November 16, 2023

“Almost” by Mark JarmanPosted by

Mark Jarman

ALMOST

Almost grasped what Grandmother Grace knew
Last Sunday sitting in church, almost knew
What Alexander Campbell grasped when, confronted
With the desolate orphan, he told her, “You
Are a child of God. Go claim your inheritance.”
Almost got it. There it was in the sunlight,
Squared in the clear glass windows, on the durable leaves
Of the magnolia outside. Almost grasped the weather
That turns clear and crystallized in Hans Küng’s brain.
Almost held it in the ellipses and measure
Of my almost understanding. I see the moment
There in my notebook, then the next day’s anxiety
Spilling like something wet across the ink.
I almost put in my hand a vast acceptance
And almost blessed myself, then it slipped away.
All that colossal animal vivacity—smoke
Of the distant horizon, most of it, haze.
But to have known in any place or time
What they knew is worth a record, a few notes.
Almost knew what they knew. Almost got it.
 

—from Rattle #25, Summer 2006

__________

Mark Jarman: “It took me years to figure out that one of the biggest influences on me as a writer had been the fact that I lived in a house with someone who had to write something every week, get up in front of bunch of people, and basically perform it. It was my father writing sermons.” (web)

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November 15, 2023

“The Children I’ll Never Have Make an Appearance” by Andrew Shattuck McBridePosted by

Andrew Shattuck McBride

THE CHILDREN I’LL NEVER HAVE MAKE AN APPEARANCE

It’s a quiet Sunday morning. I’m alone,
startled to see a female figure, hear her exclaim,
 
He sees us, he feels us. I knew he would, eventually! 
She looks over her shoulder briefly. Involuntarily,
 
I look past her, say, Who are you? What are you doing here? 
She turns back to me. Hello, Father. I’ve missed you.
 
Then, a male voice, What did I tell you, Sis?
All attitude. He looks at me and says, Yo, Pops,
 
heads for the kitchen. What’s in the fridge?
Got any beer? I’m aghast. No, I don’t have any beer.
 
Hey, you’re too young to drink beer!
He says, You’re right, pauses for effect.
 
Some of this coffee liqueur will do.
At my alarm, he adds, Just kidding, Pops.
 
His smile flashes. I recognize it immediately.
The daughter I’ll never have is laughing, quietly.
 
Her laughter charms me. I notice their ease
with each other. Camaraderie, unforced.
 
No estrangement. They are close
enough in age to be peers.
 
“Pops” sets me on edge. I’m not too happy
with “Father,” either. My urge, to seek control. 
 
First things first: call me ‘Dad’ or ‘Daddy,’ 
not ‘Father’ and definitely not ‘Pops.’
 
The son I’ll never have tries it out. Dad, he murmurs.
The daughter I’ll never have tries it out, too. OK, Daddy.
 
I soften momentarily, but have to be a hard-ass.
That’s better. You still haven’t answered my question. 
 
What are you doing here? The son I’ll never have
speaks up; I see now that he’s older.
 
Well, Dad, we’re family. I mean, where else would we be?
For a moment, I’m speechless. I finally recognize them.
 
They are the children I’ll never have.
They have been here with me all along.
 

—from Rattle #81, Fall 2023

__________

Andrew Shattuck McBride: “I write poetry to help me figure things out, to understand how I’m feeling. The love of poetry was beaten out of me pretty much before I left for college. I never dreamed I’d write any poetry. In 2009, I was struggling to write an essay; it wasn’t crystalizing. I realized that my drafts contained poetic elements, so I recast the essay as a poem. The poem was much more successful, and I was hooked.”

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November 14, 2023

“Love of Distance” by Prartho SerenoPosted by

Prartho Sereno

LOVE OF DISTANCE

He’s enchanted with the idea
of reaching through space,
wants me to wait by the window
while he climbs the far-off mountain,
sets up the light, flashes something back
in Morse code. He says we should begin
studying our dots and dashes, along with
smoke signals, the extravagantly long rolled r’s
of Spanish. Hand gestures of the deaf.
 

Or we could take the rim trail,
one of us staying on the southern lip
while the other heads north till our bodies
shrink to the size of tree-frogs. Then we can converse
across the canyon without effort, no need
to raise our voices. He is certain this will work,
that the atmosphere at these heights
will bear our words with a clarity
as yet unknown to us.
 
My faith in these things is weaker.
I dare not tell him the Far Eastern stories—
the one where the poet builds two houses
on opposite shores of the lake. Gives one
to his sweetheart, who he tells to go in,
take up dulcimer or needlework, learn to love
the lonely ways. Think of the surprise,
he says. One of our faces suddenly shining
between the black birds and reeds.
 

—from Rattle #27, Summer 2007

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Prartho Sereno: “When I first read that so much depended on a red wheelbarrow beside the white chickens, I breathed a sigh of relief. My inner whisperer seemed to know this kind of thing, but I had always felt her murmurings to be of no use. Now I could scramble through an odd labyrinth of life-hoops—psychologist, cab driver, head cook, single parent, housecleaner, palmist, phys. ed teacher, Poet in the Schools—with someone I could trust inside. She’s the one who writes my poems.” (web)

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November 13, 2023

“Ars Ecphrastica” by Matthew Buckley SmithPosted by

Matthew Buckley Smith

ARS ECPHRASTICA

for C.

