Patrick Ryan Frank

October 31, 2023

“Nyctophobia” by Patrick Ryan FrankPosted by

Patrick Ryan Frank

NYCTOPHOBIA

—The fear of night or darkness.

I’ll stay awake, stay up all night,
Keep wide my eyes and cocked my ears;
I’ll keep the whole damn room within my sight,
The phone in my left hand, a gun in my right;
I’ll lock up the doors and windows tight,
Let no one, nothing get in here
Until the shadows disappear,
Until the morning brings a light,
Until I can see what I should fear.

—from Rattle #26, Winter 2006

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Patrick Ryan Frank: “In my work, I’m interested in issues of control: how people master their fears, or else are mastered by them; how a poem’s movement can push against its structure; how meaning can determine shape. Essentially, life is composed of conflict and tension, and poetry is the art of struggling beautifully.” (web)

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June 21, 2015

“Landscape with Questions” by Patrick Ryan FrankPosted by

Patrick Ryan Frank

LANDSCAPE WITH QUESTIONS

Another minivan abandoned off
the off-ramp. Someone said I’ve had enough

and left, just left, and left the radio on
and singing baby, baby, you’re the one.

And who is that when there is no one there?
God, like everybody else, is scared

of everybody else, and trying to hide.
So smoke. So black-winged drones. So so much light

at such strange angles that make the empty hand
look full, look like a fist. Look out at the land.

It isn’t barren, so why does it feel so bare?
The churches are full of people, so are the bars—

the life’s work of the dead. So which lives matter?

Ask the glass and blacktop; you’ll get no answer.

—Poets Respond
June 21, 2015

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Patrick Ryan Frank: “Since Wednesday’s massacre at a South Carolina church, I’ve been trying to figure out what to say. I find that I’m asking myself the same questions I’ve been asking for too long, and I still don’t have any satisfying answers. So instead of addressing that attack or any other event directly—since I still can’t fully fathom it—I’m trying to look at the bigger, even stranger landscape in which it happened.” (website)

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