Search Results for: art beck

March 29, 2023

Endorsed by … (updated periodically)

Timothy Green, Rattle
Katie Dozier (KHD), The NFT Poetry Gallery
RG Evans, Imagine Sisyphus Happy
Gordon Kippola
Joshua Eric Williams, The Strangest Conversation
Ana María Caballero
Michael T. Young, The Infinite Doctrine of Water
Abby Steiner, abbysteinerwrites.com
Jess Britton
Frank Beltrano
Kimberly Williams
Dick Westheimer
Christine Potter
Gwendolyn Soper
Alexandra Umlas, At the Table of the Unknown
David motame
Hannah Levy, The Rebis
J. O’Nym
Neall Calvert, editor of 72 books
Julian Matthews, Trinetizen
Mohammed Yusuf
Monica Flegg, Somewhere in the Cycle
Melissa Coffey, Scrittura
Jean Berry
Margaret Kiernan
Kari Gunter-Seymour, Women Speak Anthologies
Rachel Custer, Flatback Sally Country
Lisa Venes
Sophia Bischoff, wordstobepoetry
Jamison Dove
Debra Harmon
Sylvie Bax
Tom Barlow
Pamela Ross
Ankit Raj Ojha, The Hooghly Review; Pinpricks
CR Green
Cindy Patrick
Mark Danowsky, ONE ART: a journal of poetry
Wayne Benson, American Writers Review
Richard Gilbert, Heliosparrow Poetry Journal
Rumaisa Maryam Samir
Biswajit Mishra, 365-Ramblings of an Insomniac
Joe Barca
John Atkinson
Dotty LeMieux, Henceforth I Ask Not Good Fortune; Viruses, Guns and War
Karen Mooney, Missing Pieces & co-author of Penned In
Paul Corbeil
Susan DiPronio
Rowan Ferrie
Hongwei
Kagen Aurencz Zethmayr
Keith Gorman
Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose, Imago, Dei; Wild Things
Virginia Parfitt
Kathryn
Daniel Dicks
Mary Moreno
Ann van Wijgerden
Olga Klekner
X. P. Callahan
Lory Widmer Hess
David Eadington
Pris Campbell, Truth and Other Lies
Lauren O’Donovan, HOWL New Irish Writing
Wess Mongo Jolley, The Last Handful of Clover
Cindy Guentherman
Denise Garvey
Clare MacQueen, MacQueen’s Quinterly
Matt Mason, I Have a Poem the Size of the Moon
Raka Chaki
Jeffry L Littlejohn
Kathy Figueroa, Paudash Poems; Flowertopia; The Cathedral of the Eternal Blue Sky
Lisa
Charlotte Innes
Carla Schwartz, Signs of Marriage
B. J. Buckley, In January, the Geese
Barbara Schweitzer, 33 1/3: Soap Opera Sonnets
Sarah Zacharias
Sean Kelbley
Stephen DiLauro
Heather Hubler, Vocal; Medium
Erica Reid
Bill Garvey
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, All the Honey; Hush; Naked for Tea
elizabeth beck
Jack Powers, Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar; Still Love
Jody Stewart, This Momentary World: Selected Poems 1975-2014
Rebecca Graves
Dana Reddick
Lesley-Anne Evans, Mute Swan; Poems for Maria Queen of the World
Stephen Grant, 149 Paintings You Really Need to See in North America (co-author)
Susan L Lipson
Clayton Clark
Cathy Hailey, I’d Rather Be a Hyacinth
Robbi Nester
Susan L Lipson
Judy Kronenfeld, Groaning and Singing; Bird Flying through the Banquet
Jendi Reiter, Winning Writers
Jennifer Phillips, A Song of Ascents
Carol Coven Grannick, Reeni’s Turn
Christine Pennylegion
Carol Shamon, A Different More
Jeanne Chinard
Katherine Matiko
Deborah J.Ranz-Smith
Miranda Barfuss
Maxima Kahn, Fierce Aria
Chris Arvidson, The House Inside My Head
Seif-Eldeine Och, Voices from a Forgotten Letter: Poems on the Syrian Civil War
Lois Baer Barr, Tracks: Poems on the “L”
Perie Longo, Baggage Claim: Poems
