Tributes

March 20, 2024

“The Weather” by C.L. Bledsoe & Michael GushuePosted by

C.L. Bledsoe & Michael Gushue

THE WEATHER

Imagine the Earth is eating crackers in bed.
The crumbs are our lost days. They look toward
the coup de grace of the great Shaking Out
of the Quilt. The weather is always late to the party
and never brings wine. It stands in the corner checking
dating apps on its phone while everyone waits
for the thunder. See how easy it is to get off track?
And paying attention has gotten so expensive.
We were talking about my ex whose pants
you tried to get into by distracting each leg
with your pretty words. How would that work
in the afterlife? All the people we fucked
gabbing about how well we did. Or didn’t.
It’s my word against theirs you might think.
At least there weren’t any witnesses.
But there are always witnesses—millions
of them, numberless as crumbs. What do they
want? Someone to notice they’re leaving,
to pretend to miss them when they’re gone.
Is that too much to ask? Check yes or no.
 

—from Rattle #83, Spring 2024
Tribute to Collaboration

__________

C.L. Bledsoe & Michael Gushue: “One of us will come up with a start to a poem. It might be a title or a line or a few lines that seem promising. Then he’ll email that start to the other. If it sparks something, that one will add more lines—how many will depend on how far the initial lines take him. After this, we go back and forth. Often, one of us will decide to cut or edit what’s already gone before, regardless of who wrote it, and that’s fine because that’s how the poem is evolving. We trust each other, and we can separate ego from the process and our faith in the poem. We have a similar approach and style regarding certain images and ideas, a kind of shorthand or Morse code that comes in handy as the poem coalesces. We both have a sense of when a poem has a good shape, has gone satisfactorily from point A to point B, and has clicked shut at the end. After that, one of us might go over one or two more times to smooth it out, and then we’ll move it over to the finished file. People have said that they can’t tell which of us has written what parts of a poem. As you can see, our process is informal and improvisatory. It’s a back-and-forth game that more often than not surprises both of us with the result.”

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March 18, 2024

“Two Pints” by Roberta Beary & Lew WattsPosted by

Roberta Beary & Lew Watts

TWO PINTS

fireside rug
wishing the dog
would take me
 
Six years it was, sleeping on couches. Waiting for Mam to get better. Every aunt took a turn. And every uncle.
 
earliest sketchbook
red running
off his face
 
Sounds grand. Not like at ours. No one’s touching his balls, Gramps would scream, after one too many. Granny chopping the veggies with a vengeance. We kids turned up the TV but couldn’t stop staring. At their collie, humping the loveseat. 
 
school project
the futile search
for scissors
 
Huh! Never had a dog. Had a rat once. Thought it was a boy. One of my cousins dissected it. Said it was a girl. That she could tell ’cos it didn’t cry.
 
upping the ante
after doctors and nurses …
first switchblade
 
That’s nothing. Found a photo of Da in a shoebox. Him in his uniform holding it glued to his shoulder. That little smile. A badge for marksmanship, he said. As he pointed his rifle at the boyfriend. 
 
goth makeup
blending in
the bruises
 
Bruises? You were lucky. My whole body was a bruise. And knees were always red-raw. Had to lick the driveway clean. Whenever they let me out. The only unscarred skin I saw was through a keyhole. 
 
eyeball to eyeball
the one-upmanship
of burst blood vessels
 

—from Rattle #83, Spring 2024
Tribute to Collaboration

__________

Roberta Beary & Lew Watts: “Lew and I have worked together in the past (we are co-authors, with Rich Youmans, of Haibun: A Writer’s Guide), but we have never written a haibun together. Traditionally, linked haibun involve alternating couplets of prose and haiku, where each prose sections links to but shifts away from the preceding haiku. Since we have both written extensively about our difficult childhoods, we had the idea of each of us writing alternating couplets that would escalate in gruesome absurdity; a kind of parody of ourselves. Those aficionados of Monty Python may recognize elements of their famous sketch, ‘The Four Yorkshiremen.’” (web)

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March 12, 2024

“Considering Metal Man (as a Template for World Peace)” by Erik CampbellPosted by

Erik Campbell

CONSIDERING METAL MAN (AS A TEMPLATE FOR WORLD PEACE)

The sum of evil would be greatly diminished if men
could only learn to sit quietly in their rooms.
—Pascal

He sits in Union Station so that you don’t have to,
Covered in metallic paint, not moving, like applied

Pascal taken one step publicly further. The tourists
Patronize him; put money in his gold painted fedora,

And encourage him not to explain. The homeless wish
They had his strangeness, his calculation, his economy

Of gesture. The writers know he is a fleshed out
Character worthy of 200 pages or more, a catatonic

Knight-errant appearing everywhere in full armor.
The philosophers see him as a meta-symbol,

A shimmering sage who sits better than the Buddha.
Look how he sits and stares, they say. Observe how

Nobody dies because of this.

—from Rattle #22, Winter 2004
Tribute to Poets Writing Abroad

__________

Erik Campbell: “One afternoon in the summer of 1994 I was driving to work and I heard Garrison Keillor read Stephen Dunn’s poem ‘Tenderness’ on The Writer’s Almanac. After he finished the poem I pulled my car over and sat for some time. I had to. That is why I write poems. I want to make somebody else late for work.” (web)

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March 4, 2024

“In Early Drafts, Robert Frost Relied Heavily on the Thesaurus” by Jeff Vande ZandePosted by

Jeff Vande Zande

IN EARLY DRAFTS, ROBERT FROST RELIED HEAVILY ON THE THESAURUS

Discontinuing By Timberland
on a Fleecy Eventide
—Robert Frost

Whose copse this is I speculate I get.
His domicile is in the township, yet;
He won’t monitor me refraining here
To observe his pines congesting with wet.

