Jack Powers

April 24, 2015

“Holy Shitballs!” by Jack PowersPosted by

Jack Powers

HOLY SHITBALLS!

The radio’s off so the kids can sleep.
They’re in the back, faces smushed
into my mother-in-law, Joan’s, shoulders,

their breath slow and muffled.
The tires dathump dathump on the road.
Our headlight beams split the night

and pull us home. Joan’s probably nodding
repeating her prayers for Harmony
as if she’d willed this happy, tired

Thanksgiving night drive.
Anne’s chatter about the cousins quiets.
Our breath synchronizes to sighs

when Zak shatters the silence with Holy Shitballs!
Joan gasps. Anne sticks a sharp fingernail in my thigh
in case I’d forgotten I had insisted Ace Ventura

was fine for a five-year-old, her insistence
I listen to the ratings. The ratings!
I picture my twelve-year-old self, red faced,

hands gesturing wildly and my father shrugging
and stuttering, “You’re just not ready.”
And now Anne’s found a website

that counts the shits and fucks
and breasts and butts. I know. I get it.
I’m an idiot. He’s five. I know that sharp pain

of parenthood without her fingernail reminder.
I’m supposed to save him from moments like this
when the joy of Holy Shitballs! wears off

and in the silent aftermath he begins
to realize what he’s done, imagines
his grandmother reciting prayers for him.

But that Holy Shitballs! was such joy! Some sounds
light up the brain’s pleasure zones,
want to be felt in the mouth, heard in open air

echoing in your own little voice—like the Shit Howdy!
I’d heard exclaimed in happy surprise by the pseudo-cowboys
I knew in Colorado or my friend Guy’s Fuckin’ A shouts

of frustration. How can you count and measure that?
In the dark silence of that car, I feel relief.
At least, I didn’t take Erin, who sighs now peacefully,

still innocent of the joy of swearing
as Joan prays for the souls of us all or perhaps
suppresses her laughter and Zak wonders how

the echo of Holy Shitballs! could turn so quickly
to the I-never-should-have regret
that often follows great joy—the realization

that you can’t go backwards. No one speaks.
The tires kept their beat in the cold night.
We each nurse our own thoughts in the warm car. Until

in the darkness Erin whispers, Ho-ly Shit-balls,
slow and careful as if memorizing a prayer,
then seems to fall back to sleep.

—from Rattle #46, Winter 2014
Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist

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Jack Powers: “I remember reading David Wagoner’s ‘My Physic Teacher,’ who ends up ‘stuck/ one foot forever in the wastebasket’ and thinking, ‘Poems can be funny? I can do that.’ I love poems that are funny and true. I continue to read poems like Kim Dower’s ‘Boob Job’ or Courtney Kampa’s ‘Avant-Garde’ or Denise Duhamel’s ‘How It Will End’ and say, ‘Wow! Poems can do that?’” (web)

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July 17, 2014

“Man on the Floor” by Jack PowersPosted by

Jack Powers

MAN ON THE FLOOR

I remember my thirteen-year-old self walking through my sister’s freshman dorm as the girls yelled, “Man on the floor! 
Man on the floor!” and I, not yet a man but hoping, looked for any excuse to fetch forgotten items from the car 
or just stand in that hallway soaking in that mix of fear, annoyance and flirtation. My idea of a man then was probably my father’s 
 
paycheck-earning, pipe-smoking, golf-ball-whacking, bourbon-swilling silence or James Bond’s unstirred cool. No, it was probably 
just playing football, basketball—and baseball until someone learned to throw a curve. And girls—Courtney Carron, in particular that fall, 
and dreams of getting a hand under her tight shirt. Even over the bra would have had me standing taller for a week. Once my dad, 
 
after a hot afternoon of golf and a cart of cold beers, broke a rib mowing the lawn when the mower overheated and 
kicked back into his chest. I’d been hearing the mower roar and stop, roar and stop, watching my father search through the grass 
before screwing something back in and restarting, but I didn’t know until afterwards that the mower was out of oil.  
 
