August 23, 2024

“Ghazal of And” by Uma MenonPosted by

Uma Menon

GHAZAL OF AND

after Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Sometimes, in school, I felt lonely thinking about conjunctions and
commas. The sentence ended before I knew it, but I wanted and.
 
What is more beautiful than the place where two strangers meet?
Like seaweed washed ashore, I birth a sigh when I touch the sand.
 
I call too many places home, feel guilty for it. I want to be
faithful to one. Or maybe, instead, I want to stop loving land.
 
My mother used to tell me that good things come in threes.
Maybe she’s right. I wonder if she’s looking for a third hand.
 
When one leg moves, the other must, too. I want more freedom
than this. I relapse in the space between where my two feet stand.
 
Some nights, I want to listen quietly to friends who say nothing.
To be human is to want paradox. Two poles connected by and.
 

—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024

__________

Uma Menon: “I find ghazals to be incredibly versatile, in that each stanza is independent and yet they are all thematically united and parts of the same piece. As a South Asian writer, ghazals allow me to explore my identity through a poetic form that connects me with my culture and heritage.” (web)

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August 22, 2024

“The Venturi Effect” by Donald Mace WilliamsPosted by

Donald Mace Williams

THE VENTURI EFFECT

You may have thought, from visiting art shows,
that canyons squeezed together on their way
downstream. No. That’s only perspective. They
in fact, as any hiker my age knows,
spread out and vanish. Their canyonness goes.
Their vital currents pool up, slacken, splay,
their tall red hoodoos melt into flat gray,
the bankside cottonwoods go, nothing grows.
This one the same. Far downstream now, my feet
have brought me where I see the end. No foam
from water straitened, focused one last time
by rock walls aping art, trying to meet,
but alkali-white flatlands, killdeers’ home,
walls gone, speed gone, all low that was high prime.
 

—from Rattle #32, Winter 2009
Tribute to the Sonnet

__________

Donald Mace Williams: “I couldn’t remember the name of the effect that has to do with the speeding up of water when its conduit is narrowed (and therefore the slowing down when the conduit is widened), but a niece of my wife’s who is a hydraulics engineer helped me with the term. Other possibly pertinent facts are that I live close to Palo Duro Canyon in Texas and am 80 years old.”

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August 21, 2024

“Daffodils” by Conor KellyPosted by

Conor Kelly

DAFFODILS

Wordsworth in New York

Those daffodils that I recall
While lying on a bed settee
Are faded now, their petals fall
In nature and in memory.
It’s time to rise, to go outside
And head off for a subway ride.
 
I’m in New York’s YMCA
Undressing for a midday swim;
A poet could not but be gay
With bodies toned up in the gym.
But I am getting no cheap thrills
From dongs like dangling daffodils.
 
I twinkled at the twinkies there
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance
Or heading for the sauna where
I might get lucky if, by chance,
One of the bronzed and buffed young men
Is eager for my fountain pen.
 
But, sadly, no one needs to hear
This exiled poet strut his stuff.
I am an old Romantic queer,
Ignored, unloved. I’ve had enough.
I join the hustling New York crowd
And wander lonely as a cloud.
 

—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024

__________

Conor Kelly: “I was born in Dublin and spent my adult life teaching in a school in the city. I now live in Western Shore, Nova Scotia, from where I run a Twitter (X) site @poemtoday, dedicated to the short poem. I was once shortlisted for a Hennessy New Irish Writers award. At the ceremony one of the judges, Fay Weldon, asked me, ‘Where are you in these poems?’ I am still asking myself that same question.” (web)

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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

__________

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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