July 15, 2024

“Ladies Blouses $2.99” by Cindy GuenthermanPosted by

Cindy Guentherman

LADIES BLOUSES $2.99

It was the mid-’60s, a time of rock and roll and hippies, yet men still wore hats to work, and ladies wore dresses and pantyhose. Suits were displayed on neat racks and people looking for new shoes were fitted by a professional at Weise’s Department Store in Rockford, Illinois. After years of babysitting, my first summer job at 16 was to take the bus downtown and ride the elevator up to the store office, where I was preparing a new inventory on a manual typewriter. The subject matter was not exciting and every time there was an inventory addition or change, I had to start that page over. It was kind of like the Groundhog Day movie in real life. But for this I was paid a dollar ten an hour, way better than the 50 cents I got for babysitting. Before the summer was over, I would move on to another place for a few cents an hour more.
 
carbon copy
all the mistakes
I tried to fix
 

—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024

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Cindy Guentherman: “I’ve been making up poems since age five on the way home from kindergarten. I like all kinds of poetry, but haiku has been my favorite for about 50 years. This haibun was written after a Rattlecast prompt—to write a haibun about our first job. I love prompts because they let me write things I would have never considered before.”

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July 14, 2024

“Prayer After Iconoclasm” by Nina PeláezPosted by

Nina Peláez

PRAYER AFTER ICONOCLASM

after Shahzia Sikander and Esther Strauß

Blessed are the bones, the scaffold
that holds, seed set in the depth
of the mouth, waiting to sprout
in the slippery dark. Blessed mother
in labor, sweat on the brow. Look
how they loved, how they hated her.
Blessed the navel, blessed the vine
uncoiling toward freedom, blessing
her crime. Her horns and her halo.
Wings held on her back, blessed be
the jabot worn on her neck. Bless
be her grit, bless be her glitter,
bless be the downfall of men
who have hurt her. Bless her rough
hands, lungs out of breath, bless her
milk seeping from each of her breasts.
 

—from Poets Respond

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Nina Peláez: “This poem was written after reading two articles from the past week reporting on the destruction of two sculptures: Esther Strauß’ “Crowning,” depicting Mary in the throes of childbirth, and Shahzia Sikander’s ‘Witness,’ an allegorical female figure. Within a week, both sculptures were beheaded. I was disturbed to read about the brutal vandalism of these two images, both of which engage with biblical subjects in ways that seek to reframe traditional narratives about female empowerment, particularly around reproductive justice. This poem offers a benediction to the two violated figures.” (web)

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July 13, 2024

“False Spring” by Elliott EganPosted by

Elliott Egan (age 8)

FALSE SPRING

On one of February’s false springs,
I hike to the creek near my house,
Searching for mica, pottery, and shells.
Over my head a kingfisher zings,
His song is whooping and wild.
I’m a prospector, panning for gold.
I crouch, move pebbles in the stream.
I stuff my treasures in the pocket
Of my jacket—it’s lapis lazuli blue.
I see mica by its gleam.
I slip over the muddy bank,
I see signs of a beaver, both new and old.

—from 2024 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

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Why do you like to write poetry?

Elliott Egan: “I like to tell stories about the world around me, and I like how poetry flows together. Stories are so hard to write down when they are long, but in poetry I can get all of my ideas down on paper. I also really enjoy making magnetic poetry and haiku poetry, because counting the syllables and making things fit together is like a game.”

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July 12, 2024

“Dishes” by Roberto ChristianoPosted by

Roberto Christiano

DISHES

“You can do what you want. Write a ghazal or do the dishes.”
I’m in Zoom, a poetry class, and I know, there really are dishes
 
in my sink accumulating guilt and luring the reckless red ants,
but I am thinking of Uvalde, of all the kitchens with one less dish
 
to wash tonight. I am thinking of my great niece and nephew,
aged nine and ten, who toss each other the warm dry dishes
 
straight out of the dishwasher. I am thinking of those bright dishes,
bought from across the border, on the governor’s dark pine table,
 
each one a swirl of blue and red. I am thinking hard about all the thoughts
and prayers, and every my heart goes out, and every platitude dished out.
 
I am thinking of a shy little girl in her white communion dress.
On the table behind her, Mother has set a mass of churros in a dish.
 
I am thinking of the antique, porcelain, Bavarian dishes my mother gave me.
Nobody cares about them anymore. Roberto, you can put away the dishes.
 

—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024
Tribute to the Ghazal

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Roberto Christiano: “The ghazal, like the villanelle and the pantoum, has its roots in song. This appeals to my musical past. My father and brother were both musicians—Father played Portuguese and Italian folk music on the accordion and my brother was a rock guitarist. I played the piano and was a church pianist for a while. The repeating end words of the ghazal couplets remind me of the rounds of my childhood, the songs I sang in school, the quick refrains, the catchy and playful rhymes.” (web)

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July 11, 2024

“A Family Matter” by Bob HicokPosted by

Bob Hicok

A FAMILY MATTER

Of course, when my mother asked
that I give my wife a kiss for her, I did so,
telling my wife, I am my mother, kissing you.
My wife’s mother, it turns out, had asked the same,
so of course she told me, I am my mother,
kissing you back. When we informed our mothers later
that they had kissed as lesbians
through heterosexual proxy
beside our cat’s sense that something
like a mouse or with the potential
to be a mouse would eventually move
through the spot she was staring at,
where nothing was or had ever been, as far
as the record shows, my mother asked, was tongue
involved? My wife and I consulted the log
but there was no entry. We shrugged
at our mothers and went about our lives,
though now with an awareness
there are gaps we’ll never fill
that may or may not have tongues in them,
though given a vote, I say yes, tongues, red
like our mouths are where flames go
to be alone.

