February 26, 2024

“The Pool” by Jacob K. RobinsonPosted by Rattle

Jacob K. Robinson
THE POOL
Oh, right. About the boy from the sky
He fell, unexpectedly, feet first into the pool
Which is a silly thing to think
A boy with enough composure, while falling from a great height, to direct his feet earthward
I suppose it could mean he intended to land
To bend his knees on arrival
To cushion the impact
But could it also mean he was trying to create as little splash as possible?
To pencil his body through the earth, like water
To show his skill at making no waves, causing no tumult, no hubbub, no trauma
Maybe he was competing in a diving contest
Between four other boys and himself
And he simply wanted to win.

       
    
The other boys had competed finely
There were flips and jackknifes and a cannonball just to stir the pot
They had no judge but themselves, each other
A scale of zero to ten, though no one would give a zero
That would simply be too cruel
And a ten was out of the question
A score only given to the impossible, the unattainable
A target to aim for, knowing they could never hit it.

       
    
With each dive they had raised the stakes
They had upped the ante, so to speak
This didn’t imply that the following dive need be better
Just that it had to be more, different, else
The thinking was that one must never step back, regress, devalue the competition
One must always add add add
Lift the competition to new heights
And in so doing, lift each other
It was really about encouragement, was it not?
It was really about making each other better, stronger, more capable
It was really about tough love and hard won battle scars
It was really about elevation.

       
    
From way up in the sky, the pool looked like a target, an eye
It had lost its kidney bean shape
And morphed into a simple dot
A little crystalline blue pupil with an off-white iris made of concrete and pebbles
Surrounding that, a green green green sclera
That was the wide open land of rural Texas
That was the cow pastures and hay fields
Hay fields in the off season, wild grass spurting up from the untilled dirt
There was a house next to the eye, a long ranch home
One could imagine it as a nose but that was upsetting
Then one might expect there to be another eye, bookending the bridge of the nose-house
But there wasn’t.
There isn’t.
There couldn’t be.
And it would be a sad thing to think about a missing eye, a semi-lost vision
So the nose-house does not exist, it disappears from view at this height
Not by actuality but by actualization
This was not an eye of a pair of eyes
This was a kind of cyclops, a singular point from which the Up Above is viewed
The Up Above in which a boy could be seen
Falling, feet first, toward the target-eye.

       
    
The other boys continued their competition
The highest score to be achieved thus far, an 8
Which is to say, they were nearing the end.
The dive that had achieved the 8 was a half back flip twist maneuver
Hard to render completely, but that is the description the attempting boy used
A sort of half back flip twist, then, head first, arms in front, straight down like a needle
And he did it
He pierced the water with hardly a ripple, comparatively anyhow
In fact, the only reason he did not merit a 9 was that he had not made the full twist
His entry was achieved at—roughly—a 350-degree position from how he began
Which was with his back to the other boys
So, given the parameters of the dive he described, he should have entered the water facing away again
And he nearly did
But not quite
Thus, the 8.

       
    
From below, the feet of the boy from the sky looked like an equal sign
Spread just slightly apart, the smallest of gaps between them
He had considered keeping them pressed tight to one another
Ankle to ankle, as it were
But that had proved to be uncomfortable to hold
And he would be holding it for some time
So instead he opted for the more sustainable: slightly apart.
There was something to this strange stance he had positioned himself in
This kind of gentle at-ease
Say one was flying in an airplane and looked out the window and saw the boy
He would look like he was standing on air
What a sight.

       
    
The diving boys did not know about the boy from the sky until he was there
They knew him, of course
He was a friend of theirs
Or an acquaintance maybe
But they didn’t know that word then
So they used friend
They didn’t know he was taking part in their little competition
They didn’t know how badly he wanted to win
They didn’t know how long he had been planning this dive
All they knew was that he was suddenly there
Crashing
Feet first
Into their pool.

       
    
The water, that blue pupil, spilled out onto the iris of off-white concrete and pebble
All of it
The pupil space that remained became the color of bleached bone, empty
Its blue trickled away away away
Over the concrete and pebble
toward the green green green sclera
And then it seeped down into it
And was gone
The boy from the sky was the new vision
The diving boys were seeing.

       
    
Cracks began
To form
In the pupil
As if the boy from the sky
Kept wanting
To go down

       
    
It was aging
Everything was aging
At a pace
Unexpected
Drying out
Unused

       
    
The green green green
Is now brown brown brown
And the nose-house that never was
Is being sold
The memories contained in the pupil waters
Now somewhere else
Scattered on impact

       
    
The pool
Will be demolished
Filled in
And maybe become a garden
Or a garage

       
    
The four diving boys
Will eventually forget the boy from the sky
Or no
Not forget
Simply not remember
Not every day anyway
But occasionally they will recall
The dive that was an 8
They will laugh about how close it was to a 9
And
Then
Oh right.

       
    
—from Rattle #82, Winter 2023

Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist
__________
Jacob K. Robinson: “At the end of the day, I think I’d like to be summed up like so: I am Texan by birth, a Georgian by blood, and a New Yorker by choice. I like a good pair of Levi’s, mowing the lawn, and playoff baseball. I am doing my best.” (web)
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October 29, 2020

“In the Dream-Pool” by Elizabeth McMunn-TetangcoPosted by Rattle

Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2020: Editor’s Choice

Image: “Pool Head” by Pat Singer. “In the Dream-Pool” was written by Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2020, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

__________

Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

IN THE DREAM-POOL

All summer long,

the pool was closed,

and I swam

continents,

asleep.

Glimpses of aqua

through a fence.

A neighbor’s

swimsuit.

Mouthwash blue.

The thing with dream-pools is

you never get to swim.

The thing with dream-pools is

they all mean something else.

When summer ended, the need passed

like an old pet, drifting

somewhere, like the wildfire smoke, or souls.

I thought of towels I’d sewed my name on,

how they one time seemed important.

In a dream-pool, I am floating,

silent blue in sheets around me.

In a dream-pool I am safe,

cleansed of whatever

came in with me,

my skin tight.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
September 2020, Editor’s Choice

__________

Comment from the Editor, Timothy Green: “Interestingly, both this poem and the artist’s choice throb with the losses of the pandemic while looking through a fence that isn’t in the painting. In this case, the closing of the summer pool becomes a kind of obsession, haunting in its absence, as so many things are. There are so many memorable lines here: ‘The thing with dream-pools is / you never get to swim.’ That will stick with me.”

December 12, 2014

“Topless Swimming Pool” by Britt LuttrellPosted by Rattle

Britt Luttrell

TOPLESS SWIMMING POOL

For god so loved the world he traced it, and traced it,

until the outside lines became dark.

He wrote the hearts of young boys

into the margins of a topless swimming pool,

then asked them not to look.

Bubbling up from god’s wrist—a cupped hand

full of spring water, lifting weightless breasts

to the lips of these women.

These women who do seem happier with their bodies,

as if floating on a moon with no men. No need

for support. I’ve spoken with friends

who are women and no one is mad at us directly.

More at privilege. I keep my neck still

as one of the boys in my care

has just seen his first pair of breasts go diving off the board.

I tell him that women can have their tops off

anywhere men can in this city.

He says that seems more fair. I envy his long life, full of

worsening. I try to shield my eyes, but they are widening,

starting to get pointy in the middle.

I turn my head to the line at Tube Rentals, where topless women

are being gawked at by boys like me, boys like me are offering

to hold their inflatables, saying how awful it must be

having boys like me gawk at them constantly. All the boys

are like me, with places inside they can’t reach.

I watch the young ones strap on their goggles—some

have never even cut their hair. They dive to the bottom

of the springs, then come up screaming that they’ve touched it.

