October 9, 2022

George Franklin

IT’S YOM KIPPUR, AND I’M NOT FASTING

The first thing I thought of this morning
Was coffee, café au lait in a
Blue ceramic bowl, a slice of toast
Still warm in my hand. I didn’t even
Remember today was Yom Kippur.
I say I’m not observant, which sounds
Like I have poor eyesight but really
Means that when God and I have a chat
All I hear is a dial tone at
The other end of the line. I’m tired
Of imagining what doesn’t have
An image. There’re no burning bushes
In my backyard, just history that
Can’t be changed, redeemed, or atoned for.
God, I have too many images
In my head today, videos of
Villages captured and recaptured,
Reporters asking, “Can you tell us
Where the bodies are buried?” Someone
Points to a field, fresh-turned dirt not far
From a road. Eighty-one years ago,
They were the bodies of Jews in a
Ravine in Kyiv, now Ukrainians.
When can we say atoning doesn’t
Work? The Earth is full of graves, mass and
Singular. Trees send out roots to thread
Ribcages that insects and worms have
Already hollowed. Each year, the ground
Sinks a little. In the history
Of the world, no one ever went broke
Selling shovels. God, there is something
Wrong with people, and thousands of years
Of fasting hasn’t fixed it. Neither
Has prayer or the sacrifice of
Unblemished cattle or first-born sons.
The sun will set soon, and the day will
Be over. I was taught the gates of
Heaven swing closed then: no more prayers.
The ones who haven’t repented yet
Aren’t going to. Another year’s passed.
Men put on their jackets and walk home.
 

from Poets Respond
October 9, 2022

__________

George Franklin: “This particular poem doesn’t require much in the way of explanation explanation. As recently as several hours ago, there were media reports of a mass grave in Lyman with 50 bodies. Today was also Yom Kippur. The ravine in Kyiv was, of course, Babyn Yar.” (web)

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October 8, 2022

Skyler Rockmael (age 14)

NECESSITIES

I am a bad person
I have stolen
Baby pink diapers
Cans of sweet beans
An old seafoam green dress
A faded half-filled notebook
Dozens of stained thin blankets
Sickly sweet used candles
Fractured Swiss army knife
4 cheddar colored pencils
Mini blue sharpener
A duct tape plastered baby carrier
Knit baby hat
 
It’s just her & I
With our needs
Not enough room for wants
 

from 2022 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

__________

Why do you like to write poetry?

Skyler Rockmael: “My love for poetry dwells in its unique ability to tell hundreds of stories in a few stanzas. To write poetry means to weave a set of words to create an unconventional tale. This undertone of unconventionality is what draws me back. Poetry is a way for people to express themselves while letting others have their own journey through your words.”

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October 7, 2022

Bruce Bennett

LIKE THAT

British scientist visiting Atlanta suburb killed
by stray bullet while lying in bed
—The Washington Post, January 22, 2022

Like that. You’re breathing. Then you’re dead.
No warning. No time to prepare.
A bullet lodges in your head.
 
You might be lying in your bed.
You might be walking anywhere.
Like that. You’re breathing. Then you’re dead.
 
Not me, you think. Not me. Instead
you’ll take precautions. Then it’s there.
A bullet lodges in your head.
 
You did not see that car that sped.
You did not catch that madman’s stare.
Like that. You’re breathing. Then you’re dead.
 
What’s that that fortune teller said
that time you laughed and did not care?
A bullet lodges in your head,
 
Or doesn’t. There’s no time for dread.
You could be sitting in your chair
like now. You’re breathing. Then, you’re dead.
A bullet lodges in your head.
 

from Rattle #77, Fall 2022

__________

Bruce Bennett: “I was shocked, as every reader would be, by this senseless and random act. But perhaps even more shocking is the realization that such a thing could happen to any of us, at any time. And there is no way really to guard against it. The merciless economy and intensity of the villanelle form helps to drive that fact home.” (web)

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October 6, 2022

Rattle is happy to sponsor the annual Whole Life Soaps Haiku Contest, which is part of the Wrightwood Arts & Wine Festival. Entries were taken both online and in person at this year’s festival in May. Created and judged by Whole Life Soaps owner Bill McConnell, the winning poet receives $100, and their haiku is printed on a custom line of soaps the following year. We’re pleased to announce this year’s winner, but visit Whole Life Soaps online to read the top 10 entries and more of the judge’s comments.

 


 

Eithne Longstaff

 

water runs seaward
children build a driftwood dam
stream takes another path

2022 Soap Haiku Contest Winner

__________

Bill McConnell: “This year’s contest asked you to consider the concept of intolerance in nature. How does nature resolve its differences? How does it tolerate the uniqueness between two species? We can learn much from this observation, although it appears much of humanity is too stubborn to pay attention.”

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October 5, 2022

C.P. Cavafy

AN OLD MAN

An old man, stooped over the table,
sits in the hubbub of a café’s middle,
alone, a newspaper open before his face.
 
And scorning the misery of age
he thinks how little he engaged
the time when he had strength and speech and grace.
 
He’s much declined; he knows it, sees it,
though years when he was young still please
by seeming close. How small a span, how small!
 
He thinks about how good sense laughed
at him, while he believed—how mad!—
that cheat who promised “all the time in the world.”
 
