Medusa's Kitchen

Wordshops & Wild Nights

2012-02-06T07:33:00.000-08:00

Starry Night Over the Rhône
—Painting by Vincent Van Gogh

STARRY NIGHT OVER THE RHÔNE
Van Gogh, 1888
—Taylor Graham

Each source of light on shore—each house,
shop, and inn—casts its golden lantern
to the river, reflections deepening with current
so light becomes a stalk, a pylon, a support
wavering and rippling in the water's way.
So many pillars of light. Imagine
cables of a bridge strung pillar to pillar.
Boats rock in the dark along shore, masts bare
as trees in winter. Their sails are stowed.
They sleep. But here on the nearer bank,
a couple walks as if wishing to somehow get
across a river that's always been there,
separating shores; river that washes away all
its bridges. And above, the stars shine
pale golden possibility of webs and arches
built of light, reflection, and desire.
That couple walks so close as if amazed to be
almost touched by gold reflected upside-
down, mid-current in the dark.

______________________

WORDSHOP
—Taylor Graham

His office is the edifice of dreams,
mind-architecture with an overlook on fields
of harlequin yale yellow-spotted black,
and gamboling January lambs.

A gothic arch casts breathless light
through windows of every color of cloud.
Artifice of space and woven alphabet.
He smiles at how the artless wind blows

through. Penniless benefice
of the poet with a pane-view beyond time
and owl-song. Some say his calling
is a sacrifice, or a waste of ink.

Someone finds a flaw
in the downspout of his western façade.
Yet he sees what no one else does.
O blessed rain.

______________________

WILD NIGHTS
—Patricia Wellingham Jones, Tehama

She seldom did late nights,
that cut down on her chance
to do wild ones. Those that happened
were more from happenstance
than advance planning—
the night she spent in the Jakarta airport
herded by small men in brown
with big guns, flying through stars
in a sky like ink to land in Beijing
frisked by soldiers, the ride
through that sprawling city
full of murky shadow, slithering feet
with hardly a light bulb or lantern to be seen.

Some party nights when she was young
got rowdier than others, she does remember
leaving her petticoat
puddled on the dance floor.
The luscious nights filled with soft strokes
and murmurs turned into sighs,
those memories are too precious
to be shared on a page.

______________________

Pastor Craig Hardinger of Arcade church says he used to allow couples
to exchange their own wedding vows
But decided to quit when he thought they got too corny and cheesy
For instance he claims one time this guy said in the ceremony to his bride
"Dude, you are like the sun,
and I am just a planet orbiting around you..."
Afterward he decided to go back to espousing the message of 1 Corinthians:
"Love is patient, love is kind..."
But I guess, according to Pastor Craig,
God isn't also forgiving or tolerant of lovers' "bad" attempts at poetic expression

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

______________________

MONDAY MORNING
—Caschwa, Sacramento

Woke up pretty darned
Concerned about a distinct
Tingling sensation
In my toes

And sheets tucked in
Over my head
When I opened my eyes
It was sill pitch dark

Then I took my foot
Off the alarm clock
Turned around 180 degrees
And saw the light

Hit the snooze button
Was this the 5th or 6th time?
And settled in to grab
A little more weekend.

_____________________

DIPHERINT
—Caschwa

Now
You are
Wondering
What to title
A poem you wrote
So a name comes to mind
That you are most eager to
Research and test to see if it
Might just be something original
Then you surf several Internet sites
And find all the property rights to your name
Already belong to some unknown garage band

____________________

SHOPPER’S SHOCK
—Caschwa

I was out of work for far too long
So I took a job digging trenches

In the cold

And to be prepared I went shopping
For a trench coat

Not sure how they got that name
But the ones at local stores

Were not meant for

People who have been out of work
Who need to dig trenches

In the cold

____________________

REMOTE AND FADING
—Caschwa

Stepping outside to the backyard at night
Leaving the telephones snugly inside
A few lights from street traffic
Greet our squinted eyes

And then they change
Color and move
Somewhere
Distant

Along comes the rhythmic rumble of a freight train
Carrying heavy goods late night, early morning
Slamming cars together like sea lions in
Mating season proving who is boss

Sometimes commuter trains meeting schedule
Downtown and back again and again
About once a year a circus train
Magnet for dogs’ noses

In clear weather the sky offers a fulldome presentation
Of moon, planets, and stars with the occasional
“Look at me!” flashing lights of aircraft, as if
Trying to upstage the heavenly drama

Aromas of BBQ melt together with night blooming jasmine,
That flavor of the day when the driveway is hosed down,
The smell of diesel fuel from trucks and cars,
A little piece of dinner still on the plate

The water is off, gates are locked, cars and bikes parked
Another set of household regimens awaits inside
Maybe there is some truly breaking news
On TV if we can locate that remote…

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

NOW YOU SEE IT…
—Caschwa

Van Gogh
Ergo
Ear gone

____________________

—Medusa

Photo of Van Gogh's Scene, 2008

This Morning

2012-02-05T06:49:00.000-08:00

Autumn Angel

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

THIS MORNING

—Raymond Carver

This morning was something. A little snow

lay on the ground. The sun floated in a clear

blue sky. The sea was blue, and blue-green,

as far as the eye could see.

Scarecely a ripple. Calm. I dressed and went

for a walk—determined not to return

until I took in what Nature had to offer.

I passed close to some old, bent-over trees.

Crossed a field strewn with rocks

where snow had drifted. Kept going

until I reached the bluff.

Where I gazed at the sea, and the sky, and

the gulls wheeling over the white beach

far below. All lovely. All bathed in a pure

cold light. But, as usual, my thoughts

began to wander. I had to will

myself to see what I was seeing

and nothing else. I had to tell myself this is what

mattered, not the other. (And I did see it,

for a minute or two!) For a minute or two

it crowded out the usual musings on

what was right, and what was wrong—duty,

tender memories, thoughts of death, how I should treat

with my former wife. All the things

I hoped would go away this morning.

The stuff I live with every day. What

I've trampled on in order to stay alive.

But for a minute or two I did forget

myself and everything else. I know I did.