—from Rattle #44, Summer 2014

__________

Britt Luttrell: “I teach nature in a place where most of the nature is dead, or else buried deep underground. A lot of my job is leading hikes, pointing out pockets of life where they exist. I think I do the same with my poems. I look for beauty hanging on and show it to whomever comes with me.” (website)

October 22, 2020

“Visiting the Gardens at DePugh Nursing Center, Winter Park, Florida” by Vivian ShipleyPosted by Rattle

Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2020: Artist’s Choice

Image: “Pool Head” by Pat Singer. “Visiting the Gardens at DePugh Nursing Center, Winter Park, Florida” was written by Vivian Shipley for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2020, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

__________

Vivian Shipley

VISITING THE GARDENS AT DEPUGH NURSING CENTER, WINTER PARK, FLORIDA

As if I am in a zoo, I peer through

bars of the black iron fence.

Restricted by the coronavirus

to outdoor visits, I’m unable

to touch my sister parked

in her wheelchair by the aide.

Under a trellis, vines seem

to yearn as I do to touch her hair.

Azure blue flowers, centered

in purple, rest near her face,

eyes closed, lips flatlining.

I whisper Mary Oliver’s lines,

I thought the earth remembered me,

she took me back so tenderly,

arranging her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds.

Someone has smeared on fire engine

red lipstick as if my sister might flirt

again, arm on a jukebox, index finger

running down a man’s tie.

Like a live beetle savaged

by fire ants swarming its cranium,

a brain tumor eats from inside out

until Mary Alice, who cannot

escape her executioner, will die.

I know the tumor in her skull is like

an ember, burning until any memory

of me in her lobes has been turned

to white ash. But if I could remove

the top of her head like the surgeon

had done to debulk the tumor, I’d like

to believe I’d find our pool in Kentucky

with us, the three sisters in tank suits.

Mary is floating on her back in yellow.

I sit on the edge in blue daring only

to dangle my feet in the water.

My youngest sister, naturally in red,

dives from the high board.

As a child, Mary Alice was the good girl,

Pointed her toes in ballet class, strung

glass beads on elastic bracelets in Methodist

church camp to help others find salvation:

white, the purity of Mary, red, the blood

Jesus shed, even for me. To give me faith,

she explained good and evil are like sun

and rain. God sends rainbows to make

sense of them together. I’d shoot back,

I didn’t need the world to have meaning,

had no ache to be saved or have afterlife.

Now, to be with her again, I do.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
September 2020, Artist’s Choice

__________

Comment from the artist, Pat Singer: “The way this poem unfolds feels very real and unexpected. I enjoy the surprising and unpredictable way that the sister’s tumor introduces the visual of the pool inside the mind. The writer captured the grim, desolate reality of visiting someone who is unable to care for themselves anymore. Visiting someone who’s a husk of what they once were is difficult, sobering, and emotional. The words the writer uses conveys these feelings with raw power and an authentic voice. The visual cues tie in well with the art literally, but also manages to expand the meaningfulness into something much more robust and with more depth than what is on the surf.”

August 31, 2014

Art Inspiring Poetry

There’s a long tradition of poetry responding to visual art (and vice versa), and we thought it would be fun to post a challenge. For the first, Judy Keown, cover artist from issue #45, donated a photograph of an argiope spider. We gave poets a month to respond to this photograph in verse, and received 266 entries. Judy Keown and Rattle’s Timothy Green each selected their favorite poem from the submissions and published them online at Rattle.com.

Given how many people seemed to enjoy the Ekphrastic Challenge, we’ve decided to make it a monthly series, using open submissions of artwork when necessary. Visual artists who would like to participate can submit work now through the end of December, by going here.

If you’re a poet, come back to this page every month to find a new piece of art to inspire your poetry. You’ll have one month to write and submit your poems. Each month, two winners—one chosen by the artist and the other by Rattle’s editor—will receive online publication and $100 each.

For the month of September, our image is the piece below by Barbara Gordon. Find more of the artist’s work on her website, but only write your poems about the image below.

Submission Deadline:
September 30th

__________

Previous Winners

July 2024 – Faizan Adil’s “Lahore”

Series Editor’s Choice:
“Song of a Masjid’s Floor”
Ammara Younas

Editor’s Choice:
“Haiku”
Almila Dükel

June 2024 – Kim Beckham’s “Terry’s Keys”

Artist’s Choice:
“Bigger Than Us”
Emily Walker

Editor’s Choice:
“What You Thought You Lost”
Wendy Videlock

May 2024 – Barbara Hageman Sarvis’s “Bird Ascending the Fire”

Artist’s Choice:
“Wildfire Dreams”
Linda Vandlac Smith

Editor’s Choice:
“An Early Autumn Light That Unburies You”
Steven Pan

April 2024 – Gerrie Paino’s “Night Train”

Artist’s Choice:
“Of California, the Wild”
Breonne Stiglitz

Editor’s Choice:
“Tracks”
Matthew Murrey

March 2024 – John Paul Caponigro’s “Alignment II”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Space Between”
Amelie Flagler

Editor’s Choice:
“Synapses and Stardust”
Brandy Norrbom

February 2024 – Christine Crockett’s “Graphing Uncertainty V”

Artist’s Choice:
“Things That Collapse”
Jonathan Harris

Editor’s Choice:
“Shoulder MRI”
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

January 2024 – G.J. Gillespie’s “Desperado”

Artist’s Choice:
“Emergence”
Chris Kaiser

Editor’s Choice:
“Portrait of My Father as the Count of Monte Cristo”
Joanna Preston

December 2023 – Jeanne Wilkinson’s “Cold Sun”

Artist’s Choice:
“Curriculum Vitae”
Dante Di Stefano

Editor’s Choice:
“Watch This!”
Tristan Roth

November 2023 – Scott Wiggerman’s “Aerial II”

Artist’s Choice:
“Flying Back to England That First Time”
Rose Lennard

Editor’s Choice:
“(Sub)Division”
Christine Crockett

October 2023 – Arthur Lawrence’s “Shadowland”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Addiction Bird”
Agnes Hanying Ong

Editor’s Choice:
“Pilgrims of the Mound”
Conal Abatangelo

September 2023 – Carla Paton’s “Yellow Flowers”

Artist’s Choice:
“For a Robot”
Alison Bailey

Editor’s Choice:
“The Rote Stuff”
Gary Glauber

August 2023 – Lily Prigioniero’s “Seamstress”

Artist’s Choice:
“My Wife, Sewing at a Window”
Eithne Longstaff

Editor’s Choice:
“To the Child Watching His Grandmother Sew”
Bradford Kimball

July 2023 – Elizabeth Hlookoff’s “Here I Go”

Artist’s Choice:
“Fighting the Wind”
Teresa Breeden

Editor’s Choice:
“Aphorisms Thrown into the Eye of the Blizzard”
Tamara Raidt

June 2023 – Judith Fox’s “Untold Stories”

Artist’s Choice:
“Girl Is Glued to Door”
William Ross

Editor’s Choice:
“Image of a Woman Along a Sidewalk”
Jason Brunner

May 2023 – Carmella Dolmer’s “A Lonesome Border”

Editor’s Choice:
“What the Astrologer Failed to See in Our Stars”
Dick Westheimer

Associate Editor’s Choice:
“You Don’t Have to Choose”
Beth Copeland

April 2023 – Lou Storey’s “All of Us”

Artist’s Choice:
“Sestina”
Amanda Quaid

Editor’s Choice:
“The World Beneath”
Devon Balwit

March 2023 – G.G. Silverman’s “Lighthouse at the Edge of the World”

