THE CATS OF SPRINGFIELD, OHIO

by Gail White

The cats that live in Springfield
lie down secure to sleep,
for no one comes to hunt them
or slaughter them like sheep.

Around the cats of Springfield
no trappers lie in wait,
for they are not as humans
who rise to every bait.

Gail White is a formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light. Her most recent collections are Paper Cuts, Asperity Street, and Catechism. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats. 

HARES ON THE MOUNTAIN

by Gail White

Families connected to a Nashville school that experienced a fatal shooting earlier this year have created nonprofits to not only promote school safety and mental health resources, but also to form an action fund to push legislative policy changes. The Independent (UK), July 21, 2023

If all the young women were hares on the mountain,

Then all the young men would turn hounds and go hunting.

—“Hares on the Mountain”

Why is your gun so hot, my son,

have you hunted the deer today?

No, mother, the deer were safe from me.

I have hunted another prey.

Is it your father’s gun you found,

that he kept on a shelf so high?

No, mother, this gun is all my own,

for guns are easy to buy.

No one bothered to ask my age,

or how much I could understand,

and it’s easy enough to find the prey

on a tracker in my hand.

I may go hunting along the beach,

or down by the hidden pool,

but the deer are all as safe from me

as the children are safe in school.

Gail White is a formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light. Her most recent collections are Paper Cuts, Asperity Street, and Catechism. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats. 

BRISEIS

by Gail White

Apulian Red-Figure Amphora by the Painter of the Berlin Dancing Girl ca. 430-410 BCE depicting Achilles and Briseis. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Women have few speaking parts

in the Iliad. At the beginning,

Briseis is torn away from Achilles

with never a word. But when Agamemnon

finally decides to make up the quarrel

and sends her back, Patroclus is dead

and her grief is for him, the most decent man

in the crowd, and the kindest.

You would not let me grieve, she says,

when Achilles had killed my father and brothers

and taken me captive; you always promised

Achilles would marry me.

That's what the women

have to look forward to in wartime:

with any luck, the man who murdered

your brothers will marry you. Although Achilles

did no such thing. Most likely he shunted

her off to the loom and kept her weaving

new tunics for him while he sent letters

over the wall to young Polyxena,

the bait that would lead him to his death.

Soldiers die, and the race of heroes

is gone: today there is no Achilles,

Patroclus, or angry Agamemnon.

But look at the eyes of captured women:

Briseis is there, forever dragged

away, forever and ever silent.

Gail White is a formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light. Her most recent collections are Asperity Street and Catechism. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats. 

WAITING FOR ARMAGEDDON

by Gail White

Explosions in Kyiv heard live on air https://t.co/JGLvh4k8tX

— HectorM (@JaguarVer) February 24, 2022

All times are times of impending doom,

If one knows how to read the signs.

But old gods walk through the living room

And lay down nets and fishing lines.

Clutching the mesh, I begin to seek

Wonders and signs I’ve let slip by:

The fish impaled on the heron’s beak

Miraculous as the butterfly.

Between war and depression the end will come.

With plague and famine we take our chance.

But the cat moves her kittens one last time,

And the sandhill crane does a mating dance.

Gail White is a formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light. Her most recent collections are Asperity Street and Catechism. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats. 

HURRICANE WATCH, NEW ORLEANS

by Gail White

Mon., Aug. 30: Children watch reporters at a building collapse scene in New Orleans. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Someday only the divers

will visit New Orleans.

The church bells will ring under water.

Kelp will encircle the rusting wrought iron

like Mardi Gras beads.

The round-eyed fish will roam free

with no one to cook them with almonds.

Drinks are not on the house now, but under the sea.

Politics cause no fights. Who wins doesn’t matter.

The artists are gone. The rich and the homeless are gone.

The old jazz musicians have shut up their instrument cases

I will be one of the few to remember the days

of white-powdered beignets and coffee at Jackson Square,

and Jackson himself on a rearing horse tipping his hat.

And the bells of St. Louis Cathedral

will ring for mass under the sea.

Gail White is a formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light. Her most recent collections are Asperity Street and Catechism. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats. 

NO PLANET B

by Gail White

Image source: Tehran Times, April 22, 2020

A truth we’d rather see removed
now stares us in the face:
how much the planet is improved
without the human race.