My petite steed must reckon it bizarre
To knock off with the next shanty so far
Flanked by boscage and glaciated loch
The blackest eve of Earth’s loop around star.

He gives his tackle’s carillon a flap
As though he’s inquiring, “What the crap?”
The single other racket is the zoom
Of cozy zephyr and pubescent scrap.

The thicket is cute, sooty and abstruse.
But I’ve contracts that I don’t want to lose,
And 5,280 feet more until I snooze,
And 5,280 feet more until I snooze.

—from Rattle #33, Summer 2010
Tribute to Humor

__________

Jeff Vande Zande: “I guess I was reading a lot of student papers in which students were compelled to try to make their papers sound ‘better’ by using the thesaurus. For instance, one student had been arguing why people should take up jogging and then, in the middle of the paper, started arguing why people should take up cantering. I thought it might be funny to rewrite a Frost poem under the premise that Frost was a thesaurus abuser. Then, after reading it, Tim Green said, ‘I like it, Jeff, but can you make it rhyme?’ That’s three hours of my life that I’ll never get back!” (web)

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February 24, 2024

“Monopoly” by Steven M. SmithPosted by

Steven M. Smith

MONOPOLY

My son’s the sticky-fingered banker—
a vault of red licorice squeaks
in his mouth. He conducts business
from his wooden chair on his knees,
puffing on a fresh piece of licorice,
clutching his stack of $500 bills
as if the IRS is coming for his
fortune with a giant vacuum cleaner.
I’m responsible for the deeds.
I have the few remaining ones fanned
out like a questionable poker hand
on the dining room table.
I toss a handful of M&M’s—
such sweet analgesics—in my mouth
and wash them down with Kool-Aid.
Of course, my son’s got the car.
And I got the boot.
He’s got hotels like red parasites
from Pacific Avenue to Boardwalk.
And he controls the railroads too.
Landing on Luxury Tax would be
the answer to my prayers.
I just want to go to jail,
not pass Go and stay there;
the jail house shower is safer!
Well, I’ve mortgaged everything,
except my hotels on Cockroach Corner—
Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues.
I’m on Marvin Gardens, and it’s my
turn to toss those little evil
squares speckled with black holes.
I land on Chance, and I start to wipe
the sweat of bankruptcy from my face,
but then my son hears me whimper:
“Advance token to Boardwalk.”

—from Rattle #25, Summer 2006
Tribute to the Best of Rattle

__________

Steven M. Smith: “I know that my students are not likely to remember the titles of the poems I bring to the class, but I trust that by bringing passion to my students, they will know it’s possible, and go out to find something in their lives to be passionate about. I know this is possible through poetry.”

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February 17, 2024

“Love to But” by Julie BruckPosted by

Julie Bruck

LOVE TO BUT

Our very important neighbor’s
fused to his new Cingular headset:
Now he can talk and walk.
Blah-blah-blah goes Mr. de Broff.
This makes it hard to hear
even the packs of feral dogs
howling all night, or the cats
doing what they do in our dark
fog-bound city gardens.
The world needs its chemistry
checked, that’s for sure.
The poisoned river is high,
fast at this time of year.
Fences between houses are down,
and we all like our boundaries.
Pharmacies? Closed.
All essential services, shut.
Time to fetch my daughter
from a birthday party which
ended in 1963, but she runs late.
Sometimes, I have to pry her
from the door-jamb, carry
her to the car like a small,
warm totem pole with sneakers.
A yellow Hummer slipped
through a crack in our street
on Tuesday: not seen nor
heard from since, despite
the crowd of looky-lu’s,
still milling around out there.
Love to. But these are
strange times. I could
expire before I meet
you at the gate. Yessir.
Love to. Toothache.
Can’t.

—from Rattle #35, Summer 2011
Tribute to Canadian Poets

_________

Julie Bruck: “To decline, to refuse, dig in one’s heels, to resist like a small dog its leash—I find that gesture so alluring, such a sweet, guilty pleasure. Writing ‘Love to But’ also furnished an opportunity to complain (another underrated pastime) about a neighbor who considers mobile phone use a public harangue even as the world ends. Doh! I guess Mr. de B. and the speaker of this poem aren’t so different.”

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February 15, 2024

“Costume” by Jessica MollPosted by

Jessica Moll

COSTUME

Our game’s a cross between A Chorus Line
and Fame. Rehearsals, here in our backyard.
Pretend the lawn’s the stage. The tutu’s mine,
but I let David pick a leotard.
I’m ten, he’s five, he’s used to all my rules.
He gets to be a girl, but has to choose
a neutral name like “Chris.” Summer fog rolls
in. We swirl our glitter scarves to music
in our heads. He’s got it down, the girl
pose: hips, hands. He’s not a boy. He won’t play
out front, racing Big Wheels. Instead, he twirls
barefoot with me. But what about the place
my fingers found, underneath my clothes?
The grass is cold. Plié. And point your toes.
 

—from Rattle #32, Winter 2009
Tribute to the Sonnet

__________

Jessica Moll: “Since I just wrote a sonnet yesterday, today I’d like to rest. My fingers ache from tapping syllables against the desk. I haven’t slept—the loud iambic tick’s a clock inside my head. I hate the task I give myself, of cramming my mind’s sprawl into the structure of a formal poem. I think the next time that a sonnet calls, I won’t answer. I’ll pretend I’m not home. But watch, tomorrow I’ll be riding down a pitted Oakland street, pedaling hard to get to work on time, and as I spin, I’ll feel the meter in my pulse and start to think in rhyme. You’ve had this kind of lover—as soon as you break up, you’re back together.”

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