Artist’s Choice:
“I Asked the Chatbot to Write about a Lighthouse, but It Generated Lies”
Pamela Lucinda Moss

Editor’s Choice:
“Selah”
Kristene Kaye Brown

February 2023 – JoAnne Tucker’s “The Kitchen Goddess”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Rebirth of Venus”
Luisa Giulianetti

Editor’s Choice:
“Joy”
Melissa Madenski

January 2023 – Susan MacMurdy’s “Dream House, Later”

Artist’s Choice:
“Devotion”
Brianna Locke

Editor’s Choice:
“Cut Out”
Sandra Nelson

December 2022 – J. Stormer’s “Unsatisfied Externals”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Room as We See It”
Andrew Payton

Editor’s Choice:
“Resolution of Memory”
Sara Dallmayr

November 2022 – Joshua Eric Williams’ “Humid”

Artist’s Choice:
“Old Testament Family Tree”
Kid Kassidy

Editor’s Choice:
“In a Moment”
J. A. Lagana

October 2022 – René Bohnen’s “Ballet Above the Bay”

Artist’s Choice:
“Fault Lines”
Margaret Malochleb

Editor’s Choice:
“Wingspan”
Christopher Shipman

September 2022 – Bonnie Riedinger’s “Take Heart”

Artist’s Choice:
“Morning Glory”
Dion O’Reilly

Editor’s Choice:
“Fibers”
Ashley Caspermeyer

August 2022 – Enne Tess’s “Worm”

Artist’s Choice:
“Identity Politics”
Drea

Editor’s Choice:
“Haute Buttons”
Kenton K. Yee

July 2022 – Jaundré van Breda’s “Blueprint of a Dream”

Artist’s Choice:
“Balancing Act”
Ajay Kumar

Editor’s Choice:
“Driving in the Rain”
Christopher Shipman

June 2022 – M-A Murphy’s “Kennedy Lake”

Artist’s Choice:
“June 24, 2022”
Sarah Russell

Editor’s Choice:
“Poem with a Cloud and Frank Ocean Lyrics”
José Felipe Ozuna

May 2022 – Danelle Rivas’s “El Camino de Esmeralda”

Artist’s Choice:
“Camouflage”
Katie Kemple

Editor’s Choice:
“Laparoscopy, or a Half-Birth”
Gabriella Graceffo

April 2022 – Greg Clary’s “Truck Stop Shell”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Next Time”
Byron Hoot

Editor’s Choice:
“Broken Places by Daylight”
Sandra Kasturi

March 2022 – Natascha Graham’s “Anonymous Was a Woman”

Assistant Editor’s Choice:
“Her Vanity”
Marc Alan Di Martino

Editor’s Choice:
“Angular Bones”
Jeanie Tomasko

February 2022 – Sarah-Jane Crowson’s “Diaphona”

Artist’s Choice:
“Homemaker”
Mary Meriam

Editor’s Choice:
“My Animal Understudy Replaced Me in the School Production of The Tempest”
Luigi Coppola

January 2022 – Matthew King’s “Dark Figures”

Artist’s Choice:
“Emotional Self-Regulation with Birds and Gifted Child”
Sean Kelbley

Editor’s Choice:
“Why I Love That We’re Not Gods”
Sean Keck

December 2021 – Bruce McClain’s “Nature People #8”

Artist’s Choice:
“Last Reach”
Wendell Smith

Editor’s Choice:
“The Widower”
Nick Bertelson

November 2021 – Shannon Jackson’s “Easy Like Sunday Morning”

Artist’s Choice:
“This Room”
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
“Study Abroad”
Cassie Burkhardt

October 2021 – Gouri Prakash’s “Family”

Artist’s Choice:
“Grief”
Susan Carroll Jewell

Editor’s Choice:
“On Getting Your Ducks in a Row”
Matthew King

September 2021 – Rachel Slotnick’s “The Blood in the Veins”

Artist’s Choice:
“Revelations”
Sean Wang

Editor’s Choice:
“Like Dust”
Ian Opolski

August 2021 – Emily Rankin’s “Rosetta Stone”

Artist’s Choice:
“Oracle”
Robert E. Ray

Editor’s Choice:
“Griefsong Heard at Sea”
Shannon Mann

July 2021 – Lynn Tait’s “Waste”

Artist’s Choice:
“Self-Doubt”
Tamara Raidt

Editor’s Choice:
“Aloft”
Heidi Williamson

June 2021 – Annie Kuhn’s “Sunline”

Artist’s Choice:
“Color / Off-Color”
Emily Pease

Editor’s Choice:
“Learning to Swim”
C.J. Farnsworth

May 2021 – Neena Sethia’s “Contradictions of Being”

Artist’s Choice:
“Gods, Monsters, and Complex PTSD”
Elizabeth Train-Brown

Editor’s Choice:
“What It Is Is What It Is Not and What It Is Not Is What It Is”
Karan Kapoor

April 2021 – Jojo’s “While Thinking About Snow and Ice”

Artist’s Choice:
“A Short Poem About Many Things”
Lynn Robertson

Editor’s Choice:
“White Spots”
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

March 2021 – Susy Kamber’s “Into Thee”

Artist’s Choice:
“Supernatural”
Laura Theis

Editor’s Choice:
“Darling”
Jonathan Langley

February 2021 – Claire Ibarra’s “Cloud Dance”

Artist’s Choice:
“Faces in the Clouds”
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
“Telling It Through a Broken Lens”
Bola Opaleke

January 2021 – Danny Masks’s “Bucket”

Artist’s Choice:
“Call Me Boy on Saturdays”
Jackson Jesse Nash

Editor’s Choice:
“Bound for Glory”
Melissa McKinstry

December 2020 – Dominique Dève’s “A Horizon Is Vague at a Distance”

Artist’s Choice:
“Wilhelmina”
Kyle Potvin

Editor’s Choice:
“A Horizon Is Vague at a Distance”
Martin Willitts Jr.

November 2020 – Kim Sosin’s “Leaping Crane”

Artist’s Choice:
“Crane Possibly Walking on Water”
Erin Newton Wells

Editor’s Choice:
“Birdwoman”
Lexi Pelle

October 2020 – Christopher Whitney’s “Dream Spirit”

Artist’s Choice:
“One for Sorrow”
Carmel Buckingham

Editor’s Choice:
“Four Loaves of Stone, Ascending”
Joel Vega

September 2020 – Pat Singer’s “Pool Head”

Artist’s Choice:
“Visiting the Gardens at DePugh Nursing Center, Winter Park Florida”
Vivian Shipley

Editor’s Choice:
“In the Dream-Pool”
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

August 2020 – Liz Magee’s “Blue Bowl”

Artist’s Choice:
“Mantra”
Michael Harty

Editor’s Choice:
“A Duty to Look Beautiful”
Patty Holloway

July 2020 – Aurore Uwase Munyabera’s “Conflict Resolution”

Artist’s Choice:
“Stepfather”
Anna Cianciolo

Editor’s Choice:
“Circles”
Nikita Parik

June 2020 – Denise Sedor’s “The Old Paper Mill”

Artist’s Choice:
“Eulogy”
Brenda Lee Ranta

Editor’s Choice:
“Upstate”
Marc Alan Di Martino

May 2020 – Megan Merchant’s “Shadowplay”

Artist’s Choice:
“Copulations”
Marjorie Thomsen

Editor’s Choice:
“There Are Two of Us”
Vasvi Kejriwal

April 2020 – Laura R. McCullough’s “Mund”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Larger Half”
Eric Kilpatrick

