Search Results for: stroke

December 22, 2023

“The God Zoo” by Richard PrinsPosted by

Richard Prins

THE GOD ZOO

I.

Elvis
blimps above
the walrus shade.
Jesus rides an elephant
away from Calvary. Sparrows
learn to fly, pitched from Ganesh’s
trunk. Muhammad’s mastering the art
of a blowhole ablution. Wildebeest chuckling
at Moses’ wimpy forty days. Caesar’s gassy after sharing
unripe mangos with a chimp. Marx is munching grass. Lost a bet
with Nebuchadnezzar. Buddha chucks some birdseed, lectures the pigeons
about desire. Ra folds after a plague of platypusses; his firstborn’s grown a beak.

II.

Twin walruses sharpen their tusks on the dunes.
Buddha’s navel a lager spout.
Only a fool would chug the end of desire.

The wildebeest flies upside-down, jousting all the stars.
Muhammad wears a tunic of sequin nipples.
Only a fool would record their voluminous lactations.

Pigeons crap on godhead an eggwhite fedora.
Jesus plucks thorns out of his prom night eyelashes.
Only a fool would unbutton that snarlyhaired tuxedo.

A chimp is licking termites off a shark tooth comb.
Elvis gets rich off a lunch money racket.
Only a fool would wipe a toilet down with mutton chops.

The elephants windmill their snouts, inhaling each tornado.
Ganesh snorts a boogaloo on his nostril trumpet.
Only a fool would scrape that flugelhorn free of barnacles.

Rows & rows of whale vertebrae. Time to build a railroad.
Ra smells pyramids with every beard-stroke.
Only a fool would refuse a chance to mummify the queen.

Sparrows ford rhinoceri across the fishleaping river.
Marx redistributes chin hair to all the eunuchs.
Only a fool would alienate this harem’s labor.

The platypus is still sloshed and dancing by herself.
Caesar skiffs his gondola across the sky.
Only a fool like Cleopatra would try to flag him down.

—from Rattle #38, Winter 2012
Tribute to Speculative Poetry

___________

Richard Prins: “When I was eighteen years old I fell asleep on a late-night train and woke with my jacket pocket knifed open, the pocket that always held my wallet. After a few desperate grabs, I found my wallet transplanted to my pants pocket, no money missing. A napkin, however, with two poems inked on it, had been extracted. I’ve been mugged twice since then, once in Brooklyn, once in Dar es Salaam, and still curse myself—why didn’t I think to recite a poem to my attackers?” (web)

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August 27, 2023

“Little Bird” by Robin TurnerPosted by

Robin Turner

LITTLE BIRD

for Artie

The hottest month of the hottest year
on record. August in Texas. Unrelenting.
 
Mother had died just the month before.
My mother. The world kept burning.
 
And on the news, on our phones, all week the photos
of treasonous men, their arrogant mugshots
 
marring every screen, suffocating each sensible citizen.
How to breathe through the heat, through the spin
 
and the grief? How to rescue from harm what one loves?
When a red-feathered bird crashed into our window, it fell
 
like a stone and lay motionless. Little bird, you said
and stepped out to the porch, bent to stroke, to tap tap her still chest,
 
brought ice, brought tenderness, prayed mercy.
In the morning you spared me
 
from shoveling parched earth
and gave up the lost creature to ground.
 
You knew, knew I would not be able to bury her—
one more once beautiful thing.
 

—from Poets Respond
August 27, 2023

__________

Robin Turner: “A poem of gratitude for my husband, his good heart in a time of great personal loss, of grief for our burning world and fear for the fragile future of American democracy.”

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August 11, 2023

“Offset” by Justin TaggPosted by

Justin Tagg (Devoid)

OFFSET

 
Offset by Justin Tagg, white boxes that might be words on a black background

objkt.com | text/plain

Typed.art is a platform on the Tezos blockchain. It allows any keystroke, including universal alt keystrokes and symbols, to be stored on-chain as compositions of text, as opposed to imagery. This has created an unusual opportunity for text-based art. In the example of OFFSET, a grid of “blocks” represents letters and spaces, creating both a minimalist artwork, created entirely with keystrokes, and hiding within it the frame of a private poem. The poem itself is hidden—the words are represented by the larger of two sets of blocks.

