susan and Janice. I will post this one, which I didn't know was out yet. It wasn't modesty that prevented me, but an unwillingness to step on anyone's toes while they're selling the newest double issue. However, it was in the sample PDF, so I guess it's all right:



This Xmas

Buy your girl a gun, and show
she’s just as good as any boy
and knows as much as grown-ups know.
There couldn’t be a better toy

for putting paid to playground strife.
It answers every question asked
and turns into a way of life
for robbers who employ it, masked.

Nothing makes the pow it makes —
not chocolate-covered hand grenades
or handsaws baked inside of cakes.
It doesn’t glint as bright as blades,

but you’ll not find a stocking stuffer
to make your little angel tougher.
So give a gift that keeps on giving,
and separates the dead and living.

[Edmund Conti]

Great last line, Ed.