Scott Waters, Arks, a poetry chapbook curated by Selcouth Station press
John Maney
Scott Smith
Brandyce Ingram
Hadley Grace
Freya Rohn, The Ariadne Archive
Paula Lepp
Elizabeth McCarthy
Todd Heldt
Gillian Mellor
Laura Turnbull
Robert Bensen, Woodland Arts Editions
Kirk Swearingen
Kim Goldberg, Devolution
Nadia Ibrashi
Nathalie C.M. Sabbagh
William Butler, Pure Slush
Randall McNair, The #Barpoems Series
Margret Lockwood
Margaret Rosenau
Sharon Lopez Mooney
Colleen Bak, Breadcrumbs
David Q Hutcheson-Tipton
Julie Daniels
Ellen Austin-Li, Firefly; Lockdown: Scenes from Early in the Pandemic
Autumn Newman
Andrea Ferrari Kristeller
Andrew Glen
Beatriz F. Fernandez, The Ocean Between Us
Patricia
Francis Hicks, The Long Ride: Learning About Life From An Outlaw Biker
Sabne Raznik, AvantAppal(achia)
Sue Reynolds, Piquant Press
Diane Haynes, Jane Ray’s Wildlife Rescue Series
Jim Stewart, Ochoco Reach; White Ravens: and More Stories
Roger Desy
Rachel Kellum, Wordweeds.com
Martha Klein Henrickson
Wesley Houp
Dig Wayne, Hip Pockets
Michael dupuy
Candace Kubinec
Louise Moises
Aurore Sibley, All These Little Remonstrations
Joe Wilcox
Marian O’Shea Wernicke, Toward That Which is Beautiful; Out of Ireland
Dave Cavanagh, The Somnambulist; The Good Life
Art Curtis
Claudia Putnam, The Land of Stone and River
Joannah Whitney
Mike Brubaker
Bruce Niedt, The Bungalow of Colorful Aging
Jimmy Pappas, Falling off the Empire state Building
Dawn DeVoe
Debra Bennett
Irena
Marcia Morley
Cynthia Pratt
Jay J Pennington
Lily Prigioniero
Cindy Gore
Colin Hopkirk, Natured
Catharine Bramkamp
Lisa Lopresti, Bird Song; Nectar in the Silences
Carl Heap
Lara Phelps
Diana Fusting
Christa fairbrother
David Colodney, Mimeograph
Stephanie Johnson, Novel Slices
Esther Ottaway, Blood Universe; Intimate, Low-voiced, Delicate Things; She Doesn’t Seem Autistic
William Welch, Doubly Mad
Ceci Webb
Kelly Sargent, Seeing Voices: Poetry in Motion
Elizabeth Boquet, Galoshes
Walter Crump
April Manteris
Sabrina (Brie) Manno, A Momma & Her Pen
Mari Maxwell
Michael Blumenthal, Poems, Selected & New, 1980-2023
Janet Pollock Millar
Chibuike
Mary Magee
April Ridge
Stanford M. Forrester/sekiro, Bottle Rockets Press
hannah brooks
Jack Byrom, Stories from the Road
Liza Moore
Joshua Johnson, @Haiku10k
Meg Weston, ThePoetsCorner.org; Magma Intrusions
Lynne Bronstein, Nasty Girls
Ann Lilly Jose
Mark Cassidy
Holly G Jahangiri
Susy Kamber
Jeff Siggins, The Tranquility Calendar
Carolyn Martin, Kosmos Quarterly
Nolcha M Fox, Open Arts Forum; Cow Candy
Kim
Carol Levin
Thomas Allbaugh, The View from January
TA Dugan
Laurel Hedges, The Evil Lurker
Patricia Smith Ranzoni
Barb McCullough
Iris Arenson-Fuller
Ron Perovich
Peter A. Witt
Richard Simonds
Aaron Wulf, Dragonband Tales series
Sravanireddy
Dale Going, The View They Arrange
Lauren Sylvia Foster
Prartho Sereno, Indian Rope Trick; Elephant Raga
Mary Meriam, Lavender Review
St. Leger “Monty” Joynes
Deborah Tobola, Hummingbird in Underworld: Teaching in a Men’s Prison
Troy Johnson
Michael New
Martyn Crucefix
Nancy Foley
Michelle Ballou
Lollie Butler
Susan Dines
Mrs Sylvia Mary Clare, Mindfully Speaking
Carl “Papa” Palmer
Sarah Goettsch
Lucy Griffith
Irfan Afzal
Kaisa Miller
Les Brown, Cold Forge
Sujata Lakhe
