18-2

Julia's Reply

with a nod to Robert Herrick

Whenas in silks my Julia goes...?
It pleased the poet, I suppose,
To versify my furbelows.

No Puritan, or too strait-laced,
I did, though, think it in poor taste
From one who claimed his life was chaste.

It irked me how his eyes would note
What lay 'neath gown and petticoat,
Less godly priest than parish goat!

by Jerome Betts

Whenas

still nodding to Robert Herrick

Whenas in jeans my Julia dances,
My yearning for some hot romance is
A thing her dance-floor flair enhances.

As denim-clad her hips she swings,
The curves to which the fabric clings,
Write hymns my eager bloodstream sings.

Tormented by the flames she's fanned,
I'm out of luck. I understand
She's dating some guy in the band.

by Chris O'Carroll

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Jerome Betts edits Lighten Up Online, the quarterly verse webzine (www.lightenup-online.co.uk) from his Devon (England) fastness or slowness, near, but never on, the sea, and contributes to Light, Snakeskin, The Asses of Parnassus, and other repositories of wit and mirth.

Chris O'Carroll is a Light featured poet and a contributor to The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology and 20 Years at the Cantab Lounge. His poems have appeared in Barefoot Muse, Bumbershoot, Iambs & Trochees, Shot Glass, Snakeskin, Thunder Sandwich, Tilt-a-Whirl, and Unsplendid (no kidding, those are real poetry journal names).

18-1

Jeans

with a nod to Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I outgrow thee? Let me count the ways.
I outgrow thee to the depth and breadth and bulk
My rear can reach when spreading out of sight
From the best Godivas and crème brûlée.
I outgrow thee to the level of every day's
Perilous ounce on scale and upper thigh.
I outgrow thee fat-freely, with scores of Baked Lays.
I outgrow thee purely, with no artificial sweeteners.
I outgrow thee with the passion put to use
In my new marriage and its Date Night pizzas.
I outgrow thee with fleshy rolls I thought I'd lost
In adolescence—with the pudge, pinch, and body-shaming
Of all my nightmares. And this I know surely:
Thou shall but fit me less well after washing.

by Alice Batt

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Alice Batt lives with 3 males (one grown and two nearly grown) in fewer than 1,200 square feet. Her life is a mind-numbing buzz of computer-game trivia, "percussion vs. tuba" rivalries, and roundhouse kicks to the head (not her own head, usually). For fun she spews invectives at Austin traffic and tries not to get thrown into fences by thoroughbreds.

17-52

The Perfect Enjoyment: A Lesson for John Wilmot

with a nod to J.W., Earl of Rochester

Fair Corinne,

Let us lay our lines together in a poem.

Let me lay my bilabial plosive

On your sweet rhyme,

And time, and we united,

In strophe and antistrophe,

Shall sing and dance into the climax of our air.

Free verse and metered lines we'll use,

And undulating rhythms too will fuse

With metaphor, the motive and the music,

And what's more, like a sword thrusting

Tirelessly, ever true and keen,

In the vast redeeming underbelly of the sea,

Received in constant motion, rising

And falling onward to the shore of ecstasy.

In spume and froth sweet Aphrodite come

Naked on your clam shell, and once again

Repeat the long lost words of love and lease

A moment of your tide to our soft charge,

For when those sounds we've married to our own,

Our poem's complete, and we, though emptied,

With your rhyme replete. 

by Robert Witmer

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Robert Witmer's life is reflected in one of his haiku: 

expatriate

returning home

from home. 

This aging émigré seldom knows if he's coming or going. Resident of Tokyo, fortunate in family, friends, occupation, and creative vocation, he often prefers to play pétanque. He has recently published a book of haiku: Finding a Way.