Search Results for: stroke

August 22, 2018

“Calisthenics” by Laura KolbePosted by

Laura Kolbe

CALISTHENICS

Hold your own hand. See how you can
crinkle or stretch it, add years or pull them off.

Mystic tango, rubber bracer, tourniquet
of time point unverified. Those are starter words.

Look past the frozen garden to the woodpile—
how like a hand, hot-burning irresponsible

pine, silent stacked and tarped. Run to the mailbox.
Run back. To hear a voice, speak or count.

Mystic tango, iron weight plate, time point
missing—Call your muscles by their names,

hidden comrades, make them miss
the light you see—gracilis, adductor magnus,

sartorius, teres—they all adore you terribly,
like bramble that hopes for your white ankle, like sand

that follows you years off a beach. Hold your own hand.
Run past the mailbox. Skip the letters.

What could they say? Carry dumbbells.
Carry your legs. Your spotter is a brute and swollen

cloud bearing wet snow and a way of marking time
in ticks of lawn to lawn. It hovers, gives

no help. Hold your hands. Control your breath.
Iron weight plate, tango missing, respiratory

tourniquet. Or court hurt and danger for
the changes they will bring. Lift with your back

and not your legs. Twist as you lift. Move without
grace. Run to the mailbox and back, its empty curve

a black smile or a stroke sign—too dark to say. Soon
your lawn is struck-dumb sodium streetlight,

the dusky yellow flutter helpless, almost shy
as it leaves the rigid lamp. Hold your own.

Missing missing. Time point time point.
Weight and brace. Look past and hold.

When your belly tightens and your hands
twist up, you are a tree self-semaphoring

in the first lone shock of night. Count back
to human. Hold. Your hands meet above

your head, and the cold they pull down creaks
over you like a jersey made of bone.

—from Rattle #60, Summer 2018
Tribute to Athlete Poets

__________

Laura Kolbe: “Before I became a poet and before I became a doctor, I became an athlete. Which wasn’t so very different than either of those—waking at four in the morning to train for track-cycling ‘nationals’ at the local velodrome, or later waking for the university cycling team and marathon team, I entered into days of laps and circles. ‘Repeat, repeat, repeat; revise, revise, revise,’ as Elizabeth Bishop had it. Meanwhile, I was having all the same moods and experiences as any other young person, and I remember how strange and necessary it felt to engraft those feelings onto form itself, trying to distill them into pure power of the legs. This was maybe my first awakening to poetry: seeing how life could be transmuted into something other than itself, be it racing or language, and feeling the shock of accomplishing that change.”

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August 12, 2018

“Chicago Street, Rainy Day” by Ruth HobermanPosted by

Ruth Hoberman

CHICAGO STREET, RAINY DAY

The rain spills lines like brushstrokes. Suddenly
the building site at Lincoln Avenue and Fullerton is art—
Monet or Caillebotte—the yellow-vested workmen soaked
but working still, the monster shovel leaning on its claw,
a beige triangle of dirt beneath. In the foreground, gravel
and broken cement: thick as if laid on by a palette knife.

I love this gray damp light, the gutters flowing so full
I expect to see washerwomen scrubbing shirts white
in the rivers that used to be streets. What a relief
weather is: so surprising that even at sixty-six
I can’t be sure of anything. The New York Times says
it’s too late to save the world, but look at these people
sheltering under scaffolds, umbrellas askew. Look
how our windblown watching turns this morning
(doomed, I know) into something worth our living through.

