Chapbooks

April 9, 2024

“Abandoned Bicycle” by George BilgerePosted by

George Bilgere

ABANDONED BICYCLE

A bicycle—a nice one—
has been locked to the lamp post
all summer and fall.
 
Tires gone flat.
A congregation of leaves
worshipping the wheels.
 
And on the brake levers
and the tiny bolts
that held the seat exactly
where someone wanted it to be,
rust is constructing
its sprawling embassies.
 
Maybe a drunk drifted
over yellow lines. A clot
formed in the thigh
and moved north.
Or somebody just got
sick and tired.
 
Anyway, the bike is waiting.
Its metals gleam urgently.
 
Soon the scavengers will come.
The pedals—unable to live
without each other—will vanish
into a fresh new marriage.
 
The seat will disappear
into a seat-shaped abyss.
 
One night, someone
will help himself to a wheel.
Not quite a bicycle,
but a start.
 
And the bike,
like an abandoned person,
will become a clock,
calibrated to measure
the precise duration
of loneliness.
 

—from Cheap Motels of My Youth
2023 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

__________

George Bilgere: “When I was eight years old my parents got divorced. My mother packed her three kids into an old Chevy station wagon and drove us from St. Louis to Riverside, California, looking for a fresh start. She had visited there when she was an Army nurse stationed in LA during the war and fell in love with the place. That cross-country car trip, full of cheap diners, cheap hotels, and desperation, changed my life. I fell in love with the vastness and beauty, the glamor and tawdriness, of America. I’ve travelled all over the country since then, on that ancient and deeply American quest, the search for home.” (web)

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March 26, 2024

“Cheap Motels of My Youth” by George BilgerePosted by

George Bilgere

CHEAP MOTELS OF MY YOUTH

They lay somewhere between
the Sleeping In The Car era
and my current and probably final era,
the Best Western or Courtyard Marriott era.
 
The Wigwam. Log Cabin. Kozy Komfort
Hiway House. Star Lite. The Lazy A.
 
Just off the interstate, the roar
of the sixteen-wheelers all night long.
The dented tin door opening to the parking lot,
the broken coke machine muttering to itself.
 
“Color TV.” “Free HBO.” “Hang Yourself
in Our Spacious Closets.” A job interview
at some lost-in-the-middle-of-nowhere
branch campus of some agricultural college
devoted to the research and development
of the soybean and related by-products.
 
Five-course teaching load, four of them
Remedial Comp. Candidate
must demonstrate familiarity
with the basic tenets of Christian faith.
Chance of getting the job
one in a hundred. Lip-sticked
cigarette butt under the bed.
Toilet seat with its paper band,
“Sanitized for Your Protection,”
dead roach floating in the bowl.
 
As the free HBO
flickers in the background,
you stare in the cracked mirror
at a face too young, too full of hope
to deserve this. And you wait
for the Courtyard Marriott era to arrive.
 

—from Cheap Motels of My Youth
2023 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

__________

George Bilgere: “When I was eight years old my parents got divorced. My mother packed her three kids into an old Chevy station wagon and drove us from St. Louis to Riverside, California, looking for a fresh start. She had visited there when she was an Army nurse stationed in LA during the war and fell in love with the place. That cross-country car trip, full of cheap diners, cheap hotels, and desperation, changed my life. I fell in love with the vastness and beauty, the glamor and tawdriness, of America. I’ve travelled all over the country since then, on that ancient and deeply American quest, the search for home.” (web)

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March 13, 2024

“Misting” by George BilgerePosted by

George Bilgere

MISTING

is the one thing involving flowers
I’m reasonably good at. Daybreak
finds me in the yard with my hose,
attentive as a bee. What a pleasure
to choose “Mist” on my watering gun
and drift like a cloud above the roses.
Last month my sister died, a storm
of lightning in her brain. And now
this news that someone who once
was the object of all my bouquets
is spending her final summer.
Each day brings more bad weather,
which is another way of saying
I’m in my sixties. But here, in the frail
September morning, my hand tipped in fog,
the flowers lift their faces to me
with bright, mystifying questions,
and for once I have an answer.
 