Full Text:

Our love
is like a
wave
unleashed
surrender
to it
let
yourself
be
offset.

—from Rattle #80, Summer 2023
Tribute to NFT Poets

__________

Justin Tagg (Devoid): “Literary NFTs have a promise that’s not yet entirely fulfilled—that of storing original text on the blockchain itself (as opposed to being stored only as imagery), rendering it framable, tradable, and composable—with NFTs that are coded to communicate with other NFTs. Whilst NFTs have already ensured that poetry can be framed and traded as provably original works of art, it’s the ability to store text on-chain that will reframe the concept of ‘page’ in ways not seen in our lifetime. There are many examples of on-chain text, but it’s still in the minority—whereas I expect it will become the gold standard in the future. For now, the opportunity with NFTs to render a piece of poetry as provably original or of a limited edition has meant I’m able to sell individual pieces of poetry without the need for a publisher. If somebody enjoys my words, they can add my microfiction or poetry to their collection in the same way they might do with visual work. Most of my poetry has been explored through the Tezos blockchain, which is an inexpensive but robust network to publish NFTs. In addition, by allowing visual and literary work to be distributed on the same ‘rails’—as opposed to using independent media-specific distribution models—we’ve also seen a flourish of collaborations between ‘pictures’ and ‘words’ that have revealed a fertile space between the two forms that is blurring the lines between them.” (web)

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June 20, 2023

“I-95 Corridor” by Erin MurphyPosted by

Erin Murphy

I-95 CORRIDOR

1.
This is where I was cited
for reckless driving
and my uncle quipped
95 is the route number,
not the speed limit.
 
2.
This is where I stopped
with an ex-boyfriend
on the last stretch from Miami
and a motel clerk asked
if we wanted the all night
or hourly rate.
 
3.
This is where my grad school
U-Haul broke down and I
waited for the wrecker
with a Swiss Army knife
flexed against my bare thigh.
 
4.
This is where I learned
all the lyrics to Dylan’s
“Subterranean Homesick Blues,”
rewinding the cassette
till it snapped in the deck.
 
5.
This is where I interviewed
for an adjunct teaching gig
that would cost me more
in tolls and gas than I’d earn.
 
6.
This is where thieves
took my Plymouth Breeze
on a joyride then dumped it
on the shoulder, my just-cashed
paycheck still in the console.
 
7.
This is where my husband
missed an exit for the symphony
and grazed a concrete pillar
beneath an underpass.
 
8.
This is where I ordered
my daughter vanilla ice cream
with extra maraschino cherries
after she lay corpse-still
for her first echocardiogram.
 
9.
This is where a tanker truck
caught fire, melting the highway’s
steel beams until an entire span
collapsed like a ruptured aorta.
 
10.
Corridor:
a long,
narrow
passage
between
rooms
or land.
Or time.
 
11.
They are still sifting through
the truck driver’s remains.
 
12.
I can never remember
if it’s steel oneself
or steal oneself. Am I
supposed to harden my feelings
or shove them under
my shirt like a shoplifter?
 
13.
In the show I’m watching,
one corridor leads
to another, rough cut
after rough cut of white walls
in a workplace maze.
 
14.
The day of the symphony,
we abandoned our SUV
on the off-ramp and ran
four blocks to the concert hall,
plunking into plush seats
just in time for da da da dum.
 
15.
Commute, hospital, concert,
wedding, commute, bar mitzvah,
commute, funeral, commute.
 
16.
Lately I need to sit
closer to the throat
of a bass trombone
or purring cat to feel
a stirring in my pulse.
 
17.
My uncle is gone now,
a stroke two days
before Christmas.
 
18.
For years I replayed
that last conversation
in my ex’s red Jetta,
his hands trying to bend
the steering wheel,
his eyes swollen.
 