—from Rattle #30, Winter 2008

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Bob Hicok: “I think of myself as a failed writer. There are periods of time when I’ll be happy with a given poem or a group of poems, but I, for the most part, detest my poems. I like writing. I love writing, and I believe in myself while I am writing; I feel limitless while I’m writing.” (web)

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July 10, 2024

“Eve’s Protest” by Isabella DeSendiPosted by

Isabella DeSendi

EVE’S PROTEST

Men insist I shouldn’t use my body to conquer
them when men have been using me
to look at loneliness less directly. I solve
their endless wars; I’m a rack to hang
headless hats. Is it lunacy or resilience
when something breaks but we keep on 
pushing through it? Like the body, becoming sacred 
is an act of love or self-deceit. Just look at Adam 
wrenching out his rib for me. Things haven’t changed. 
Lonely people are still desperate and busy
being loud about it. I would know. 
I’m shapeless as a fledgling flattened 
having surrendered all my bones. 
Look, all I wanted was someone 
I could show my wretchedness to, someone 
who would be there, loving. Or else, I wanted
to feel winter coming and not feel like an animal 
who’d forgotten to wake up. Do I really have to say it? 
Even the sequoia tree’s leaves will redden 
to ash, proving nature and God are good 
at showing us all the ways we’re wrong. 
Tell me, what woman hasn’t been 
tempted, porous—only wanting
what she wanted. Do you blame me, Lord?
I’m only doing what you’ve done. Made a man
suffer then surrender before I let him love me.
If I was wrong to die for pleasure, so be it. 
If I was wrong to make my man aware of his body 
the way wind is aware of its shapelessness
only after a locomotive blows through a tunnel 
and cleaves its loud nothing into more
billowing nothing, then I accept 
what damage, brightness I’ve caused. 
I know I’ve said this already 
but I mean it: Once, I was good. 
Now, standing by the pier, the sky opens up
in late-night light like a scab unwilling to close 
and I admit, part of me is still like you, Lord. 
Some days, I’m tired. Some days, all I want is to 
eradicate the earth. Instead, a man I love enters me 
slow as light stabbing its way through to morning. 
O God, don’t refute this. I know your rage
is fueled by jealousy and your jealousy fueled 
by sadness. You wish you could hold a body 
like this and understand what I mean when I say
it was worth it. All of it. Yes, it was worth it. 
 

—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024

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Isabella DeSendi: “This poem was inspired by, of course, the first woman in biblical history to defy God’s law in favor of sex, companionship, desire. I wrote this piece during a time when I felt deeply frustrated with religion and its constructs around womanhood and purity; I was tired with all the people and forces that were imposing their rules on me. Although this is a persona poem, Eve’s story is one many women can relate to. I hope this poem offers a new perspective from Eve and showcases a voice that is defiant, autonomous, but tender—and yet, still finds (and chooses) love.”(web)

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July 9, 2024

“I Dreamed of Hendrix” by Willie James KingPosted by

Willie James King

I DREAMED OF HENDRIX

The white ones unwarranted,
hardly a one cared much for
a colored lad with long locks,
greedy for the guitar and
assorted girls, especially
during that goddamn War.
 
But I was born to rule
the blues, to do with it
whatever I chose. And I
would take that guitar
and I’d choke that son-
 
of-a-bitch. I even made
music with my mouth, by
taking those tiny strings
into my teeth, making them
sing like a sparrow on
its first outing into early-
April sun. And the people
 
didn’t know what to make
of me, a prodigious man, no,
a wild, black, prodigious
man controlling the band
stand. And I could not
cross the crowds that swarmed
like flies to the concerts, or
wherever I was performing
 
only to see me, witness
the magic of my every opus,
even in England, when
I was an ex-patriot. I
was angry as every average
person was at America’s
politics. I was ready for
 
a revolution long overdue.
I was propelled by the
plight of my people, called
‘colored’ then, but emerging.
I, well, put me in the place
like the parapet ready to
see the bottom rail rise
to the top as the Biblical
 
passage spoke of an oppressed
people. We were the only
ones, see, all of the Indians
wiped out, or, having lost
the distinction of individu-
ality. I needed that dumb
 
needle, and the coke in order
to cope with fame, and with
failure, too. It became as
perfunctory to me as an at-
omizer is to any woman
with night needs, having
to look to more than one
man to earn her quota
in money. I made music.
And, the music made me.
 
America wasn’t only fas-
cinated with that fat, lean
thing making an odd seam
down the length of my jeans,
it was also fascinated by
the slow, heavy weight of
a dark man dying by
the help of what it makes
available to that sinking
man’s hand, sometimes
 
in the notion of his needs,
this, as medicine, knowing
all the time it is dealing
death to him, in disguise
but my fame continues to
rise, all of those unusual
beats I brought, strange
chords, and other things
which made my music amusing.
But no marvelous man has
ever been alive to witness him-
self being made into a martyr,
 
neither me, Malcolm, nor
Martin. And even dead
sometimes, I find my form-
less mind befuddled by such
ambivalence, of how they
can kill a man in America
and canonize him after the kill.
 

—from Rattle #9, Summer 1998

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Willie James King: “I write only compelled to do so. Writing is hard, that is why I love it. Language is as difficult to control as any animal found in the deep, wild woods. They don’t conform. They hold to what they do best, no matter how we holler: Humanity! Humanity! And that is why I write; I might be able to speak not only for myself, but for those without a voice; or, who they think they are, etc.”

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