Although your fingers and my eyes agree,
It is unheard of, Cameron, what you see—
 
Describing scenes of color, form, and light
Which you perceive by any means but sight.
 
We cannot know the god’s unheard-of head,
Protested Rilke, when he should have said
 
Unseen, because we hear of it from him
In carnal terms, becoming of a hymn
 
To any of those bad old gods, the kind
That loved man’s form but not his living mind,
 
Delighting in some tyrant’s blinding wrath,
Then disappearing in the aftermath.
 
 
 

Prompt: “I wrote this in response to one of two suggestions made to my writing group. I had been reading a lot of Horace, and at two different sessions I brought up the idea of imitating something he did in his odes. In one, I proposed that we each write a poem that argues with an existing poem. In another, I proposed that we each write a poem addressed to a friend. I cannot remember which prompt inspired this poem.”

—from Rattle #81, Fall 2023
Tribute to Prompt Poems

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Matthew Buckley Smith: “Every week, I meet for an hour by Zoom with two women I got to know through a poetry anthology we were all in. One of us supplies a prompt, and then we write for an hour in response. Sometimes the prompt is an image. Sometimes it’s a line from a book we’re reading. Sometimes it’s an idea drawn from an existing poem. I save the results of my efforts in a file that I examine some months later. Roughly one draft in ten is worth revising.” (web)

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November 12, 2023

“War Sonnet with a Simile Borrowed from Kyle Okoke’s ‘Matthew 6:28′” by Devon BalwitPosted by

Devon Balwit

WAR SONNET WITH A SIMILE BORROWED FROM KYLE OKOKE’S “MATTHEW 6:28”

Chest like a trapdoor and me a medic,
parachuting in, leaning over the body shattered
on the rubbled road, I listen to the heart ticking
like unexploded ordnance, hoping to delay the surd
that is death, to deny its nothingness purchase,
me a robber with my pressure bandages, codeine,
and comfort, my eight-week training scarcely
enough to differentiate me from the gawkers who lean
in to get a better view of someone else’s
tragedy. What can I do other than crudely
splint the broken bones, halt the pulse
of blood until the surgeon can do her work? Only
a stopgap, still I throw myself there,
where the line of being and not-being wavers.
 

—from Poets Respond
November 12, 2023

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Devon Balwit: “The first simile comes from Kyle Okoke’s poem ‘Matthew 6:28’ in this month’s Poetry magazine. It is for all those called to be first responders.” (web)

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November 11, 2023

“A Shipwrecked Person” by James TatePosted by

James Tate

A SHIPWRECKED PERSON

When I woke from my afternoon nap, I wanted
to hold onto my dream, but in a matter of seconds
it had drifted away like a fine mist. Nothing
remained; oh, perhaps a green corner of cloth
pinched between my fingers, signifying what?
Everything about the house seemed alien to me.
The scissors yawned. The plants glowed. The
mirror was full of pain and stories that made no
sense to me. I moved like a ghost through the rooms.
Stacks of books with secret formulas and ancient
hieroglyphic predictions. And lamps, like stern
remonstrances. The silverware is surely more
guilty than I. The doorknobs don’t even believe
in tomorrow. The green cloth is burning-up. I
toss it into the freezer with a sigh of relief.

—from Rattle #17, Summer 2002

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November 10, 2023

“Putting Together Ikea Furniture” by Clint MargravePosted by

Clint Margrave

PUTTING TOGETHER IKEA FURNITURE

Who had to die to get to this moment? 
Your ass planted on the ground 
of the back patio, 
putting together this cheap table 
and chairs from Ikea. 
 
Think of the wars that had to be fought, 
the bloodbaths, 
the overthrowing of kings and kingdoms. 
 
The loggers who cut the wood 
in the forests of Romania, 
and Lithuania and Latvia, 
and in Lowndes, Alabama. 
Or the young environmentalist 
tweeting from her wooden table 
about the dangers of deforestation. 
 
Think of the men and women sweating in factories 
in China and Vietnam and Malaysia and Myanmar, 
in Poland and North America. 
 
The workers who built the skyscrapers, 
harnessed on platforms 100 stories high, 
feet dangling over cities, 
so you can try to decipher these directions 
drawn up by some Swedish surrealist 
in a corporate high rise, 
eating meatballs at his desk. 
 
The welders who melted steel 
and shaped it and reshaped it 
into containers, 
the cranes that lifted those containers off ships, 
the longshoreman who unloaded the cargo 
at the port of Los Angeles, 
miles from where you live. 
 
Think of the men in yellow hardhats 
driving bulldozers over dirt, 
laying gravel and asphalt, 
tar on their shoes 
and under their fingernails 
and in their lungs and noses. 
 
The roads and freeways and overpasses, 
the bridges so trucks from the port 
can deliver this furniture 
to the warehouse, 
where other trucks will deliver 
it to your front door. 
 
Here, in this house that you rent,
think of the carpenters, 
the cement mixed for the foundation, 
the original plumbers and electricians 
older than your dead grandparents, 
where tonight you and Diliana 
will eat dinner in the backyard, 
the food she’s assembled 
on this table you’ve assembled, 
an open bottle of wine 
under a gorgeous June sky, 
think of the sacrifice it took 
to make this moment happen, 
the tightening of things, 
the plugging things in, 
the hammering things down 
to hold it all together.
 

—from Rattle #81, Fall 2023

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Clint Margrave: “I write poetry because I’m not good at fixing anything.” (web)

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