For when I turned back I didn't know

where I was. Until some birds rose up

from the gnarled trees. And flew

in the direction I needed to be going.

_______________________

—Medusa

In The Light Of Dreaming

2012-02-04T06:36:00.000-08:00

The Lantern Bearers

—Painting by Maxfield Parrish

THE LANTERN BEARERS
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

We first saw them at the edge
Of the garden. Light had departed
The entire yard. Lights were just
Coming on inside the manor house.
We were waiting there for the vehicles
To return from the village when they appeared.

There were six or seven of them
All dressed alike in silk harlequin-
Like costumes of the palest orange and a breathless
Yellow with black buttons. Each of them carried a
Spherical lantern that cast dreamy
Puddles of light over the shrubbery,
Upon the branches, beneath the arbor.

They seemed to arrange themselves
In some kind of order then commenced
To sing in the smallest of voices
That still had a grandeur about it.

It was as if they were announcing something
Of import. They moved the lanterns in a
Slow choreography that complemented
Their wordless singing.

Owls began to circle above them.
The voices swelled and the pulse
Their lanterns had begun to display
Wavered and flickered in the gathered dark.

Then they were gone. Completely.
The light extinguished. The singing
Ceasing. The silky reflections on
Their strange cloth vanished.

We continued to wait a long time
For the transport to arrive.
When we had boarded and departed
Miguel said he thought he saw
Their lanterns far off in the forest
Surrounding the manor house, but
Miguel is known to have a very
Active imagination and often sees
Things no one else is able to observe.

______________________

GALAXIES: SEEING THROUGH YOUR BODY
—D.R. Wagner

These galaxies are the thoughts
That God has thought and that
He no longer thinks. We watch them
Wheel and toss across unimaginable silences.

We rush to the windows and you say
“We have been here before, haven’t we?
I have seen these clouds before, have seen these great
Winds. We used to walk near here.
The waves looked different then, but we
Know this place.” You looked at me.
There was nothing but a soft light
Moving through your eyes. You began to
Disappear. I could see through your body.

I could hear the guns begin to fire.
They didn’t stop for a long time.
I could feel the blood inside my mouth
And spit toward the floor.

A crackling sound began close by.
I felt like I was being stung by hornets.
The room began to swirl around me.
All I could see were those galaxies
Once again. A fog of silvers and golds
Poured over my skin. I remembered
My name, but I could not speak it.

_____________________

BRITTLE STARS
—D.R. Wagner

I’ve seen photographs of the brittle
Stars. They are deep water starfish
Living hundreds of meters below our
Air world. They move like serpents across
The floor of the oceans. They Samba.

The batacata eats into the nerves.
The legs of the starfish look like early
Animation. They feel around the spines
Of the purple sea urchin and into the
Places where every move is a dance of death.

They have seen the heavens and watched
The fall of the angels from the far heights.
They have seen the martyrs tossed into
The sea attached to ropes and heavy weights
To die and rise to the highest throne in crazy
Glory. They have consumed those bodies
Themselves and felt the course of celestial
Beauty course through their brittle forms
Nearly crushed by the great depths.

They number thousands of species, each
With a voice that calls across time and seas,
Heavens and impossible-to-fathom depths
Where their spiny legs worship those far heavens
From which they will always remain outcasts

_____________________

EL DESEO
—D.R. Wagner

In the wet of the lands.
In the bridle of the night.
In the glow of the lamp.
In the sound of the water.
In the light of dreaming.
Breath clouding the glass.
Touch, a weapon of knowing.
Speech, the servant of feeling.
Time, losing its claim on love,
Reduced to rhythm only,
The wish, the desire, el deseo,
In the jungle, hidden from the street.
Handfuls of coals glowing
On the water, in the water,
A deep weather unloading
As a turtle does its eggs
Into the night.
Everywhere, bent to surround
It so it may have this form.

____________________

BEYOND DREAMING
—D.R. Wagner

I have no memory of ever having been awake.

A slow, painful surge of light
Had moved over me and I was conscious
Of a body, a soft, slowly draining, but
Voluptuous excrescence moving from deep
Inside myself, toward a language not even
Formed yet. A sadness, gentle and secret
Found its way through a door, softened
By an inner voice trying to explain
What it was this sensation was supposed to be.

“This is such an old-fashioned way
To move.” The thought came
With immense authority draped
On its constantly changing form.

“Do you want help?” it continued.
I could not resist. I thought it
A lover or at least something I could
Stand naked before and feel comfortable,
Feel possessed by and not know fear.

This too seemed like a dream.
“You have done well.
Come here, child.”

I could not hurt any longer.
I knew I must awaken.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.

—Jack Kerouac

_____________________

—Medusa

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

The Size of the Skies

2012-02-03T07:13:00.000-08:00

Sunrise

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

CELLOING
—Michael Cluff, Corona, CA

Ask me about the size
of the skies
the color of contentment
the pitch of demise
I will maybe answer
I do not diagonally know
except when swimming
in the ocean's throe.

The pagoda humbles
the sleepy hill
marjoram and dill
command the obloid window sill
tagged-up tomorrow garlic will hoarily hang
from the jazz berry bush
and sleep
will be acceptable slang.

____________________

STEPHANIE JANE NORWOOD (Gusts #7)
—Michael Cluff

Conservative to a failpoint
where she wishes
she was born male
to oppress herself
more than she does now

When she met
Griffin Ayers
nearly the same
as her
except he let her
do it to him
much more
than her dreams
would allow
her
and him
to revere
and desire
she was happy
for a little bit
no longer than that.

____________________

PHILLIS WHEATLEY (Black History Month #1)
—Michael Cluff

She expressed it poetically sweetly
her message covert and discreetly
speaking of racial problems in 1773
between owners and slaves never free.
Expressing the essence of a soaring soul
she wanted all to be made whole
under the control of God alone
Bostonian society she found a repressive stone
to be borne with patience but with wit
so she got back at the majority just a little bit.

