September 16, 2024

“As Fire, My Father” by Michael P. McManusPosted by

Michael P. McManus

AS FIRE, MY FATHER

My father as fire melts December snow
with each step he takes through a Pennsylvania field.

But there is no field there is no snow,
only a mud-rutted road where my father walks

as fire under a sky filled with molten geese,
which now know the horror of too much heat.

My father as fire sits in a flat-bottomed boat.
He poles across the water, looking down into it,

where he sees a glowing town a city & pillows,
on which ashes shape themselves into children’s faces,

& friends & former lovers & joyful leaps from remembered pets.
My father as fire believes in string theory & chaos,

convenience stores & muscle cars & the fly rod
abandoned to the cellar because fire & water no longer mix.

Some days the old rivers run through his eyes.
Some days his old eyes run through the rivers

like facets on a diamond like fangs on a snake,
like seven white horses drinking from a flaming trough.

My father as fire at seventy believes in the laying of hands,
an act which brings him both pleasure and pain,

the moment the father sees the son
close his eyes & begin to burn.

—from Rattle #24, Winter 2005

__________

Michael P. McManus: “Twenty years ago when I was in Yorkoska, Japan, I met a Zen Master while I was dabbling in Aikido. He sensed I was very cocky and he was right. One day he asked me, ‘show me your ego and place it in your hand.’ Now each time a poem comes to mind, I try to write it by that lessen learned.” (web)

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September 15, 2024

“Trump Says My College Town Has Immigrants Who Are Eating Their Pets” by Shuly Xóchitl CawoodPosted by

Shuly Xóchitl Cawood

TRUMP SAYS MY COLLEGE TOWN HAS IMMIGRANTS WHO ARE EATING THEIR PETS

We used to dance at the Regency Room in downtown Springfield on some
Thursday nights on Fountain Boulevard, all of us getting a ride
 
from whomever had a car and would take us there. We didn’t drink
back then but ordered pop or ice water and pretended we were older
 
and I would act like I was not looking for the RA I had a crush on
who had dated me then dropped me abruptly for another girl down the hall
 
even though in the years to come he would tell me how much he liked me
still, how he regretted the break, and I would look for him in so many
 
places—the Union, the pathway between Thomas Library and Firestine Hall,
and at every party, every gathering where students danced or smoked weed
 
or drank from the barrel juice someone had concocted of every alcohol-filled
green or brown or clear bottle. I found him, once or twice, and he had a way
 
of lying—to himself or to me, I’ll never know—and it would pull me back
into his orbit, or I threw myself into it. You get too close to some things
 
and they burn. A lie is kindling. Belief is the paper, sticks, all the wishes
for a thing that isn’t. Someone who builds a bonfire must be careful with the flame.
 
Someone who acts like the sun must tell people not to look directly into his eyes.
I looked for so long, I learned about a lie’s brightness. One day I saw him,
 
years later, and he seemed so easy to find. My eyes had adjusted, and I
understood darkness: how to touch it, and then how to walk away.
 

—from Poets Respond

__________

Shuly Xóchitl Cawood: “In the debate, Trump says that immigrants in Springfield, OH (where I went to college) has immigrants who are eating pets. I was thinking about how people believe lies, get swept up in charisma, so I wrote this poem about how that happened to me.” (web)

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September 14, 2024

“Life Lessons from an Anxious Cheerleader” by Sarah ParmetPosted by

Sarah Parmet (age 15)

LIFE LESSONS FROM AN ANXIOUS CHEERLEADER

1. If a flyer hits the ground, we do fifty burpees.
Yes, the entire team.
Today, I was that flyer. They threw me
Into the air. They were supposed to
Catch me in a cradle, but it was the track
That caught me instead—hard, ice cold
As it met my shoulder and my cheek.
 
I grazed my elbow; for three days, my shoulder hurt.
“I’m ok,” I said.
One, we chant. Two, three …
My vision ping-pongs between the bleachers and
Twenty-five …
The peeling white line on the track.
Fifty.
 
2. Do not forget bug spray.
Mosquitoes will swarm your legs.
They will itch like crazy.
 
3. You always know when the coaches talk about you,
But you never know what they’re saying. You will
Stand there, wondering if they know
You can hear them. Cycling through
Every possible scenario, you hope
What they’re saying is good. It is
Probably not, but they refuse to say it to your face.
 
4. The dance team will talk shit about you
Behind your back. Don’t let them
Get away with it. You’ll catch the captain
Call you JV in front of all her friends, because
A sport with the highest rate of injury
For female athletes obviously doesn’t count
As varsity.
 
Pro tip: If this upsets you like it upsets me,
Imagine them messing up their halftime routine.
Spoiler alert: they messed up their halftime routine.
 