He recalls the urges he controlled,
joy given up, his caution cold,
and every lost chance that haunts him now.
 
But all this thinking and remembering
dizzies him. Soon he’s slumbering
at the café table with his head laid down.
 
 
Translated from the Greek by David Mason
 

from Rattle #77, Fall 2022
Tribute to Translation

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C.P. Cavafy (1863–1933) was a Greek poet, journalist, and civil servant from Alexandria. During his lifetime Cavafy lived in relative seclusion and published little of his work, choosing instead to circulate it among his friends. His most important poems were written after his fortieth birthday, and only published two years after his death. | David Mason: “I started translating poems in the 1980s in my effort to hold on to the bit of Greek I had learned when I was young. Over time, I have refined these translations as best I can. In two of them I come close to Cavafy’s rhymes, which are more brilliant and incisive than mine. The other two poems are free verse in the originals, but even so I find I have to make small alterations to bring them across in English.”

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October 4, 2022

Sonia Greenfield

THERE WILL SOON BE A MCDONALD’S HAPPY MEAL FOR ADULTS

—Tweet from NPR News, September 29th

I got my first Happy Meal on a Friday—
after a week of grading and department
Zooms, of talking my mother through crises
of health, of IEP meetings for my son,
of smoothing new creases with night cream,
of the first frost to kill this summer’s
garden—and the red box with golden arches
promised salt, the comfortable familiarity
of fries that taste like America’s best promise,
the tang of pickles like primordial brine, but also
something more. The surprise prize inside.
What do you call the existentialism of autumn’s
dying light, red glow just a smudge of ketchup
along the horizon, while you wait for
a minimum wage worker to hand you
an analogue for happiness from her bright
window and into the dark recess of your car?
But I digress. The first toy I got was
a Tana French novel, one I read before,
having read them all already. Still, I switched
on the cab light to read, loving, as I do,
murder, and stabbing fries into my mouth.
The next Friday, again, so hungry for a thing
I hoped to feed at Mickey D’s, another red box
full of hope, hope held aloft and motionless
in Marietta’s hands for those split seconds
before I can grab it, hope woven of cars
merry-go-rounding through the pick-up line.
The next toy was a decent bottle of red,
and I shouldn’t have, but I drank half right
where I was parked, close to the building
in order to read last week’s French novel
by the florescence beaming from the dining room
into the sulk of dusk. The following week
I got a certificate for a massage, so I finished
the other half of the bottle in the car, washing
down my early death, dubbed fast food,
with cabernet, and closing the final pages
of the novel against its doom, all in order
to roll up on the bodywork parlor.
What do you call the existentialism
of men and women starving for touch?
Skin beneath their clothes as urgent
to absorb the masseuse’s oil as an apple pie
dipped into a fryer? Their bodies snaking
in a line through three neighborhoods
just to get in, just to have hands laid
upon them? You don’t have to answer.
It was rumored the following week was
to be, somehow, a hot tub, and the week after
a babysitter, though I don’t know how they
would have pulled it off. We never
found out. For a while cars slipped into
the lot and sat there with engines idling,
silhouettes of their drivers like statues
carved in the name of confusion, then
they backed out into the street again. I heard
that McDonald’s, citing the immense
expense of adult happiness, had
discontinued the program.
 

from Poets Respond
October 4, 2022

__________

Sonia Greenfield: “Sometimes you read something in the news, and it begs to be a poem. I mean … as if a McDonald’s meal with a prize could make an adult, like, for-real happy? It’s useful to consider, as Zadie Smith did, the difference between pleasure and joy. No doubt an adult Happy Meal would provide me with a moment of pleasure.” (web)

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October 3, 2022

Devon Balwit

OFF TO COLLEGE ABECEDARIAN

Arguably, we fit his whole life in a hand-
basket, hauling it through the quad into the dorm, past bowls of
condoms (way more than any two strangers should need!).
Diffidently, he one-last-hugged us before slipping away,
eager to find his place in the sea of 
faces (masked and unmasked) 
glimpsed through half-open doorways. His father and I thought of our own college
hellos—hello sexual identity, hello spiritual quests, hello
identification with global independence movements. Our
journey home was longer than the one coming. We
knew the house would echo, that the chickens would
lament their lost protector. I wanted not to be that
mother who over-texts, broadcasting loneliness and
need. Still, my finger hovered 
over the keys before I took myself for a walk. 
Perhaps I also will discover a new me in these newly
quiet days, but I doubt it. Old 
ruts run deep. Not like my son, trying a real
shabbat for the first time, learning 
the words to prayers I recite only phonetically. It’s
up to him now to save the world and keep us from
veering even more off course. When I see him next,
we’ll have to establish a new balance, the
x of our family mobile subtly shifted. Just 
yesterday, I lamented the demands of motherhood. Now, reset to
zero, I mourn the very freedom I’ve regained.
 

from Rattle #77, Fall 2022

__________

Devon Balwit: “Many days, I’ll have prepared the greatest lesson I can—bells and whistles, profundity and music—and my students won’t look up from their phones. Writing poetry helps me overcome that soul-crushing frustration. Through poetry, I look past the clock, the institutional drywall, and my thwarted ego. It lets me put my stamp on my experience and stand awhile outside of time.” (web)

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