19.
What’s the difference
between carefree
and careless?
 
20.
I’m not sure
I want to know.
 
21.
So many bodies
and bodies in motion.
 
22.
I can’t steal myself.
I’m already stolen.
 

—from Poets Respond
June 20, 2023

__________

Erin Murphy: “I grew up near I-95, a major artery of the East Coast. Until last week’s tanker crash and collapse, I hadn’t given much thought to how many of my memories are tied to 95.” (web)

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May 30, 2023

“After Senza Titolo” by Matthew Gavin FrankPosted by

Matthew Gavin Frank

AFTER SENZA TITOLO, 1964

painting by Corrado Cagli

I promised him I would not say
grasshopper, or superman. So

Fortune is this fish and this
flower, and neither are the body—

not some smart flat
of a knife. Not some

wondering about the stars.
The coming into the world

insectile, or some dumb gang
of coral, smacked with its first air—

I can’t look at a fish without thinking
how lucky they are to have

the ocean. How can they watch
the stars? It’s beautiful

what must be substitute,
their words for night,

the different way they
hold their fins.

How we come into
this thin tissue with a stroke

of fingertip over gill, the words
we have to explain, dumb

as the coral—wing to bird, fin
to fish, leaf to tree—is that

the best we can do?
Our heartbreak is last year’s

nest, the frozen lake, the yard
we forgot to rake. The lie

is that we’ll miss our families most.
Instead: the silver batteries

agitating the surface of the water,
the things we aren’t—some wild

mating we can only read about,
all strange biology and our hearts

that are a part of it, kept from us,
something else we’re not. We’re

made up of servants
without a lord, working to push us

toward cold water and
it’s beautiful, we’re science

and there is no substitute
for the stars. Not mother

or husband or daughter, but fish,
but finch, but fir.

—from Rattle #32, Winter 2009

__________

Matthew Gavin Frank: “I’ve ran a tiny breakfast joint in Juneau, Alaska; worked the Barolo wine harvest in Italy’s Piedmont; sautéed hog snapper hung-over in Key West; designed multiple degustation menus for Julia Roberts’ private parties in Taos, New Mexico; served as a sommelier in Chicago; and authored a book of poems. Tonight, in the kitchen, I will combine blesbok venison with chocolate, jalapeño, espresso, and blood orange.” (web)

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April 17, 2023

“Lessons in Survival” by Neil McCarthyPosted by

Neil McCarthy

LESSONS IN SURVIVAL

I’ve all but given up on ever speaking Irish again, 
on playing the cousin to tones of a country once removed, 
plucking on phrases I learned phonetically under 
the nettled glare of a Christian Brother.
 
Instead, I’m teaching my daughter German, watching her 
devour umlauts, count to ten, translate colors, animals, parts 
of the body, the food on her plate. No Graiméar na Gaeilge. 
No wall-papered hand-me-down angst-inducers. 
 
Their names are lost on me now, the Brothers—the celibate 
signs of shaving foam behind the ears, the dusty smell of chalk 
from the clout of their hands; the Sisters of Mercy are long gone 
too, as is the sound of the beads in the halls they warded. 
 
I see the empty classrooms in my head, paint audibly peeling, 
a fanfare of damp spreading; lopsided Jesuses ready to fall; 
one-piece wooden desks with a hundred names carved with 
a compass into the grains like chalk strokes on a prison wall.
 
I hear a phonebook of nicknames bellowed down corridors, 
reeled off like an angelus of Sé do bheatha, a Mhuires; 
wisecracks in which we garrisoned ourselves over the years; 
skins growing thicker by the bruises. 
 

—from Rattle #79, Spring 2023
Tribute to Irish Poets

__________

Neil McCarthy: “Like many Irish, I’m riddled with nostalgia. I’ve learned to live with it, love it, and lyricize it. Like many Irish, I live abroad now, and having resided in LA and now Vienna, poetry helps me recreate snapshots and reels of an absolutely beautiful upbringing in West Cork.”

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April 15, 2023

“The Conversation” by Jon PinedaPosted by

Jon Pineda

THE CONVERSATION

Take the time
my brother, just a boy,
sat alone in the house
and spoke to the stray.
Nestled in a blanket
faded as the ocean is
some days, the cat lay
swollen with trinkets.
Intent, my brother stroked
a streak of wet hair under
the cat’s throat, curlicued
with fluid, as one by one
its young slid out in glazed
wrapping, each cradling
a purse of blood and blue
meat, all of it a kind of food
the mother struggled to eat.

—from Rattle #24, Winter 2005
Tribute to Filipino Poets

__________

Jon Pineda: “I come from a long line of ‘cat whisperers.’” (website)

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