—from Poets Respond

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Ruth Hoberman: “This poem began as a response to a rainy day (Caillebotte’s iconic ‘Paris Street, Rainy Day‘ resides at the Art Institute of Chicago) but somehow became a response to the New York Times magazine section’s focus on climate change. As the magazine’s all-black cover indicates, by not acting in the 1980s, we missed our chance to prevent disastrous global changes. My poem is about the need, sometimes, to ignore global doom in favor of local delight.” (web)

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July 30, 2018

“Gimmie Shelter” by Erinn BatykeferPosted by

Erinn Batykefer

GIMMIE SHELTER

It was not the first time my mother threw me out
of the house and cranked the stereo
till the screen door rattled and you could hear the music
down the street. It was June 17th. Scorching.
I was seven and knew how to stay gone—
there was a storm drain at the end of the street
where I’d sit in the silt, dig my fingers
into the warm black tar around the grate and wait
for the music to subside. I expected the Beatles.
But the sound that poured from the windows
was a slow burn samba, the slither of doubled guitar,
and the serrated scrape of a guiro. The storm drain
caught the sound, and it echoed in my chest.
Twenty-five years before, my mother did her hair
in tin can curls and hopped the streetcar
to Westview Danceland where the unknown Stones
covered Buddy Holly and the blues.
Her father was alive then. She wore green jeans
for spite because he’d forbidden blue. I know that now.
I know Danceland burned to the ground and I know
the man who turned up on our porch that day
before my mother threw me out was the love of her life,
that the look he gave me before she turned him away
was the look of a man seeing his own grave.
But at the storm drain, I only knew that the crack
in Merry Clayton’s voice as she screamed rape, murder
was the sound of all my unnamed fury
and the low drone of Keef’s open tuning
was the dread that hung like a coat in my ribcage,
and, oh, children, I knew my mad bull mother
and I sometimes felt the same things,
Let it Bleed played loud enough
to make your ears ring.

—from Rattle #60, Summer 2018
Tribute to Athlete Poets

__________

Erinn Batykefer: “There’s something intimate about the physical work of being an athlete, particularly when your sport is rowing. You develop a deep, inarticulate knowledge about your boatmates, their bodies, their motivation, their pain and the way they bear it. The way they breathe, the way they cant their head when they get tired. The way your body compensates for their movements in order to maintain the perfect balance of the boat, and the meditative effect of focusing on a single stroke over and over, in perfect synch with the body in front of you, and the body behind, and thereby the boat. I write in the rhythm of rowing, with the sense that my drive to create, like my body in the boat, is the animal engine of a larger machine. Each vision I have for a poem hinges on the lever of language and tone, image and emotion, and it is not pried into motion alone. I write as I move, as my boatmates move, for my body and the vision are the same.” (web)

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July 23, 2018

“No Name” by James AdamsPosted by

James Adams

NO NAME

He had a huge rep
an enormous clay court game
wicked topspin off both wings
and a big, big name—

his entourage clucked Spanish at him
in arrogant homage,

drip-breasted groupies
with their dark mascara smiling
at me during the brief warmup
with crocodile teeth
and dark-rouge
reptile cheeks.

His sponsor reps had popped
into town to snap pictures of him
wearing the latest, smiling
like the greatest, while
dismantling the first round
American No Name.

In warmup his strokes twisted my racquet
butting it against my hand and fingers—
heavy, sopping shots that promised
blisters before the second set
as the ball nap whizzed the air
dipping hornets, fizzing explosive
spin into my palm.

It was hard not to watch him stroke
he was that beautiful
the perfect brown skin,
the heavy gold chain, cross, earring,
Baryshnikov footwork, smooth
glide and anticipation.
Off to the side I saw the coach
casually pointing to the next round
opponent on the draw board.

Nobody stood holding towels for me
nobody sat in my stands
my German sports-oil sponsor
had said clothing patches were not
in the budget

the Italian shoe company had gone
out of business when their sole adhesive
melted in American hardcourt heat.

My Le Coq outfit was one I had won
in lieu of prize money—

“Time,” the official called
as people settled in with drinks and cellphones
on the far side of the court.

He looked through me,
cocking his head to the chief moll
who continued her knowing
smile at him to me
with a Jezebelled hook.