____________________

GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER (Black History Month #2)
—Michael Cluff

Although you may hear me mutter
every time I am served peanut butter,
a cuisine I strive to always forego
I find it equally important to recall and to know
he also ardently urged crop rotation
to increase the state of agriculture in this nation,
thus putting nitrogen back into the soil
to cut down on all the work and toil
that farming requires of all men
making the earth more of a friend
and if you ever abhored being a starver
salute with your sandwich, Mister George Washington Carver.

______________________

ETTA JAMES (Black History Month #3)
—Michael Cluff

For many years she has lived nearby
under Woodcrest's Italian—like sky
until leukemia took her away
January 20 was a mighty sad day
she left behind great songs with soul
helped to get rock to really roll
starting with "Roll With with Me, Henry" aka "The Wallflower"
she made life sweeter with her vocal power
so while we celebrate her innovative past
remember now she's free from engulfing pain at last.

____________________

TIMOTHY FIGGNER
—Michael Cluff

Everyone at the place I work is always afraid
lives each moment waiting for the punitive raid
electronic key scanners of each and every door
makes you feel you are about to visit a whore.

They must know all that you do
except of course the select few.
The lanterns in the darkness are being put out
by all of those who want to quash any doubt.
Because of them, the corporate world, the college campus
is innovatively, imaginatively barren as a denuded pampas.

_____________________

JUDGMENTAL HEALTH
—Caschwa, Sacramento

He was just a 3rd-rate overachiever
Who often did more than asked
But did not manage to raise the bar
On what was expected of him

Always passed over for promotion
By underlings who had not yet
Paid their dues, worked the system,
Or prevailed in singing battle hymns

Left trying to claim victory
For challenges that faded away
Obsolete skills struggling to breathe
Old school proficiencies now whims

The lead pencil constantly breaking
And needing sharpening again
Competing with mechanical designs
Equipped with spare refills, hope dims

_____________________

TEN SQUARED
—Caschwa

Pilot to navigator: stay on course
We have plenty of fuel to continue
Pilot to gunner: let’s increase the force
And show doubters exactly what’s in you
There’s no defense against aviators
Determined to bomb urban areas
Pilot to tail feathers: perfection rules
Although you are unable to hear this
Pilot to log: we have scored the crown jewels
A direct hit no less, not a near miss

_____________________

YOUR TURN

—Caschwa

Clues

Forming

Memories

Everlasting

Thoughts

Silly

Laughable

Belly rolling

Oops

Error

Mistaken

Took a wrong turn

Fault

chords

broken

augmented

and diminished

fifths

fire

aglow

shimmering

handy dandy

match

Otis

All day long

Elevator

Down

Eyes

Sleepy

Too heavy

To keep open

Shut

_____________________

Today's LittleNip(s):

TESTIMONY
—Caschwa

The Court: Are you certified?

The Witness: Well yes and no: people have long held that I am a certifiable lazy idiot, but after all these years I have never completed the paperwork to get the certificate.

____________________

TIME OUT
—Caschwa

Egyptian mummies
Older than trees
We think we know
The reason

They left the court
With injured knees
Will play again
Next season

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's chefs: Katy Brown, who stole some photo time from the busy life she has right now, taking care of her significant other who is very ill; Michael Cluff who is continuing his Gusts series and reminding us that it's African American History Month; and Carl Schwartz (Caschwa), who tackled the lanturne (our Form to Fiddle With) big-time, with admirable results! Be sure to check out Carl's "album" on Medusa's Facebook page. (In case you didn't understand his "Ten Squared" title, it's ten syllables, ten lines.)

Hey—Punxsutawny Phil saw his shadow! Six more weeks of winter!

Shadow

—Photo by Katy Brown

No Bloodless Sorrow

2012-02-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

Annie Menebroker at the Beat Museum, SF

—Photo by Dave Boles, Grass Valley

ROOM

—Ruth Stone

Someone in the next apartment

Walks slowly back to a room abutting mine.

I am on this side, sitting.

It is uncomfortable trying to be quiet.

For weeks coming in here to change my clothes,

I think, are my clothes too daring?
And the sound of water rushing in

Filling a tub in the other room

Makes a loud continuity,

As though many people might be living here,

Twining their arms about me,

Passing me in the hall,

Making tender jokes.

Sunlight enters the room near the ceiling.

And shadows of leaves letting go

Flash in downward slants

Falling inside the room

To sink through the floor.

And I think

Is this the way it will be?

And I listen

With my ear against the plaster.

______________________

LIBERATION

—Ruth Stone

We ladies sense it is the cuckoo builds no nest;

To float the flower on the pond and hide the stem,

That's to be as we are. God gives us recompense.

Within the nursery one may smack and kiss

As among giggling nuns. The business is,

Secure the man when young and then repent

Amid his willows and his streams. Sweet lioness,

The sorcerer says in ugly dreams you have

No bloodless sorrow. Whose bones attest to this?
We ache, we grow fat, we are oppressed.

Metamorphosis deceives our innocence.

Morning after morning slips

The spider with her web across our lips.

______________________

DÉNOUEMENT

—Ruth Stone

You intimidated me. I was thrown into hell without a trial.

Guilty by default. It was clear the murdered one was dead.

There were only two of us. But no one came to lead me away.

A hundred eyes looked in and saw me on fire.

We loved him, they said. Then they forgot.

After many years I knew who it was who had died.

Murderer, I whispered, you tricked me.

______________________

WHOSE SCENE?
—Ruth Stone

I crawl up the couch leg feeling

Your blond hair, your bloomy skin.

What do I want from you, giant?

I am afraid. But I laugh; I enjoy.

You fabricate. The words and music tremble

And thunder my thin blood.

The air is heated; odor of indian oil.

Trussed bed where bodies grapple; arms, legs,

Breasts, balls; the giants copulating.

I crawl up a wall and open my wings

And flutter down in borrowed ecstasty.

But then not open ended as it ought to be;

The beer, the refrigerator, the dull

Sequel shrinks to five rooms

In a treeless suburb. And cockroach that I am,

I go behind the baseboard to fornicate and spread

Myself, ancient as the ovulum and sperm.

_______________________

CODICIL
—Ruth Stone

I am still bitter about the last place we stayed.