Editor’s Choice:
“Presidential Fitness Test”
Bill Hollands

March 2020 – Kenneth Borg’s “Cour des Voraces”

Artist’s Choice:
“Vast Silence”
Sally Cobau

Editor’s Choice:
“Rain” (haiku)
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

February 2020 – Marc Alan Di Martino’s “Indietro”

Artist’s Choice:
“They Tried to Cover Her Up”
Stephanie Shlachtman

Editor’s Choice:
“When Peeled Back”
Mary Ann Honaker

January 2020 – Kate Peper’s “Open All Night”

Artist’s Choice:
“An Index of Visitors”
Ajay Kumar

Editor’s Choice:
“Cheer”
Sean Kelbley

December 2019 – Natalie Seabold’s “Bound”

Artist’s Choice:
“Greetings Unanswered”
Joshua Martin

Editor’s Choice:
“Seeking Purpose”
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

November 2019 – Alice Pettway’s “Dog Walking”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Anatomy of Endings”
Anoushka Subbaiah

Editor’s Choice:
“A Caricature”
Bola Opaleke

October 2019 – Dana St. Mary’s “Brainyo”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Metamorphosis of Gregor Samsa”
Jaime Mera

Editor’s Choice:
“After the Extinction”
Susan Carroll Jewell

September 2019 – Asher ReTech’s “Loss for Words”

Artist’s Choice:
“Artifacts from the Buffalo Trunk Mfg. Co. (Defunct)”
Rachel Welton

Editor’s Choice:
“Budget Cuts”
Danny Eisenberg

August 2019 – Kim Tedrow’s “Thai Bees”

Artist’s Choice:
“Misinterpreting a Collage During Trump’s Presidency”
Jaime Mera

Editor’s Choice:
“Bee Sting in the Eye”
James Valvis

July 2019 – B.A. Van Sise’s “Restricted | U.S. Air Force”

Artist’s Choice:
“Time Travel”
Alida Rol

Editor’s Choice:
“Naming the Beasts”
Elizabeth Morton

June 2019 – Nikki Zarate’s “Blue Whale”

Artist’s Choice:
“Ink Blots”
Matt Quinn

Editor’s Choice:
“Kenai”
Katherine Fallon

May 2019 – Ellen McCarthy’s “Desert Road”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Years We Lived in the Desert”
Megan Merchant

Editor’s Choice:
“The Optimist”
Emily Sperber

April 2019 – Denise Zygadlo’s “Kandinsky’s Slippers”

Artist’s Choice:
“In the Nostalgia Chair”
Matthew Murrey

Editor’s Choice:
“Art Therapy”
Aaric Tan Xiang Yeow

March 2019 – Betsy Mars’s “Floating”

Artist’s Choice:
“Trompe L’oeil”
Juliet Latham

Editor’s Choice:
“Living in Space After a Break-Up”
Jaime Mera

February 2019 – Justin Hamm’s “Work Gloves”

Artist’s Choice:
“Tan Hides and Hard Stuff”
Lisha Nasipak

Editor’s Choice:
“Sometimes a Man Has to Get His Hands Dirty”
Alexandre Mikano

January 2019 – Vasu Tolia’s “Belle of the Ball”

Artist’s Choice:
“Self-Portrait”
Rodrigo Dela Pena

Editor’s Choice:
“My Mother Was a Dancer and She Never Looked Back”
Luigi Coppola

December 2018 – Kari Gunter-Seymour’s “Untitled”

Artist’s Choice:
“Substance”
Peg Duthie

Editor’s Choice:
“Shell Thick and Her Own Planet”
Angie Mason

November 2018 – Nicolette Daskalakis’s “Eat Me”

Artist’s Choice:
“Placebo”
Jill M. Talbot

Editor’s Choice:
“The Happy Game”
Sean Kelbley

October 2018 – Courtney Carroll’s “Hanging Collage”

Artist’s Choice:
“What Is Not Lost”
Sharon Cote

Editor’s Choice:
“Locked Brakes on Blacktop”
Guinotte Wise

September 2018 – Karen Kraco’s “Back of the Beach”

Artist’s Choice:
“Beer, Buoy, Boat, Board”
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
“The Happy Meditator”
Katherine Huang

August 2018 – Alexis Rhone Fancher’s “Waiting”

Artist’s Choice:
“That Bit Me”
Matthew Murrey

Editor’s Choice:
“Sonnet for the Night Shift”
Kim Harvey

July 2018 – Bryan DeLae’s “What Once Was”

Artist’s Choice:
“Relic”
Ginny Lowe Connors

Editor’s Choice:
“Grave of a Tourist’s Trap”
Hannah V. Norman

June 2018 – Gretchen Rockwell’s “The Sound of Wings”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Shape of Your Elbow”
Jack McGavick

Editor’s Choice:
“Love Poem to My Wife, with Pigeons”
James Valvis

May 2018 – Jen Ninnis’s “Message in a Bottle”

Artist’s Choice:
“Starfish”
Michael Strand

Editor’s Choice:
“Dispatch from an Inland University”
Jen Jabaily-Blackburn

April 2018 – Melody Carr’s “Through the Looking Glass”

Artist’s Choice:
“Facial Recognition”
Janice Zerfas

Editor’s Choice:
“Your Favorite Writer Is Not Your Mother”
Jill M. Talbot

March 2018 – Marion Clarke’s “Chickens!”

Artist’s Choice:
“Wildflowers”
Paul T. Corrigan

Editor’s Choice:
“The Visitant”
Marietta McGregor

February 2018 – Jeff Doleman’s “Nine Lives”

Artist’s Choice:
“Cobalt Blue”
Christine Michel

Editor’s Choice:
“Bright Blue Muscle Car”
Mike Good

January 2018 – Laura Christensen’s “Muse”

Artist’s Choice:
“Half of Everything”
James Valvis

Editor’s Choice:
“Getting Sober”
James Croal Jackson

December 2017 – Barbara Graff’s “Cinderella Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”

Artist’s Choice:
“Cinderella Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
“Here, She Said”
Chris Ransick

November 2017 – Phyllis Meredith’s “Wind-Blown Meadow”

Artist’s Choice:
“Young Medusa in the Fall”
J.P. Dancing Bear

Editor’s Choice:
“Surf Days”
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

October 2017 – Robb Shaffer’s “Biltmore Backyard”

Artist’s Choice:
“You Moved Your Whole Town”
Paul T. Corrigan

Editor’s Choice:
“A Season of Bricks”
Simon Costello

September 2017 – Jody Kennedy’s “Agnes Was Here”

Artist’s Choice:
“Saved or Spared”
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
“Sonnet for the Hole in the Glass”
Zoë Brigley Thompson

August 2017 – Jennifer O’Neill Pickering’s “Street Folks”

Artist’s Choice:
“Trajectory”
Ann Giard-Chase

Editor’s Choice:
“Mint in Pots”
Ann Wuehler

July 2017 – Samantha Gee’s “Portrait of a Kitchen”

Artist’s Choice:
“My First Body Is Beautiful Until”
Reese Conner

Editor’s Choice:
“After Cleaning the Kitchen Again, He Realizes”
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

June 2017 – Ryan Schaufler’s “No Name #2”

Artist’s Choice:
“Blue Rain Clouds, Reddish Ground, and Tall Crosses”
Jose Rizal Reyes

Editor’s Choice:
“A Thousand Possible Clouds”
Valentina Gnup

May 2017 – Soren James’ “Pink Bird Corridor”

Artist’s Choice:
“Birds of a Feather”
Lianne Kamp

Editor’s Choice:
“She Tells Him of Her Fears”
Priyam Goswami Choudhury

April 2017 – Laura Jensen’s “And the Wolf”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Woman and the Wolf”
Melissa Fite Johnson