Effy Wild
Kelly Davis, kellydavis.co.uk
Emma Wasserman
Dean Robbins, Dean Robbins’ Poetry
Donna Henderson, The Eddy Fence
Nancy R. Yang
Janice Mathis, Broken Bits for the Mosaic; Clouds in the Looking Glass
Chad Norman, A Matter of Inclusion
Cristy Watson
Paul-Newell Reaves, Defenestrationism.net
Alexey Deyneko
Ray Liversidge
Ursula Vaira, And See What Happens
Anurima Shivade
Maurice Corlett
Mark, Approaching Poetry
Eugene Datta
Martha Klein Henrickson
Aaron Sandberg
Thomas Terceira
Mary Dean Carter
Deborah Kennedy, Nature Speaks: Art and Poetry for the Earth
Malvika Vazalwar
Michael Salcman, The Clock Made of Confetti; The Enemy of Good is Better
Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca, Family Sunday; Light of the Sabbath
Byung A. Fallgren
Brian O’Sullivan
James Higgins
Irene Fick, The Stories We Tell; The Wild Side of the Window
Karen Stone
Pamela Leavey
Faye Turner Johnson
Jim Feeney
Nupur, Insta Gita, Insta Women
Maureen Hurley
Emilio Carrero, Southeast Review
Susan Polizzotto, Tree Frogs or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying
Glen Hunting
Lindsey Harrington
Gale Sprinkle Tousignant
Brenda Martin
Danilo Art-Merbitz
Martina Robles Gallegos, Grab the Bull by the Horns: Escaped Death to Face Hell
Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum, Red Sweater Press
Gerry Stefanson
JoyAnne O’Donnell, Heaven’s Medal
Stewart Florsheim, Amusing the Angels
Katharine Weinmann, awabisabilife.ca
Susan Niemi
Joseph Chaney, Wolfson Press
Earl Keener
Tajender Singh Luthra
Laura Johnson, The Color of Truth; Not Yet
Kelly O’Brien-Yetto, Impressions
Amy Coulombe
Kari martindale, Pen in Hand (co-editor)
LennArrrt, LennArrrt.se
Mary Chris Bailey, 805 Art and Lit (guest editor)
Lolo 2inj, Honey & Gravel
Jefferson Carter, Yesternow
Danielle Alexich
Doug Jacquier, sixcrookedhighways.com
Suzanne Biro, processpeace.com
Stephanie Gail Eagleson
Glenn Pape
H. Ní Aódagaín
Lyndsay Wheble
Rachel Pollock, Exit Wound; Journey to Long Nose
Debbie Walker-Lass
Ana Neculicioiu
Margot Suydam
Barry Casey, Wandering, Not Lost
Laura Esther Sciortino
Celia Sorhaindo, Radical Normalisation; Guabancex
Stacia O’Connell
Rose Lennard
Jason Conway, Steel Jackdaw
Vincent Brincat
B.A. Van Sise
Zakia R Khwaja
Olivia Spring, SICK magazine
Paul Lawrence Andino, Here, A collection of Poems & Art
Trevor Cunnington, The Invisible Truth
Marc Wheeler
Thomas E. Strunk, Transfigurations
Erica Freiburger
Adyasha Priyadarshini
Wendy Babiak, Conspiracy of Leaves
Elena Falcon
Elaine Sorrentino
Allen Blair, The Uncommon GRACkle
Carolyn Breedlove
Robin Gabbert
Jason Z Guest, Wild Words: A Poetry Newsletter
Linda McQuarrie-Bowerman
Julie Steiner
Sourajit roy
Sandra Inskeep-Fox
Petros Isaakidis
Joji Mathew
Hannele Luhtasela
Karin Evans, The Lost Daughters of China
Susie Whelehan, The Sky Laughs at Borders
Scott Hammond
Anjali Pandey
Jason Conway, Steel Jackdaw
BERN
Floyd Brigdon
Amber Shockley
JoyAnne O’Donnell, Heaven’s Medal
Kath Abela Wilson, Poets Salon, ColoradoBlvd.com
Elena de Roo, The Rain Train
Sage Cohen, Writing the Life Poetic
Garrett J Brown
Laurie Flanigan
Nikita Parik, My City is a Murder of Crows
Sara Costantino
David Cooke, Poetry Boxes
Adam Summers, My garden is a girl