The bed was really too small for both of us.

In that same rooming house

Walls were lined with filing cases,

Drawers of bird's eggs packed in cotton.

The landlady described them.

As widow of the ornithologist,

Actually he was a postal clerk,

She was proprietor of the remains.

Had accompanied him on his holidays

Collecting eggs. Yes,

He would send her up the tree

And when she faltered he would shout,

"Put it in your mouth. Put it in your mouth."

It was nasty, she said,

Closing a drawer with her knee.

Faintly blue, freckled, mauve, taupe,

Chalk white eggs.

As we turned the second flight of stairs

Toward a mattress unfit for two,

Her voice would echo up the well,

Something about an electric kettle

At the foot of our bed.

Eggs, eggs, eggs in secret muted shapes in my head;

Hundreds of unborn wizened eggs.

I think about them when I think of you.

_______________________

Items of note:

•••TONIGHT at the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st St., Davis, 8pm: The Poetry Night Reading Series begins its fifth year with Alan Williamson. One of the most important poet-critics of his generation, Alan Williamson has received a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and a Guggenheim fellowship. Williamson has taught for the UC Davis English Department since 1983, having previously taught at the University of Virginia, Harvard University, and Brandeis University.

•••Some of you may be familiar with the online Desolation Poems, a compendium of poetry forms that was put together by Jan Haag (janhaag.com/PODesIntro.html). Sac. Poetry Center will present a reading from Team Haag, participants in Jan Haag's Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) method writing groups. These spontaneous works originated in group writing sessions—folks gathered in a circle of desks and chairs, chasing words down a page to see what appears. These works are now collected in a 'zine of poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction for sharing with the public. Hear them at 7pm Sat. at SPC, 25th & R Sts., Sac. Hosted by Jan Haag. Info: www.sacramentopoetrycenter.com/team-haag-zine-reading; for more about Jan Haag, go to janhaag.com

•••Then, on Monday, SPC presents a reading (including Susan Kelly-DeWitt) from the anthology, What Redwoods Know: Poems from California State Parks, edited and published by Katherine Hastings of WordTemple. Books will be available and proceeds will go to the help the parks. Info: arts.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/18805/new-poetry-book-speaks-up-for-the-parks/ or www.calparks.org/stories/poems-from-california-state.html

•••Taylor Graham writes that the Villanelles anthology edited by Annie Finch and Marie-Elizbeth Mali for Everyman's Library, London, is will be released March 6 on Amazon.com (www.amazon.com/Villanelles-Annie-Finch/dp/0307957861). TG is in there, as well as Elizabeth Bishop, E.A. Robinson, Roethke, Plath, Heaney...

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

DARKNESS MUSIC

—Muriel Rukeyser

The days grow and the stars cross over

And my wild bed turns slowly among the stars.

______________________

—Medusa

Annie Menebroker at The Beat Museum

—Photo by Dave Boles

Lanterns/Lanturnes to Guide Us

2012-02-01T06:35:00.000-08:00

Tibetan monks building a mandala in Placerville, 2012

—Photo by Irene Lipshin

IMPERMANENCE

—Irene Lipshin, Placerville

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

~Dalai Lama

Six days creating a mandala, a sand

painting colored with healing prayers.

On the seventh morning, a dissolution

ceremony. The Monks destroy

their creation, brush the grains

to the center, pour them into a brass urn

no bigger than a hand. In the blessing,

they ask the deities to heal the earth.

Afternoon at the river, the Geshe

scatters wisdom of non-attachment,

north, south, east, west, releasing

sacred sand to the flowing water.

Witnesses observe, wishing

to reverse so many words

and deeds, as easily as sweeping

them away with a feather and casting

them to the currents.

—Photo by Irene Lipshin

_____________________

WILD-PLUM
—Taylor Graham

The

last time

I saw you,

plum-trees danced for

Fall.

lanterns

in this night—

only the long

dark.

_____________________

STUDY-SKINS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

This owl, for instance,

has no eyes—what had been

amber lanterns in the dark

are dead. Toe-tagged,

the talons grasp at species-name

and measurements as if a ticket

to flight. The girl holds her

carefully penciled notes; knows

somehow she's been

scammed. It was the living bird

she loved. Royal gaze

of an osprey. Vagabond journey

of the thrush caught outside

its range, its regular schedule.

A bird in motion—hawk

so high she can't see field-

marks; or that tiny

twitter weaving in and

out of thorn-berry tangle.

She misses

the eye of the bird.

______________________

Guided by the vague mottles

fireflies pirouetting in August arias

of draught or mistral

zephyr or chinook,

Percy,

lost on the moss-covered path,

thanks fate

these lanterns

in the darkness

are inspired tonight

to hover and play

in the magnolia- and marigold-heavy night.

—Michael Cluff, Corona, CA

_____________________

To construct bridges
across the deep pits
of ink and ignorance,
Professor Graham Stripling
was not the best
lantern in the intellectual darkness
to achieve this.

He had never overcome
the razors that lightning-flash
emotions and knuckles
had placed into his discretion
and disposition.

He only wore
tie-nooses around his neck
binding stiff belts
and wincing heavy wingtips
to keep himself disciplined
in a doctrine
that his draconian-driven
father forced
into the pre-schooler's childhood fissures
reinforced by fulsome fears
and which Graham would not question....

just like his students are compelled
by him to always
unflinchingly do.

—Michael Cluff

_____________________

GUSTS 6
—Michael Cluff

Mina rode the wild winds
into an oasis
mottled by cheeky breezes
and fern-ringed kangaroo paws
dipped in leaves a sculptor
would envy.

Roscoe waited
for her at the entrance
to the pottery shop
next to the hot dog stand
in the third-rate outdoor mall
on a clipped back street
near the faltering freeways.

He grew just for her
and she just caroms and drifts
from one tienda
to the other.

______________________

I will pause
at the mouth
as the stream lingers
before shooting down
to the gulf of dark waters.

A fish gathers air
above surface
a long bit
then plunges
in the brackish solution
it does not wish to seek
but must.

