Author: Rattle

August 20, 2024

“Voice Lessons” by Jaymee ThomasPosted by

Jaymee Thomas

VOICE LESSONS

At forty, I hired a vocal coach.
My husband had taken a new
friend—he swore it was platonic,
her name unimportant.
 
Upfront, she warned me
her rate for adults
was higher than for children—
a grown-up’s capacity for change
isn’t great, throat muscles
less pliable, even though
they usually want it more.
 
This isn’t a story
of overcoming
diaphragmatic disadvantages
of mature voices in training,
it’s about the cost.
 
I had one lesson wherein
she informed me
the price of admission
for her attention to my voice—
to get near the neighborhood
of up to par—
was double the original estimate.
 
It came with a guarantee
of no promises.
She wasn’t a magician, she said.
To make me passable
at karaoke bars
would be an extra ten a session.
 
It was cheap, actually, easy
quitting those lessons—
quitting my husband.
 
I never wanted to be a pop star,
only to feel a knowing in my bones
that someone could still hear me.
 

—from Prompt Poem of the Month
July 2024

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Prompt: Write a poem that features multiple unexpected turns, leaps, or voltas.

Note from the series editor, Katie Dozier: “This classic Rattle poem sits us down with a frank voice that promises it has a story to share with us. By the second stanza, we have already leapt octaves. Jaymee’s poem inspires us not only to dare to take on new pursuits, but also to breathe more deeply—so that we may find the song of our own journey.”

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August 19, 2024

“Fractured Double Ghazal” by Clif MasonPosted by

Clif Mason

FRACTURED DOUBLE GHAZAL

I love a woman 
whose hands are full of stars. 
When passion flares, 
I am a bowl of stars. 
 
I drink deep from her kiss, 
a flute of fire. 
After long drink, 
I owe no debt of fire. 
 
I seek her all night long 
through softest rain. 
At dawn, each puddle 
is a skull of stars. 
 
The world offers ample occasion 
for pain. 
I touch, unharmed, her hair, 
a net of fire. 
 
Our days’ exacting work 
keeps us apart. 
In hard daylight, 
there is a lull of stars. 
 
I cannot turn my gaze 
away from her face. 
Her hazel eyes are gems, 
deep set, of fire. 
 
Our nights of love 
are still but brief heartbeats. 
They burn forever bright— 
how cruel of stars. 
 
I try to hold love 
in a gentle grip. 
I learn you cannot make 
a pet of fire. 
 
In lonely distance 
lies chill perfection. 
As you know, Clif, 
that is the rule of stars. 
 
Swim, Clif, in the instant’s 
dark river of flame. 
Not to love is to feel 
a regret of fire.
 

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

__________

Clif Mason: “The ghazal satisfies the aesthetic yearnings of those who appreciate a certain regularity in their verse, as well as those who enjoy a certain disruption in their forms, as each couplet is independent of the others (and could, if one wished, stand alone as its own short poem). With classic forms like this, the question is always how both to respect it, and to make it new. I’ve attempted to do this by, first, doubling the form, intermixing two ghazals, and second, by fracturing the resulting form.” (web)

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August 18, 2024

“Why Wouldn’t Autonomous Cars Cry at Night?” by Ryan McCartyPosted by

Ryan McCarty

WHY WOULDN’T AUTONOMOUS CARS CRY AT NIGHT?

Awake and acutely aware
of each other’s proximity
to streetlights and the shifting
shapes of moons on their own
empty interiors, with enough
of them huddled in the lots,
why not honk? Why not holler
at the silent ones, identically dark
and empty on their left and right,
the whole still pile like a flicker
of a future scrapyard in the making?
Why not scream to call a crowd
of ghosts down from their squares
of light up there, those past
wanderers of these same streets,
subjects of their own lonely stories
now forgettable as algorithms,
broke codes that used to commute
in packs, hunter gatherers
heading into the sunrise chatting,
now silent, autonomous, floating
like a disconnected signal? And how
do we hear our children in the night
calling, but tomorrow all the same
just ride them silently to work?
 

