A Popular Play: New and Selected Poems

by Cleatus Rattan

Overview

Poems from sonnets to free verse focus on pleasures and problems in ranch life and in west Texas, which include variations differing for generations returning to the ranch, and those family members who leave the ranch for city life.

CORMORANTS’ JOURNEY
Snowbirds come diving down, sliding in
carelessly splatting,
pecking on windows, doors,
building nests, dropping threads,
shards of old nests hanging on their beaks,
claws. Their fluttering white feathers
blocking the sun’s puny attempts to break through,
making the streets slick with their droppings
as their baggage slides by,
bumping into place side by side by side.
Odysseus would tramp off to far west Texas,
hankering for firm enchiladas, crusty tacos,
brown eyes, and thin clear skies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781680030273
Publisher:	Texas Review Press
Publication date:	11/23/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
Sales rank:	698,513
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

CLEATUS RATTAN, 2004 Texas State Poet Laureate, is a former Marine, a former working and rodeo cowboy, who recently retired as Mayborn professor of English at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Author of numerous collections of poetry, Rattan lives in Cisco, Texas, with his wife, Connie.

Table of Contents

A Popular Play

Myth 1

A Popular Play 2

C'est Ne Pas 3

Again for the First Time 4

Almost the Last Resort 5

Ave Mary 6

Before Friday Conflicts 9

Bovine 10

Bring Back the Clowns 11

Class Work in the Office 12

Cormorants' Journey 13

Couchant Bryant, Headmaster 14

Creation Theory 15

Destination 16

Do I Know You? 17

Elegy for a Former Teacher 18

Equality: In and On the Courts 19

Genesis 20

Good Days 21

Hard Times 22

Second Tour 23

How Are You So Good to See You What Have You Been Doing? 24

Requiescat in pace 25

Incalculable 26

Keeping Up 27

Kissing Her 28

Lines Composed at Thirty Thousand Feet Above Pheonix, July 13, 2006 29

Love Song 30

The Miss Mellowtones 31

October Song 33

On a Pedestal 34

Posturing 35

Quiz 36

Redact: Hail and Farewell 37

Repose 38

Robert E Lee Park 39

Adam's Fault 40

Sliding Down Sloping Cement Far from Home 41

Stunning 43

The Border 44

Between Good and Bad 45

The Mayor 46

The Nerve of Some People 47

The Overture 48

The Ring of Kappa Alpha Order 49

To a Dead Fat Comedian/Actor 50

Grace 51

Unplanned Obsolescing 52

Variations on a Theme by Frank O'Hara 53

Vineyards 54

When Pressed 55

Whispers 56

Windswept 57

Will

A Lot You'd Care 60

After Miriam, My Sister 61

All at Sea 62

Allure 63

An Annual Solution 64

An Empty Stadium: The Eve of Astroturf 65

"Black as the Pit…" 66

Burning 67

Clarity 68

Constance 70

Cynthia's Reflection 72

Dry 73

Empty Nest 74

Entranced 75

Family Get-Together 76

Family Ties 77

Future Perfect 78

Generations 79

Glaring 81

Good News 82

Impressionable 83

Incorporeal 84

Longevity 85

Maelstrom after Surgery 86

Me Morning, Her June 87

Mentsh 88

Mother Swinging by the House 89

Neolithic 90

No Hunting 91

Not So Much 92

Of Course 93

On Waluen Tank 94

One Wife 95

Only Thoughts Return to the Same True Places 96

Oration 97

Outlaw Stories 98

Pap 99

Playing the Game 100

Prospectors 101

Childish 102

Quintessence 103

Quotidian 104

Reasons to Live in Cisco 105

Reflections 106

Revisited 107

Screen Saver 108

Seeking Shade 109

Sirens 110

Sudden Light 111

The Gulliver Family Curse 112

The Making of One Mote Lawyer 113

The Perfect Mate 114

The Price of Perfection 115

Traces 116

What Did It Mean? 117

What I Think I See 118

When 1 Hold You. You Fit 119

Will 120

Reading Hometown Obituaries 121

You Can't Depend on Me 122

Family Vacation in the Mountains

At the "O" Club in Okinawa 124

Bobby Davis' Fate 125

Christmas in Seattle on the Eve of War 126

Cosmic 127

Discreet 128

Family Vocation In the Mountains 129

Friendly Fire 130

Honor 131

I Told Him 132

In a Drug Store in L.A. in 2012 133

That Look 134

Toys 135

The Great Doak Walker

A Fiction 138

Can These Flowers Live? 139

A Tour 140

The Great Doak Walker 141

Football in Texas 142

Forecast 143

I Expect 144

To Make God 145

Journeys 146

Just Cruising 147

Nothing Comes Easy 148

Only Twice 149

The Blessing 151

Three Shades of Green 152

Saddle Up

A Farewell Party 154

What Comes from Home Burial 155

All Over Again 156

April Roses 157

Draggin Calves 159

Celebration After Scribbling Seems Silly 160

Evidence 161

First Light 162

Free of the Flesh 163

Looking Deep 164

Grandsons of the Pioneers 165

On Morning Rituals 166

On Calf Roping 167

On Roping, Lusting, and Blood Pressure 168

The Middle 169

Warnings 170

Why Johnny Never Goes to Town 171

Anticipation

Ageless 174

Beck's Dead, Damn 2000 175

Proud Progress in the County 176

Closing Time 177

December 178

Father's Perfect Funeral 179

From the East at High Noon 180

Just Like That 183 My Time 181

Nagging 183

Older Now 184

Proleptic 185

Remainder 186

Tender Mercy 187

The Last Supper 188

Too Much Death 189

"What Isle of Bliss" 190

When I Die 191

When It's Time 192

Where to See the Dead 193

Big Words, Pastries 194

What People are Saying About This

James Hoggard

"To work well, sonnets need to keep their focus sharp; and Cleatus Rattan has a gift for the form. That's not all he gives us. He's consistently effective with the five-beat ballad., the extra foot opening up to a meditative character in the voice — Rattan's own — that tells a wide range of stories. Numerous other poems play with the two forms without giving in to mimcking them fully. In fact, in this sizably generous work there's plenty of room for mischief, delight, and praise."
—James Hoggard, 2001 Texas Poet Laureate 

Larry D. Thomas

"A Popular Play: New and Selected Poems is, by any standard, a most impressive body of work. Some of the things I most admire about Rattan as a poet are the spareness and muscularity of his diction; the manner in which he balances the contemporary with the classical, enriching his poems with allusions both to persons of popular culture and to mythology. His accessible and seemingly simple diction belies the wisdom and penetrating insight ever lurking beneath its dazzling verbal surface."
—Larry D. Thomas, 2008 Texas Poet Laureate

Karla K. Morton

"Rattan's mastery inspires us to reach back into our own lives, revealing long forgotten ancestors and poignant stories that shaped us; stories we unleash upon our children as hey move into their on lives: 'They will say what a good thanksgiving/ They had. I look through a dust-weeping window...where they stared barnward,/ White-eyed at a snorting, dappled stallion/ I broke, sold off this place where I grow drowsy, That horse/ Gone long ago."
—Karla K. Morton, 2010 Texas Poet Laureate