—Michael Cluff

______________________

USELESS STRUGGLE
—Michael Cluff

Unlike the Italians
in Pisa,
the British want
to defy gravity
and not let nature
tumble Big Ben down.

Americans are like
their English counterparts:
consider that a replica
of the London Bridge
spans the Colorado River
between Arizona
and the land that some
hope will slip
into the uncontrollable
blue,
pacific
sea.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

POOR MEDUSA
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Tehama

If Medusa’s hair
is any indication
of the way her mind works
I don’t envy the girl.
All that white-noise hiss
and endless loops
and thoughts tangling
in each other,
it’s a wonder
when she opens her mouth
she ever makes sense.
It’s no wonder
in the legend she hands down
things go badly.

____________________

Things sometimes go badly for Medusa, indeed—especially when we don't hear from our SnakePals for a long time. Patricia Wellingham-Jones has been busy with her many other projects, and her absence in the Kitchen has been missed, as has Irene Lipshin, who lives part-time in Placerville and part-time in New York. It's a good day for Medusa when prodigals return! Be sure to check out Patricia's interview over there in the green column at the right of this, under Kool Thing(s) of the Week.

And thanks to Taylor Graham and Michael Cluff, too, for tackling some of our Seeds, including our SOW, our FTFW, and some N-SOWS. And James Den Boer writes to let us know that Swan Scythe Press's 2012 Chapbook Contest is now in full swing; see Submission Tip of the Week. Details for all of these are over there on the green board.

—Medusa (speaking to your despite all the white-noise hiss and endless loops! Ah, non-attachment—the work of several lifetimes, yes?)

—Photo by Irene Lipshin

This Cold Wind

2012-01-31T06:53:00.000-08:00

Two Textures

—Photo by Joyce Odam

THIS COLD WIND
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

this cold wind
lost on
my landscape
of one thin tree
in patient suffering
bent

this cold wind
bringing nothing I can use,
except its cold,
except
disturbed hues of
its own howling,
except the force
of its own direction,
with nothing to hold it
but this bent tree . . .

let it go . . .
let it have its say
and go . . .
it is not up to me

(first pub. in Poets On: Coping, 1995)

____________________

YOU IN SUNSET
(After "Sun Setting at Cannon Beach"
by Ursula K. LeGuin)
—Joyce Odam

you in your sky, becoming the sunset that I watch,
becoming the breezes that touch my face,
becoming the echo that follows the lone bird cry
becoming the motionless glide of its wing—
you, in your manuscript sky—taking up all of it . . .

____________________

WIND'S VOICE
—Joyce Odam

The wind blows color here,
red trees and gold,
the dying green and brown,
the brilliance of the air.

And it brings sounds:
sharper bird-song,
rustlings…    moanings…
something in the trees.

Wind’s voice—
I’ve heard
that voice before,
outside my window—

howling corners
of the house—
even in the silences
that build
to something there.

____________________

INEQUITY
(after Franz Marc:
"Woman in the Wind by the Sea", 1907)
—Joyce Odam

The woman in the green coat
wrestles with her hat
and balance—
forcing her way
through the storm.
The winds
conspire to torment.
The blue sea gathers
more force
against the shore.
She struggles so—
her arms in a flail
—tearing at the air,
howling into the howling—
as if some fight she fights
would have it out with her.

____________________

TWO OBSERVINGS
—Joyce Odam

Strangely sensual without the body,
flattened into pure shining texture
for the observing room light—
her kimono—lying open on the bed.

                          ~

In the late summer woods, a leaf has fallen
into a shaft of sunlight and lies, softly
shining there—its edges lifted by
the occasional small breezes . . .

____________________

ON THE VERGE
(after “The trees in the garden”
by Stephen Crane)
—Joyce Odam

There was a rain of blossoms
and web floated on the air;
the day’s breezes were gentle
and a great sighing was felt.

Sermons waited in cleared throats
of those who were on the verge
of finding what was unfindable—
only felt—by the lost and found alike.

All this was mentioned
by the misery of the loveless
who groped for what was ever gone
at their reaching.

Oh, good day of chance
and failure—
must I continue,    and continue,
and continue?

____________________

Thanks to Joycey for whipping up the wind, our Seed of the Week, for our Tuesday breakfast! Our new SOW is Lanterns in the Night—send your enlightenings to kathykieth@hotmail.com—and the Form to Fiddle With this week is, correspondingly, the lanturne. Check that out at thepoetsquill.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/lanturne-poetry-form

Some other items of note:

•••Open Mic Voices is a new online poetry forum: see OpenMicVoices.com

•••Donald Anderson writes: By visiting http://www.RainFlowers.org/ (that's flowers not forest) and browsing the links on the top menu bar or dropdown menus, and by listing on this event page ten things that can be improved on the website without repeating what others have mentioned, you will receive a 178-page color pdf (openable on computers that have the widely used free Adobe Acrobat Reader software) of ebook Moon Mist Valley, a collection of poetry and art, to your email inbox of choice. Deadline is Valentine's Day.

•••Swan Scythe Press is proud to announce a new book by Sandra McPherson: A Visit to Civilization. To order, go to www.swanscythe.com/books/visit_to_civilization.html or write to Swan Scythe Press at 515 P St., #804, Sacramento, CA 95814.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

WIND SIGNATURE
—Joyce Odam

bush-shadow shudders
against white siding
rattling the wind’s name
under loose windows

____________________

—Medusa

Two Textures, II

—Joyce Odam

Ars Poetica 128

2012-01-30T06:55:00.000-08:00

Salmon

—Photo by Taylor Graham

BEACH RIVER
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

When salmon came dancing
up the spawning stream,
we watched dark wings come closer.

A wheeled plane settled, sea-bird
on sand, letting out fifteen fishermen
who checked the tide-table,

pulled on hip-boots, opened tackle-
boxes, cast rainbow-colored lures
into silver ripples whose rocks

clasped them tight, a river-queen's
ransom, so fishermen offered
new lures shiny red purple green

while the salmon danced in their red-
scale armor upstream, the river
sang, quick red voice summoning

tide and sunset, till the wheeled
plane lifted fifteen fishermen away
into evening's dark wings.