—from Poets Respond

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Ryan McCarty: “I keep thinking about this story about a lot full of autonomous vehicles that ‘get confused’ at night and start wandering around beeping at each other. It immediately seemed like they were scared or lonely or just kind of riled up, exactly like we might be when left alone on those dark nights when a little of that other kind of darkness starts to creep in. And it made me wonder what we’re making or, for that matter, what we’ve already made.” (web)

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August 17, 2024

“Vanilla Cake” by Ruby HartmanPosted by

Ruby Hartman (age 9)

VANILLA CAKE

Vanilla cake gone
      in a day
            because of
                  giant family.
                        From gobbling, chewing
                              to devouring
                                    then wolfing
                                          down
                                                the taste of
                                                      acceptance
                                                            after
                                                                  the grab.
 

—from 2024 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

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Why do you like to write poetry?

Ruby Hartman: “It is an easier way to express myself. And there aren’t many rules, which means I’m free to say what I want without worrying about mistakes!”

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August 16, 2024

“Baptized” by Danielle JonesPosted by

Danielle Jones

BAPTIZED

When he eased me into the river
I was supposed to feel God coming clean in me
but all I could see was the black kitten, scrawny
when its mama went off and left it, flies
in its eyes, and daddy saying the best thing to do
was put it out of its misery, so I named it
Mercy, while he held it under water—his hand
a stone, so big I couldn’t see its struggle, 
but could feel it, same way I always feel 
the wounded or afraid—soon as I walk in a room, 
we’re family—flight of swallows, storm 
of fish, bubbles rising from their mouths, 
a stream in the water, the kitten’s last breath, 
and mine, as he pulls me up—his hand, a hook
between my shoulder blades, and he calls me
by my baptized name, but the drowning in my blood 
has already named me something else.
 

—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024

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Danielle Jones: “When I found the book—its corner torn, its red cover creased—my sister was gone. I held the poetry anthology because she was no longer there to hold me, tell stories, or sing me to sleep. I gobbled up the words left behind (not much else for a child to eat in that house of grief). I dined on Dickinson, Cummings, Dunn, Sexton and Orr, Frost, Clifton, Rich, Keats. Their poems filled the bowl inside me.”

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August 15, 2024

“Triolet for Carol” by John L. StanizziPosted by

John L. Stanizzi

TRIOLET FOR CAROL

So many things that still feel new
are old, and that’s the way it goes.
This is what always happens to
so many things that still feel new.

I think of how I have loved you
all these years, and that just shows
so many things that still feel new
feel new because of the life we chose.

—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
Tribute to Love Poems

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John L. Stanizzi: “The poem is from a manuscript in progress called Hallelujah Time! based on the albums of Bob Marley—specifically Burnin’, Exodus, Confrontation, and Survival. The poems are loosely inspired by Bob’s songs, and when it’s appropriate the biblical inspiration Bob used to get to the writing of the song. The poems in the book appear in the same order as the songs on the albums. Completion of Hallelujah Time! is about two years ago. Jah Bless!”

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August 14, 2024

“In the House of God” by Shannan MannPosted by

Shannan Mann

IN THE HOUSE OF GOD

Doubt—dirt—blood—there is no bliss in the house of God.
How do you keep your shit together? You piss in the house of God.
 
He walks and does not walk. To hear him, not ears but fear.
To see? Wear fire. Bullet and ballad kiss in the house of God.
 
A million arrows we shot from here—
each one missed in the House of God.
 
Unaware Eve danced in the garden before
a serpent hissed in the house of God.
 
Culted and sculpted, I left a temple in tears and scars.
No one reached forth—such abyss in the house of God.
 
Communist heart—why weep in vain, in vanity for the lost?
Everyone else’s prayers too are dismissed in the house of God.
 
Begins like a joke but ends in guns—three men walk
—an American, a Nazi, a Swiss—in the house of God.
 
Apsaras, smoke, mirrors, rivers of alcohol, battle-soaked
axes, dirty underwear—all of this in the house of God?
 
Your farewell: Shannan, I’ll meet you beyond all that is right
or wrong. Beloved, betrayer, I await our tryst in the house of God.
 

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

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Shannan Mann: “Karan Kapoor introduced me to the form of the ghazal by sending me his most-favorite Agha Shahid Ali poem, ‘After You,’ which is a short, explosive ghazal. I immediately took to the form and started practicing it. Not much later I found I was working toward a book of ghazals which is now near complete. I am happy the form is still thriving, even in a ‘foreign’ language.” (web)

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