May 24th, 2012
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William Keener
HONK IF YOU LOVE THE LORD
John 3:16 is gaining on me, book,
chapter & verse welded to the bumper
of the Peterbilt burning diesel like
the devil in my rear-view mirror,
this son of a trucker come to set
driver against driver on I-85 near
Greenville, South Carolina, home
of Shoeless Joe and Praise Radio
whose listeners are the lambs of Christ,
say it ain’t so, in a world so loved
by God he gave his only begotten
as I give it more gas because Johnny
3:16 is barreling down, rolling steel
and chrome to kingdom come as if
my car is marked I Brake for Satan,
both of us overtaken by the white
Continental, license GOSPEL DJ,
a speeding preacher singing the news
whosoever followeth him shall not
perish, but shall take the off-ramp
for the Word of God Factory Outlet
where bibles stack halfway to heaven
next to Big Zack’s Discount Fireworks
and the roadside stand that promises
salvation from the traffic and an end
to everlasting thirst and hunger, yes
Hot Boiled Peanuts, Cold Peach Cider!
–from Rattle #23, Summer 2005
Tribute to Lawyer Poets
May 23rd, 2012
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Nancy A. Henry
EXCRUCIATA
You want to look away
from where they lie—
sliced by glass,
battered by flung logs—
children carried from the sea.
You don’t want to be skinned like this,
your wide eyes peeled more open
than they’ve ever been.
But see them.
Small lost princes, heads thrown back
and arms spread so rigidly, the crucified;
see the dark fringe of their beautiful lashes
on these impassive cheeks, no warmer
than the waves that toss them back
to the arms of mothers, fathers
inside out with grief.
See how loss eviscerates.
All night, again, you wander
along the iron gateways, among the purchased
aromas of lust, looking for a certain house
in a strange city. It all has washed away.
Softly, gently the night
opens and closes his wings,
eating and begetting, until the windows
disclose enough dawn
to wake you.
–from Rattle #23, Summer 2005
Tribute to Lawyer Poets
May 22nd, 2012
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Katya Giritsky
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
I’ve seen them sitting in corridors
on locked units of psych hospitals
where it takes a nurse and two buzzers
to get you in and then back out again.
I’ve walked by them parked in chairs
in hallways—old women sitting alone,
uncombed, unkempt, needing a shave,
talking to someone the rest of us can’t see.
This one I know from sitting next to her in court
last week. I know from reading records
how the people that she knew started getting fuzzy
and fading away along with her mind.
Contacts lost over the years—
one son in prison, the other died a drunk,
a daughter somewhere
maybe in a facility.
She was young once, this woman—
had lovers and babies and friends.
All gone. Except the memories
of the people with whom she still
has unfinished business, to whom she is
explaining slowly, methodically, like an old
argument many times rehearsed, again
what is so important that she tell them.
–from Rattle #23, Summer 2005
Tribute to Lawyer Poets
May 21st, 2012
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Geri Rosenzweig, RN
THE STREET OF THE CELLIST
for Dan
When at last
you find the street of the cellist,
may the dread
that accompanied you
fall by the way,
may the yellow hive
of her window direct you
to the garden
where the russet tint
of alders keep
for all time her three
stone sundials in their shade.
Don’t worry
if the thumbprint
of oil placed
on your forehead trembles
at the pallor of her hair,
in the layered
softness of snow falling
on your shoulders,
in the hum of zero
sounding your arrival,
listen for notes
drawn slow from the tattered
libretto of your life.
–from Rattle #28, Winter 2007
Tribute to Nurses
May 19th, 2012
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Nancy Kerrigan, APRN, MS
WARD 24
St. Patrick’s Day, 1966
Mental hospitals and snake pits, synonymous,
when I began my career. Stairwells smelled
of Lysol. Patients lay on the dew covered
lawns, their dormitory bedrooms padlocked
all day long to prevent napping. Eight-hundred
milligrams of Thorazine made walking feel
like trudging through deep mud.
Women slept coiled on communal bathroom
floors, guarding handbags, pictures of children,
a fork for a weapon. Hems of hospital-housedresses,
fabric worn thinner than tissues, wiped away
the few tears that managed to escape
this overmedicated state.
Come to my group, my plea, as I knelt offering
filtered cigarettes as free admission tickets.
In empty silence, we sat on single beds, arranged
in a square, in a room as cavernous as an airplane hanger.
What was my hurry, most had lived there twenty years?
Hardly a word dropped into the atmosphere
until St. Patrick’s Day, when I presented
a single green carnation to each woman in the group.
Anna sniffed the blossom; Edna placed it between
her breasts. Rose wore hers over her ear.
Vivian shared a memory about the feel of seeds
in her hands when she gardened. The oldest patient,
Lillian, who had a lobotomy watered
the blossom with her drool.
–from Rattle #28, Winter 2007
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