Now hatchling turtles on the beach
escape in seaward flight.
In Africa’s deserted streets
the lion sleeps tonight.

Now dolphins leap from their lagoon
and wave excited tails,
while goats go sauntering among
the shuttered shops of Wales.

So every passing day would find
the earth more fresh and green
if only all of humankind
would stay in quarantine.

Gail White is a formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light. Her most recent collections are Asperity Street and Catechism. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats. 

A WORD FROM OUR FEARLESS LEADER

by Gail White

Coronavirus Pandemic by Bill Day, Tallahassee, FL

Coronavirus crisis?
I don’t know what you mean.
We’ll stop it at the border.
We’ll find a new vaccine.

They loved me in New Delhi.
I didn’t wear a mask.
You’re safe with me to guide you.
Your health care? Please don’t ask.

Gail White is a formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light. Her most recent collections are Asperity Street and Catechism. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats. 

A PRAYER FROM LOUISIANA

by Gail White





God bless the oysters
I can eat alive
because they have no heartbeat.

God bless the feral cats
who have no control
over their fertility,
and the women who had it once
but lost it.

God bless the migrant children
who die in US custody
whose lives don’t matter
because they are post-unborn.

God bless the deer
To the hunters,
The fish to the net,
The faithful to their homes,
The children to their mothers’ arms.


Gail White is a formalist poet with work in many journals, including Measure, Light, First Things, and Hudson Review. She is a two-time winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Her latest book Catechism was published in 2016 by White Violet Press.

SCOTUS BLUES

by Gail White


Image: an inherited photograph at the UF blog of Marsha Bryant.

Matriarchs of my Southern childhood
warned me of predatory men
in theaters, woods, wherever I
might dare to venture out alone.
Mostly I shrugged it off, but now,
thinking of predatory men,
I say to their matriarchal ghosts
Oh, were you right, were you right again?


Gail White is a formalist poet with work in many journals, including Measure, Light, First Things, and Hudson Review. She is a two-time winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Her latest book Catechism was published in 2016 by White Violet Press.

THE NORWEGIAN QUESTION

by Gail White

Cartoon by Peter Kuper for The New Yorker.

Why don’t we get more immigrants from Norway?
All winter long they never see the sun.
But their health care’s taken care of
And they’re not, that I’m aware of,
Very likely to be murdered with a gun.

What is it with these ignorant Norwegians?
Don’t they want what all Americans receive?
But they love the smorgasbords
And the mountains and the fjords,
And on top of that, they get parental leave.

Why do I sometimes wish I were Norwegian?
Am I really quite as socialist as that?
Yes, the dream that I aspire to
Is to sit beside the fire to
Caress my own Norwegian forest cat.

Gail White is a formalist poet with work in many journals, including Measure, Light, First Things, and Hudson Review. She is a two-time winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Her latest book Catechism was published in 2016 by White Violet Press.

DEPARTURE

by Gail White

They have paid all they have
to enter this cramped space.
They no more know
when they will sleep again
or where, than the blind
mole knows if it will escape
the cat outside its hole.
Universe, be kind.


Gail White's new book Asperity Street is available on Amazon or from Able Muse Press.

ON ASPERITY STREET

by Gail White





My deep Southern family
all loved to eat:
Thanksgiving dinners
and barbecued wieners
and fish fries with hushpuppies
in summer's heat.
We were just middle class
but we made both ends meet
and we put on no airs
but we did have our pride,
and nothing to hide
on Asperity Street.

Our patriotism
did not need a push
below Mason-Dixon--
we voted for Nixon,
we voted for Bush
(even W. Bush).
We didn't drive Cadillacs,
didn't wear fur,
but all of us knew
who our ancestors were.
Adultery always
was very discrete
and no one was gay
(or at least didn't say)
and our drunks drank at home
on Asperity Street.

We respected ourselves
when our fortune went smash
and we looked down on people
who couldn't pay cash. 
We gave up our steaks
but we still paid the rent
and the government (Yanks)
never gave us a cent
Whatever our plight
we stood on our own feet. 
We looked out for ourselves
and owed nobody thanks,
but formed into ranks
of the Christian and white,
the politically right
and the forces of light
on Asperity Street.


Gail White is a frequent contributor to journals favorable to rhyme.  She is the featured poet in the first issue of Light on-line and winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Prize for 2012.  She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.