August 6, 2020

“Three Couples at Trieste Stazione” by James RaganPosted by Rattle

James Ragan

THREE COUPLES AT A TRIESTE STAZIONE

The first, Venetian lovers, with trysting hands

like birch branching through the window,

do not talk or breathe, but leafing tongues

in words too thick for seeing, the girl

still wears her thought’s seduction in smoked perfume

a soldier walks into, backward, eyes saluting.

The second, boarding baggage, knows the terror

that follows once the straps are hung

on shoulders or on rungs above the cabin sink.

He has packed the year’s mementos greed has won,

his nona sliding lires into hands her eyes will bless

in thought each night against her cheek.

The third will not survive the train’s departure,

the kiss so passionately endured it quickens

as though in touch, their souls ignite in water

as in fire. They have passed what aging each denies,

and the body ruins, their Tuscan masks disguise,

will splinter into bones like timber, one onto the other.

—from Rattle #12, Winter 1999

__________

James Ragan: “I write to break down borders. My sensibility has always been global, to find expression through my poetry, plays, and films to bring individuals and worlds, seemingly apart, closer in understanding.”

James Ragan is the guest on this week’s Rattlecast! Click here to watch …

August 4, 2020

“The Tower Windows at Kosik” by James RaganPosted by Rattle

James Ragan

THE TOWER WINDOWS AT KOSIK

for Ivan and Dasha Havel

From its eastern mooring, a blue cloud swings

its sprattled feet, and night’s tall moon

leans on chimney stacks of nettled roofs.

Now a donkey clicks its wooden hooves, within reason.

On still another’s night horizon, poplars sit,

just barely seen. They plant thin arms in hobo weeds

as if to seed the southern pasture with a pond

for fish to glow in, gold before a fire pit.

And through the north pane’s glare, the eye delights

in apples as in leaves, and dusk delays

to keep our daydreams green and growing free

as apricots in stacks of wood or ginko trees.

But in the west, reflections stow their thoughts
in glass so clear it mirrors the room in books
and all each seeks as worlds within us. Listen,
now departs a lost soul’s journey into genius.

—from Rattle #12, Winter 1999

__________

James Ragan: “I write to break down borders. My sensibility has always been global, to find expression through my poetry, plays, and films to bring individuals and worlds, seemingly apart, closer in understanding.”

James Ragan was the guest on this week’s Rattlecast! Click here to watch …

July 16, 2020

“Richmond Hill” by James RaganPosted by Rattle

James Ragan

RICHMOND HILL

It is my habit to walk a hill until it levels out

or until it thinks it has seen enough of sloth

and the way I map one foot flat in front of the other,

each step shorter, wider than the first, a platypus of sorts,

whose rhythm like its waddle I have borrowed since birth.

It is my habit to walk a hill until the sky falls near

and one believes he’s risen to the heavens

where the Queen’s deer sprint past sprigs and crockets,

and night hawks graze above the Orchard House with such ascension,

heaven knows what royal robes the moon must wear.

I might sooner run downhill to find my level

because the road that rises up to meet me has no will

and bends to unimpede me like a gifting uncle,

wise and wily but in matters of frailty, unskilled.

I might even learn to hug the hill when it pretends to slope

at every lurch beyond the Terrace bole and heather

as if it grieved for the mind descending and pulls the eye

back toward some higher view the road intended,

as when my breath searches for a swig of air,

there rises in the valley a swill of smoke, high on the heath

and racing, I rabble thirst until the eyes tumble

downridge to the nightingale’s meadow

where the field edges past the bunchgrass into a cattle grove.

There between the sparrowfall and woodsmoke like a rime

that winds along the center of a verse, the river bends

as is its habit when followed by so many feet as harrowed as mine.

And while it’s not my nature to steal my way into the low roads

and fox lands where the marsh pine hugs the bracken,

I have followed bends until the journey’s end surprises

and like the hawk above the Gothic turrets on the Old Main rising

high into its lofty fields of sky, I have wandered the Thames

from Richmond Hill to Kensington for the order nature gives my mind

and of the shorter roads have sought the longer one to climb.

—from Rattle #28, Winter 2007

__________

James Ragan: “I write to break down borders. My sensibility has always been global, to find expression through my poetry to bring individuals and worlds, seemingly apart, closer in understanding. I write to live out loud, and through the expansive reach of art, hope to achieve community through a common language. ‘Richmond Hill’ is an example of this.”

March 11, 2020

“The Bitters at Henley” by James RaganPosted by Rattle

James Ragan

THE BITTERS AT HENLEY

They say the Angel Pub on the Bridge at Henley

is a sinner’s site, whose centuried panes

of ancient views will bathe the heathen eye

in the healing waters of the Thames.

Above the sloping footboards, where the bar-

stool preachers sing their devilish plav

in Brixton drawl and Yorkshire brogue,

I drink religion, up-country, out of a Guinness pint.

The whisky laugh I save for the river stroll

squeals the long line of gulls away

like skiffs tied one to another along the wharf.

Down river, dark clouds punctuate

the sky’s language, and swallows circle

like spaced indentations in the postcard

shot I take of St. Mary’s steeple.

I believe I will never pass this way again

and pray beyond the promise made, that I will.

There’s a pedigree of fame in this city

that shakes me to the bitter’s core

of knowing what I can never be or will become.

Artists must have known this on their pass

down the cobbled path to the bridge and pub.

I stand at the stone buttress, transfixed

like a character in It’s a Wonderful Life

to the yacht’s bell announcing my departure.

There’s nothing more satisfying

than the knowledge in the sinner’s pint

I’ve put my mind to look forward to.

—from Rattle #66, Winter 2019

__________

James Ragan: “I write to break down borders. My sensibility has always been global, to find expression through my poetry, plays, and films to bring individuals and worlds, seemingly apart, closer in understanding.”

March 9, 2020

“Taming the Sloth” by James RaganPosted by Rattle

James Ragan

TAMING THE SLOTH

I don’t know how long I can play with a sloth,

how long I can wait to time his glide

along a space no wider than his bulbous face,

as if the air had softened long enough to slow

each arm’s motion to an easy slide,

as if by committing each inch of leg

to a longer stroll, he’d be cool and jived,

just as we’d rehearsed for hours,

the slinky hitching up of knees

to gather up his fur like bunched underwear.

He’s stalling now for the little push

my hand decides to get a rhythm going,

to quicken the pace, to push ahead

just enough to score the next ride.

How long can I stand the indifference

of his cold stare burrowed into mine,

as if he’s judging a dance

where no one commits to lead or count in step.

I don’t know how long he can lie

in one place, cheering his lack of progress.

Now, he’s rolling round to his spine,

seeing the world from the bottom up,

believing this is knowledge of a kind,

having spent his clowning days

hanging downward by his toes,

trolling the uncertainties of ground,

as if by giving up a life of swinging free

across the long thin avenue of sky,

he could teach me need, the patience

to dream, how to slouch into the future

with the soft tongue-peddling of my breath

and a little push from behind.

—from Rattle #66, Winter 2019

__________

James Ragan: “I write to break down borders. My sensibility has always been global, to find expression through my poetry, plays, and films to bring individuals and worlds, seemingly apart, closer in understanding.”

Rattle: Poetry

… without pretension since 1995.

James Ragan

August 6, 2020

August 4, 2020

July 16, 2020

March 11, 2020

March 9, 2020