April 13, 2022

“On a Square on a Screen” by Sara BeckPosted by

Sara Beck

ON A SQUARE ON A SCREEN

She is animated in her Zoom square
her hands moving,
her eyes urging us to stay with her, 
to understand
the vocabulary of the election 
in American Sign Language.
candidate. election. vote. party. republican. democrat. independent. win.
It is Election Day 2020, and my brain is crowded with worry 
and cannot make room to process new words taught by a face on a square 
on a screen
but we don’t get it, so she spells it out with her fingers, slowly
for those of us used to signing with children 
who speak an ASL more about impressions of combined letters
than precise spellings
we tend to get so hung up on the pesky individual letters—
pausing to wonder if that p was a k—
that we miss the rest of the story and so
democrat and republican are words that I don’t quite catch.
When she calls on each of us, 
waiting the several seconds it takes us to 
catch our sign name on her hands
in her square on our screens,
when she asks: WHICH-PARTY-YOU-SUPPORT?
I do not know what to say.
She pauses, she is patient, though I don’t know why
because as a group, we are painfully slow 
but she knows that practice makes progress 
so she throws me a bone, she says
I-SUPPORT-REPUBLICAN-PARTY-YOU? 
WHICH-PARTY-YOU-SUPPORT?
And I’m thrown off 
because Trump?
and Stella?
I can hardly believe it, but then it occurs to me that 
I don’t even know those words, really,
and maybe she didn’t say that at all and 
even if she did, would it change how I feel 
about this woman who teaches my nephew, 
who teaches me, and my mom, and my dad, 
and my brother-in-law
for free
or maybe just for the feeling of knowing that 
one Deaf child she cares about will have a family
who speaks his language, 
even if they can’t precisely tell 
the difference between the words
republican and democrat?
I am a careful student, as a rule, 
but I leave without learning the difference 
because tonight, I don’t want to see it.
I don’t want to linger on the difference because 
maybe if I don’t know how to describe it,
it will disappear
and we can just be people 
learning each other’s languages
from a square on a screen.

—from Rattle #75, Spring 2022

__________

Sara Beck: “My nephew is eight years old, and he is my inspiration for learning American Sign Language. I’ve learned bits and pieces from lots of places—my sister (his mom), TikTok, Instagram, a couple of college courses, loads of books, and during the long year of the pandemic, a brilliant Deaf teacher over Zoom. I wrote this poem to capture a moment in all its contradictory glory, and I share it with gratitude for the messiness of human connection.” (web)

