Chapbook Prize

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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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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December 14, 2023

“The Second Pass” by Taylor MaliPosted by

Taylor Mali

THE SECOND PASS

The first pass along the whetting stone
creates an edge too fine to last;
the second, more blunting pass
tempers the edge into usefulness.

Together we used to hone blades
so unutterably precise
tomatoes would slice themselves
open to expose their reddest flesh.

Later, in the restaurant’s kitchen,
when the head chef needed a knife,
screaming in French, he came to her
station and used one of hers.

She told me this with pride one night,
then put her hand on my chest
and cried stainless steel tears
I could not understand.

When she jumped from the window
and they searched the apartment,
they found in the bathroom a knife,
its edge unbloodied, as sharp as a razor.

And I keep thinking of the second pass,
how it sharpens as it dulls the working edge,
how the one has a real and necessary need
of the other to do what it does.

—from The Whetting Stone
2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

__________

Taylor Mali: “In both of the books of poetry I published after Rebecca’s death I tried to include a few poems about her. But they were always so unlike the rest of the manuscript that they couldn’t stay in. I’ve known for a decade that all my poems about Rebecca would need to be published in a collection by themselves. The Whetting Stone is that collection.” (web)

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October 12, 2023

“In America” by Diana GoetschPosted by

Diana Goetsch

IN AMERICA

“Why don’t you go to Japan and ask the cats?” I said
to the TSA agent when she asked if I was Amish,
because I believe in answering a non-sequitur

with a non-sequitur. I only said it
after I’d been cleared, after I’d been strip-searched
behind frosted glass, and then posted

the bitch’s face on Facebook along with her name.
Maybe being trans is like being Amish,
or maybe I went pale when I missed my flight

as Security Agent Pamela E. Starks
conferred with Explosives Expert Gary Pickering
to discuss, based on the “soft anomaly”

picked up by the body scanner, which of them
needs to search me (at one point she
suggested they each take “half”).

I suppose I could have come from Amish country,
a place so deep in the heart of America it can’t be seen,
and delivered to the airport by horse and buggy—

an Amish horse, oblivious to traffic. Maybe
it’s because of my long black dress, or makeup
that makes it look like I’m not wearing makeup—

a goal whose purpose used to elude me,
though I totally get it now, but please don’t ask.
You could go and ask the cats in Japan,

though it’s bound to earn you a contemptuous frown,
by which they mean to say, “Eat my ass
in Macy’s window.” How do cats in Japan

know about Macy’s? you must be asking.
Beats the hell outta me. They have
no tails—did you know?

Neither do the Amish. Just kidding.
I’m still waiting to hear about
the complaint I filed, the one that,

along with the viral video of them
repeatedly calling me “it,” shut down
the TSA website for three days

while they rewrote the rules about me.
“You could be charged for this,”
friends warn me, but in America

it can’t be libel if it’s true. I learned that
from the cats in Japan, who you can ask—
though it’s best not to disturb them.

—from In America
2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize Selection

__________

Diana Goetsch: “I’m basically a love poet. I’ve started to understand that after all these years. No matter the subject, I think my mission has something to do with redemption. And I just go for the hardest thing to redeem.” (web)

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