—from Cheap Motels of My Youth
2023 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

__________

George Bilgere: “When I was eight years old my parents got divorced. My mother packed her three kids into an old Chevy station wagon and drove us from St. Louis to Riverside, California, looking for a fresh start. She had visited there when she was an Army nurse stationed in LA during the war and fell in love with the place. That cross-country car trip, full of cheap diners, cheap hotels, and desperation, changed my life. I fell in love with the vastness and beauty, the glamor and tawdriness, of America. I’ve travelled all over the country since then, on that ancient and deeply American quest, the search for home.” (web)

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March 6, 2024

“Praise Dance” by Miracle ThorntonPosted by

Miracle Thornton

PRAISE DANCE

I.
 
i close my legs. i’m starting to smell
like a woman and the other girls can tell.
 
they spread wide and bend forward,
breathe giggles into the floor. clean
 
like new soap, talking in clicks about pastor’s
son—i am in love—about the way he feels.
 
they quip about how he kissed sharp
like a punishment in the back room off
 
the narthex. i felt him with my foot, says an usher’s
daughter and other girls shiver in her pride.
 
Sister comes to open me up and my jealousy
reeks like cabbage: pungent my yielding body.
 
 
II.
 
we balance on the ball, my ankles spurred out
and trembling. the girls step on my feet to make
 
my arch collapse. they don’t ask me where
it hurts and i don’t bother to tell them.
 
take me to the king and we carve lazily for Him,
our palms drawn upward, so open
 
i can’t breathe. this practice, pushing good
from the ground to the apex to the pews.
 
afterward, the girls dance for the boys straight out
of bible study. the girls ripple, laughs tart greens,
 
dressed still in paneled white tunics slick
over their curves. one of the boys begins
 
to beat on the altar a rhythm that makes me want
to whine into my seat. the girls’ hips clock against
 
one another. the pastor’s son humors a pew stain.
the others hooting, enraptured; blanched, i gnaw.
 
 
III.
 
on stage, Sister is violent for the Lord. fruit
washed in vinegar, she’s bitter white spit
 
down the apron. i don’t mistake her passion
for devotion. she’s giving it to the ushers
 
shaking wicker hats full of change, their gloves
browned at the tips. the elders with butterscotch
 
bulged cheeks clap fans against shiny
bad-ass boy heads, hallelujah
 
from the chest. fathers bop babies off knees
and my mother ducks her head in her purse,
 
chewing red vines and sucking her teeth. seen
from our pristine line of girls, i hide my head
 
in the thicket of hair gifted to the tallest of us.
i marvel behind the black halo at Sister’s war
 
of limbs until she comes
to a halt. the flock erupts.
 
i have to breathe in.
 

—from Plucked
2023 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

__________

Miracle Thornton: “When I encountered the Aesop fable, the moral of the story—an individual caught between pride and loyalty—immediately resonated with me. Growing up, I always felt pulled between the environment of my home and my hometown. It was difficult to understand who I was when it changed depending on the room, depending on whomever else occupied the space. The bird was a powerful conduit and spoke to the illusive aspects of my ever-evolving sense of self.”

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January 13, 2024

“On My First Day of Kindergarten” by Miracle ThorntonPosted by

Miracle Thornton

ON MY FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

i picked a rose for my bus driver
from the bushes outside of my older
brother’s window. it was pink and red
like the deer split beside me
at the end of the driveway,
reeking of fresh cut
grass. i put my nose to the flower
but gagged. it smelled
like the green of panties
caught under the door.
my lunch rattled
in my new blue backpack
as i leaned over the deer,
my scalp thrumming hot
from the braids my mother
gave me the night before.
i was careful not to let
my denim dress touch
the liver pumping wet
and useless between us.
before i could place the rose
i heard a scream behind me
and the bus let out
a horrible sigh as it came
to a stop. the bus shook
with dozens of little pale
mouths pressed at the windows,
the driver’s mouth fullest
with teeth.
 

