Tributes

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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February 8, 2024

“The Ghost of Frank O’Hara” by John YohePosted by

John Yohe

THE GHOST OF FRANK O’HARA

The ghost of Frank O’Hara taps me on
the shoulder whispering
and what about
the humor what about talks with the sun
and things that happen at the movies out
of sight of parents don’t forget the thirst
of being in Manhattan in the heat
and Coke the drink
remember too your first
love passion music though it might not come out
in words it’s there in you but I was sad
and said what good is humor in a poem
when people die Manhattan Fire Island
we
bought falafels which we thought weren’t bad
and walked to Central Park for space and some
children were laughing and he said ask them

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

__________

John Yohe: “I wrote this poem in late 2001 or early 2002, and found working within a form helped me say things I wouldn’t have normally said. I had been thinking about the 9/11 attacks, wondering how Frank O’Hara would have responded and, in the same way he talked to the sun, I decided to talk to him. The phrase ‘the ghost of Frank O’Hara’ was in iambic, the rest of the poem sort of flowed out.” (web)

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January 30, 2024

“Baghdad, Mon Amour” by Salah al HamdaniPosted by

Salah al Hamdani

BAGHDAD, MON AMOUR

You cannot be crucified
On the side of a page
Of a story that is not your own,
Nor to the rhythm of the deaths that brood your plagues
Because there will be no cry to relieve your grief.

You cannot be crucified on the banks of the streams
Your body bleeds,
When the Euphrates washes away the secret of its soul
At the birth of a new defeat.
I know this:
No wound deserves a war.

You cannot be crucified at nightfall,
When you did not close your prayers
On the body of palm trees
Because there is no honorable assassin.

You cannot be crucified for the cinders of calamities,
For the tombs of your gods,
Or for the belief of a dying humanity.

Baghdad mon amour,
Not son, nor father, nor God,
No prophet crowned by the church will save your soul,
Not that of Mecca,
Not that of those who refuse
To share the olive trees in Palestine.

This is my notebook of war,
The years of exiles folded in a suitcase
Too long abandoned to the dreams of the convicted.

This is my share of victims,
My share of moon,
My harvest of nothingness,
My share of dust, words and cries.

This is my misfortune
Like a comma locking a line of ink.

Baghdad my love,
I was crouched in the corner of the page
In the shelter of the arid days,
Far from the torrents of blood
That carry the name of those shot with the silence of man.

Baghdad, mon amour,
Sitting like a Bedouin in a mirage
Lying on my shores, I cherished my own shroud.
Far from the cross, Fatima’s palm and the star of David
Far from their books, their wars
Wandering in the sand of the dunes,
From the steppe to the city
I drag my body from season to season,
I trail you along from the couch to the mirror, from my room to the street
Between my writing and my solitude
In the shelter of their cemeteries,
Their martyrs, their morgues.

Baghdad my love,
You cannot tremble at the threshold of these ruins of days,
A civilization trained to kill
Violated your virginity.

Baghdad, city forever rebellious against your torturer Saddam,
You cannot groan at the only revelation of this hegemony,
Those who rushed around your body at death’s door,
These “liberators” are their accomplices.

Madinat-al Salam,
City of peace,
Love in the soul of writing.

Baghdad my wound,
My father the working man died without knowing joy,
My mother mislaid her youth in the mirror
And the only witness to my first grief on your breast
Is the breath of the sand,
The starry sky and God’s gaze on the call to prayer.

I wished so much today that man had never discovered fire
And cursed it to advance so much in its own din.

This soil that gave birth to me, today put to death.
Oh mother! I want to return inside your flesh

To hear the beating of your heart,
To quench my thirst in the murmur of your breath.

Translated by Molly Deschenes from Le cimetiere des oiseaux (editions de l’aube, Paris, 2003)

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

__________

Salah al Hamdani has lived as an Iraqi exile in France for nearly thirty years. He left Iraq after a stay in prison, and continues to fight against the henchmen of Saddam Hussein, as well as the Anglo-American occupants. The actor, director, and poet is author of several books, both in Arabic and French.

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January 4, 2024

“Grass in My Hair” by Bruce McRaePosted by

Bruce McRae

GRASS IN MY HAIR

I was arguing
with the scarecrow.
His voice
was like a wall
of sand coming
closer and closer.
He had corn
on his breath
but no mouth
to speak of.
His mind
was a straw stalk
in the wind,
all the colours
of a golden
rainbow, there,
but not there,
even his pinstripes
soil-scented.
And I was saying
to the scarecrow,
“We end,
we begin.”
I was telling him
the true names
of all the dead.
I was asking
a stupid question:
“Where’s the crow
inside my head?”
Which he thought
quite funny,
a perpetual grin
on his dried lips,
his eyes seeing
into the far distance,
a tear forming
in the new silence
that summer, and he
impeccably dressed.

—from Rattle #35, Summer 2011

__________

Bruce McRae: “‘Grass In My Hair’ was written in bed during the summer of 2008. In fact, all my poems are written lying down. It was inspired by the heat of August, a cornfield from my youth in Southern Ontario, and The Wizard of Oz.” (web)

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December 22, 2023

“The God Zoo” by Richard PrinsPosted by

Richard Prins

THE GOD ZOO

I.