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March 15, 2021

“I Admit Myself to the Psych Ward in a Pandemic” by Beck AnsonPosted by

Beck Anson

I ADMIT MYSELF TO THE PSYCH WARD IN A PANDEMIC

/
By now I know the drill—
stuff clothes into a bag, pull
the strings out of my sweatpants,
slip on my black slip-on Vans,
clip my fingernails into the trash can
because who knows when I’ll be able to next.
I can’t bring my deodorant because
it has alcohol in the top three ingredients, and yes,
patients actually try to get drunk on their toiletries.
I toss a few books of poetry into the bag;
there is always time to read.
The look in my lover’s eyes says it all—
there is never enough room for her.
/
My friend drives me to the hospital this time.
At the ER I am forced to change into paper scrubs
the color of oxidized blood, not vein blue like last time.
Outside my door sits my own personal bodyguard
but instead of protecting me from other people
he’s there to protect me from myself.
I wear a yellow surgical mask while
the physician assistant writes in his notes
female-to-male transgendered with “top” surgery only.
As if I wasn’t a person; as if it were my genitals
who tied the noose in my bedroom.
/
I speak with the on-call psychiatrist through
an iPad on wheels, and I can’t help but wonder
what is hiding behind his fake desert background?
There are no beds on the voluntary unit,
no beds on the involuntary, either.
I’m to be transferred elsewhere, he says,
like I’m already a body in a bag.
He dismisses me by lifting his hand
to his hairline and tipping an invisible cowboy hat
like he is some kind of psychiatric lone ranger.
/
I wait a whole 24 hours before being admitted
to a locked unit at another hospital
in a sleepy town two hours south of here.
I’m strapped to a stretcher by a man named Reuban,
and all I can think about is how fucking hungry I am.
Through the back of the ambulance I look out
past tears at greening pastures rolling by—
the landscape swinging high to low and back again,
the silos as dilapidated as my will to live.
It’s mid-May in Vermont, and everything
is coming back to life, everything but me.
/
I am greeted by a team of security guards
who escort me up to the ward. One of them
won’t stop talking about how much he loves my name—
you must be some kind of a celebrity.
But my name ignites off his tongue harsh and explosive,
and each time he says it, my eyes grow a little bit darker
because my name is stronger than I’ll ever be.
He brings me to my room, sterile and suicide-proof—
no mirror above the sink, no strings on the blinds;
just a bed bolted to the floor, a weighted chair,
and nowhere to escape from myself.
/
I’m often asked what it is actually like.
The easy answer is styrofoam meal trays, plastic cutlery,
and butternut squash puree—baby food.
It’s checks every 15 minutes, the hours divided
into time I am alone and time I am alone and seen.
It’s sitting cross-legged on the floor of an outdoor enclosure
listening to spring peepers in the distance
and Pink Floyd strumming through the speakers.
It’s the girl with wasps inside her brain,
another who spent her entire stimulus check on cocaine.
It’s the boy who thinks we’re all being controlled by Nazis
and there’s me thinking he’s not exactly wrong, is he?
The hard answer is it’s just like you’d think it would be.
The hard answer is we’re all being controlled by something
we can’t touch or see.

—from Rattle #70, Winter 2020
Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist

__________

Beck Anson: “‘I Admit Myself to the Psych Ward in a Pandemic’ speaks to the often experienced disembodiment one feels as a psych patient entering a locked psychiatric unit, specifically during the coronavirus pandemic. I am an emerging queer and trans writer from New England. I write to start a conversation—first with myself, then with others (and sometimes it’s the other way around).” (web)

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March 16, 2018

“Please, Please, Please” by Lolita Stewart-WhitePosted by

Lolita Stewart-White

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE

for President Barack Obama

baby please don’t go
if you do who will be pleased
by our cornrows
the way they swoop down
our black swan necks

we want you back darlin’
your grace and ease
are so damn pleasing

baby please don’t go
and we’ll do up our dos
with doo wop
rock kinky locks
and knotted crowns
just for you

please, please, please

honey please
don’t go
oh, oh
we love you so
your smooth talk
not a crease in your tone

baby you’re our bridge of light
between mourning and morning
you wring the blues
from our walking shoes

please, please, please

bear witness Barry
listen to our pleas
cradle us once again
please

—from Rattle #58, Winter 2017

__________

Lolita Stewart-White: “This poem is after James Brown’s famous song, ‘Please, Please, Please’ where the Godfather of Soul begs a woman to please come home. I was listening to it one night and thinking about President Obama. How I wish we could serenade and beckon him back to the White House.”

