Author: Rattle

November 22, 2024

“Louder” by Eric NelsonPosted by

Eric Nelson

LOUDER

The dead speak louder every day.
I listen to their volume grow,
But I can’t tell you what they say.
 
I can’t see them and can’t look away
From the canyon where they echo—
The dead speak louder every day.
 
I feel how much their voices weigh,
Like pockets filled with river stone.
But I can’t tell you what they say.
 
We’re taught to whisper when we pray.
The frequency of God is low.
The dead speak louder every day.
 
In dawn’s first light, gray as age,
The chorus rises out of shadow.
But I can’t tell you what they say.
 
The more I hear the less afraid
I am of knowing what they know.
The dead speak louder every day.
But I can’t tell you what they say.
 

—from Rattle #85, Fall 2024

__________

Eric Nelson: “The first poet I discovered on my own (by way of Simon and Garfunkel’s take on ‘Richard Cory’) was E.A. Robinson. I loved his piercing character sketches and his tight, restrained language. The first villanelle I ever read was probably Robinson’s ‘The House on the Hill.’ I didn’t know it was called a villanelle, but I was fascinated by the pattern of repetition and the irony of saying over and over again that ‘there is nothing more to say.’ I wasn’t consciously thinking of ‘The House on the Hill’ when I wrote ‘Louder,’ but it’s easy to see parallels. Such, I guess, is the enduring influence of early loves.” (web)

Rattle Logo

November 21, 2024

“In the Clearing” by Devon BalwitPosted by

Zaubererturm by Jennifer S. Lange, abstract illustration of a dark gray tower in the woods

Image: “Zaubererturm” by Jennifer S. Lange. “In the Clearing” was written by Devon Balwit for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

__________

Devon Balwit

IN THE CLEARING

No longer youthful, my skin crepes
walls, windows, and doors. Cracked,
I go mossy. The weather enters. Memories
wheel and alight in flocks. Passersby assume
I am lonely. I am anything
but. In the gnarled shadows, hosts
clamor: youngest sons prepare
for battle; widows sniff for mushrooms.
What some call grey, I call mother
of pearl—the full moon polishing the sky.
That screech is an owl or a board pried
from a window. Already, the kindling
catches as the curious lean in.
I make a space for story.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
October 2024, Artist’s Choice

__________

Comment from the artist, Jennifer S. Lange: “I chose the poem ‘In the Clearing’ because, while it is like some other poems entered that use the tower as a person, this one spoke in first person and spoke well, seeing things from a tower’s perspective. I particularly liked the lines about the tower not being alone despite people assuming it to be, and the definition of grey being really mother of pearl—the ability to differ a great mass of small detail is a skill people seem to be losing, and I am glad about any reminder to look more closely. The most delightful however I found the last line, ‘I make a space for story,’ which to me as an illustrator is the best thing anybody can say about my images—weave a story, tell yourself what’s going on, interpret, play with it, it’s yours now.”

Rattle Logo

November 20, 2024

“The Elders” by Philip MetresPosted by

Philip Metres

THE ELDERS

already are starting to retire. First
the color of their hair, then their hair,
their once-smooth gait now upgraded
 
to gimp. Then their quick quip, the witty
banter, with friends whose names,
like the titles of books, are cities
 
now surrendered. Their hawkeyed sight
is losing its feathers, perched in the fog
of an ordinary day—early evening, say—
 
forgetting suddenly where it was
they were heading, what they were
looking for—and sometimes even a foot
 
retires, sometimes a lower leg
right up to the right knee, which ached
every time they had to get out of bed,
 
and wasn’t much use anymore
anyway, really. Now the smooth clarity
of their voices is drying to a bag
 
of gravel, now their crystal hearing’s
cracked, stuffed with leaf fall—they’re
retiring, seceding, disappearing before
 
our very eyes, magician’s assistants in a box
we can’t get back
open, now we’re here
 
and now we’re snowbirds in a distant
land marooned and it will never—
not ever—turn spring again.
 

—from Rattle #85, Fall 2024

__________

Philip Metres: “This is a poem of a certain age about noticing that I’m occasionally (suddenly! inexplicably!) the elder poet at certain gatherings. Writers and teachers I thought would work and live forever suddenly become citizens of the land of retirement, or light out for the lands farther than that. We would be lucky, one day, to join them. Time is undefeated. Dust to dust, earth to earth, life’s lust, death’s dearth.” (web)

Rattle Logo

November 19, 2024

“Indemnity” by Timothy LiuPosted by

Timothy Liu

INDEMNITY

Mudslides aren’t covered.
Nor jewelry over fifteen-hundred dollars
 
unless you have a rider.
 
A live tree taken down by a storm
and falling through your master bedroom?
 
Covered. But a dead one?
 
Not. You’ll have to give the assessor
access in order to make a full
 
determination. Mice chewing up
 
old wiring underneath the floorboards
and ushering in a pity party
 
of epic proportions? Tots!
 