Elvis
blimps above
the walrus shade.
Jesus rides an elephant
away from Calvary. Sparrows
learn to fly, pitched from Ganesh’s
trunk. Muhammad’s mastering the art
of a blowhole ablution. Wildebeest chuckling
at Moses’ wimpy forty days. Caesar’s gassy after sharing
unripe mangos with a chimp. Marx is munching grass. Lost a bet
with Nebuchadnezzar. Buddha chucks some birdseed, lectures the pigeons
about desire. Ra folds after a plague of platypusses; his firstborn’s grown a beak.

II.

Twin walruses sharpen their tusks on the dunes.
Buddha’s navel a lager spout.
Only a fool would chug the end of desire.

The wildebeest flies upside-down, jousting all the stars.
Muhammad wears a tunic of sequin nipples.
Only a fool would record their voluminous lactations.

Pigeons crap on godhead an eggwhite fedora.
Jesus plucks thorns out of his prom night eyelashes.
Only a fool would unbutton that snarlyhaired tuxedo.

A chimp is licking termites off a shark tooth comb.
Elvis gets rich off a lunch money racket.
Only a fool would wipe a toilet down with mutton chops.

The elephants windmill their snouts, inhaling each tornado.
Ganesh snorts a boogaloo on his nostril trumpet.
Only a fool would scrape that flugelhorn free of barnacles.

Rows & rows of whale vertebrae. Time to build a railroad.
Ra smells pyramids with every beard-stroke.
Only a fool would refuse a chance to mummify the queen.

Sparrows ford rhinoceri across the fishleaping river.
Marx redistributes chin hair to all the eunuchs.
Only a fool would alienate this harem’s labor.

The platypus is still sloshed and dancing by herself.
Caesar skiffs his gondola across the sky.
Only a fool like Cleopatra would try to flag him down.

—from Rattle #38, Winter 2012
Tribute to Speculative Poetry

___________

Richard Prins: “When I was eighteen years old I fell asleep on a late-night train and woke with my jacket pocket knifed open, the pocket that always held my wallet. After a few desperate grabs, I found my wallet transplanted to my pants pocket, no money missing. A napkin, however, with two poems inked on it, had been extracted. I’ve been mugged twice since then, once in Brooklyn, once in Dar es Salaam, and still curse myself—why didn’t I think to recite a poem to my attackers?” (web)

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December 12, 2023

“Four Guys and a Truck” by Tony TrigilioPosted by

Tony Trigilio

FOUR GUYS AND A TRUCK

The rooms were stolen
by four guys who joked
about everything I owned,
talked and shrink-wrapped
my bookshelf at the same time.
I bought them pizza for lunch.
They hulked at the table
without their knees touching,
one pepperoni one plain,
argued about the Bears-Packers
game tomorrow. The mood
was muscular. I watched
the whole time (my excuse:
lower lumbar vertebrae).
The rooms crowded with couches,
mirrors, sconces, the droopy
desert painting I bought
the last year of my marriage—
what looks, lashed in bubble-wrap,
like a very large waffle. Could be
just another boring Saturday.
How they got the desk through
the kitchen. How they wrapped
a mattress. A ladder
in the living room where
my television used to be.

—from Rattle #36, Winter 2011
Tribute to Buddhist Poets

__________

Tony Trigilio: “Within a two-year period, I got divorced, moved twice, and lost two close family members: ‘Four Guys and a Truck’ emerged from the awe and exhaustion of impermanence.” (web)

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December 11, 2023

“Charlie Chaplin & Me” by Prartho SerenoPosted by

Prartho Sereno

CHARLIE CHAPLIN & ME

Legend has it that Charlie Chaplin placed third
in a Charlie Chaplin Look-Alike Contest. Now
that I’ve been threatened suit for stealing a stranger’s 
image for my author photo, I know how he feels.
 
When we met with an arbiter (it got that far),
she pointed to the leg in the photo and said, Look 
at the bulge of that calf—that’s not your calf.
 
Look at the flounce of those side-curls, she said. 
That’s not the way your hair goes—it’s mine. 
 
I’m embarrassed to admit how unsettling
it was. I found myself defensive, coming up 
with details about the day my daughter snapped it:
On a walk by the lake, under an old madrone. 
 
No, she said with a certainty I couldn’t match. 
This was taken at the bus stop on College Ave—
See the dappled shadow of oak leaves on my face? 
 
I took a good look at my challenger and had to admit
she was better at being me than me—floppier hat, rimmed
with profusions of bright blooms; periwinkle blue
of her blouse rhymed perfectly to her eyes. 
 
And those widening pupils that tunneled down 
like the black holes I’ve seen at the centers 
of galaxies. I had to hold fast to my chair 
to keep from sliding in. 
 

—from Rattle #81, Fall 2023

__________

Prartho Sereno: “I’ve been writing poems since I discovered they existed in fifth grade, but the nudge that sent me deeper was reading a few of my own at a memorial in India. The silence that followed drank me in, as if I’d been swallowed by a whale. I decided to take my place around the fires with Jonah and Geppetto, my now closest kin.” (web)

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