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December 18, 2016

“The Days Don’t Stop” by Zeina Hashem BeckPosted by

Zeina Hashem Beck

THE DAYS DON’T STOP

the Tyrants sleep like gods
the Diplomats regret
the Diplomats are at their dinner tables
the Dancers dance
the Baker bakes the Bread rises
the Earth orbits
the Mothers weep
the Fathers weep
the Children walk in their coats
the Children know
a law against killing people in houses
is not the same as not killing people in houses
the Rain drops
the Poet writes the dead
City’s name
the dead City remains dead open
like a cow hung in the cold of the slaughterhouse
the Lovers touch
the Singers sing
the Nightmares know
dreaming of being buried under the rubble
is not the same as being buried under the rubble
the Morning comes
the Bookkeepers count the Deaths & Births
the holy Book says
whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it
& whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it
O eternal Cinematographer
the Deeds flicker
on the screens of Hell & Heaven
the fallen building keeps falling
the Saved have no Peace
the tides of Blood & Hope eat the body like a disease
O Lord please do not heal us

—Poets Respond
December 18, 2016

[download audio]

__________

Zeina Hashem Beck: “This poem is for Aleppo.” (website)

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October 13, 2016

“This Country: Ghazal for Abdel Halim Hafez” by Zeina Hashem BeckPosted by

Zeina Hashem Beck

THIS COUNTRY: GHAZAL FOR ABDEL HALIM HAFEZ

Time has come knocking on my door, and I’ve told him there’s no healing this country.
I’ve loved and I’ve forgotten. Hozn isn’t merely sadness—she can cling, this country.

On stage, I gather hozn with my hands, gesturing here, and here,
and here my mother died three days after I was born to sing this country.

I’ve written letters from underneath the water. I’ve grown gills. I’ve waited
a long time in my backstage womb before my first breath, my beginning, this country.

My first concert was on a rooftop, like moonlight, like flocks of home-bred pigeons.
Later, I became a dark nightingale. No one could stop my heart from conquering this country.

When Abdel Nasser was defeated, I sang that Masr was washing her hair by the water,
the same water that has gifted me my disease. Still, she loves the morning, this country.

I traced a line from the Qur’an in the air the last time I left for a hospital in
London. Girls threw themselves off balconies the day I died. She has beautiful ways of keening, this country.

One of my songs ends with Laughter and starts with Love. Sing it. I had a radio
near my hospital bed. I could hear Cairo clearly, could hear her ring, this country.

—from 3arabi Song
2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

[download audio]

__________

Zeina Hashem Beck: “Abdel Halim Hafez was one of the most popular Egyptian singers, very well-known across the Arab world. He died in 1977 at age 47 in London, where he was undergoing treatment for Bilharzia, which he had caught as a kid. He was nicknamed ‘The Dark Nightingale.’ Stanzas 1, 3, 5, and 7 contain references to his songs. The word hozn is Arabic for ‘sadness,’ and Masr is Arabic for ‘Egypt.'” (website)

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October 6, 2015

“Joint National Commissions Galore” by Daniel BeckerPosted by

Daniel Becker

JOINT NATIONAL COMMISSIONS GALORE

I like the new cholesterol guidelines
better than the old guidelines: no room for confusion,
like the warning at the edge of a flat world.

But with or without guidelines time marches on,
arteries harden and narrow, sooner or later
somewhere inside each of us the blood will make

a whoosh whoosh sound while getting to where it is going.
In med school Professor Lub Dub Smith taught us how
to listen to hearts that for classroom purposes

made the namesake sounds as valves close in sequence.
He would stand at the podium and imitate the heart,
adding clicks, murmurs, rumbles, gallops, and snaps

according to where the heart was troubled.
We loved him standing up there and sounding
like an exotic male bird showing off for the ladies.

I offer my stethoscope to the patient who whooshes
and he acts as if he wishes I hadn’t assumed
my inner ears are clean enough to touch by proxy.

But a little too close for comfort is how we learn,
that’s how we know exactly where to listen.
If one day I look in one ear and out the other

I’ll never make that joke again. I’d issue the standard warning
against going too far with Q-tips and leave it at that.
People don’t need to know everything, all the details

that don’t matter. Why the chloride is high
is like asking why normal is normal and then you need
to go statistic and draw the normal distribution in the air,

taking the audience out there on one tail or the other
of the bell-shaped curve, at which point they take my hand
from whatever horizon it’s pointing at and say it’s ok,

it’s going to be ok. Not normal isn’t so bad,
after all each result on the chem 20 panel has a 5% chance
of being too high or low, and the chance of a normal person

being normal for everything is about 50%, lower than you’d guess.
I used to give that lecture and the students compared me
and the subject to watching grass grow or paint dry.

