Author: Rattle

August 27, 2024

“Song of a Masjid’s Floor” by Ammara YounasPosted by

Terry's Keys by Kim Beckham, photograph of keys hanging on a fence at a beach

Image: “Lahore #44” by Faizan Adil. “Song of a Masjid’s Floor” was written by Ammara Younas for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2024, and selected as the Series Editor’s Choice.

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Ammara Younas

SONG OF A MASJID’S FLOOR

I sang
to atoms emptied in a mother’s feet
replicating the prosody of Adhān itself
the dust trembling like a lost child
burgeoning parable-like when her feet
shot up vertically         & as her face
descended to meet my face         my eyes
did not have the heart to meet hers
mine torrid & hers         torrential
 
I sang
to vowels         lost         into a father’s lips
thinking themselves         muhajir
who don’t belong in tongues harvesting
love off-season but in the tenement
of Mihrab they found a home &
journeyed back & sugared his mouth
a spoonful of sweet persimmon        & he
prayed take me before you take anyone
 
I sang
to a daughter adrift in the persistence
of memory         as she hid desire in
the crevice of the ceramic floor
when amidst Sajdah         she kissed me
homelike         I cradled her like my own
her face dribbled down my arms
feathering gathering to become whole
until she abandoned it         &         went home
faceless she told me she’d finally
escape the guilt of being woman
the lone daughter of Hawwa
 
I sang
to a son whose feet         gripped         me
like hands holding up         soapy
firmament of gods & though his touch
was hot mess he stayed mere inches
from visions of eden & though his
touch was slippery he distilled love
from abstract         plucked         flowers
from wastelands         perfumed them
himself & left me         with those flowers
& a smile that could sun
even         elegies
 
I sang
to a child with no mother no father
his weight the heaviest to carry
here my tongue         turned flamingo
too long for meaning         to traverse
through as he asked me to return
the love he could’ve had         I dreamed
of him turning into wild
cherry blossom
& if he sang back to me         I’d float
outside my body and see seas
of psalms sewn into people & ceded to
me as they turned homeward
but he’d come vacant         & never
leave
 
I sang
& sang & sang
swallowing sandals borrowing
bottle caps I birthed footprints lent
water         & sang & sang to
no god but
human
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
July 2024, Series Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “Two things immediately struck me about Faizan Adil’s artwork: First, the cultural and religious significance, and second, the sense that the figures in the foreground seem to be lost in their own worlds, as though each is a universe unto themselves. Ammara Younas’s poem prioritizes both of these elements. The poet paints a vivid tapestry of the life of a Muslim family, and though the poem is superbly cohesive, each stanza dedicated to a family member could easily stand alone as its own poem. The distinctive language, both earthy and elegant—‘tongues harvesting/love off-season’; ‘dust trembling like a lost child’—mirrors the image’s contrast between ornate reverence and human humility, a dichotomy that is also encapsulated in the poem’s last stanza.”

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August 26, 2024

“Kaizen: How to Build a Poem” by Sue ParmanPosted by

Sue Parman

KAIZEN: HOW TO BUILD A POEM

Ignore your hand and focus on the pen,
which writes without your knowledge of the whole.
Do not insert the personal. Avoid translation.
The changes made are small and gradual.
 
Commas herd their letters toward a distant
goal of rhymes and metaphors but do not
specify a conscious “I” or soul,
a bold new vision or a school of thought.
 
Write like a dancer making small mistakes.
What is wrong to you fulfills your friend’s desire.
Cuttings and shit are what it takes
to grow a garden from a funeral pyre.
 
A poet will die unless she learns to laugh.
Do not hit DELETE. Save everything as DRAFT.
 

—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024

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Sue Parman: “When I was four years old, my father asked me, ‘When is a door not a door?’ His answer, ‘when it’s ajar,’ infuriated and then intrigued me. I began to keep a journal in which I wrote down sentences such as, ‘If the Devil is evil, God is odd.’ Puns were my intro-duction to poetry, a form of verbal play that taught me that words, rather than being a lifeline to truth, could be slippery and contain many truths at the same time. One of my favorite poets is Kay Ryan, the queen of poetic puns (see her ‘Bestiary’). As an anthropologist, I consider them a vital contributor to mental health, since they satisfy the needs of large-brained mammals to avoid epilepsy by indulging in surprise.” (web)

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August 25, 2024

“Ghazal 28 (‘like this’)” by Bilal Moin (Aflatoon)Posted by

Bilal Moin (Aflatoon)

GHAZAL 28 (‘LIKE THIS’)

italicized fragments borrowed from Bukowski, Rumi, Darwish, and Gopalakrishna Adiga

Only grass is hurt when two bulls lock horns like this.
Even the sun was ashamed. Were we born like this?
 
Galilee drowns in tears, swallowing aid into the abyss.
Ashes fall like snowflakes; her scarf, adorned like this.
 
“Mama is in heaven.” Where is this promised garden?
Her body lies beyond right and wrong, strewn like this.
 
“The cypress broke like a minaret.” Its bounty borne of bone.
Walls and watchtowers witnessed as hills were torn like this.
 
A one-armed bandit, he played with Tom and Jerrycans;
quiet as a ghost, his spirit, a stubborn thorn like this.
 
Nine-years old, stuffing his mouth with a fistful of
strawberries—the red lingers. He’s gone, like this.
 
Jacob’s ladder once reached to heaven from here.
Now he climbs over rubble, weary and worn like this.
 
With blunt blades, these butchers scorn the sacred laws—
Cain’s curse carries. He’s a sacrificial pawn, like this.
 
Scrawny drummer boy, David, you wield your sling;
born into Bedlam, who taught you to brawn like this?
 