Editor’s Choice:
“Coyote”
Suzanne Langlois

March 2017 – Lisa Ortega’s “La Familia”

Artist’s Choice:
“Chanclas, Find Our Ground”
Gloria Amescua

Editor’s Choice:
“Modern American Gothic”
Stephen Harvey

February 2017 – Debbie McAfee’s “Hwy 41”

Artist’s Choice:
“Tanka (Lonely Highway)”
Tracy Davidson

Editor’s Choice:
“Threading North and South”
Matthew Murrey

January 2017 – Harry Wilson’s “Days in San Francisco #1, 1984”

Artist’s Choice:
“A Town of Mirrors and Quaking Forty-Fours”
Richard Manly Heiman

Editor’s Choice:
“An Accounting”
Joanna Preston

December 2016 – Chelsea Welsh’s “Caught in the Days Unraveling”

Artist’s Choice:
“Menarche”
Melina Papadopoulos

Editor’s Choice:
“Haiku”
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetango

November 2016 – Arushi Raj’s “Light”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Surface of Light”
Martin Willitts Jr.

Editor’s Choice:
“Illuminated”
Sherry Barker Abaldo

October 2016 – Alexandra de Kempf’s “Family Matters”

Artist’s Choice:
“PTSD”
Bill Glose

Editor’s Choice:
“Nuclear Family Warfare”
Jane Noel Dabate

September 2016 – Ilenia Pezzaniti’s “They All Slept Here”

Artist’s Choice:
“Calendario”
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
“HotelReview.com – Stay Where You Are, Which Is Here!”
T.J. Peters

August 2016 – Heshani Sothiraj Eddleston’s “Clay Hands”

Artist’s Choice:
“What We Keep in Clay”
Hannah Siobhan

Editor’s Choice:
“Throwback at the Art Show”
Carol Kanter

July 2016 – Suzanne Simmons’ “Trespass”

Artist’s Choice:
“Eco Echo: An Oldster’s Tale”
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
“Memoria”
Merlin Ural Rivera

June 2016 – James Croal Jackson’s “Go Your Own Way”

Artist’s Choice:
“I Don’t Understand Poetry”
Jill M. Talbot

Editor’s Choice:
“The Climb”
Jeffrey Bean

May 2016 – Catherine Edmund’s “Castlerigg”

Artist’s Choice:
“Underneath a Car on the Highroad …”
Alexander James

Editor’s Choice:
“Alone in Love”
Mary Meriam

April 2016 – Robert Dash’s “Into the Mystic”

Artist’s Choice:
“Invisible”
Ann Giard-Chase

Editor’s Choice:
“[Here, said the ocean]”
Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr.

March 2016 – Thomas Terceira’s “Metamorphosis 2”

Artist’s Choice:
“To Lose and Catch the Trail”
Claire Kruesel

Editor’s Choice:
“The Balcony Collapses and I Become a Bird”
Rebecca Valley

February 2016 – Dave Thewlis’s “Met”

Artist’s Choice:
“There, in Folded Space, We Must Have Met”
Rommel Chrisden Samarita

Editor’s Choice:
“In the Museum of Cold Ideas”
Ginny Lowe Connors

January 2016 – Ruth Bavetta’s “Chonicle”

Artist’s Choice:
“It Won’t Make the News”
Rosemerry Trommer

Editor’s Choice:
“Anatomy of a Fustercluck”
Stephanie L. Harper

December 2015 – Colleen McLaughlin’s “Contrail”

Artist’s Choice:
“Untitled”
Angela Johnson

Editor’s Choice:
“Contrails”
D.R. James

November 2015 – Megan Tutolo’s “City Night”

Artist’s Choice:
“Map to the Moon”
Matthew Murrey

Editor’s Choice:
“Divining”
Rosemerry Trommer

October 2015 – Ana Prundaru’s “Beach”

Artist’s Choice:
“Kamakura Beach, 1333”
Mary Kendall

Editor’s Choice:
“The View from the Café”
Matt Quinn

September 2015 – Sarah Oyetunde’s “Moon”

Artist’s Choice:
“Sister Moon”
Jane Williams

Editor’s Choice:
“Things You Cannot Answer”
Margaret Donsbach Tomlinson

August 2015 – Howard R. Debs’ “Ice House”

Artist’s Choice:
“Ice House”
Ann Giard-Chase

Editor’s Choice:
“Offering”
Arnold Perrin

July 2015 – Aparna Pathak’s “Goats”

Artist’s Choice:
“Ram Tested at Mount Vert”
Grant Quackenbush

Editor’s Choice:
“Cruelest of All Are the Gods Who Never Frown”
Michael Meyerhofer

June 2015 – Alisa Golden’s “Bench”

Artist’s Choice:
“People of the Megabus”
Justin Barisich

Editor’s Choice:
“Route 9”
Martin Willitts, Jr.

May 2015 – Åsa Antalffy Eriksson’s “Forest”

Artist’s Choice:
“Teeny Tiny”
Matthew Murrey

Editor’s Choice:
“Abduction”
Kate Gaskin

Spring 2015 – Gail Goepfert’s “Friendship Flowers”

Artist’s Choice:
“Potpourri”
Liz N. Clift

Editor’s Choice:
“Location’s Everything”
Steven Dondlinger

. . .

Winter 2014 – James Bernal’s “Mysterious Figure”

Artist’s Choice:
“Clean White Sheets”
M

Editor’s Choice:
“Carelessness”
Michael Hallock

. . .

Fall 2014 – Judy Keown’s “Argiope Spider”

Artist’s Choice:
“The Writing Spider”
Paula Schulz

Editor’s Choice:
“The Writing Spider (Haiku)”
Caroline Giles Banks

September 7, 2024

“Six Steps to Becoming a Fossil” by Maddie MalonePosted by Rattle

Maddie Malone  (age 14)
SIX STEPS TO BECOMING A FOSSIL
1.
  
Hidden under pink sheets, a silver blade
pools into my hand, and I watch you
pour grain into a sieve slowly, your braid
falls, and I have never thought something so true
  
as to what rice in cold water means. Glowing
white pumpkin seeds swallow nighttime, eating light
they swarm to your head, growing in your hair, singing
as the moths lovingly chew. You lovingly knight
  
me a crown, the ambient light shines warm
in my ears, and I begin to feel them holding
my face, they surgically sliver tendons to deform
my head from its body. It is saintly, lifting  
  
through steam rising in the kitchen. Thank you
I mutter, swimming into a cloud of dew.
  
  
2.
  
I mutter. Swimming into a cloud of dew
left by the night before, pans sit unwashed 
in the silver sink, buttercream is slew
across my mother’s KitchenAid, shit—
  
I am waiting for the hurried pounding 
through oak doors, I have slept for far too long
in my own skin, I am layered. You are lusting
for something cleaner. Wash me on HOT, STRONG,
  
and I will spin, detox, bleach me in two 
and I will be ivory threadbare, eat
Tide Pods to clean your liver, orange and blue
in your pink smooth intestine. I breathe sleet 
  
mixed with nicotine and think of you,
I am kitchen steam tunneling through.
  
  
3.
  
I’m a kitchen. Steam tunneling through 
my iron vents, exhaust pumps between 
the folds of my skin, grease puddles, view
me under a code law. Sink your teeth into protein
  
by all means, eat my walk-in freezer, find
my rats and roaches, make them scuttle
in deep drywall, die in the walls, drive them lined
with new, pure, insulation. Leave, be subtle,
  
but not too much to where no one
notices. Clock out and go home with dirt
under your fingernails, like silt, stay done,
stay with the grease in your palms. Inert
  
filth, pig blood never leaves a stain, at least 
they told me that, and I’ve never felt so leased.
  