Walls of flame on the next ridge over?
Nope. Tell me. Is an angry voter
 
flicking a cigarette butt
 
out of a Range Rover just an idiot
or are they a bona fide
 
act of God—adept at doing the Lord’s
 
mysterious work? I haven’t
cracked open John’s overblown account
 
on the island of Patmos
 
for quite some time, but I miss
that mildewed smell seeping through
 
our family Bible. It gets me
 
thinking about all the things I can’t
control. Flood insurance
 
more retro than Noah going off
 
the grid. Grandpa’s vintage
porno stash but a conflagration on VHS
 
no one can bear to watch.
 

—from Poets Respond

__________

Timothy Liu: “Looks like the wildfires on the West Coast and Southwest have now made it to the East Coast where we’re in the middle of a flash drought.” (web)

Rattle Logo

November 18, 2024

“Jimsonweed” by Campbell McGrathPosted by

Campbell McGrath

JIMSONWEED

Cloudless solitude of the dog days.
Sparrows vexing grasshoppers,
cicadas droning in the limbs,
and ho, a box turtle
trundling over pine needles in the shade.
The dog knows this thing is alive,
poking the shell gently with her nose,
but can’t figure out how, or why.
Ornery marginalia in the tractor ruts,
pokeweed, jimsonweed—
who gives them
these grit-spangled American names?
August 17th: a day you’ve seen before
but wouldn’t recognize
if it stopped you on the corner
to say hello.
 

—from Rattle #85, Fall 2024

__________

Campbell McGrath: “This poem was written by my grand-dog, Magnolia.” (web)

Rattle Logo

November 17, 2024

“Hello, I Am Not a Soldier” by Abby E. MurrayPosted by

Abby E. Murray

HELLO, I AM NOT A SOLDIER

And yet I wear caution like a uniform
now, pulling myself into its rough sleeves
 
and old boots each morning
before I even think of coffee or how
 
the me who returns to this bed will not be
the me who left it. There is no flag,
 
mark, pattern or pin I can carry to convince
a person of what I will or will not do,
 
who I love or what I care about.
If I am kind, I must prove it by risking
 
kindness. I ration false comfort by knowing
it has never not been this way:
 
each day armed with infinite opportunities
to fail, and the chance of failure’s alternative
 
always racked like an ordinary bullet
within tens of thousands of identical seconds.
 
Wherever I go, I cling to my hope
like a weapon I have been trained to love.
 

—from Poets Respond

__________

Abby E. Murray: “As the next administration unveiled its picks for senior leadership and cabinet positions this week, I was especially struck by the terrible choice for a defense secretary: a man who has a history of demonizing any life that doesn’t closely mirror his own. Most of my daily work involves examining and bridging the canyons that divide military & civilian populations, and I am imagining how much harder it’s going to be next year. I wrote this poem as a way to connect my pacifist life to the lives of service members in danger. Happy veterans day indeed.” (web)

Rattle Logo

November 16, 2024

“The Dark Miracle of Insomnia” by Jim DanielsPosted by

Jim Daniels

THE DARK MIRACLE OF INSOMNIA

Chimayó is home of the Santuario de Nuestro Señor de Esquipulas. Local residents walk miles, often barefoot, to visit the sanctuary… Many take away “tierra bendita” (holy dirt) from a hole in the floor, claiming miraculous healings. Sometimes referred to as “Lourdes of America,” the golden adobe church with its twin bell towers attracts close to 300,000 visitors a year.

for Demetria Martinez

She handed me a baggie of holy dirt—
a gift from a new friend. Back at the motel,
it reminded me of various drugs I’d ingested

in various ways. I wondered if airport security
would sniff it out the next day. That night
in a curtain-less room, I watched darkness

swallow the random lights of Albuquerque
while the freeway whisper faded to a nearly
inaudible hiss. I could not sleep because
an alarm was set or I had eaten too much

or not enough or I hadn’t stretched or I was almost
cold and faintly overheated, over-hearted
with longing for my family back in Pittsburgh,
back in Detroit, back in Oshkosh, Wisconsin

and Paw Paw, Michigan, and in the deep dark
ground or drifting forever away from me.
The tremble of panic strummed taut strings
till all was rigid and brittle, the hair-

line crack of sanity spreading with each blink,
each heart thud, each dry swallow. Finally.
I grabbed the baggie and spread the red dirt
in an arc around my bed.

I did not have pills of any kind. Cold turkeys
gobbled at my sliding door, steaming the glass.
I felt like I was spreading salt across
the icy sidewalk back in Pittsburgh

where my children slept, their soft breath holy
as all get out. This is the part of the song
where the gospel choir sways into action,

kicks it into the high gear many of us die trying
to find, burning out the clutch of the heart,
the soul, the faint smell of burning rubber,
and we’re stranded forever.

I woke up to the alarm
of a truck beeping in reverse
and morning’s definite light. When I rose,

I wept at the faint red half-circle in the faded green
carpet. The smirking genie. The shame
of the bargain. The broken hourglass.
The wall of abandoned crutches.

—from Rattle #28, Winter 2007

__________

Jim Daniels: “I don’t get many poems out of being on the road giving poetry readings, but this is one of them. I think a lot of writers suffer from insomnia, but it’s not something we talk about a lot. I’ve always felt vaguely ashamed of having sleep problems. But, when you can’t sleep, what else can do you but write?” (web)

Rattle Logo