Cartographers conspire with their divide and rulers—
pysch! Picot’s lines were drawn and redrawn like this.
 
Do you remember Mukhayriq? Baghdad’s bazaars?
It was never—no, I could have sworn—like this.
 
When Moses raised his staff for the righteous—
the Red Sea split, washing away Fir’aun like this.
 
Sink into silence, bandage egos, nurse moral wounds;
The eggheads crack omelettes and you yawn like this.
 
The world’s wounds fester, yet you scroll, unscathed—
Retweet! Resistance has been reduced to a form like this.
 
Aflatoon says: Do something, brother! Whatever you do
Do it quick! Mothers were not meant to mourn like this.
 

—from Poets Respond

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Bilal Moin (Aflatoon): “This poem is dedicated to nine-year-old Khaled Joudeh. While he slept, an Israeli airstrike claimed the lives of his mother, father, older brother, baby sister, and 60 other members of his family. Miraculously, Khaled and his seven-year-old brother, Tamer, survived the initial attack. But their brief and terror-filled lives came to a tragic end when another airstrike struck the very home where they sought refuge, killing them both. This ghazal honors Khaled and the 16,000 children whose childhoods were curtailed by the war in Gaza. Can we do more than just pray, pledge, and write poetry?” (web)

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August 24, 2024

“Airborne Hope” by Vivian HuangPosted by

Vivian Huang (age 15)

AIRBORNE HOPE

a contrapuntal poem dedicated to my family

in china,   a farmer sows
 
a mountain filled with   ambitious wishes of
 
jade rings and lush,   velvet beds sailing
 
blessings   to new york.
 
american   hands catch
 
 
 
dreams of   wind-billowed
 
suburban rooftops becoming   tulips within
 
a sea of aligned stars—   a hopeful harvest.
 

—from 2024 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

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Why do you like to write poetry?

Vivian Huang: “I like to write poetry because it allows me to break the conventional methods of storytelling while still staying authentic to the messages I want to convey. The creative freedom I have while exploring with structure, punctuation, and imagery allows me to push beyond what is conventionally perceived and challenges me to add a new perspective to recurring themes in modern society.”

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August 23, 2024

“Ghazal of And” by Uma MenonPosted by

Uma Menon

GHAZAL OF AND

after Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Sometimes, in school, I felt lonely thinking about conjunctions and
commas. The sentence ended before I knew it, but I wanted and.
 
What is more beautiful than the place where two strangers meet?
Like seaweed washed ashore, I birth a sigh when I touch the sand.
 
I call too many places home, feel guilty for it. I want to be
faithful to one. Or maybe, instead, I want to stop loving land.
 
My mother used to tell me that good things come in threes.
Maybe she’s right. I wonder if she’s looking for a third hand.
 
When one leg moves, the other must, too. I want more freedom
than this. I relapse in the space between where my two feet stand.
 
Some nights, I want to listen quietly to friends who say nothing.
To be human is to want paradox. Two poles connected by and.
 

—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024

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Uma Menon: “I find ghazals to be incredibly versatile, in that each stanza is independent and yet they are all thematically united and parts of the same piece. As a South Asian writer, ghazals allow me to explore my identity through a poetic form that connects me with my culture and heritage.” (web)

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August 22, 2024

“The Venturi Effect” by Donald Mace WilliamsPosted by

Donald Mace Williams

THE VENTURI EFFECT

You may have thought, from visiting art shows,
that canyons squeezed together on their way
downstream. No. That’s only perspective. They
in fact, as any hiker my age knows,
spread out and vanish. Their canyonness goes.
Their vital currents pool up, slacken, splay,
their tall red hoodoos melt into flat gray,
the bankside cottonwoods go, nothing grows.
This one the same. Far downstream now, my feet
have brought me where I see the end. No foam
from water straitened, focused one last time
by rock walls aping art, trying to meet,
but alkali-white flatlands, killdeers’ home,
walls gone, speed gone, all low that was high prime.
 

—from Rattle #32, Winter 2009
Tribute to the Sonnet

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Donald Mace Williams: “I couldn’t remember the name of the effect that has to do with the speeding up of water when its conduit is narrowed (and therefore the slowing down when the conduit is widened), but a niece of my wife’s who is a hydraulics engineer helped me with the term. Other possibly pertinent facts are that I live close to Palo Duro Canyon in Texas and am 80 years old.”

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August 21, 2024

“Daffodils” by Conor KellyPosted by

Conor Kelly

DAFFODILS

Wordsworth in New York

Those daffodils that I recall
While lying on a bed settee
Are faded now, their petals fall
In nature and in memory.
It’s time to rise, to go outside
And head off for a subway ride.
 
I’m in New York’s YMCA
Undressing for a midday swim;
A poet could not but be gay
With bodies toned up in the gym.
But I am getting no cheap thrills
From dongs like dangling daffodils.
 
I twinkled at the twinkies there
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance
Or heading for the sauna where
I might get lucky if, by chance,
One of the bronzed and buffed young men
Is eager for my fountain pen.
 
But, sadly, no one needs to hear
This exiled poet strut his stuff.
I am an old Romantic queer,
Ignored, unloved. I’ve had enough.
I join the hustling New York crowd
And wander lonely as a cloud.
 

—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024

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Conor Kelly: “I was born in Dublin and spent my adult life teaching in a school in the city. I now live in Western Shore, Nova Scotia, from where I run a Twitter (X) site @poemtoday, dedicated to the short poem. I was once shortlisted for a Hennessy New Irish Writers award. At the ceremony one of the judges, Fay Weldon, asked me, ‘Where are you in these poems?’ I am still asking myself that same question.” (web)

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