______________________

A PLACE FOR HER IN MUSIC
—Taylor Graham

Mozart draws me much too lucidly
tonight, from lux perpetua to kyrie eleison,
and lacrymosa dies, the way the world
spins red and ashen from a girl's
not coming home for supper
to finding her asleep under her own
backyard. Sand, tiny fragments
of rock. Cunning as music,
how she was wooed or wedged
into that hole, and the earth made as if
right again above her. One more
death I never knew—what loss to me?
Ask her mother, ask the man
who made the music and is dead.
This sweet art, skin of sound,
notes soaring off like birds let loose
in a blown-apart sky. It's winter
when the birds have flown.
Requiem aeternum.

______________________

ARS POETICA 128
—Taylor Graham

I thought I was in love with the Buddha
but he was huge and distant and wouldn't look at me.
Then I followed that poet Bukowski for a spell,
but I lacked gumption
to stand with him cold on the shoulder
waiting for a ride from Vegas,
with all that roadkill
unpoetically concrete on the two-lane,
and hurt poems limping along in the dark beyond
the headlit edges. Oh beautiful maimed
anapestic rabbit. Is poetry always about love?

______________________

WHAT NOT

Is.
The rainbow colors
in our school palate

Just the howling wind
blows open
the classroom door
wafting all
assignments
off of their desks

Noses start dripping.
Tissues are born in
the air, shooting
out of cardboard
boxes

Shoes scatter on
the floor by
half-zipped
backpacks

Eyes don’t blink
Mouths wide open
Knees bumping
knees,
Criss-crossed
on the floor.
Let’s Go—
It’s
time
for
a
read-aloud.

—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

____________________

RHUBARB EXPLOSION
—Caschwa, Sacramento

(The director told those who were picked to be in
the crowd scene of a movie to just say “rhubarb”
over and over again, in their normal speaking voice.)

Emboldened by the positive feedback
From Ronald Reagan’s challenge to
“Tear Down This Wall!”

Activists have been busily tearing down
Other walls viewed as limiting or confining
Our precious freedom of speech

Unleashing a veritable prison break of
Dominating terms and images borne of
Alluring, evil, manipulative, sly, you name it

Cries arise of triumph, anguish, incredulity,
Hatred, humility, arrogance, defiance, and love
Starting as a buzz and escalating to a roar

Which has eventually drowned out the memorable
Slogans of our patriots, whose singular embattled
Voices had finally reached sympathetic ears

Only now the din of the crowd is reduced to
Rhubarb repetitions disconnected from reality, which
Nonetheless vibrate the air like a powerful engine

Mass media, which had gained acceptance
By spreading the news far and wide
Now boldly sprays rhubarb everywhere

_____________________

IVORY TOWER POWER
—Caschwa

Because they couldn’t pay their bills
Those lofty aliens who hold
Sway with our pay
Decided to poke us working folk
Squeezing our income outrageously low

Mirroring the Mazatec ritual
Of crushing Salvia divornum leaves
To extract juices to infuse in tea
To create an altered state of consciousness
For ritual healing ceremonies, yippee!

After years of practicing
This awkward procedure a lot
The budget is finally balanced
So everyone can now go back
To just being normal. Not.

_____________________

PROTOCOLS
—Caschwa

I was just expressing my heartfelt gratitude
And saving it in some handy metal canisters
I got from the camping supplies store

When some self-righteous snobs told me
That was offensive and not appropriate
Behavior to do in a public forum.

Well!! Imagine that? Feelings are banned
If you are in a place where others can see you;
We could be on the threshold of a major
Decline in the greeting card industry.

____________________

GO HOME
—Caschwa

It’s 5:00 at the art museum
Close of business
Consumption of the body
Can of beans

Tear away from that painting by
Jean-Francois Millet
It will still be there
The next business day

Hanging in another place
Depicting yet another face
Some memories we can’t erase
A missing head and bloodied lace

So rests poor Barbizon at last
Slain by tourists who move too fast
Burying the richness of its past
Ignoring the flags that fly half mast

Shut the door and
Leave it behind
Go home, let TV
Take control of your mind

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

WINDY FORECAST
—Caschwa

A can outside
The wind blew in
A candle inside
The wind blew out

The French inch passed
Its British kin
Napoleon’s height
Was left in doubt

(for more about Napoleon's height, see www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/03/napolean-bonaparte-having-been-short-is-a-myth)

____________________

Thanks to our chefs today, including Taylor Graham, who writes about her salmon: Salmon in process of being smoked in the smoker we built of river rock so we could transport our catch home from the island. Ah the old days of adventure [when she and husband Hatch were living in Alaska]. Good to have Rhony Bhopla in the Kitchen more these days, too. And we have a new Facebook album of the American River from Carl Schwartz (Caschwa); be sure to check that out.

—Medusa

—Photo by Caschwa

(Be sure to check out his new album of

the American River on Medusa's Facebook page!)

Misglided

2012-01-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

Falcated Teal

BIRDQUEST
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Excited by the rarest rare-bird report on KCRA,
we head up north this fine wild-wind January Sunday
to the Colusa Wildlife Refuge, electric with hopes
to see a blown-off-course visitor: an Asian Falcated Teal.
So giddy with hopes of the Great Reveal,
we might be flying, not driving, flying like Aztec
voladores, spiraling in a mystic centrifuge.
This visiting Siberian waterfowl ought to be
wintering in Vietnam or Bangladesh or Burma,
we learn from the Roger Tory Peterson field guide.
But, Teal’s instinctual GPS device wind-flustered,
storm-baffled perhaps, he’s flapped and fluttered
and bellied down to pond, from Siberia via the Aleutians
through Canada and—here. How much of his misglide
was fear? His misery or mischance our good luck,
we unpack our binoculars. There’s the duck-observation
deck, the one rock-solid in a wilderness of pooling
and ponding. We strain and strain our lenses to find
the rare friend in grand goose-strews and duck-huddles,
wanting so greedily to see the scimitar covering
plumes jacket the graceful straight flight feathers.
We envision the breast neatly dappled and stippled,
the sensuous downcurve of the Art Deco tail feathers,
knowing our passion to flame from mere smoldering kindled
—but where is he?