I can’t account for what happened

we were on my favorite surface
slick, low bounce indoor composite

but that couldn’t explain it:
I boomed every serve in the corners
his vicious returns were feathered

into sharp, angled cross court
drop volley winners,
nothing he could do

one-two-three
the first game at love in four minutes
I ripped all his serves on the lines
15 minutes more and
I was up 5-0.

He screamed to Barcelonic heaven
he threw yellow fluorescent
balls into the overhead lights
he cursed the Castillian tennis gods
shaking his head and fists
at the air, at the ground, at me

he stumbled to retrieve my cut slice
off-balance winners
looking foolish
each time I wrong-footed him
then turned to shrug sheepishly
at his coach, whose cigarette
had turned to ash on his lips

the reps had stood cameraless
but sat in shock
their drinks half full

I never felt emotion, no nerves
both knees dripping blood
from textbook low volleys
I was numb perfect
moving like a harrier, falcon jet
fast and bullet proof, I never missed
it was over like electricity

the girls kleenex’d their mascara

—as I packed my courtbag
and walked off
by myself to shower.

—from Rattle #60, Summer 2018
Tribute to Athlete Poets

__________

James Adams: “I grew up playing America’s top two sports: football and baseball. I always wanted to play in the NFL or MLB. When that didn’t work out, I started playing tennis seriously. Eventually, I became a member of the U.S. Professional Tennis Association, and got to play all over the U.S. and overseas. The all-encompassing tennis training discipline of mind, body, will, and spirit gave (and still gives) me the power to better concentrate on a page of poetry. Much of winning tennis is about mind over matter, in the face of tremendous adversity. Writing poems is the same challenge.”

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May 22, 2018

“Swimming Lesson” by Charles Harper WebbPosted by

Charles Harper Webb

SWIMMING LESSON

We want to give our son the power
to flutter-kick across death’s bright
blue surface, dive down deep
to where the treasure lies, and swim it up.
We want him to love pool parties—

to guard the lines of half-dressed girls—
to backstroke, butterfly, and walk
on water for their awe-struck eyes.
We want a swimmer’s body for him:
slow pulse and strong heart.

Yet in the pool, our laughing boy
becomes a screaming fiend.
He screams louder when teenaged
Lorelei drags him toward the deep.
“Mommy! Daddy! No!” he shrieks.

Our waving only makes things worse.
He thrashes, flails. “Help me!”
he wails, seeing us wring hands
we don’t bring to his aid. “We love you,”
we swear each night before bed,

and soothe night-fears with “Honey,
you’re safe here.” But now, like dying
gods, all we can do is watch
his faith in us fight to the surface once,
twice, three times, then disappear.

—from Rattle #30, Winter 2008

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Charles Harper Webb: “Though the first part is about my son, the poem arrived after I watched a girl in my son’s swimming class react to the lesson as if it were her own execution. Clearly, she thought it was.” (web)

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April 26, 2018

“The Visitant” by Marietta McGregorPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2018: Editor’s Choice

 

Chickens! by Marion Clarke

Image: “Chickens!” by Marion Clarke. “The Visitant” was written by Marietta McGregor for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2018, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

__________

Marietta McGregor

THE VISITANT

We never found out where she came from, our hen. One morning she was just there, in the back yard. That was one of the times when only two of us, Mum and I, lived in that house. One of the times when Dad had gone off, we didn’t know where, driven by demons we couldn’t imagine. It happened at unpredictable moments. Something would set him off, he’d start drinking, and he’d disappear. We had the house to ourselves. Life settled down a bit. I’d go off to my Seventh Day Adventist Primary school each day and hurry home, glad to have Mum to myself.

And then someone else came to live with us, this plump, glossy Black Orpington, gentle and sweet-natured. She loved a cuddle, and would sit on my knee, crooning soft warm chicken songs for hours while I stroked and settled her feathers and babied her as my special doll. She had a whole repertoire of contented burbles and trills. Sitting with her warm bulk on my knee I felt happy, protected. I wondered who she was, really.

