The Border: Poems - Softcover

Rattan, Cleatus

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1881515478 ISBN 13: 9781881515470

Publisher: TRP: The University Press of SHSU, 2002

Synopsis

From sonnet to free verse, from rime to slant rime, Cleatus Rattan's poems gather the past to inspect the future. His efforts to generate emotion transport the reader to vivid views of a family on the edge of new ways of examining the next stage of lives carefully planned for emotional possibilities. In the title poem, which ends this collection, Rattan allows his readers to "Motor through familiar lands/ and see the comfortable/ well developed plans./ Note a warping red gable/ and high cloud-filled unending skies./ Pass through flat lands until you see/ the end--and old state with no guard./ Then turn to home and tell no lies/ about an easy relaxing journey,/ but hold the vision in high regard." Rattan's lyrics wield a powerful musical dictation to the rhythm in the dance from border to border.
 

About this title

About the Author

A former marine, CLEATUS RATTAN ranches a hundred miles west of Fort Worth near the little town of Cisco, a small town of some three thousand souls cinched by the Bible Belt. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, and he is the author of two poetry chapbooks: Free of the Flesh and 130 Miles to Dallas, winner of the 1982 Texas Review Poetry Prize; in 1996 he won the Mesquite Prize and in 2002 the New Texas Poetry Prize. Rattan recently retired from the English Department at Cisco Community College. He and his wife Connie have three sons, all doctors.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Reading Hometown Obituaries 

She looked like Judy's good witch, Billie Burke, 
whose silver wand waved a floating caress. 

With not so much a hurried push or ram 
as a sliding wiggle, I could squirm 
through, after Sunday double feature matinees, 
almost to the front of blinding, mirrored light 
where Judy Fey buried her hand right 
in the sure and holy depth of all goodness. 
With her cap a laurel, a halo in florescent rays, 
she lifted almost all young distresses, 
scooping high from a bin of hard pure white. 

I confirm I remain a vanilla-loving man. 

My eyes, transfixed, worshipped at her short sleeves,
as she extracted creamy fingers, knuckles. 
I feared an empty, wicked spell-a drought 
before my flattened nose. She rapidly circled 
above her container-demense, a diurnal breeze,
cyclonic even, asking, "Single dip or double?" 
In heat before conditioned air, no doubt 
two scoops could drip to elbow trouble, 
but who worth a dime could say, "Single, please?" 

Even though your enchantments could turn to mess, 
I pray you may remain in bewitching goodness, 
loving, lovely Judy Mary Fey Lauck, 
whose sweet caress could shame the actress Billie Burke.
 

Edition details

• Publisher: TRP: The University Press of SHSU
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1881515478
• ISBN 13: 9781881515470
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 82