So when my father tiptoed around the house, saying, “I’m fine,” through   gritted teeth, I wanted to shout, “Just say it hurts” and 
“Just say you’re an idiot.” Of all the things I’d sworn I’d do differently than him, my ability to admit my idiocy has never developed. 
I’ve learned to apologize, but—there’s always a “but” as I need to explain why every stupid thing I’ve ever done 
 
seemed like a good idea at the time and I wonder if the girls were really yelling, “Idiot on the floor! Idiot on the floor!” 
The first year I taught, I wore sneakers to school because I didn’t have any adult shoes. My boss suggested I take charge of the class more: 
use a point system, assign seats and buy some shoes. But I didn’t want to make the class any more oppressive than it already was 
 
so I threw her a bone and bought semi-comfortable shoes that weren’t too dorky. The shoes seemed like one more part 
of the disguise I was sure they’d all figure out someday. They say everyone feels powerless; the last to know they have power 
are those who have it. Is that true for the clueless as well? What clues have I missed? I think of Edie years ago 
 
calling me an asshole. I had to agree. “But,” I wanted to explain, “I’d spent years dreaming of that night—
when we climbed into your parents’ car in that dark garage and laid the seats flat, when I was finally inside you—
I wasn’t thinking about Kerry arriving from LA in a week—” but Edie didn’t want to hear it. And I didn’t try to explain. How could I? 
 
The day before he died, my father awoke in his hospital bed and said, “Everything in Springfield is just like it was—
Dreisen’s Fountain, McDougal’s Grocery. The whole street is the same.” “Did you see anyone there?” I asked, 
not sure if it was dream or dementia. But my father’s eyes had turned to the wall. Sensing the end—hoping really, 
 
because the next stop was a nursing home he’d made clear he never wanted to see—I went to get my family from the lounge.  
All I could hear was the squeak of my semi-adult shoes on linoleum in that hospital hall. Stroke and dementia 
had softened my father, made him kinder. He seemed to appreciate us all more. “You’re a better father than I was,”
 
he said one night after he’d watched me coach Will in some peewee basketball game and if he wasn’t my father 
I would have hugged him, but I needed a stroke myself to break the habits of our long history. “Thanks” is all I could sputter, 
not “The rules have changed. You did your best.” In class, a student said, “You forget 90% of your dreams 
 
in the first ten minutes you’re awake.” What percent of my dreams did I forget by age twenty? The list of failings 
my thirteen-year-old self nurtures increases by one. Some Septembers the freshmen boys’ attempts to saunter down the halls 
are so uncertain, it’s as if the ground is shifting. I want to shout, “Man on the floor!” to embolden their strides 
 
if only for a moment. I think of having yelled at my own son, now probably back from school and rooted 
to the couch and his computer, and I cringe at how much I sounded like my own father: sarcastic, impatient,
wanting the problem solved now. When I open the door he’s already glued to his laptop eating Chex Mix. “Sorry,” I say. 
“What?” he says, trying to keep one eye on me and one on the screen. “I’m an idiot,” I say. And he flips it shut 
and says, “What?” Before I can say, “But …” the dog starts barking and    barking. I don’t know what he’s trying to say. 
I kneel on the floor to calm him, but his barking grows more frenzied, his furious tail sweeps magazines off the tables.  
 
The dog picks up a toy and begins a high-pitched whine that sounds like singing. My son is asking, “What are you doing?” 
I shake my head. It doesn’t matter what I say, just what I do. The dog keeps singing. My son’s brow furrows in confusion and concern.
But I can only lay back on the floor, close my eyes and slow my breath as if I could fall asleep and wake up and start all over again.
 

