I’m delighted to include Singer Gocker’s charming and curious homage to summer in our Kid’s Corner this month. It’s been quite some time since I’ve been able to consider the words of our younger poets, but I know there are always many, many young (pre-school through high school) out there saying and writing remarkable poems, and so I’m re-inviting all of you young poets and parents, teachers, friends of young poets—listen, write ‘em down and send ‘em in. I’d love to see, consider, and possibly publish these remarkable pieces on our website. Please email
them to me: poetry@chronogram.com and please include the full name and age of our young poet. And oh… Vote!
Sadly I Lost My Tail
stood up on two legs, trimmed my nails,
turned my groans into ten thousand words
began to wonder where it had all gone wrong
was it leaving the steady temperatures of the sea
forgetting how to navigate by the sun & stars
was it needing to know myself by a name
to star in all my tragicomic memories
or at least place a classified for my lost tail
why do I reach behind me for the missing link
that flicked and wagged and said so much
the tailless can’t seem to say with all their words
my tail waved good-bye to everywhere I’ve been,
everything I’ve done without lingering regrets
now I’m followed by a shadow obedient & dark
—Will Nixon
Three-Legged Dog
It takes very little to restore my trust in the world.
Like a deep breath,
Or a dewy, purple sunrise.
This morning, it was the three-legged dog
On the sidewalk.
Hurling herself at anyone who passed by.
Owner embarrassed.
Sorry, he said, she’s usually more well-behaved.
Do not apologize for wide-eyed,
Tail-wagging love of life.
Tapping of paws,
Two, then one.
Come, jump at me.
Let me learn your joy.
—Shresta Bangaru
Kid’s Corner
If you slow summer behind
remember, this monster is happy
about pig water
—Singer Gocker (7 years)
Millbrook in Late Autumn
Along the Hudson
Where patchworks of hardwood
Blanket the land
Birdshot rings out.
It’s Sunday morning
And a calamity of geese take flight
Off the glass pond.
I think to myself
“We are never truly alone in this world.”
And then I remind myself that
Grace is letting those you love
Leave when they’re ready.
That if you look to the migrating birds
You’ll know it.
That even the morning doves are there
To welcome you back from a tortured night.
I mean, just look at the stars!
They, too, are traveling alongside you.
Even in the black night wood
There is sound.
There is hope if you’re willing to listen for it.
It’s days like this
That remind me
That the seasons change.
They do.
And they will again.
—Corey Michael Hines
An Honest Answer
Is it hard to write poems?
she asked.
No, it’s easy,
I said,
lying through my teeth.
Adding,
you should try it
sometime,
then you’ll know
how easy it really is.
—Robert Harlow
Haiku Sequence on “Being In Line”
the last plumb leaf
fell and reached the ground
now winter begins
as the curtains move
in hungry moonlight deer halt
in queue motionless
in mornings gray sky
light clouds come and go slowly
drifting one by one
hanging in half light
like a row of waiting crows
the catalpa leaves
gravel pebbles line up
in formation waiting to become
a soldier’s tribute cairn
—Daniel W. Brown
Dating
I recently posted to my profile.
In 2026 to find mid-life, lifelong love
One must apply online.
Chances of chance meetings
Are somewhere over the rainbow.
Therefore, one needs to be
Clear and moreover, direct.
Posted:
Woman seeking male magician.
5’10 or taller.
Must love projects, kids, cats, and
Simultaneously emotionally needy
And distant Cancerian woman.
Apply with photos and haikus.
—Pamela Ugor
Anonymously
Today
For the first time
I witnessed a leaf struggling
To stay attached
To the limb it spent the summer on
But then
To no avail
Gracefully dancing its way down
Landing silently
So no one would notice
—Ze’ev Willy Neumann
Miscarriage
She sat him up,
propping him on the stool.
Pinocchio, she called him,
The child a mother would
never have.
Gently, reassuringly, she tied
The scarf round his neck,
granting him life and
knowledge.
He spoke. He danced.
She laughed. He smiled.
“Now it’s time for you to
go back to your box,” she said.
He slumped forward, sad.
She removed the scarf.
And cried.
—Megan Shea
(I should sit on my phone more often)
ioi my I kin kukhkmiI homi
in g oll ir
—Peter Coco
Greedy
I am beginning to worry that
between my ribs there is a pair of
gnarled hands, knobbed and skeletal
like those of a starving hag, and they
sit demurely folded most of the time, but
when You get too close they open into
a terrible butterfly and grasp at your
oneness. Their ragged nails
snag on the precious threads of you and
their palms open and close, pulling
you in inch by inch, beckoning fingers
devouring your silk mine mine
more more more
I carry scissors in my purse.
Do what you need to do.
