<div class="line">It&#8217;s Technicolor Coronation Day.</div>
<div class="line">Our phones and television screens are lit.</div>
<div class="line">All skeletons are neatly tucked away.</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">Scepter-in-hand, the king makes his entrée,</div>
<div class="line">an old man no one likes, a bore and twit:</div>
<div class="line">it&#8217;s Technicolor Coronation Day.</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">I&#8217;m sitting this one out. I&#8217;d rather, say,</div>
<div class="line">read a good book or pick a nasty zit.</div>
<div class="line">All skeletons lie neatly tucked away</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">in closets where they frolic, bump and sway.</div>
<div class="line">Refresh your feeds, there&#8217;s no mistaking it—</div>
<div class="line">it&#8217;s Technicolor Coronation Day.</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">And now it&#8217;s time for everyone to pray</div>
<div class="line">in grave solemnity. Ignore the pit</div>
<div class="line">of skeletons so neatly tucked away.</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">The King will sit above the noisome fray,</div>
<div class="line">His Majesty a target for their wit.</div>
<div class="line">It&#8217;s Technicolor Coronation Day</div>
<div class="line">all skeletons mute, neatly tucked away.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/DiMartinoTechnicolor.mp3"></audio></figure>

Papa’s Shotgun

Poets Respond

Love Song with Plum

Technicolor Coronation Day

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/natascha-graham.webp"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="716" height="1024" src="https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/natascha-graham-716x1024.webp" alt="" class="wp-image-47432" srcset="https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/natascha-graham-716x1024.webp 716w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/natascha-graham-210x300.webp 210w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/natascha-graham-768x1099.webp 768w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/natascha-graham-600x858.webp 600w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/natascha-graham.webp 908w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image: &#8220;Anonymous Was a Woman&#8221; by <a href="https://www.nataschagrahamwriter.com">Natascha Graham</a>. &#8220;Her Vanity&#8221; was written by <a href="https://marcalandimartino.com/">Marc Alan Di Martino</a> for <em>Rattle’</em>s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2022, and selected as the Assistant Editor&#8217;s Choice. (<a href="https://admin.rattle.com/ekphrasis/EAMar22.pdf">PDF</a> / <a href="https://admin.rattle.com/ekphrasis/EAMar22.jpg">JPG</a>)</figcaption></figure><div class="line">My mother used to sit like this before</div>
<div class="line">her vanity, her shoulders bathed</div>
<div class="line">in blue and pink light, her powdered skin</div>
<div class="line">dredged in a cloud of talc, breathing it in.</div>
<div class="line">Oblivious at seventeen, she wanted</div>
<div class="line">more than anything to look her best</div>
<div class="line">when Eddie Fisher offered her a Coke</div>
<div class="line">in his posh Manhattan hotel suite.</div>
<div class="line">I sat with her in a room off Times Square</div>
<div class="line">years later, our last outing together</div>
<div class="line">before the nursing homes enchained her.</div>
<div class="line">She told me the story—as she said,</div>
<div class="line"><em>for the umpteenth time</em>—of how she’d met</div>
<div class="line">the singer whose career nosedived the day</div>
<div class="line">Elvis broke the charts with “Heartbreak Hotel.”</div>
<div class="line">They shared a Coke, the story went: his lips</div>
<div class="line">kissing the weightless ‘O’ of the glass</div>
<div class="line">bottle which was furtively snatched up</div>
<div class="line">from where he’d set it down, forgotten it,</div>
<div class="line">by her swift hand. Later, she told us</div>
<div class="line">about the talcosis, how it affected</div>
<div class="line">her breathing. For the rest of her life</div>
<div class="line">she saw a pulmonologist. I sat there</div>
<div class="line">letting her regale me with the tale</div>
<div class="line">of Eddie Fisher <em>for the umpteenth time</em></div>
<div class="line">in a cheap hotel room off Times Square,</div>
<div class="line">a crooked mirror fixed above the sink</div>
<div class="line">a painting of a woman on the wall</div>
<div class="line">which might have been her, poised</div>
<div class="line">at her vanity, poisoning herself for love.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/DiMartinoVanity.mp3"></audio></figure>

