Dante Di Stefano: “This poem is about the horrible plane crash this week. I send my thoughts and deepest sympathies to the families of all the victims.” (web)
“Insomnia Chronicles XXVI” by Erin MurphyPosted by Rattle
Erin Murphy
INSOMNIA CHRONICLES XXVI
The night is full of insomniacs googling insomnia. Some of my friends are trying Dry January. Dryuary. Others are sober curious. There’s a mock cocktail called a Phony Negroni. It’s made with non-alcoholic gin. Phony Negroni. Phony baloney. When I was eight, my brother and I were walking by a house in our neighborhood when suddenly a slab of baloney sailed through the air and stuck to a chain link fence. There were no people or animals in sight. Such a funny word, baloney. What’s Biden’s favorite saying? Malarkey. So hokey. But then, even the word hokey is hokey. Monday we’ll inaugurate a felon the same day we celebrate Martin Luther King. Felonious Trump. For years we’d pass the brick rancher and say There’s the baloney house the way you might observe that it’s raining or snowing. We humans can normalize anything.
Erin Murphy: “The baloney house was a mid-century brick ranch that was nearly identical to my childhood home. I’ve wanted to write about it for years, and the upcoming inauguration finally gave me the opportunity.” (web)
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.”
Seth Peterson: “I recently stumbled upon the work Propublica has done to document the cost of ‘sweeps’ of homeless encampments. Like many, I have mixed feelings about the practice. This poem is informed, in part, by letters written by the unhoused people whose things were taken in sweeps. One woman said her husband’s ashes were taken and she hoped ‘he wasn’t in the dump.’ Last year (2024) saw the number of sweeps increase across the country, a trend that will likely continue in 2025.”
When I behold the charm
of evening skies […]
knowing that this galaxy of ours
is one of multitudes
in what we call the heavens,
it troubles me. It troubles me.
—President Jimmy Carter, from his poem “Considering the Void”
Jean Prokott: “America mourns the loss of President Jimmy Carter and celebrates one hell of a life lived. I’ve been reading his poetry this week and came upon this quote: ‘being president is as difficult as writing the perfect poem.’ If only all leaders were poets.” (web)
Erica Reid: “I actually do feel hope around the new year, but only because poetry makes space for the other less charming sides of my personality.” (web)
Eliza Gilbert: “A taxi crashed outside the Herald Square Macy’s on Christmas day. Six pedestrians were struck, but three refused medical attention. I imagine they must have partaken in a kind of life mathematics we all know.” (web)