I found out much later that chickens make about 30 different sounds. We’d do well to learn their language. I tried murmuring her talk back to her, which she seemed to like, arching her neck under my hand, fluffing and resettling herself. I don’t remember how long she stayed with us, I only remember the pleasure of having her there. One day she wasn’t. There were no signs of pain or mayhem—no foxes in Tasmania in those days. We thought she must have moved on to warble to another family.

My father came home later that year. He’d been in a War Repatriation Hospital for some time, and looked ill and tired, the emphysema beginning to cave in his chest. We never saw the chicken again.

a handful of mash
that ache for something
different

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
March 2018, Editor’s Choice

[download audio]

__________

Comment from the editor: “To be honest, every time I encounter a haibun, I read the haiku first; I can’t help myself. The haiku here is wonderful, in a wonderfully inexplicable way. You could probably write an essay on how ‘that ache for something new’ is like ‘a handful of mash’—and there’s no doubt it is. That sense of juxtaposition is the power of haiku. And then I read the prose, and what a moving and honest story that turned out to be, too—and again perfectly juxtaposed with the haiku, which I read again thereafter. This is an exemplary haibun, and another example of a poet turning a single image into its own entire universe.”

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April 17, 2018

“Eyes Wide Open” by Sam HamillPosted by

Sam Hamill

EYES WIDE OPEN

The little olive-skinned girl
peered up at me
from the photograph

with her eyes wide open,

deep brown beautiful eyes
that bore silent witness
to a grief as old as the ages.

She was young,
and very beautiful, as only
the young can be,
but within such beauty
as bears calamity silently:

because it has run out of tears.

I closed the magazine and went
outside to the wood pile
and split a couple of logs, thinking,
“Her fire is likely
an open fire tonight,
bright flames licking
and waving

like rising pennants in the breeze.”

When I was a boy,
I heard about the bloodshed
in Korea, about the Red Army
perched at our threshold,
and the bombs
that would annihilate our world

forever.

I got under my desk with the rest of the foolish world.

In Okinawa, I wore the uniform

and carried the weapon
until my eyes began to open,
until I choked
on Marine Corps pride,
until I came to realize
just how willfully I had been blind.

How much grief is a life?
And what can be done unless
we stand among the missing, among the murdered,
the orphaned,
our own armed children, and bear witness

with our eyes wide open?

When I was a child, frightened of the night
and crying in my bed,
my father told me a poem or sang,

“Empty saddles in the o-l-d corral,
where do they r-i-d-e tonight.”

Homer thought the dead arrived
into a field of asphodels.
“Musashino,” near Tokyo, means
“Musashi’s Plain,”
the warrior’s way washed in blood.

The war-songs are sung
to the same old marching measures—
oh, how we love to honor the dead.

A world without war? Who but a child or a fool
could imagine such a thing?

Corporate leaders go to school
on Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
“We all deplore it,” the President says,
issuing bombing orders,
“but God is on our side.”

Which blood is Christian,
which Muslim, Jew or Hindu?

The beautiful girl with the beautiful sad eyes
watches, but
has not spoken. What can she

possibly say?
She carries the burden of finding
another way.

In her eyes, the ruins, the fear,
the shoes that can’t be filled, hands
that will never stroke her hair.

But listen. And you will hear her small, soft, plaintive voice
—it’s already there within you—

a heartbeat, a whisper,
a promise broken—
if only you listen

with your eyes wide open.

—from Rattle #25, Summer 2006

[download audio]

__________

Sam Hamill: “I grew up on a ranch in Utah, a farm in Utah, and my old man, my adopted father, loved poetry. And he would sometimes recite poetry while he worked. And he would explain to me, the rhythm of the work would help you decide what poem to sort of say. The way you sometimes hum or sing when you work—well, he recited poetry that way, and I think that was what first turned me on to poetry.” (website) Note: Recording courtesy of Michael Ladd. First aired on Poetica Radio, June 23, 2007.

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