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If We Knew Then by Gil Arzola - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 19h

if we knew then what we know now then
the teacher would not have been angry or
shaken Richard awake …

—Gil Arzola

what we know now then Ernie would never have paid attention in math class, he would have lived inside a daydream and counted the birds outside the window instead of calculating angles.

Broken Seashells by José Enrique Medina - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 2d

I brought you to the retreat of this page
to ask you: What if we’re born already wounded?

—José Enrique Medina

Since you got sick, I’ve been turning over the word retreat. It can mean a sergeant barking, Retreat!, and a bombed-out regiment fleeing— or a spa weekend for a fabulous gay boy getting a pedicure at ...

Haunt Me by José Enrique Medina - Rattle: Poetry

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Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 2d

Mother, where are you?
Even the twins, who were never born, are here,
tossing big-headed mums, each one
a soft grenade of memory.

—José Enrique Medina,
Tonight's guest on Rattlecast 312

Against the greenhouse he built, the soul of Tío Arturo leans, smelling faintly of brillantina. Abuela drifts beneath cherry blooms, thumbing her rosary, whispering prayers.

José Enrique Medina | Rattlecast 312

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 2d

Tonight's guest on the Rattlecast is 2025 Rattle Chapbook Prize winner José Enrique Medina! You know his poems from Haunt Me, now get to know the poet himself. Join us live at 8pm ET!

youtube.com/live/Nm7gb9l...

YouTube video by Rattle Poetry

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Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 3d

My son’s sons
will be suns
to their own sons.

—José A. Alcántara

Grandfather Ascending a Staircase by José A. Alcántara - Rattle: Poetry

My son’s sons will be suns to their own sons.   My daughter’s daughters will be laughter and more laughter. […]

Two Mass Shootings, Same Day, Michigan by Ron Riekki - Rattle: Poetry

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Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 3d

the night is angry and eating
the entirety of the world and it’s quiet,

no crickets, the moon afraid to breathe …

—Ron Riekki @rriekki.bsky.social
www.rattle.com/two-mass-sho...

The half-burned wreckage of her last cigarette, —George Bilgere, “Blank” I went to two locations of mass shootings this week. […]

Dissonance by Jenny Qi - Rattle: Poetry

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Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 5d

The woman is the one who loses
when a relationship ends, warns my father ...

—Jenny Qi

The woman is the one who loses when a relationship ends, warns my father, my father who had never been with a woman …

A Bowl of Fruit by Stephen Dunn - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 6d

Jeanne, I have spent days arranging
this bowl of fruit, all for you ...

—Stephen Dunn

Jeanne, I have spent days arranging this bowl of fruit, all for you …

After He Left by Jeanie Tomasko - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 7d

Lonely in the rain,
the spirit is beautiful.

—Jeanie Tomasko

When the children were small and sleeping, the night warm and raining,   I would go out to a place […]

About a Lady by Brandon L. Williams - Rattle: Poetry

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Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 8d

She looked like a Lady.
So Lady is what I called her.

—Brandon L. Williams

i   … found her with a mangled wing, Six legs up, desperately swimming in a zephyr. She accepted my […]

Weathering the Storm by Colleen Farrelly - Rattle: Poetry

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Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 9d

Two systems might clash or combine or canoodle until bursting apart like twin flames.

—Colleen Farrelly

The Fujiwhara effect suggests that storm systems in close proximity feed off each other’s energy unpredictably. Two systems might clash […]

Isabella DeSendi | Rattlecast 311

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 9d

Tonight's guest on the Rattlecast is Isabella DeSendi. She was a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist in 2023, and the two poems we published from that entry are now apart of her new book, Someone Else's Hunger. Join us live at 8pm ET!

YouTube video by Rattle Poetry

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Touch by Matthew Thorburn - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 10d

How tender,
the way she cups her hand to keep
warm rinse water away from my eyes …

—Matthew Thorburn

No, no, I did it already, I want to say, but then just give in, follow the tall older lady to the back of May’s Hair Salon so she can wash my mop before she cuts it.

TIVE by Gray Davidson Carroll - Rattle: Poetry

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Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 11d

No one wants to look at a dead terrorist.
No one wants to hear a terrorist’s sobs.

—Gray Davidson Carroll

I wake up in the morning and I am a terrorist. I wash the dishes, I read the news. My hands are a terrorist’s hands.

Ode to the Bedpan by Janice N. Harrington - Rattle: Poetry

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Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 11d

They are a measure
of humility, a scoop, a shovel, a gutter,
a necessary plumbing, the celebrant of hierarchy
and the social order …

—Janice N. Harrington

Consider the arching hips, the buttocks squeezed, thrust upward and then pressed to that metal lip, almost sexually.

She Won’t Take Her Medicine by Lauren Tess - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 12d

By spoon.
By cap cup.
Mixed with milk.
Mixed with ice cream.

—Lauren Tess
www.rattle.com/she-wont-tak...

By spoon. By cap cup. Mixed with milk. Mixed with ice cream. Mixed with orange juice. Mixed with cran-grape juice.

Quantum Falling by Dick Westheimer - Rattle: Poetry

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Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 14d

He still dreams
of the ladder, the wall,

the house,
the blooming black flower

he’d become
when the hammer hit …

—Dick Westheimer

Image: “Rungs” by Dig Wayne. “Quantum Falling ” was written by Dick Westheimer for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2025, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

Mormon Missionaries by Gwendolyn Soper - Rattle: Poetry

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Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 15d

We were neighbors
with a sex worker, and she was glad to cook for us …

—Gwendolyn Soper

We were neighbors with a sex worker, and she was glad to cook for us to bring in extra cash to feed her child near where we lived in the faraway, down a washboard road of dirt that my assigned compani...

End of Season by Julie Goldman - Rattle: Poetry

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Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 16d

I fold the shirt lengthwise,
from right shoulder to hip: the margin
narrows like the doctor’s prognosis.

—Julie Goldman

Washed and dried, my laundry smells “Spring Fresh,” but to touch, it’s cooling, like autumn.

The Mirror Stage by Ravi Shankar - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 17d

I
in
sin
sing

—Ravi Shankar

I in sin sing sting string staring