January 17, 2025

“Regrets” by Edmund JorgensenPosted by

Edmund Jorgensen

REGRETS

Regrets are pointless—
Which doesn’t mean
They don’t have an edge
That’s mortally keen—
 
That’ll halve your brain
And cleave your heart
And tease your days
And dreams apart—
 
Until at length
You play two roles,
Like water poured
To fill two holes—
 
And neither self
Quite stuffs your skin:
The almost-am
Or the might-have-been.
 

—from Rattle #86, Winter 2024

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Edmund Jorgensen: “I write poetry because order is a protest against despair.”

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January 16, 2025

“One Brother Said to the Other, ‘Let’s Go into the Fields'” by Philip LevinePosted by

Philip Levine

ONE BROTHER SAID TO THE OTHER, “LET’S GO INTO THE FIELDS.”

Beyond the old barn
a small stream ran all those winter days,
and beyond the stream almost nothing grew
except weeds, poke grass, burdock, scatterings
of hemp plants left from years back. If you
stood still and let the pale sunlight descend
around you and said nothing, you’d catch
the echo of human voices, but better not
to hear what was said. Better to walk
beyond the sagging fences and keep going
until there was no where to go, for the birds
circling above were not there for you.
In the low trees at the edge of the woods
you might find abandoned nests, their eggs
slashed open. Reach in and touch the twigs
bundled into a gray basket of hopes.
Now let your hand wander the crusted leaves
while the west wind, rising at last, brings
what we are here for: the same blood smell.
 

—from Rattle #10, Winter 1998

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Philip Levine: “I’d like to be remembered as a good teacher and a good father and a good poet and a good husband and a good brother. There are a lot of things I’d like to be remembered for, come to think of it. But I suppose chief among them would be as a good poet, or somebody who advanced American poetry or somebody who took it into areas where it hadn’t been.”

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January 15, 2025

“A Letter to My Friend After Swimming” by Stephanie GlassPosted by

Stephanie Glass

A LETTER TO MY FRIEND AFTER SWIMMING

hey girl/ so I keep taking Milo to the pool/ he’s on the swim team now/ level one/ he’s still learning to blow bubbles and float and breathe/ while he swims I swim/ freestyle and breaststroke and butterfly/ and/ I’m learning to breathe too/ learning to breathe/ seems like it should be easy/ but it’s like/ like learning to walk/ like learning to blink/ learning to look at someone and know that you love them/ like learning to pick up the pieces/ after that person disappears/ I always pick up the pieces/ get my son to the pool on time/ the dentist on time/ the doctor on time/ school on time/ I am on time/ I’m learning how to breathe/ and every breath is ten thoughts right now/ isn’t that just how it works sometimes?/ sometimes a breath is just a breath and/ sometimes it’s everything/ you can do to inhale without drowning/ but at the end of my swim/ he comes through the double doors toward me/ running the way you run when you can’t run by the pool/ to stand over me/ where I’m waiting after finishing my lap/ and my watch is counting down to the next repetition/ the next series of strokes through the sterile blue/ the next exhalation of everything I’ve got into bubbles and motion/ and I’m inhaling the scent of chlorine like it’s peace/ and there he is/ smiling like he’s won the lottery because it’s the end of the lesson and he/ gets to swim/ with his mom/ and girl, I gotta tell you/ in that moment/ I don’t have to think/ about breathing.
 

—from Rattle #86, Winter 2024

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Stephanie Glass: “I am an 8th-grade English teacher in Chadron, Nebraska. The majority of my time is spent with my child and with my students. In my moments of free time, I dedicate myself to nature, to music, to literature, and to the exploration of self. My son and I spend quite a bit of time at the pool or fishing local creeks, rivers, and lakes. We live with four cats (Fred, Jelly Bean, Pants, and Mr. Darcy) and two guinea pigs (Sun Cake and Moon Nibbles). I am quite grateful for my peaceful life, and I write to capture and acknowledge the simplicity I find so beautiful.” (web)

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January 14, 2025

“Poem in Which I Press Fast Forward” by Denise DuhamelPosted by

Denise Duhamel

POEM IN WHICH I PRESS FAST FORWARD

my young mother becomes my dead mother
my new car becomes a clunker
 
my blond hair becomes gray,
my favorite sweater, a rag
 
my beloved becomes my enemy
my enemy, someone I can’t remember
 
my past becomes a murky place except for a few sharp excerpts
my memory, a torn plastic bag, groceries spilling onto the pavement
 
my love of apples becomes a metaphor
my love of apples becomes my love of applesauce
 
my flat chest becomes a set of breasts that later flop
my bright pink scar becomes a faded white line
 
my childhood friend becomes a stranger, then a corpse
my childhood home becomes someone else’s home
 
my baby fat becomes adult fat
my new sneakers, worn and ready for Goodwill
 
my obsessions become ash
my fire, a cold sandwich
 
my scribbles becomes more scribbles
my wedding dress, a punchline
 
my glass of wine becomes my rewind
my beer stein, a pencil cup
 
my garbage becomes landfill
your trees, my kitchen table
 
my biggest problems dissolve
then bubble up years later like Alka-Seltzer
 
my belly laugh becomes a bellyache
my aversion to conflict becomes a migraine
 
my frown becomes a ray of frown lines
my dance moves becomes a skeleton rolled into an anatomy classroom
 
my childhood love of the sea becomes my adult political quest
my pet peeves soften into petty concerns then become peace lilies
 
my fall from grace becomes my saving
my savings become my coffin’s down payment
 

—from In Which
2024 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

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Denise Duhamel: “I started writing the poems from In Which after reading Emily Carr’s brilliant essay ‘Another World Is Not Only Possible, She Is on Her Way on a Quiet Day I Can Hear Her Breathing.’ (American Poetry Review, Volume 51, No. 3, May/June 2022) Carr borrows her title from Arundhati Roy, political activist and novelist. In her delightfully unconventional essay, Carr talks about rekindling intuition in poems, offering ‘a welcome antidote to whatever personal hell you, too, are in.’ Carr’s invitation to be unapologetic, even impolite, gave me new ways of entering my narratives. Soon I was imagining I was someone else completely. Or sometimes I looked back at my earlier self, at someone I no longer recognized.”