—Elizabeth Dee
Two Nests
I live between the swifts and the starlings
flying out of a brick wall
or drinking from the clouds
with the talons of our ancestors
or the feet of butterflies
I watch them describe arcs against the blue
or glitter in their slick darkness
I see them flock at the top of my chimney
or alone on the top of their chimney
through the umber of spring dusk
waiting for the soft rain to confetti
I am neither of them but something in-between
migratory and sedentary
siring a new brood of worries twice a year
or laying one annual clutch of hope
—G. D. Burns
The Entropy of You
I have tried and tried to scrub you from my pots
and the bowl you ate from, and the spoon you used.
When you bent a tine on the fork you ate with,
I bent it back, but it will never again be true.
When I had two dishes, I gave you my favorite and
you broke it. I was not as thorough with the broom
as I should have been. I stepped on a stray shard
under the sink. The scar it left is not on my foot.
I cannot keep a stiff upper mustache like George V
maintains against the thumbprint you left on his face
in my British coin collection. Removing the tarnish
would ruin the finish and remind me of smudged paint
in smooth ovals like saltpans on the topography of my
walls, where I once tried and tried to scrub you away.
I would like to run my fingers over your lost ridges
again like I did when I collected your breaks and stains
in the cupboards and corners of my life, but all I have
left is evidence of trying to be rid of you, and the grainy
suspicion that you have succeeded where I couldn’t,
that you have enjoyed the finish of polishing me away.
Every spot of you that I’ve successfully removed
is cleaner than I ever wanted it to be.
—Clint Irwin
November
November crickets sing in the thicket
of earthy, dusky delight
End of day serenade
second summer ignite
Tepid wind scrolls onto my skin,
whizzing and whirring my soul
A fragrant flower, in all her power
bewitches beyond her control
A spider’s weave veils my face
ensnared by the doily of eight-legged grace,
I’m the unintended, arachnid friended,
bipedal catch-of-the-day
—Yvette Sandoval-Schoenholt
Fall Standing
I’m on crutches
See me on stilts
No doors are open
When all doors are close
Promises only keeps
—Joshua Sweet
Standing in the Crowd
Motherhood and art
We sing and we carry
Hold the hands of the next generation while we wail.
Life is art
Birth is creation
Sacred.
—Heidi Sunun
Summary
This is how
it will happen
like Tectonic Plates
that shift
and collapse
—Yvonne Chassagne
Kid’s Corner
If you slow summer behind
remember, this monster is happy
about pig water
—Singer Gocker (7 years)
Millbrook in Late Autumn
Along the Hudson
Where patchworks of hardwood
Blanket the land
Birdshot rings out.
It’s Sunday morning
And a calamity of geese take flight
Off the glass pond.
I think to myself
“We are never truly alone in this world.”
And then I remind myself that
Grace is letting those you love
Leave when they’re ready.
That if you look to the migrating birds
You’ll know it.
That even the morning doves are there
To welcome you back from a tortured night.
I mean, just look at the stars!
They, too, are traveling alongside you.
Even in the black night wood
There is sound.
There is hope if you’re willing to listen for it.
It’s days like this
That remind me
That the seasons change.
They do.
And they will again.
—Corey Michael Hines
An Honest Answer
Is it hard to write poems?
she asked.
No, it’s easy,
I said,
lying through my teeth.
Adding,
you should try it
sometime,
then you’ll know
how easy it really is.
—Robert Harlow
Haiku Sequence on “Being In Line”
the last plumb leaf
fell and reached the ground
now winter begins
as the curtains move
in hungry moonlight deer halt
in queue motionless
in mornings gray sky
light clouds come and go slowly
drifting one by one
hanging in half light
like a row of waiting crows
the catalpa leaves
gravel pebbles line up
in formation waiting to become
a soldier’s tribute cairn
—Daniel W. Brown
Dating
I recently posted to my profile.
In 2026 to find mid-life, lifelong love
One must apply online.
Chances of chance meetings
Are somewhere over the rainbow.
Therefore, one needs to be
Clear and moreover, direct.
Posted:
Woman seeking male magician.
5’10 or taller.
Must love projects, kids, cats, and
Simultaneously emotionally needy
And distant Cancerian woman.
Apply with photos and haikus.
—Pamela Ugor
Anonymously
Today
For the first time
I witnessed a leaf struggling
To stay attached
To the limb it spent the summer on
But then
To no avail
Gracefully dancing its way down
Landing silently
So no one would notice
—Ze’ev Willy Neumann
Miscarriage
She sat him up,
propping him on the stool.
Pinocchio, she called him,
The child a mother would
never have.
Gently, reassuringly, she tied
The scarf round his neck,
granting him life and
knowledge.
He spoke. He danced.
She laughed. He smiled.
“Now it’s time for you to
go back to your box,” she said.
He slumped forward, sad.
She removed the scarf.
And cried.
—Megan Shea
(I should sit on my phone more often)
ioi my I kin kukhkmiI homi
in g oll ir
—Peter Coco
This article appears in November 2026.
