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[ 4 poems from Brillig summer/fall 2026 ]
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Peas are Wild Things
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In their tangle, the disrepair of the world seems new.
I sleep, only in fits; they grow all night without sound.
They make a mesh for themselves and my children
find in the green tent trellis a place of refuge,
shade as soft as wood duck down where they lay down,
where crows, those sailing shadows, come closer.
These peas are wild things. yet, they build a civilization
without acknowledging the grief ahead of them:
the dry rattle at summer’s end, the killing encasement
by the first hard frost. At this moment, their shelter
is a place of grace, of freedom, of mysteries.
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Paul Jones
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❀ ❀ ❀
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New Trail
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Two days after my divorce is final I see a vision. Pepsodent
smile, red hair, overgrown beard, strong legs, ragged sorts,
scuffed leather boots. We’re trailwork volunteers. He’s worn
that insurmountable barrier ten years; doesn’t own a razor.
I can’t imagine a kiss.
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“Mom! You don’t do beards.”
“I do now.”
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Patricia Darcy
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❀ ❀ ❀
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En Passant
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Sodden he trudged through the downpour.
Whether heedless or hopeless, who knew?
In no hurry, his head down and dripping,
one more shower within the deluge.
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A girl in a green sedan passed him,
slowing down not to spray, turned aside,
“Would you like an umbrella?” she called to him.
“I’ve an extra” “Why, thank you,” he said.
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As the girl raised her window, the walker
opened her tiny shelter and waved.
She resumed her slow drive through the thunder,
and wondered what difference it made
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to reach out to a stranger in passing,
for her kindness left him no less wet.
Yet he stood a bit straighter beneath it
and began to take care where he stepped.
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Ed Robson
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Flashback
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Does he recall their courtship?
His ardent bow. Her frenzied curtsies.
How she squeezed through metal mesh,
tore luminescent wing, to dance for him.
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The green ballerina shimmered and twirled.
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He demanded a tango, chased, caught her.
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A singeing kiss. A fiery flutter. A crackle.
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Beholding cinders at dawn, does the candle
remember the moth?
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Jennifer Weiss
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I am standing at a long table heaped and strewn with books. A rank of glass doors on two sides of the room pours Sandhills light across the table, while darkness from old paneled and patterned walls pushes back, antique shadows in opposition. It is a room that has hosted Southern literary luminaries for dinners around that table, followed no doubt by fantastical conversations long into the night, but this morning’s luminaries are the books. Poetry books. New poetry books. Authors of those books hanging in the wings to see who will be attracted to these shining colorful seductive books, books, books. I pick one up.
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This book is smaller than most. Square. Slim. Hand crafted and oddly folded such that it opens itself into an organic creature in my hands. I read a poem. I exclaim, “Oh frabjous day!” A laugh behind my shoulder. I turn to find Deborah Doolittle, she whose book I am holding. She who has selected the poems in the book, curated and arranged, applied them to the pages that her own hands have also decorated, folded, sewn. Brilliant and big. I look forward to every new issue, and when I discover the envelope in my mailbox I know it will be another frabjous day.
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❀
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Paul Jones has been inducted in to the NCSU Computer Science Hall of Fame.
Patricia Darcy is partial to orange cats, crocheted cowls, and the Oxford comma.
Ed Robson celebrated his 73rd birthday by paragliding in Guatemala.
Jennifer Weiss is passionate about childhood literacy and reading to children out loud.
Also featured in the summer/fall 2026 edition of Brillig are J.T. Bryson, Peggy Heitmann, and Mary Spadoni.
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Also at Verse and Image by Paul Jones;
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Also at Verse and Image by Jennifer Weiss:
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. . . . . every Friday I present one or more poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
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– Bill
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Always glad to hear from you, Brad. ---B