Oh the Snow Geese and the exquisite copper-sided
Northern Shovelers are lovely. We lap up vistas
of Black-Necked Stilts wading, their leg stalks all
peach yogurt color. And the Pintails plow fresh
channels of landing, their lusciously silverblue bills
aglow. But Mr. Teal’s not anywhere to be seen.
He was here just yesterday, say some birders. He’ll turn
up sooner or later, they opine. And we’re far far
downriver but missing our Mistah Kurtz in all this
heart of duckness. Not overly soon but soon, we head
for home: our Tinkerbell and teal belief
shaken to something a bit like grief.
And your eyes almost fill.

***

But that was that Sunday. Today Sunday,
the planks of that ducklooking deck seem weighted
a little weightier with us absurd people,
bird people. In front of the throng, almost
amid the fullthrottle birdsong, two or three
spotting scopes: murmurs of I can see him!
We shyly ask to peek—then, Where is he?
See where that transmission tower is. Now
look just past that little green island: he’s out
there just hanging out with some Snow Geese.
And we’ve found our Falcated Teal! See his
lovely mallard-green head? But a touch livelier,
a tad bit Key Lime pie tinge. The subtly curved
scimitar covering wings might be kissed
or scented faint lilac. And the clincher: how
the wonderful little rust patch just paints
the top curve of the head running back a ways
from the little duck brow. We leave the great
spotting scopes to their rightful scopers. Now
we can ply our own binocs as on bikes minus
training wheels. And we catch him again!
gliding like Ultraduck with mighty invisible kicks
across the rippling shining soft waterfield.
O Walt Whitman of teals, you poet among odd
ducks, we’ve got you! And we and you and the live
oak in Louisiana will live alone no longer evermore.
And we know we will go home as aglow as the long
soft sunset pond. The air just back of the wild
afternoon blue’s like a painter’s ground,
golden and cold and windblown,

and our sweet teal found.

_____________________

—Medusa

(For more about the Falcated Teal, go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcated_Duck. For more about his visit to the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, and to see him in action there, go to baynature.org/videos/falcated-duck-turns-up-at-calusa-national-wildlife-refuge.)

Charles Bukowski As The Buddha

2012-01-28T06:15:00.000-08:00

Window and the Sea

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

THE THREE FISHES
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

Oh the path was green as green could be.
The path led down to the sea-O,
And from out of the sea and the night beach-O,
Came fishes three to dance upon the shore-O.

They danced on their tails as they told their tales,
Fins flapping on their sides. And they sang quite
Loud but they sang quite clear and their eyes shone
Bright and greeny as they danced in the blue moonlight:

“We have been to the lands of the fairie queen to show
Her our scales and how they shine, brighter than her armoured
Knights and she bid us go to the green, green path
That leads down to this sea, to dance upon the shore.

The sights we saw were the sights we saw and turtles
Large as dreams, they swam with us in the icy seas
Among the bergs and the herring schools with whales
White and Whales blue, bowheads, finned and the right ones too.

Through the realms of the squid and the great, great rays,
Past the thousand sharks and the octopi, the dolphins, eels
And the barracuda, past the sunfish and the bright sea snakes,
To come to this shore on this bright night to dance in the moonlight
Just for you, to dance in the moonlight for you.

And when you wake in the morning, child, and the day
Collects around you, you’ll tell your story of the dancing
Fish you’ve seen upon the strand. No will believe such
A thing you’ve seen, through it’s true, as true could be.
Such a sight they’ll say could never be and you’ll say the fish
Sang to you too and they will say this couldn’t be true, oh no,
They will say it couldn’t be true.

All you’ll have left are some scales we will give
And these words of our song we sang for you
As you came down the green, green path that
Leads to the edge of the sea-O, that leads to the edge of the sea.”

______________________

HAMMERING IT HOME
—D.R. Wagner

This should be a voice.
This should be a red voice.
I did not know that this
Would have this appearance,
That it would seem to be a collection
Of stars at a window, the blue
Eating away at where the moon
Was just reaching. This does not
Appear to be a voice. It is
So silent. I can’t get back
To it often enough. There isn’t
A sensation of sound at all.

Shaking the sleep away with
A voice. How can this be
As it seems. I will write
It down here. I will come
Here to listen. I will not know
Anything but the voice.
I will not be reading at all.
I will know what this really is.

______________________

AFGHANISTAN
—D.R. Wagner

They were shredding the sky.
Huge chunks of it ripped out,
The skin behind the stars
Showing its edges. They too glowed.

Someone was already sitting near
The piano when she entered
The room. There was something
Familiar about him. His eyes
Had seen rafts of the dead
Laid out in the sand and broken rocks,

A voice of pure red and dirty smoke
Before the bodies had come apart.

There must be a place for them
In music. Please let there be
A place for them in music.

It is bad enough they can never
Be put back together. The sound
Itself weeps blood and fragments of bones.
We walk quickly to find cover.
Perhaps we have not been seen yet.

_____________________

THE CHILDREN OF THE BLIND
—D.R. Wagner

All around me, a gray rain,
A glance dropped so easily
It made no sound until it reached
The heart’s core and leaked out
Through the bottom, not understanding
A blessed thing about why
The coldness cracked the surface
Where love was smoothing and soothing
As much as it could when
Its truth was knocked out
Of its head and scattered
On the runway like

Porcelain gems spinning
The tires of huge jets and
Creating havoc every time I even
Thought of a kiss or your arms
Or anything that might be
Your body next to mine.

______________________

HARMLESS
—D.R. Wagner

Well this is certainly harmless.
All the blood has been washed away.
They have recorded everything so they
Can relive it over and over.

The sounds of the working day
Are muffled here as if there
Was something no one wanted us to see.