—from Rattle #42, Winter 2013
2013 Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist

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Jack Powers: “I wrote the first draft of ‘Man on the Floor’ in my head while walking my dog. Charlie and our walk figured prominently in the early drafts. Although most of it ended up on the cutting room floor, the cadence of a walk and the in-and-out-of-my-head movement of my brain on a walk seem to still be there. And Charlie still gets a little song at the end.” (web)

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September 15, 2013

2013 Rattle Poetry Prize WinnersPosted by

Rattle is proud to announce the winner of the 2013 Rattle Poetry Prize:

Roberto Ascalon

“The Fire This Time”
by
Roberto Ascalon
Seattle, WA

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Finalists:

“A Poem for Women Who Don’t Want Children”
Chanel Brenner
Santa Monica, CA

“My Mother Told Us Not to Have Children”
Rebecca Gayle Howell
Lubbock, TX

“Baby Love”
Courtney Kampa
New York, NY

“What He Must Have Seen”
Stephen Kampa
Daytona Beach, FL

“Man on Mad Anthony”
Bea Opengart
Cincinatti, OH

“Laundry List”
Michelle Ornat
Elma, NY

“Man on the Floor”
Jack Powers
Fairfield, CT

“Basic Standards Test”
Danez Smith
St. Paul, MN

“Who Breathed in Binders”
Patricia Smith
Howell, NJ

“Of You”
Wendy Videlock
Grand Junction, CO

 

These eleven poems will be published in the Winter issue of Rattle this December. Each of the Finalists are also eligible for the $1,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by entrant and subscriber vote (the voting period is December 1, 2013 – February 15, 2014).

Another nine poems were selected for standard publication, and offered a space in the open section of a future issue. These poets will be notified individually about details, but they are: Jacqueline Berger, Daniel Bohnhorst, Jackleen Holton, Sharon Kessler-Farchi, Michael Meyerhofer, Kathleen Nolan, Charlotte Pence, Sam Sax, and Timothy Schirmer.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the competition, which would not have been a success without your diverse and inspiring poems. We received a record 2,105 entries and well over 8,000 poems, and it was an honor to read each of them.

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August 7, 2012

“Rob Smuniewski Is Dead” by Jack PowersPosted by

Jack Powers

ROB SMUNIEWSKI IS DEAD

Dead at 18. Hit by an 84-year-old driving a 20-year-old Honda.
Rob Smuniewski, whose engine revved higher than any of ours, dead.
Who wrote “I love redheads” on his desk, on his locker,
who stood on a table in the cafeteria and asked a redhead to the prom,
who jumped down and danced out of the room shaking his head when she said no,
who wrote a love poem to redheads from a list of favorite words (ginger, auburn, strawberry,
freakin’ and one I said he couldn’t use in school) which ended “the only way to tell
if the drapes match the rug is to see the—and that’s the word you said I can’t use!”
Who loved his quad, broken down on that January night.
Rob Smuniewski, who must have flown in the air like the deer I hit last winter in Maine
shot out of the darkness, eyes as wide as mine, both helpless to stop the sudden collision.
Rob, who danced more than walked, dead. Rob, who called the ladies “Dawl”
and the men “Coach,” always neat in khakis, oxford shirts—argyle vests and ties
for game days—who told his sister, “I don’t go to school to learn;
I go to entertain.” Who taught me never to ask, “Any questions?” in class
when he said, “Yeah. I have two. How come my nose always gets sunburned first
no matter what I do. Look! I look like freakin’ Rudolph! And another thing!
When you wear a robe around the house you’re supposed to feel manly. I feel like a woman.
What’s with that?” Rob freakin’ Smuniewski. Dead. Who you knew, even when you wanted
to strangle him, couldn’t find his own off switch any more than you could, who would
apologize later and say, “You the man, Coach.” Who, when he launched into
the frosty air, might have waved to the fear-stricken driver, might have thought this will make a great story,
might have thought as I did when Cam rolled her old Volvo thirty years ago in Vermont
as the black pavement rose to meet my passenger window, “So this is how it freakin’ ends.”

—from Rattle #36, Winter 2011

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Jack Powers: “I always hated poetry, but unlike Marianne Moore I meant it. I preferred short stories or personal essays, but one day in a writing class I found myself writing a poem. While one part of my brain was saying, ‘What are you doing? You hate poetry,’ the other was saying, ‘Shut up. I’m trying to write.’ I’ve learned that some things can only be expressed well in a poem. And every so often I stumble upon one of those things.”

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