June 30th, 2008
Link • Poems • Leave a Comment
Kristin Abraham
HAIR OF THE DOG
When he realized he could cause
dreams, he started with his horse.
Run, he said, and the horse
stomped and pawed in its sleep.
Fly, he said, and it twitched and
shook.This must be how God discovered
himself. Then cry, he commanded
his sleeping wife. She spilled out
of the joints in her lids. Drown.
She coughed, sputtered, head
from side to side.How power can stop accumu-
lating, he could not be sure. All he
could do was gather his breath,
assume his role, do what I’m
meant to do. So he clapped his
hands and flakes of stone and clay
turned to rain from his palms.He made them dream death and
penance, made them tie it around
their wrists like balloons. I’llteach
them consequences. Then his life
started to revolve around
checking to make sure everyone
was breathing.
–from Rattle #28, Winter 2007
June 29th, 2008
Link • Awards, Poems • 1 Comment
Chris Anderson
LIVING THE CHEMICAL LIFE
I have to admit that I don’t care about the historical Jesus.
One way or the other.
I’ve always thought there were larger forces at work.
The sun and the wind. The sadness that comes in the afternoon.
Did you know that our bones are only 10 years old?
No matter how old we are, it’s always the same.
Something to do with cells, I guess. With regeneration.
There are miracles like this all over the place,
in everybody’s bloodstream, and that’s alright with me.
Doris Day was once marooned on an island with another man.
Years went by and her husband, James Garner,
was about to marry another woman. Polly Bergen.
But then Doris came back and sang a lullaby to her kids,
then tucked them into bed. And they didn’t even know who she was.
I think that life is just like this.
Sometimes we are the stone and the Spirit is the river.
Sometimes we are the mountain and the Spirit is the rain.
June 28th, 2008
José Angel Araguz
GLOVES
I made up a story for myself once,
That each glove I lost
Was sent to my father in prisonThat’s all it would take for him
To chart my growth without pictures,
Without words or visits,Only colors and design,
Texture; it was ok then
For skin to chafe and ash,To imagine him
Trying on a glove,
Stretching it outMy open palm closing
And disappearing
In his fist.
–from Rattle #28, Winter 2007
June 27th, 2008
Joseph Bathanti
JESUS MEETS THE WOMEN
They bump into Him shopping in Bloomfield.
It’s how many years? He’s skin and bone.
The hair. The beard. Some kind of radical.
But still He shows respect, kisses each one,
inquires about their health, tells them to pray,
ask anything in His name and it’s theirs.
They laugh. He’s probably on drugs, they say.
His poor widowed mother. Thirty-three years
old, a grown man, and still can’t settle down.
The little bit He makes He gives away,
while poor Mary sits in one room downtown,
practically on welfare, day after day.
They don’t mention the thorns or bloody cross.
He’s not a bad kid, just a little lost.
–from Rattle #28, Winter 2007
June 26th, 2008
Link • Poems • Leave a Comment
Nicole Bestard
ORTOLAN
Once inside his mouth, did it bite back, digging
with its beak into the steak-flesh of his tongue
a pin-prick on the palette, a pen-knife sticking
the spongy membranes in the belly of a whale?Did its head roll around in his mouth before
it was crushed like a doll’s glass slipper
between the molars of a dog?Did it beat its wings against his throat,
clamoring against the smooth esophagal
lining as it went down?Did it burn his chest in that moment, a speck
of feather caught within the chambers, thrashing
on the walls like its sparrow cousin, accidentally
flown into the glass door of the sun-deck?Or did it slide gently, silenced by the strange
thunder of his heart as it passed?Was it slow-roasted or grilled? Basted with
butter, rosemary, and a little lemon? Or simply
salt and pepper, maybe some olive oil?Did the bird recognize the oil as it was applied,
perhaps from a tree it had nested in once, sung
a song so beautiful a law had to be passed
to preserve its notes?Did it come live to the chef’s hands, caged
with its siblings, beaks taped shut so as not
to give away the fruit kept within? Or
were they packed in an egg carton, each bird coiled
and cold in its own private, if temporary, tomb?Were their necks snapped only hours earlier?
Or were they gassed at the base of the bird-catcher’s
car? Why not boiled fresh and writhing like lobsters
as if song still lingered about their featherless flesh?The minutiae of the guts, were they kept in or
removed, and who so carefully pried the fuselage
from their bodies, their organs balanced
on a fingernail for sauce?
Days later, did it sing again as it made
its exit from body, now completely consumed
and resurrected?The surviving songbirds, can they see
the shadow left by the napkin on the diner’s
head; do they cease their singing
when he passes beneath their branch?And does he care? He who has consumed
such delicate song, does he hear it still?____________________________
“When François Mitterrand, the former president of France, realized that he would soon die of prostate cancer…he squandered a small fortune on a lavish and bizarre meal for himself and thirty friends… The piece-de-resistance was roast ortolan, a tiny songbird that in France is actually illegal to consume. Traditionally, the two-ounce warbler is eaten whole, bones and all, while the diner leans forward over the table with a large napkin draped over his head. The napkin, according to food lore, serves two functions: it traps and concentrates the aroma of the petite dish, and it conceals the shameful exorbitance of the meal…from the eyes of God.”
–Mark Morton, from “Ort of the Week”, Gastronomica.com, April 3, 2006
–from Rattle #28, Winter 2007