5. When doing cheer jumping jacks, always
Hit a high “V” and slap your thighs
On the way down. (I know it sounds weird.)
This will annoy the dance captain
And she’ll say, “That’s disgusting.”
Maybe it is. So slap your thighs
As loud as possible.
 
6. A high ponytail means right on top of your head.
Your hair follicles should feel yanked out
Of your skull, and if you’re debating
The prospects of early-onset alopecia,
You did your hair right.
 
7. Pain is pain no matter where you feel it.
But some kinds are worse than others.
My toes still cramp every time
They boost me into an extension—
6 and a half feet in the air. But the feeling of
Falling out of my teammate’s hands—
That’s worse.
 
8. You’ll doubt whether you’re even cut out
To be a flyer. The coach compares me
To Ellie Liou. In front of everyone, she tells me
To do it more like Emma Cohen.
“Try pushing your shoulders back more.”
“Make sure to lock out.”
I know they just want to help, but it’s hard
To accept that you are the one
Bringing everyone down.
 
9. Do. Not. Be. Late.
Do you want to run for twelve minutes?
 
10. Everyone can see you.
Hands stained red from the pale track, I hold them
Up to the setting sun, as if they block out
The light that tricks and deceives. I’ll start
Hyperventilating before each stunt—I cannot
Hide when I touch the sky—what is worse?
Knowing how to disappear or never being seen at all?
 
11. No matter how difficult cheer is,
Your teammates have your back. Literally.
 

—from 2024 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

__________

Why do you like to write poetry?

Sarah Parmet: “For me, writing poetry isn’t a choice—it’s an instinct. It’s a way of sorting out complicated emotions, but also remembering my experiences. Sometimes, I’m going about my day and I just have the urge to drop everything and write all my ideas down. Obviously, this is not possible when I’m in the middle of a physics test, so I end up writing a lot at 12 a.m. I love being able to look back at my old work and see not only how I change and develop as a writer, but as a person as well.”

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September 13, 2024

“Money Ghazal” by Alison StonePosted by

Alison Stone

MONEY GHAZAL

Easy new habits—gain weight, lose money.
Mamma said, Don’t wed for love. Choose money.
 
Life is suffering, Buddha taught. He’s right.
Which brings more comfort—a hug? Booze? Money?
 
Midnight. Lipstick on glasses, smoky air.
A blade shines. Someone sings the blues. Money
 
changes hands. A morning hike raises her
mood—so much beauty to peruse! Money
 
irrelevant. The landscape louder than
her thoughts. Today’s dose of bad news—money
 
denied to the Puerto Rican poor. Slick,
bloated corporate lawyers ooze money.
 
Grandpa’s waxy face stitched into a smile.
“Grieving” relatives argue—whose money?
 
The comedian struggles, wipes his brow.
When quips about sex don’t amuse, money
 
gets a wry chuckle. So does aging. Sticks
and stones is bullshit. Words can bruise. Money,
 
or lack of it, can cause death. Exhausted
from too-little fun, he hits snooze. Money’s
 
an abstraction, bills just ink on paper,
really. The YouTuber gets views, money.
 
Birds sing morning songs. The neighbors argue
or make loud love. My kitten mews. Money
 
talks, but what does it say? I open doors
to joy? Get to work? We accuse money
 
of our own vices. Top lip bitten in
concentration, my daughter glues money
 
to cardboard—one hundred pennies for school’s
hundredth day. I hope she learns—fuse money
 
and craft, abandon the myth of starving
creatives. A smart artist woos money.
 
Poet, if an altar and incense won’t
draw Her, why not offer your muse money?
 

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

__________

Alison Stone: “I was introduced to the form decades ago and fell in love with it. I’m neurodivergent, so I loved the structure and the syllable counting. I also love the freedom to jump around, knowing that the rhyme and refrain offer connection. Also, as a working mother, I love being able to write poems ‘in pieces’—I can work on one or two couplets, then go to work, then come back to it. I’ve written over 100 ghazals and even have an entire book of ghazals.” (web)

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September 12, 2024

“Safety Features” by Eric KocherPosted by

Eric Kocher

SAFETY FEATURES

Among clouds, I have an empty plastic cup
But I’m afraid where we are going,
 
The Pacific Northwest,
The Cascadia Subduction Zone,
 
Will be struck by a massive and violent
Earthquake that erases everything west
 
Of I-5, that my wife and I
Will be tragically killed by a tsunami
 
While on a whale-watching tour,
Clumsy in the romantic wonder
 
Of nature, and that our daughter
Will have to learn what that means
 
In age-appropriate chunks as she gets older,
First that we are gone, then how,
 
That we were people who were clumsy
In our romantic wonder of nature,
 
And so on like that until I am breathing
All weird and panicking up here,
 
Trying to remind myself that none of this
Is an appropriate disposition
 
For someone going on vacation. At least
I can be grateful that we all know what to do
 
In the event of a water landing.
We know about the safety features,
 
Of this particular aircraft,
Even as I feel my feet swelling in the atmosphere.
 