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January 13, 2025

“Family Vacation” by Terri Kirby EricksonPosted by

Terri Kirby Erickson

FAMILY VACATION

Long Beach, NC, 1965

My father in his red bathing trunks and bare feet,
his back glistening with suntan lotion liberally
applied by my mother, was not the same man who
came home tired from sitting at a desk all day
when what he wanted to do was move. Slim and wiry,
he lived inside his lithe body like ball lightning
ricocheting around a locked room. He looked forward
all year to summer vacation—loved running over
the hard-packed sand with its shards of shell, its swirls
of seaweed—and diving headfirst into the waves. He told
us once that his father couldn’t swim, but was built
so heavy and solid, he could crawl on the ocean floor
like a giant lobster, holding his breath as long as a pearl
diver. But Dad was a torpedo in the water, head down,
arms churning—swimming so far out to sea, my brother
and I were afraid he’d never come back. So when he
turned at last and headed for the beach, we sank
to our knees with relief, waving as if he could see
us, as if we were little lighthouses guiding
our father to a safe and sandy shore.
 

—from Rattle #86, Winter 2024

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Terri Kirby Erickson: “I cannot count the number of times that writing poetry has saved my life, which is not surprising since I have the mathematical ability of a howler monkey. It has helped (and continues to help) me deal with the loss of my entire nuclear family, my husband’s cancer diagnosis, our daughter’s MS, and a movement disorder (among other health challenges) that seriously impeded my ability to do anything before being prescribed the right medication. I’m not complaining, however, because life is tough for most people—and lucky me, I have a million stories to tell, a sense of humor, and gallons of love going out and coming in.” (web)

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January 12, 2025

“LA Is Burning, Countries Are at War, and I Am So Damn Grateful for My Shower” by Rose LennardPosted by

Rose Lennard

LA IS BURNING, COUNTRIES ARE AT WAR, AND I AM SO DAMN GRATEFUL FOR MY SHOWER

And god said, Let there be showers!—
and water fell on the bowed heads and shoulders
of people throughout the land, and sluiced
over breasts and bellies and buttocks,
coursed down limbs and fingers and toes;
and the water ran hallowed and hot on cold days,
and blessedly cool in Summer’s heat, it rinsed sleep
from just-awoken eyes, washed mud and sweat
off tingling skin, it mingled with piss
and tears and bodily fluids, gulped shit,
unwelcome hair, the tiny invisible eggs
of parasites. The people dripped and shone.
They took showers when they ached,
to wake up or wind down, or when
they were lonely and longed to be touched.
They fucked and screamed in long steamy showers,
and babies were conceived as windows fogged
and walls streamed and blossomed with mould.
And the water ran and ran and ran,
it obeyed the rules of water: to find
its own level, to dissolve, carry, deposit.
It took our chemicals and waste, and lo,
it whisked them to a place the people
called away. And maybe god also said, let there be
sewage farms, and factories to turn out boilers
and pipes and flanged rubber seals,
and nodding donkeys sucking oil out
of desert sands, and let there be plumbers
and designers and people packing marble tesserae
into crates, and yes, let there be politicians
telling us we have a god-given right
to use as much of this goddamn planet
as our squeaky-clean fingers can grip;
and did god say, let there be firefighters with freshly-
bathed children sleeping in beds, let them hose
god-given water over the smouldering roofs
of mansions nestled in droughted hills,
let them risk their lives putting out blazes
round the blue-tiled pools of celebrities?
 
Let the water run off asphalt and concrete,
let it run to the ocean to try to forget
all it has seen and all it has swallowed,
let it return to the fish and the turtles
and the immense forgiveness of whales, let it cry—
My god, why have you forsaken me?
 

—from Poets Respond

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Rose Lennard: “Sometimes I marvel at the luxury that is a shower, a glory that is often taken for granted. I’m not religious, but nevertheless steeped in the language of Christianity when it comes to gratitude and wonder. But if we believe that god made the good things, what can we say about the bad? Robin Wall Kimmerer (in Braiding Sweetgrass) tells of the Thanksgiving Address of the Haudenosaunee people, which says ‘We are grateful that the waters are still here and doing their duty of sustaining life on Mother Earth’. Water has been given such heavy duties, and modern life means we cannot help but abuse water every day with our wastage and pollution.”

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January 11, 2025

“The Power of Light” by Ken LetkoPosted by

Ken Letko

THE POWER OF LIGHT

can turn a white
dog black
a silhouette
 
on the horizon
sunlight unfolds
every new leaf
 
pulls a sumac
sprout through
four inches of asphalt
 
a red light stops a chain
of fast-moving cars
at an intersection
 
light you spend
all day every day
at the end of the tunnel
 
nine missing miners
on the windowsill
nine candles
 
widow’s walk
a lantern for
a late boat
 
the moon
is your proxy
interrogating
 
the night sky
you can make
mud shine
 
any student
of the stars
knows the sky
 
can be any color
 

—from Rattle #32, Winter 2009

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Ken Letko: “I was walking on some bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean when I noticed a large black dog on the horizon. The off-leash animal was coming toward me on the same trail. When we met, I realized the friendly, smiling creature was nearly pure white because he was no longer walking in his own shadow! I had witnessed ‘the power of light.’ I just had to write about that.”

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