Grave New Globe
I. Lair
—a pantoum
You said that owning nothing was a blessing.
You whipped our worldly wealth and worth away.
You told us that regressing meant progressing
To greener grass where sunbeams saved the day.
You whipped our worldly wealth and worth away.
You locked us in a dark and airless box
On scarlet grass where sunbeams braved the day—
A hen-hole guarded by a smirking fox.
You locked us in a dark and airless box
Where shelves were bare and prayers were not allowed—
A hellhole guarded by a snarling fox.
We heard you crunch a carcass as we cowed.
The shelves were bare and prayers were not allowed
In shady realms where sly messiahs ruled.
We spied you counting corpses as we cowed.
You scattered flocks. You spooked. You forced. You fooled.
In shady realms where sly messiahs ruled,
You told us that regressing meant progressing.
You flattered us. You faked. You fleeced. You fooled.
You own it all—our nothing is your blessing.
II. Warped
—a triolet
The tale they told us wasn’t so.
The care they sold us was a curse.
When asked, they swore they didn’t know
The tale they told us wasn’t so,
Yet still their ploys plunge gutter low
For profits topping the perverse.
The tale they tell us isn’t so.
The care they sell us is a curse.
III. As a Bird
—a villanelle
I will not let a thief steal all I own.
I know the grit it took to set me free.
Eternal gifts shine on—they’re not on loan.
I’m so much more than mammon, flesh, and bone.
I’m Dover cliffs, the Blitz—I’m war-whipped sea.
I will not let a thief steal all I own.
I’m of the thudding blood of kin who’ve known
The battle of a barbarous history.
Eternal gifts shine on. They’re not on loan—
Eclipsing sparkle from each showy stone,
They blaze within the quiet core of me.
I will not let a thief steal all I own.
My thoughts trace blazing trails Apollo’s flown.
My dreams are on a phoenix-soaring spree.
Eternal gifts shine on. They’re not on loan
From sharks who swim the predatory zone—
They’re paid for with ferocious loyalty.
I‘ll never let a thief steal all I own.
Eternal gifts shine on—they’re not on loan.
Susan Jarvis Bryant is a poet originally from the U.K., now living on the Gulf Coast of Texas.
A rather dim view of the world and those who would be its masters, but a fairly accurate view, I would say, with appropriate strokes of defiance. in an engaging tryptych of fixed forms.
Susan, this is a great trio of poems for the tail end of 2025. Definitely worthy to go into the historical record. These rigid poem structures are very appropriate for the subject matter of the rigid top-down manipulation and control which you describe. I enjoyed reading, thank you!
You sound skeptical that top-down forced redistribution of global wealth by a small group of elites will turn out well (other than for the elites). Outstanding job, as always, on all 3 efforts!
These are three expertly crafted pieces that are animated by very deep levels of anger, frustration, and grievance. I felt my own rage growing exponentially as I read each one, for I could immediately picture the unspoken references for the pronouns “you’ and “they.” Bureaucrats, NGOs, left-liberal and socialist politicians, environmentalist freaks, a corrupted leftist judiciary, an ideologized academia, a complicit clergy, a lying establishment media, murderous terrorists and their mainstream apologists… there’s no end to the scum who surround us.
The final villanelle is the cry of resistance, of refusal, of the hard-bitten will to never succumb or surrender to those who in their all-knowing arrogance are trying to debase and degrade us. Brava ragazza!
Susan, I have one minor suggestion about a word. In the second quatrain of “Lair,” why not say “hen-house” instead of “hen-hole”? It makes the image much clearer, and it avoids overdoing the word “hole” (which appears in the next quatrain as “hellhole”).
I felt the same way about “hen-hole.” Joseph, but, unlike you, all I could do was try to picture what a hen-hole would look like — nothing like a rathole or a rabbit-hole, I suppose, but, having raised chickens in years past, I know it would be some kind of shithole.
I share in your outcries of logic a leftist denies. How greatly you skewer their view from the sewer. I was also particularly taken with your continuing rhymes from verse to verse in the third one.