I untie my shoes and press the button overhead.
I’ll get another Dewar’s; I’ll try this again.
 

—from Sky Mall
2024 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

__________

Eric Kocher: “A little over ten years ago, my friend Mark made a joke. He said that I should try to be the first person to publish a poem in Sky Mall Magazine. There was something about shopping for the most inane, kitschy stuff on the planet while flying 30,000 feet above it, just to avoid a moment of boredom, that seemed to be the antithesis of poetry. The words “Sky Mall” got stuck in my head—lodged there. This is almost always how poems happen for me. Language itself seems to be in the way just long enough to build tension before it can open into a space that pulls me forward. These poems finally arrived while I was traveling, first alone, and then the following year with my wife, as a new parent in that hazy dream of the post-pandemic. Writing them felt like going on a shopping spree, of sorts, so I tried to let myself say yes to everything.”

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September 11, 2024

“Yeh Dooriyan (These Distances)” by Surendriya RaoPosted by

Surendriya Rao

YEH DOORIYAN (THESE DISTANCES)

Held in my heart, yet you are gone: a riddle.  
Your voice heard in my thoughts, you don’t respond: a riddle. 
 
Always the earth and sky are cleaved apart, 
a bird’s swift shadow runs along the ground: a riddle.  
 
The tide that rocks the womb-dark ocean cradle,  
lullabies the stone-dead, distant moon: a riddle. 
 
Migrant yellow warblers come each spring, 
perform new lines to old, unwritten songs: a riddle.  
 
My fingers interlace a tress of hair,  
fall back, nobody’s there. I am alone: a riddle.  
 
Flies congregate, announcing Death has come 
to host a banquet honoring no one: a riddle.  
 
Scouring your grimy pan to sheen, SuRa: 
why do the things we touch become undone? A riddle.
 

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

__________

Surendriya Rao: “I am an American poet of Indian origin. I heard ghazals sung from a young age, but never thought of them as poetry. I thought of them as love songs, including some old Bollywood favorites, or ‘light classical’ music. It wasn’t until about seven years ago that a poet friend spoke to me about their work with the ghazal form and I was intrigued. Their work opened a route into the literary ghazal tradition for me, leading to and through Hafez, Ghalib, Hassan, and Iqbal, and then grappling with ghazal in English, including Aga Shahid Ali’s poems and his sometimes-uncompromising stance on translating the ghazal’s formal properties. The form feels a bit exotic to me (a Hindu child of the South Indian diaspora), given its entry into the Indian literary scene from Arabic and Persian antecedents and its rootedness in Islamic cultural spheres and contexts. I am aware of this outside/other self when writing ghazal poems, and I think this brings out different tendencies and sometimes pleasantly surprising results. There is a melancholic tendency of the ghazal that I find builds naturally even in English with the repetition of the qaafiyaa rhyme and radif refrain. I try to nod to the ghazal tradition of an unrequited lover as speaker by centering my work in ghazal forms around feelings like yearning, distance, absence, and grasping.” (web)

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September 10, 2024

“Abyss” by Mike BaylesPosted by

Mike Bayles

ABYSS

The word shadowed the lines
of a friend’s poem just as
it had found its way
into others he shared.
He said that he was the last Romantic poet
and I politely nodded.
His voice quivered as he read
line after line as if the poem was real.
I said to myself, not again.
He said that poets needed to suffer
like the friend who embraced her delusions
and they spoke on the phone every day.
He said that when he read Baudelaire
to his girlfriend he almost got laid
yet they liked arguing about politics
in the middle of dates.
When he argued with me
I said I just wanted to enjoy the nightlights.
He lamented the death of Sylvia
as if in love.
I said she liked to keep a clean house
but now she’s dead.
When I read him a poem
about blossoms and trees
and sunlight
he said I wasn’t confessional.
The night he shaved his wrist
he trembled.
I drove him to the emergency room
bearing the weight of his life.
 

—from Prompt Poem of the Month
August 2024

__________

Prompt: Write a poem with your least favorite word to see in a poem as the title. Include an explanation of why it’s your least favorite in the submission note.

Note from the series editor, Katie Dozier: “When I came up with this prompt, I wondered if it was possible to turn a poem titled with a disliked word inward on itself in such a way that it was stronger because of it—like a vortex. Mike’s poem does exactly that, first by inviting the reader on a journey that pokes fun at a friend who ignores contemporary poetry—only to arrive at the notion that life does indeed contain the epic themes conquered headfirst by the poets of yesteryear. The title plays on our expectations as readers scanning disdainfully for melodrama at the start, and, given that, we feel relief at the unexpectedly funny lines. And finally, we realize that we were swirling deeper into an extended metaphor the whole time.”

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