  
4.
  
They told me that. And I’ve never felt as leased
before. Your rental had oak cabinets, 
beige Michigan carpet, white trim, gone yellow, pieced
together boards warp from waterbeds. Laminate
  
smell lingers, glued adhesive corrodes your nose—
bleeds onto Kleenex—and I think it’s chronic
how my body can’t leave, I need to dispose 
of this magnet in my stomach, it’s embryonic
  
and it will calcify in my body 
I will be a mother of hope, one whose
own body is a coward. I’m perpetually
your image, I will not fade yellow, or lose
  
my color, I am yours until a new
Polaroid is taken, until, I renew.
  
  
5.
  
A Polaroid is taken. Until, I renew
my license, flash photography blinks
and I am blind at the DMV. It is true
what they say about having too many drinks,
  
my cheeks are flush, blood vessels crack like roads
swimming down my face. I am a river stone
worn and worn, then I am bones, it erodes 
until it finds my core. Although I am grown
  
since the last baby blue photo of me
all I feel is exhaustion, my marrow
occupies my mind. It will melt, I foresee
myself holding the liquid, it slips, narrow 
  
gaps between my fingers collapse, I’ll see
myself sink to the floor, I am not made of me.  
  
  
6.
  
I sink to the floor, I am not made of me
anymore. Every seven years your cells
regenerate, and I live in my second body—
In five years I will occupy a new hotel
  
without ever signing a lease. What else
is there to become in seven years?
I wish I could collect my old shells 
and hang them to dry, they were pioneers
  
and war heroes, I would pin their skin
with badges of honor and bravery
that should’ve been there, now I can begin
to prep my body, that I will savor
  
with its medals and souvenirs, I can start
now, I will be bedazzled until the next seven years.
  
—from 2024 Rattle Young Poets Anthology
__________
Why do you like to write poetry?
Maddie Malone: “I think that my love for poetry can only be described as my love for flow. The feeling of flow is the concentration so strong that everything dissolves around you, to where your world is only you and the poem. It isn’t the words themselves that make me love writing poetry, but the state I am in as I write.”
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March 30, 2024

“Jack Logan, Fighting Airman: The Case of the Red Bordello” by Tony BarnstonePosted by Rattle

Tony Barnstone

JACK LOGAN, FIGHTING AIRMAN: THE CASE OF THE RED BORDELLO

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick
a hole in a stained glass window.
—Raymond Chandler

ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT

The streets are dark with something more than night.

I walk out in the rain—and back in rain.

Though I outwalk the furthest city light

I can’t outwalk my shadow, outwalk pain

of Lizzie’s death. An interrupted cry

comes over houses from another street.

I know that cry. You hear it when men die,

when something sharp turns them from flesh to meat.

A knot of beggars, drunks and prostitutes

around a body, but what takes my eye

is her—the type that takes away your breath.

A luminary clock against the sky

is ringing bells out to the time of death.

A drunk man leers at her, “What’s your name, toots?”

Music: “On the Cool Side & Mystery!,” by Kevin McLeod

TRICKS AND STAG FLICKS

A drunk man leers at me. What else is new?

It’s happened all my life, or at least since

my breasts came in. It makes me want to rinse.

But I can’t let these people misconstrue

the reason why I’m here, by the dead man,

so I hitch up my chest and play the part.

I guess seduction is a kind of art,

though men like that would make a garbage can

out of my body, fill it with desires,

with acts they learned from taking in stag flicks.

Well, I can act as well, and make the tricks

believe in me. And that is what transpires.

I strike my most convincing hooker pose

and, sweet as I can, lie, “My name is Rose.”

Music: “Hot Swing,” by Kevin McLeod

Mike Casy by Tony Barnstone

THE NAME OF THE ROSE

“My name is Rose,” she sweetly grins.

“You should come up and visit us sometime.

My girls know how to wash away your sins.”

The lighted church clock bangs out one last chime,

then’s silent as the galaxy above.

I learned in school that galaxy means milk,

that some Greek goddess leaked stars out of

her breasts. I’ve known some goddesses, the silk

kimono at the crack of noon type, but

this one, well, I’d join her religion. She

goes back inside the Red Bordello, shut

inside like fantasy (though that is free).

Then there’s the corpse. I check: still dead. One clue:

red rose on a white matchbook. It’ll do.

Music: “Bad Ideas,” by Kevin McLeod

THE TRICK TURNS

The matchbook’s blank except for a red rose

but that’s sufficient to suggest the fellow

with the switchblade in him was the sort goes

to do his business at the Red Bordello.

It’s quite a garden there, each color rose

planted around the bar for men to pluck.

When I walk in, the door-tough strikes a pose.

I laugh and slip the waiter a sawbuck,

“There is a man outside who’s so darn sick,

he’s dead. I found this matchbook in his clothes.

I’m not a cop, I’m not a private dick,

I’m just the curious type.” “Then talk to Rose.”

Rose talks to me all night without her clothes.

By morning I’m her man. That’s quite a trick.

Music: “Fast Talkin,” by Kevin McLeod

THE ACT

Living’s an act of faith, not just a trick

the body plays on us and I have trust

that loving’s also faith, not just the bust

and bicep, the nude dance, that makes us click.

Living’s an act for me—of theater.

I’ve always played the role of woman for

an audience of men, a kind of whore

in my own right, and now I’m playing her.

Poor Rose was sick. The worms who found her bed

at night, the choices she had, destitute

and battered, sickened her. Like Rose, I’m sick

of men (and yet, there’s Jack). But Rose is dead

and Jack must think I’m just a prostitute

performing passion for another trick.

Music: “Babylon,” by Kevin McLeod

TWO BLACK BOOKS AND A STACK OF CASH

She is tricked out in something scanty, looks

like a light wind would rip it like a cloud.

From bed, I watch through lashes: two black books,

a stack of cash, a gun. I give a loud

yawn, as if surfacing from a dream,

and stretch and wave my arms in semaphore.

Just then boots clomp on the wood stairs, a scream,

a shout, a scuffle outside of the door.

“Jack, this way, fast!” she hisses, climbing out

the window to the fire escape. “Spider

Floyd’s on his way.” No time. I spin about

and step in front the window so’s to hide her.

“Give up the frail,” the gunman scowls. Instead,

I look at him and smile, “Ah, shut your head.”

Music: “Nerves,” by Kevin McLeod

ANGELS AND BUTTERCUPS

“I’ll open up your head,” says Spider, hard,

“and you’ll be leaking plenty, ’less you spill.”

I casually sit upon the windowsill

and stare at him. A knife glints like a shard

of glass, then quivers next to my left ear.

Another throwing blade is in his hand.

“Sure, buttercup, I think I understand,”

I say, “But I think I need atmosphere,”

and I roll back and out. The next knife clangs

the fire escape but I’m already sliding

down the steel ladder and then quickly hiding

behind rank rows of trash cans. Spider bangs

down to the alley, curses. I’m discrete.

I tail him to a place on Angel Street.

Music: “Walking Along,” by Kevin McLeod

ANGEL FACE

The face of Spider Floyd is like an angel,

the sort of angel offers you an apple.

He’s flash, he’s jazz, he’s angling for an angle.

His eyes are dead. He’d sooner shoot than grapple,

being the dapper, slender sort of thug

—doesn’t want to break his polished nails.