Dock Grade Road

Ekphrastic Challenge

Memoir

Her Vanity

<div class="line">Time strangles anything it strains to hold,</div>
<div class="line">tangles the whistle of a passing train</div>
<div class="line">into refracted pitches, a refrain</div>
<div class="line">as Now recedes in squall. Tally the gold</div>
<div class="line">dust on the telescope, polish the trick</div>
<div class="line">mirror. Your image flickers like a wick.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">Your image flickers like a candle’s wick</div>
<div class="line">in time’s dense mirror. What you cannot hold</div>
<div class="line">is all there is. <em>Arrive, depart</em>. The train</div>
<div class="line">warps through the station’s prism, its refrain</div>
<div class="line">refracted coordinates. Fade to gold:</div>
<div class="line">the sun goes down like a child’s magic trick.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">The sun goes down like a child’s magic trick</div>
<div class="line">trapped in the squall of a departing train</div>
<div class="line">to Nowheresville. This backbeat’s crack refrain</div>
<div class="line">refracts the scene in its mad mirror’s gold</div>
<div class="line">pitch dark at rainbow’s edge, its flaming wick</div>
<div class="line">a fire no individual can hope to hold.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">A fire no individual can hope to hold</div>
<div class="line">awaits at rainbow’s edge: a trigger, a wick</div>
<div class="line">unravelling time. Strike chorus, refrain,</div>
<div class="line">backbeat, tempo, <em>music</em>—the faded gold</div>
<div class="line">of thought, our consciousness’ greatest trick,</div>
<div class="line">clacking along indeterminately. Train</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">clacking along indeterminately, train</div>
<div class="line">with no conductor, accumulate refrain</div>
<div class="line">of themes, associate music—stick, wick</div>
<div class="line">and flame bound up together by some trick,</div>
<div class="line">evolutionary sleight-of-hand. Hold</div>
<div class="line">me, stroll with me through all this falling gold.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">Stroll with me through all this falling gold</div>
<div class="line">no human eye could ever hope to hold.</div>
<div class="line">The trees are candles, incandescent. Wick</div>
<div class="line">by wick, performing nature’s magic trick,</div>
<div class="line">their glitter wanes faster than any train,</div>
<div class="line">drains to the dregs its annual refrain.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">The brilliance of the wick is in its gold.</div>
<div class="line">Time’s hat trick is to never miss your train.</div>
<div class="line">Find one small hand to hold. <em>Chorus, refrain.</em></div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/DiMartinoSestina.mp3"></audio></figure>

A New Bapu

The Comeback of Speedos

Sestina for the Falling Autumn Light

<p>[audioplayer file=&#8221;https://admin.rattle.com/audio/DiMartinoStill.mp3&#8243;]</p>
<div class="line">There are still birds, still things coming to life</div>
<div class="line">in unexpected ways. Still nights and days.</div>
<div class="line">Nocturnal, diurnal. Circadian rhythms</div>
<div class="line">scratching an itch at the back of the throat.</div>
<div class="line">Still family, still friends. Still love</div>
<div class="line">slapping you silly with its rubber tongue,</div>
<div class="line">salt that makes your stomach sing a psalm,</div>
<div class="line">palettes of rusted foliage, stray bees</div>
<div class="line">in November, still buzzing in the lavender.</div>


I Am an Innocent Bellman

The Hunter

Still

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/denise-sedor.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="806" src="https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/denise-sedor-1024x806.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48876" srcset="https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/denise-sedor-1024x806.jpg 1024w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/denise-sedor-300x236.jpg 300w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/denise-sedor-768x604.jpg 768w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/denise-sedor-600x472.jpg 600w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/denise-sedor.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image: &#8220;The Old Paper Mill&#8221; by <a href="http://www.denisesedor.com/">Denise Sedor</a>. &#8220;Upstate&#8221; was written by <a href="https://marcalandimartino.com/">Marc Alan Di Martino</a> for <em>Rattle’</em>s Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2020, and selected as the Editor&#8217;s Choice.</figcaption></figure><div class="line">Start with a brief description of the town:</div>
<div class="line">its sagging thoroughfares, its battered clock</div>
<div class="line">tower. Places like this exist for trains</div>
<div class="line">to falter through. Have you ever lost a sock</div>
<div class="line">in the wash? Here it is on Mrs. Owens’</div>
<div class="line">clothesline, drying in the rust-ruined sun.</div>
<div class="line">Wormholes connect us to outposts like this,</div>
<div class="line">main drags so proverbial in their want</div>
<div class="line">they must be paintings. What else can capture</div>
<div class="line">the hot charred candy center of a soul</div>
<div class="line">so beaten it whimpers beneath the rod</div>
<div class="line">of time? As if some wicked, wastrel god</div>
<div class="line">playing a prank, tossed snake-eyes with trick dice,</div>
<div class="line">punished creation out of boredom. Twice.</div>
<p style="text-align: right;">—<em>from</em> <a href="https://admin.rattle.com/ekphrastic/">Ekphrastic Challenge</a><br />June 2020, Editor&#8217;s Choice</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">__________</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Comment from the editor, Timothy Green</strong>: &#8220;I&#8217;m always a sucker for a sonnet, and like most of the best in the form, the final couplet is just wonderful. But I&#8217;d already fallen in love with this a few lines in: &#8216;Places like this exist for trains / to falter through.&#8217; What a great description of the Rust Belt, which Denise Sedor&#8217;s painting so poignantly captures. That line and that great verb choice, &#8216;falter,&#8217; took me straight back to my childhood in Western New York, and all those almost forgotten towns along Routes 5 &amp; 20.&#8221;</p>
</blockquote><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/DiMartinoUpstate.mp3"></audio></figure>

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November 10, 2020StillMarc Alan Di Martino

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Technicolor Coronation Day by Marc Alan Di Martino

Her Vanity by Marc Alan Di Martino

Sestina for the Falling Autumn Light by Marc Alan Di Martino

Upstate by Marc Alan Di Martino