Love Poem

October 23, 2014

“My Father Asks Me to Kill Him” by Lauren SchmidtPosted by

Lauren Schmidt

MY FATHER ASKS ME TO KILL HIM

When our neighbor rolled past,
or the mold of him, much older
from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,
you noted, over your shoulder, how it’s only

been a year. A year since he could hear
his name and nod, a year since he could
believe in a reason for being here,
on this beach street, alive, or seeming.

You looked at me. Something pushed up
through you like a wave of hooks. You took

your fingers, your index and middle,
slid them underneath your chin. Pressed
deeply, the skin sinking in,

cocked your thumb, locked and loaded,
you blew your top off, rocked
your head back. Your lips popped

a fake gun. You made me say
I’d take your days away, your pain,
you made me say I’d shame you less

than a disease like ALS. Except, not a weapon.
Instead, a push down the steps or a deft wrench
of your neck, a heavy deck to your head.

I’d drop a drug in your blood, bludgeon
you till you’re the ruddy muck of you,
stuff your head in the bathtub till the bubbles
won’t come. Out of love, father, out of love,

because you asked me to. I would
ruin you. Because you asked me to,
I would ruin you. Because you
asked me to, because you asked me to.

—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
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Lauren Schmidt: “I volunteer teaching a weekly poetry workshop at a transitional housing program for homeless mothers. In these sessions, we read poetry, we write poetry, and sometimes, when I’m lucky, I can convince local poets to read their work to the women and talk about why poetry is so essential to survival. And every week something miraculous happens. The women say something they weren’t able to say, or they give themselves permission to feel something they’ve never felt, or they find the kind of validation they need to defend themselves against their difficult circumstances. Over and over again, poetry makes these miracles happen.”

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October 22, 2014

“Orange Marmalade” by Timothy SchirmerPosted by

Timothy Schirmer

ORANGE MARMALADE

Inside you I think there must be a dented little trashcan overflowing with flowers, spitting up wilted but still lovely peach & yellow roses. & inside you I think there must be a grand old dresser, the drawers packed with dark, silky dirt. Sometimes you add water and you’ve got mud. Sometimes you steal something you want and write what it should’ve cost in a little pink ledger. Inside you I don’t think anything is where it should be, but who am I to say where things should be inside you? First item inside your little pink ledger: little pink ledger – $10.99.

Yes, it’s true, sometimes I think I’ve got it all figured out, but then I see what looks like someone’s lopped off ear baking on the sun-struck ground. Or I have one of those shit days when I lay in bed with your laptop & watch fifty-something YouTube videos of atomic bombs tearing open like Monarch wings on nothing islands, in remote deserts. Column of skinned light. Heat knifing out in every direction. If there’s a fabricated barn, it flies apart. If there are trees, they bend in synchronicity to kiss the earth. What is the weight of the world with us, I wonder, & without? The goddamned perfect harmony from start to finish! The mushroom cloud, its underside: a lava-orange canopy, like the hot lush inner-parts of a body, turning slowly—completely—inside out. The shockwave swabs the earth moonishly clean.

You come home, hike up your skirt & sit half out the window while smoking a cigarette. You’re always eating the strangest things. Yesterday: Captain Crunch with a heavy spoonful of guacamole. I can’t imagine how skewed things are inside you: flowers in the trash; mud in the drawers. You assure me that nobody lived on those islands; the barn was built to be exploded; the trees, well, millions die in forest fires anyhow. You remind me that it wasn’t an ear we saw on the sidewalk that day, but a dead baby bird, & in your head that’s better, or easier somehow.

You’re eating Saltines slathered in stolen orange marmalade, still halfway out the window sucking on a cigarette, one bare foot on the warm iron of the fire escape. You want to shift the subject away from nuclear war. I wonder how often in the last 70 years has there been a man who wanted to talk about the bomb & a woman who wanted to change the subject? You want to discuss the muttering old lady who sits at the bus stop but never gets on the bus. I know who you mean, I’ve seen her too, but I don’t say so. She reminds you of someone, but you don’t say so.

We’re always telling each other not to worry, that maybe the world outside of us is just as fucked up as the one inside of us. You drop your cigarette onto the street below, the street that takes all of your cigarette-ends into an unseen current. Where do they flow to? I’m afraid it’s much less random than I’d like to think. You feed me a cracker with jam & touch my cheek while I eat it. Mmm, I say, can I have another one? Orange Marmalade – $7.49.

—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
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Timothy Schirmer: “I feel elegant when I’m writing a poem, more handsome than I am, closer to this life. Who doesn’t want all of those things?” (website)

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October 20, 2014

“Three Weeks with Etheridge Knight” by Pamela RassoPosted by

Pamela Rasso

THREE WEEKS WITH ETHERIDGE KNIGHT

The first time we met, Etheridge eyed me with suspicion, said “O a white picket fence white girl.” And “White Paper Doll.” He had been to prison. I told him I had never known anyone who had been to prison. He called me “Starch.” He said he had snatched an old lady’s pocketbook. I told him that stealing was wrong. He called me “White Sunday School Teacher.” He said he had been given 25 years for stealing an old lady’s pocketbook. I agreed that was too harsh. He called everyone “Brother” and “Sister” such as “Brother Bill” or “Sister Sue.” He said white girls flashed their shiny white thighs at him. He said he saw my white short shorts, tube top, white titties. He said was I trying to burn some coal? I told him I liked his haiku very much, thought his poems were rough jolt raw red meat. He said “You dig my haiku? You dig my haiku. Wow.” He called me “Smarty Pink Ass.” He read my poems. I said growing up Italian wasn’t so easy either. He said “O, Mafia White Girl.” I said “Exactly my point.” He signed his book for me writing “The stars are free/ & WE gonna be,/ Too.” Then he called me “Refined White Sugar.” He called me “Top Shelf Woman.”

—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
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Pamela Rasso: “Growing up I read a lot of books. I was extremely shy so I began writing poetry as a way of communicating. My 9th grade English teacher told me how good he thought my poems were and published them in the high school literary magazine. In 12th grade I was selected as editor. Next I had the privilege of studying with several poets, including Robert Hayden and Jack Gilbert. I realized how important it was not to be afraid to take risks in my work. My poem on Etheridge Knight is from a collection of prose poems that are unified by a single theme.” (web)

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October 8, 2014

“Love Poem” by Timothy LiuPosted by

Timothy Liu

LOVE POEM

I have no need
for the mirror

you smashed

when I have your
fist to look on.

—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
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Timothy Liu: “When I was a freshman at UCLA in 1983, I checked out Sylvia Plath’s Ariel from the library and settled down by the pool at the Sunset Rec Center. By the time I got up, I knew I wanted to be a poet. Or as Robert Lowell famously put it in his introduction: ‘To play Russian Roulette with all six cartridges loaded.’” (website)

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