No one mentioned my dry wit. Later in life they will recount
eternity in an hour and return to the difference
between paint drying and grass growing, apply that wisdom

to their daily yoga practice, not only apply it but rub it in
to achieve a carefree finish. People don’t know carefree
until an asteroid out of nowhere blots it and the horizon out

then crashes through the ceiling so there’s no place to sit
except on the edge of a speck of the big bang.
In that gloomy light what looks like a mixed metaphor

turns out is an elephant hogging the sofa.
Best not to talk too much about something like that,
best to reframe that experience, after all

it was only a small asteroid, maybe just a meteor,
a shooting star, someone’s wish wishing to come true.
The doctors say maybe we can help a little

and the patient decides a little chemo sounds better
than nothing. It’s easier to hear what we want to hear,
and not just because of ear wax or the vacuum

that used to be memory or good old reliable denial—
which may be dumb but is not stupid—
but because of Charles Darwin and natural selection.

Counting on happy endings helps us reproduce,
impose sanctions, plan for retirement, trust sunscreen,
overcome modesty, fall in love and stay in love

like that lively couple French kissing on the beach.
The French also invented the stethoscope. Whoosh
you want to hear him whisper in her ear.

Their private joke. Shush her private answer.
His cholesterol looks high, sugar and blood pressure too,
the kind of more than chunky more than middle-aged guy

who drops dead more often than chance would allow.
Is laughter his best medicine?
Not according to the Joint National Commission.

With electronic medical records it’s easy to rank patients
with diabetes and learn the higher numbers are people
who like to thank the staff with home baked cookies.

It’s a sweet gesture. Sharing makes them happy.
We let them be happy but we can’t make them,
not that there are guidelines. You can make

an old friend happy just by bumping into him
on the sidewalk. He’ll say how happy he is to see you.
Then say it again to make it stick. You smile back.

You stop slouching. You know that feeling when you finally
get around to changing the light bulb in the garage
and can go out there and actually see? That’s how light it feels:

two old friends in the daylight savings delayed dawn
waiting for the indoor pool to open. Cholesterol doesn’t come up,
but staying alive is implied by context. Why else be up early

swimming laps and asking existential questions?
Why does the water feel cold even though it isn’t?
Why keep the locker room so cold? Why do goggles

fit perfect one day and leak the next?
Same head, same beady little Kafka eyes that are overdue,
according to the postcard, for a check-up.

There’s a moment during that exam when the reflection
of the optic nerve is visible to its owner,
just a glimpse is all you get, it seeing you seeing it,

hardly counts as introspection but what could be more meta?
Halls of mirrors for one thing. Guidelines for another.
Thousands of randomized patients and after a while

they look so much like you or me that escape is impossible.
While standing in line getting guidelined to death,
while explaining to the nurse your pressure is always high

at the doctor’s office, while saying aah then saying aah
an octave higher, while trying as instructed twice
to please don’t blink the eye drops out—

staring as hard as you can to be a good patient—
think about how hard it is to outwit a reflex.
They never listen. Think about all those basic circuits

lined up end to end, how they can take us to the moon
and back if only we would let them.
Last night there was a full lunar eclipse,

the kind that looks like cream of tomato soup,
all the sunrises and sunsets on the planet
bent in the moon’s direction. But it was raining hard,

cats and dogs, too wet for shadows, and the rain
was an excuse to stay in bed and listen
to three points form a straight line

while heading in different directions.
The night, pleased to have an audience,
purred as it settled into place.

—from Rattle #49, Fall 2015
Tribute to Scientists

[download audio]

__________

Daniel Becker: “I teach at a medical school. Science, like poetry, needs the best words in the best order to say what it needs to say. Craft is craft. However, it takes months and years, even a decade, to have results that are worth sharing. Between articles and grants and reports I work on poems and stories. I get to invent the data.”

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