Framed in the door is Spider’s pretty mug,

a pistol in his hand. “I don’t like tails,”

he growls. “That’s funny. I heard you was born

with one,” I smile. He smiles back with a smile

should be in a movie, maybe porn,

commences pistol-whipping me a while.

I wake up to a choir of devils singing.

Either my head or else a phone is ringing.

Music: “Backed Vibes Clean,” by Kevin McLeod

A HEAP OF BROKEN IMAGES

A phone is ringing somewhere in my head,

or maybe someone’s banging hammers on

an iron oven. Spider must be gone

somewhere, and I guess maybe I’m not dead.

The heap of broken images goes round

till I decipher I’m tossed in a chair,

pretty messed up. “I see they mussed your hair,”

comes Rose’s voice. “Behave. Spider went down

to the first floor, and I snuck up the back.”

When lovely woman stoops to folly and

she holds an automatic in her hand,

you answer what she asks: “You a cop, Jack?”

“No, Rose.” “Like hell. I’ve seen just how it goes

with cops. You won’t pin murder on this Rose.”

Music: “Backed Vibes Clean,” by Kevin McLeod

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

But how can you pin murder on a dead

woman? The problem is I cannot prove

that I’m not Rose, now Al is dead. Well, you’ve

got to admit the irony. I said

to him when I went in no one could tell

me from my sister; after years on stage,

playing gun molls and madams, four engagements

each six weeks, I’d trip no warning bell.

But now I’ve played the part with so much art

I can’t establish my identity,

can’t prove it’s not my name on the marquee.

They never could tell Rose and me apart.

And now, it’s curtains, Rose. The curtain falls,

and you won’t rise again for curtain calls.

Music: “Dreamy Flashback,” by Kevin McLeod

TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW

The curtain rises on a scene. Here’s Jack,

his lovely face so swollen it’s inflated.

Here is the heroine. Here is a shack,

abandoned, knocked askew, dilapidated,

a bare room barely lit by a bare light.

Here is a desk and hidden in the back

the white book scribbled with a code that might

uncode the black books, putting me on track

to find out why my sister Rose was killed.

I can’t let Jack catch on, don’t trust him yet.

Someone in all this mess turned coat and spilled.

It’s all an act, this acting rough

but I act well. I light a cigarette,

put on a pin-up smile, and then get tough.

Music: “Comfortable Mystery,” by Kevin McLeod

THE KISS

She pins a smile onto her face the way

you’d pin a butterfly to a cork board,

and sweetly says, “If I hear just one word

from you, I’ll make you a new mouth, okay?”

pressing the Luger up against my Adam’s

apple. And she is one sweet apple herself,

in her tight-laced corset rimmed with fur

and tiny skirt, a looker among Madams.

She has a face to make a reprobate

out of an archbishop. I’m a believer.

I can’t take her, and yet I can’t leave her,

though I’m no priest. “I love you, Rose,” I state,

with tenderness. She dips the gun, her wrist

gone weak. That’s when I kiss her with my fist.

Music: “Just as Soon,” by Kevin McLeod

THE DISTRESSED ROSE

I kiss her with my fist and she goes slack

the way a hooker’s dress drops to the floor.

I kick the gun away and lock the door.

She mumbles something weakly, “Me, too, Jack.

I love you, too.” Aw, hell. What a swell dame.

Outside of prostitution, gambling, oh

and just a little homicide, a Joe

could take her home to Mom. I’m not to blame,

she is a whore, and with a heart of tin,

no kind of damsel. When she looks distressed

her face would make a stockbroker divest

of money, make a saint invest in sin.

But still, I just can’t leave her here for them.

I guess I’ve fallen for this fatal femme.

Music: “Just as Soon,” by Kevin McLeod

TOUGH GUISE

I’m not the type who falls for muscle guys,

and something’s off with Jack, that he would want

a madam or a murderer, disguise

or not. Or something’s off with me. I can’t

pretend I don’t enjoy pretending, that

tending to Rose’s garden at the Red

Bordello as a madam with a gat

inside her purse, an airman in her bedroom,

hasn’t knocked my head askew. But Jack

must see too many movies, thinks he’ll own

this rose. We both are trapped inside our poses,

the tough guy fighting mobsters on our track,

the bad girl lounging in her dressing gown.

An insect in the bed will kill the roses.

Music: “Night on the Docks,” by Kevin McLeod

THE DEATH TRAP

Falling for Rose just might be fatal, but

what’s not? I’m just an airman with a knack

for trouble and a killer uppercut;

I know that Spider Floyd is on our track,

but spend the afternoon in Rose’s dive,

because you can’t keep days inside a box.

Maybe to love a tramp’s a paradox,

but no one’s getting out of here alive.

I’m not just killing time with Rose. Time does

the murdering. Rose stitches up the cut

across my heart. I hold her tight in bed,

because I’ve learned of love one thing: it goes.

It’s true that time is a great teacher, but

unfortunately kills its students dead.

Music: “Private Reflection,” by Kevin McLeod

THE CITY DEAD-HOUSE

“I am a student of death,” mortician

Joe Martin says, “the pistol, bomb and knife

and their particular effects. If life

is sickness, you can cure it with a gun.

The fellow over there with a switchblade

stuck in his heart had bigger problems than

four inches of sharp steel. The gentleman

was killed and later stabbed—a masquerade.

It took a while to figure how he died.”

Joe turns away from where the corpse is flayed

in autopsy, and hands me the switchblade,

smiling. He looks a bit self-satisfied.

“Stop dancing, Joe. Just tell me what you found.”

“Seawater in his lungs. The fellow drowned.”

Music: “Back Vibes,” by Kevin McLeod

DRESSING THE MEAT

“The fellow drowned? Who was he, Joe, a sailor?”

“Hardly. How many sailors do you know

who have five large in their billfolds? Who blow

their noses on fine silk? Who have a tailor

fit their suits? No, the man there’s moniker

is Algernon Byrne Westlander III.

A stuffed shirt type. Now more of a stuffed bird,

but was the Deputy Commissioner.”

I whistle at the news. Why’s a white shirt

like Algie pitching woo out at the Red

Bordello? His type gets a dame in bed

with just his name. He don’t need a pro skirt.

“Thanks, Joe. Let’s snort some giggle juice.” “Oh, no.

I gotta fit Al for his wood kimono.”

Music: “Back Vibes,” by Kevin McLeod

FROM TEMPEST TO OTHELLO

Algernon, or as I dub him, Algie,

got tossed into the drink and drank a lung

or two of salt water and ocean algae,

but here’s the little thing that has me hung:

we live in Chi-town—no salt water for

a thousand miles—so tell me how this fellow

sucked sea? I’m stumped. I knock on Rose’s door.

“Culture tonight,” she says, takes me to Othello.

Uh-huh, I know. O-what-o? It’s a play.

I ain’t from Cultureville. I’m from Chicago,

like Al Capone. But Rose has some great gams

so I will play her way, though I should say

just like that fella in the play, Iago

(or was it Popeye?) “I ams that I ams.”

Music: “Laconic Granny,” by Kevin McLeod

SPIDER CAT AND BAD EYE

I am the guy I am, so at the theater

I’m watching all the high hats in the crowd.

One man bad-eyes Rose as if he ate her

for lunch and got a bellyache. The loud

gee on the stage is spitting wind in slang

so jingle-brained there ain’t no tail or head

to it. At intermission I go hang

my elbows on the bar. “Get to the shed,”

a whisper comes from to my back. I know

that voice—it’s Spider Floyd. “The boss is at

the opening.” Spider and Bad Eye go

and Rose come gets me. “Rose, that Spider cat …”

“I know. This theater’s being shaken down,

like every other business in Chi-town.”

