Sharing Loneliness.
A collaboration among formal poetry authors and enthusiasts facing loneliness together.
Bringing rhyme, meter, and form back to the forefront of poetry online has turned into a mission for this publication. It is thus that we, the formal poetry community, present you with a collaboration with some of our best writers, on the topic of loneliness—that which all of us face in today’s day and age, especially as authors still clinging to our roots as poets. We hope that you enjoy it!
Please read and subscribe to, in alphabetical order: Abram Newcomer, Aldo Jonsson, Metrical Poet, Narcisse Tardif, Noesis, and Thomas McKendry. They have made this possible with their incredible talent, and I claim no credit for their contributions.
All participants were given the choice of writing either two sestets of iambic tetrameter or four quatrains of iambic trimeter, leading to a similar length regardless of their decision. Rhyme schemes, however, were left to be determined by each contributor. By the end, everyone had added a sprinkle of their own style to the original prompt!
Sharing Loneliness.
SILENCE by Brooklyn Crane
We each endure the path,
the silence borne within,
the tort’rous aftermath
of hiding in a grin.
And silence means a flood
of sorrows kept inside,
their edges drawing blood
until it's suicide,
with no-one to explain
or stand with us to share
this hemorrhage of pain-
ful loneliness we bear.
We walk in multitudes
as each endures their own
neglect and self-secludes—
together but alone.
ALONE UPON THE SCENE by Noesis
I walk alone upon the scene,
A troupe and audience of one;
Others there were in time between;
They clap their hands and then they run
And so they run and do run still.
What? Play on? Perhaps I will.
Silence! My final act draws near;
Compelled by life, until the end
I'll play my drama's part. A tear
I shed, unto this lot to bend
Constrained — but suddenly "Amen!"
I cry with joy, "Again, again!"
FOR THOSE LOST by Abram Newcomer
Asleep upon my chest
in vacant baby rest,
with silky hair caressed,
your little body breathes.
Your face is smushed by mine
in wrinkly, ridging line;
yet I awake to find
your breath blown away.
In moonlit breeze, you fled
and left me here instead,
my chest no more a bed
on which you would have breathed.
The maple needs a nest,
the sun, it needs the west,
a father needs a chest
to breathe and beat against.
THE COURSE by Aldo Jonsson
Above the saddle grows a glow
Within the looming clouds of night
That waxes in travail until
It crowns the mountains, squeezed between
The gently sloping wooded peaks
To fall into the sky, alone.
A silver egg, a shining stone.
Not knowing who it is she seeks,
Whose light’s reflected in her mien,
She glides through darkness, slides downhill,
To climb again to final height
And die, as dawn begins to show.
NEW WIDOWHOOD by Metrical Poet
You’ll come again? You smile and say
Of course. We both know there’s no way.
The house is always quiet now
He’s gone. Some days I don’t know how
To bear the silence any more —
I sit and cry there on the floor.
They all have busy lives, she said.
They’re busy now, or else they’re dead.
I wish the dead lived busy lives
If something personal survives
Beyond us, in a twilight zone —
Perhaps then I’d feel less alone.
VOI CH’INTRATE by Thomas McKendry
Your fingers running through my hair,
The Comedy open on my face
to shade my eyes from dappled sunlight
covering scattered picnic remnants.
You ask me what I'm thinking like
a woman does who wants to know.
What if I told you that I might
as well be Dante by the gates
without a Virgil, hope abandoned,
resisting the insistent sense
that you could never be my Beatrice?
So I just smile and murmur nothing.
LONELINESS SHARED by Narcisse Tardif
We'll always be alone,
For no one shares our minds—
There is no commissure
Between our separate brains.
Our friendships can postpone
What introspection finds;
Distraction is the cure
While mortal care remains.
My friends above have shown
Just how our plan unwinds:
To keep your focus pure,
You let them take the reins,
And for a spell unknown,
You feel the tie that binds
And in that ligature
Forget your lonely pains.
Thank you so much for reading the entirety of this collaboration. We hope to demonstrate the power and worth of rhyme, meter, and form, which are still very much alive today, flourishing here on Substack. Again, please take the time to check out every contributor’s work on their respective profiles.
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Love every one! Nice job, poets.
such a beautiful collection! ❤️