David Rattray

Toward the end of the fifth day I paused for breath at the head of a slope of shingle slate. 

The white butterfly I saw chase the pale yellow one,

Every morning at 8:45, one of my clocks plays the Meistersinger Prelude theme on a set of silver chimes, and I wake up. 

In the spring of 1957, some cronies and I had a supper club in the dining room of the Green Lantern, an inn on the edge of Hanover, New Hampshire, where I was a student in my senior year at Dartmouth. 

Collaborative work by James Nares & David Rattray.

The Spirit of St. Louis for John Speicher

I step out onto Wiborg’s at 4:00 p.m. under a cloudless sky, a jet trail over the Clubhouse, a slight breeze and the sun warm on my face, the new poems in a side pocket of the corduroy jacket I am wearing, a perfect one for a walk on the beach. 

To the consciousness of a shooting star
A certain orchard on a hillside far

At 20 my cheeks glowed
Just thinking heaven held
Things so beautiful
They gave me nightmares.

On January 10, 1980, Bob Metzger, the doctor who had been treating my brother Joshua for several years, called me on the phone and announced, “It’s the end of the road for Joshua.”

Early in the morning, every day, for years, he has been drinking beer.

it is
written Cock-e-noe but people say ka-KEE-nee
as in bikini or Eeniweetok