—from Plucked
2023 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

__________

Miracle Thornton: “When I encountered the Aesop fable, the moral of the story—an individual caught between pride and loyalty—immediately resonated with me. Growing up, I always felt pulled between the environment of my home and my hometown. It was difficult to understand who I was when it changed depending on the room, depending on whomever else occupied the space. The bird was a powerful conduit and spoke to the illusive aspects of my ever-evolving sense of self.”

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January 6, 2024

“The Tale of La Llorona” by Raquel Vasquez GillilandPosted by

Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

THE TALE OF LA LLORONA

I was born with one eye open
on the back of my head. It made
it easy to walk along the branches
of mango trees. Limb to limb,
finger to finger, I walked to the
house of my mother, then to my
grandmother’s. In between
I discovered the House of Vasquez,
connected to me and my sister
and my mother like the marrow
of bone. Inside the house were
secrets. An eyelash at the grave
of my mother ’s sister. A black pupil
looking from my grandmother’s
silver hair. I asked my mother,
why are the Vasquez women
born with so many eyes? And
she said she thinks it’s because
we have so many tears. When
I was pregnant, it became difficult
to wrap my bear feet around
mango tree arms. Once, a wind
blew so hard, I fell. My baby slipped
all the way down to where I open,
to where my body becomes a star.
In order to push him out, I had to cut
open my fourth eye. For the first time,
I saw whole from the back and
the front. And my God. This world
is made of nothing but estrellas.
My spine fell out of my body and
latched to the tree as my baby did
to my breast. And when I cried, the
tears came from both sides. The tears
were saltier than the ocean. I didn’t know
this at the time, but they were also sweet.

—from Tales from the House of Vasquez
Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

__________

Raquel Vasquez Gilliland: “Nearly two years after having a nervous breakdown after the birth of my son, I started to examine this experience with poetry. Mental illness runs on my mother’s side of the family—with the Vasquez women, specifically—and in searching for the reasons why, I found stories. Some of these are from the lips of my grandmother and mother, some are ones I unearthed inexplicably, from the fertile dirt where poems grow.” (web)

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December 30, 2023

“Among Peacocks” by Miracle ThorntonPosted by

Miracle Thornton

AMONG PEACOCKS

my father squeezes past, an old scarf jerked and drawn
about his neck. smell drags throughout the house
as they collect loose change from the cushion cheeks.
 
the baby and i watch from our living room floor
as they brush hips and give each other big manly pats
on the ass. we heard them last night, gurgling
 
courage. an irritated hand held my father’s head
underwater and stroked his spine until he calmed.
from the sliver beneath the door, their feet wrinkled
 
and softened, my father’s knees chimed. i’ve heard too many
stories about the accident, traced scars and felt pins
jutting against his suede legs. the bird heading the window:
 
my father’s body against asphalt, sheaths of them
forcibly molted as a consequence for their delight.
my father still quivers like a boy at the sight of glass,
 
fawns at truck tires, fanning his cheeks. they met
before the fall—before their bodies bore the impact
—thinning the breast of a heifer. drunk and puffing
 
or with a balled mouth, they leave to find something
better than love for a boy: the pastoral south, a man baring
his bloodless face to the wind, a corona sweating
 
beside wings, the laughter of other limitless brothers.
i pity them. i correct the bunching of the scarf
and he kisses the baby’s tall forehead. it grabs
 
at the keys jangling from his hips.
 

—from Plucked
2023 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

__________

Miracle Thornton: “When I encountered the Aesop fable, the moral of the story—an individual caught between pride and loyalty—immediately resonated with me. Growing up, I always felt pulled between the environment of my home and my hometown. It was difficult to understand who I was when it changed depending on the room, depending on whomever else occupied the space. The bird was a powerful conduit and spoke to the illusive aspects of my ever-evolving sense of self.”

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