Music: “No Good Layabout,” by Kevin McLeod

WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS

“In Chi-town every store shakes out the cash

or else the Big Guy who’s behind the scenes

will whack you, blast your place to smithereens,

or angel-face will burn the store to ash,”

says Rose. “He’s like a gangster God. The law

can’t touch him.” Snow is sifting down outdoors

like salt. Joe Morton made a salt that pours

instead of clumps, he found the formula.

If they had that at Sodom and Gomorrah

when fire and brimstone rained and cities burned,

that woman who looked back would not have turned

to a salt pillar, right? Well, I’m not sure a’

this stuff. Maybe the dame would still have bought

the farm. As things shake out, it was her lot.

Music: “No Good Layabout,” by Kevin McLeod

ANIMALS

Back on the farm I taught myself a lot

by watching animals. My sister Rose

protected me against our dad. She taught

me sacrifice, and when he ripped her clothes

I heard the screams like mating cats, the weeping.

At fourteen I took off. My pop was found,

a kitchen knife stuck in his back, blood seeping

from the icebox to the back door. Around

the pool the starving animals collected,

lapping it up, as later men drew round

to drink Rose in. I think that I’ve detected

her killer and the place where she was drowned:

the Shedd Aquarium and Al Capone.

I leave Jack sleeping, and drive there, alone.

Music: “A Singular Perversion,” by Kevin McLeod

NOTE LEFT PINNED TO THE PILLOW (SIGNED “VIOLET”)

Dear Jack, you’re lovely, sleeping on the bed,

and all I want to do is crawl inside

the covers next to you. But I can’t hide

from what I have to do. I’m at the Shedd

Aquarium. Ten thousand gallons of

salt water, right? It must be where poor Al

and Rose were drowned. How strange that you should call

me by my sister’s name and fall in love

with her. Rose is a part I’m acting, Jack,

to make her murderer think she’s alive.

When Spider tried to kill me in that dive,

I knew Capone had ordered the attack.

Dear Jack, you’re lovely, sleeping on the bed.

Don’t follow me. If I’m not back, I’m dead.

Music: “Long Road Ahead,” by Kevin McLeod

SMALL FRY, BIG FISH, AND THE DISH

I follow, but the opening party’s done.

There’s just the wilting tinsel, empty glasses,

a janitor, and my false Rose is gone.

I grab the janitor’s arm as he passes,

and twist. He screams, and I twist harder. “Where?”

I ask. “Where what?” he moans. I twist until

I hear a crack. And “Where?” I ask, and stare

him in the eyes till he knows that I’ll kill

him soon, unless he gives it up. “The bim?”

he asks. “You want to know about the dish?

Al’s gunsels grabbed her coming up to him,

gun in her fist. I don’t know where she is.”

I wrench his arm until I hear it break.

He shrieks, “She’s at his hideout on the lake!”

Music: “Devastation and Revenge & News of Sorrow,” by Kevin McLeod

ANGELS FALLING FROM THE SKY

I’ve found the secret island hideout. Now

two speedboats jet from the bay, opening

up with machine guns mounted on the bow.

I nudge the wind in my red biplane, slingshot

on an updraft, dodge the first barrage,

then bank and dive right down their throats.

The hissing bullets rip my fuselage,

but I let loose with bombs and now the boats

are bloody flame and so the good guy wins

—until a black plane dives out of the void

and shreds my wings. The handsome pilot grins

as smoke and flame decant. It’s Spider Floyd.

I stall to make him smash my plane, the brute,

then grin, too, dropping in my parachute.

Music: “Rising Game,” by Kevin McLeod

TAXES AND DEATH

My parachute drifts toward the high treetops

and as I float it all begins to gel,

how Rose was drowned for working with the cops.

They must have tortured her to make her tell

who she was working for. So Algernon

is next, but meantime here is Violet

running the Red Bordello. Rose is gone

and stiffs don’t walk, but they can’t take that bet,

because there is the matter of the books

that Rose got off a drunken gangster trick—

Capone’s accountant—the white book ascrawl

with fake expenses, and the two black books

of real accounts. Capone. Nothing will stick

to him. I drop, but swear he’ll take the fall.

Music: “Rising Game,” by Kevin McLeod

A BOUQUET OF VIOLENCE

I clip the guard behind the ear. He falls.

I’m through the window with my silencer

spitting hushed death and spattering walls

with abstract paintings all in red. A stir

in the hallway. Two men burst in and taste

two bullets. I leap over them and find

the stairs down to the underground. I waste

a shot on shadows, then—cat feet behind

me. A knife scrapes my ribcage, but I whirl

and slam the knifeman up against stone,

gun to his neck, and grit, “Where is the girl?”

He spills the dope, and then spills blood. Alone

in a locked room, I find my Violet.

“Hi Jack,” she smiles, “You got a cigarette?”

Music: “Dirt Rhodes,” by Kevin McLeod

VIOLETS ARE BLACK AND BLUE

“Hi Jack,” she smiles, “You got a cigarette?”

She’s chained up to a chair and bruised blue-black,

her dress torn down her shoulder ’cross her back,

and that’s how I first meet my Violet.

But then I see her eyes flick to something

behind me and her smile congeals to ice.

I spin too slow and catch the knifeblade twice,

once in my arm, once in my chest, but bring

the gun around and just before I shoot

his large brown eyes expand, his lips form “No!”

Before he dies he grips my leg below

the knee. I kick his hand off with my boot,

grab Violet and run down to the pier,

steal a speedboat and shoot off in high gear.

Music: “Dirt Rhodes,” by Kevin McLeod

UNTOUCHABLE

We stole a speedboat and kept going till

we got to Canada, where we laid low

until we thought the heat was off, but how

I had to plead with Jack not to go kill

Capone and get himself blipped off in turn.

Now I’m off Broadway, playing a gun moll

again, and Jack and I have found a small

bungalow in New Jersey, and we burn

up the dance halls and we are happy here.

Jack couldn’t quite believe I was alive

when he arrived, but as I tell him, “Love,

they couldn’t kill me till they found out where

I’d stashed the books, but how could I confess

I mailed the two black books to Eliot Ness?”

Music: “Unanswered Questions & Night on the Docks with Piano,” by Kevin McLeod

—from Rattle #33, Summer 2010

CREDITS:

All Music by Kevin McLeod
Under Creative Commons License

Actors:

Jack Logan: Tony Barnstone
Spider Floyd: Tony Barnstone
Street Drunk: Tony Barnstone
Mortician Joe Martin: Tony Barnstone
Red Bordello Waiter: Tony Barnstone
Shedd Aquarium Janitor: Tony Barnstone
Rose: Jennifer Sage Holmes
Violet: Jennifer Sage Holmes

___________

Tony Barnstone: “This sequence comes from my manuscript, Pulp Sonnets, and is the product of extensive research into 20th century American pulp fiction, noir, and comics, with particular attention to the spy, detective, crime, horror, sword and sorcery, vigilante, and pulp action genres. My approach is modeled on Robert Browning and Robert Frost, using dramatic monologue to let the characters speak for themselves in the vernacular of their class, location, and social situation. I research primary materials (including pulp short stories and novels, and original crime reports) in order to develop these voices, and secondary materials (theoretical, sociological, anthropological, psychological, philosophical, and theological studies of the pulps and the comics) to develop the larger themes of the project. I see the ‘Jack Logan’ story as fun (particularly in its wild plot and use of gangster vernacular), but not uncritical fun. It is meant to deconstruct pulp depictions of gender roles—in particular the femme fatale and the men caught up in their ‘tough guise.’” (web)