I don’t know. Something just snapped
And before I knew it everyone was
Wearing red and screaming and I
Reasoned that the gathered throng
Was some kind of drunken giant
That never heard of Our Lady
Of Sorrows. I smoothed my hair
And my hands are covered with
Blood. I haven’t been taught this.
Just stand here with me, not hurting
Anymore, ever. We’ll talk quietly for awhile.

I wonder if we will meet again.
I can hear your voice, the crying
And that little star that needs
To hear us sing to it so it can shine.

_____________________

Window and the Sea II

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

(The bitter tears of the wind,
Much of rain is for the sky
alone to see.)

LANDING IN THE DARK
—D.R. Wagner

“The sea is like a splintered mirror.”

There is no moving closer to it
Or landing on it. We have no way
Of knowing if we are near the ground
Or if we are part of the snow and the terror

The edge of night brings to us
As we hang suspended in the air
Listening to the whining of the motors
That keep us aloft. They seem
Fueled more by dreams than
Gasoline or jet fuel. They do not
Offer us comfort, only remind us
That we are gods of the air
For a brief moment. Then we see
Three flares in the distance,

Decide they mark the edge of a plane
Where we might escape the clouds.
The runway of the night all around us.

We turn our craft toward these
Feeble beacons and begin singing
As if they were the most precious
Of jewels as we feel the lump
Earth becomes beneath our wheels
And we begin thinking of how
Exotic a cup of coffee sounds.

______________________

TESTING THE RAIN
—D.R. Wagner

The sea birds fly low
Across the water, just inches
Above the wave tops,
Like almost waking from sleep
But being unable to do so.

The ladder reaches almost
To the top of the wall
But still falls short
Before one is able to see
Over the top.

O the fire knows my name.
“The velvet voices of the drowned”
Wish this rain to rise again. It seems
So small. We cannot possibly
Be important here. The hours
Will wash over us. There will be
Kind words and the beating
The heart knows as its private
Voice is echoed in the thunder,

Describes the robes the heart
Wears before it has been harmed
By living in these streets, walking
Among the monsters of murder
This city fills itself with.

We watch the birds and decide to test
The rain once more, to fly for all
The days of our lives.

______________________

CHARLES BUKOWSKI AS THE BUDDHA
—D.R. Wagner

You can wait outside this place forever
And never see the same poem that went in the front door.
It was so shiny and full of order, clean metaphors,
Dancing rhythms.

Here comes one now. It is tired and hurt.
It looks like it got into an argument with Charles Bukowski
About a race horse. Thing with poems though,
They have been everywhere. They are like fire.

They are all our senses, these are poems after all.
They go everywhere, they see everything.
They see as well as the Buddha, for crying
Out loud. They might be the Buddha.

Later, when you finally get in the door and go
Looking for it, you will find thousands of them,
Most of them attached to poets however.
If you find one without an ego it just might
Be the Buddha. Or maybe it's just Charles Bukowski.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

A QUANDARY
—D.R. Wagner

I found myself a fiction.
No one believed me.
Everyone read me.
I remain the truth.

_____________________

—Medusa

Hole in a Wall

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

Stardust and Antique Rose

2012-01-27T06:04:00.000-08:00

African Mask, Crocker Art Museum

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

WIND-WHIPPED
—Janet L. Pantoja, Woodinville, WA

Wild winds of winter weather
Whoosh through the evergreen trees
Whipping and flinging branches
With such ease and expertise
Wide and far—leave behind a
War scene—green foliage on
White foam snowed on the landscape.

_____________________

WORDS
—Helen Treulufian, Sacramento

Words . . .
they float up in my mind.
Do I need to let them all out?
Or shall I pause and think before I speak?

Weigh their effect on others?
Or are they as light as feathers,
almost weightless,
and therefore have no effect?

I think not—kind, gentle, loving—
the spoken word.
The other thoughts and words
don't all need to be said.
Let them float on by, or use them
empathetically
to express myself in the written word.

Poetry—an outlet for
opinions . . .
ponderings . . .
wonderings . . .

And, please don't put words in my mouth.
I may have to spit them out
and the spittle may get you wet.
I wouldn't want that to happen.

_____________________

STARDUST
—Helen Treulufian

How come,
if we have stardust within us,
we don’t shine?

I’m sure there are still combustible sparks
inside us.

And I say to myself, what is my flint and
what is the strike that will inflame my soul?

Tell me, why not?
Are we frightened moths hiding
our wings in the mud,
our eyes bound tightly with fear—
of our gloriousness?

______________________

ANTIQUE ROSE
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

So lovesick,
so homesick,
so full of rheumatoid arthritis.
So… standing on a million pointed stars—
the journey home, such a disappointment.

She died along the way in February,
before the month of May—
before she could even stay long enough
to ensure a good fit with her surroundings,
her flounderings, her groundings.

______________________

TURQUOISE
—Carol Louise Moon

Turquoise, being the curious color
of the future, propels me forward;
the stuff of dreams in visions of
turquoise. Flying geese which
usually waddle are now riding bi-
cycles down the cherry lanes in teal
garden-parks. London-blue dogs
sniff at turquoise nuggets which
dot the off-blue landscape.

Sprinklers sprinkle lawns at 9am
with a pale version of aquamarine.

By now, I suspect the very nerves
of my spinal cord are a deeper
shade of turquoise. Turquoise
won’t leave me alone.

______________________

ARABIAN BROWN
—Carol Louise Moon

I have an old, old dictionary:
page after page of words.
(Well, of course!)
And, a portrait of Noah Webster.
(Why not?)

On page 109 is the definition of
Arabian brown: a moderate to
strong brown that is redder and
slightly darker than oak, and
darker than Vassar tan.
(Vassar tan?!)

Well… we now know what
Noah Webster knows.
(I suppose!)

_____________________

MINT GREEN
—Carol Louise Moon

If we’re not careful
we could fall
into
mint green,
sink below the surface—
our tongues treading sea foam
our toes at the ends of our legs
wiggling
trying to grasp onto
a lighter shade
of stability.

_____________________

DOWN WITH CHANNEL 6
—Carol Louise Moon

Pale Purple has been so
misunderstood, underestimated,
always compared to
Periwinkle and Tanzanite.
Channel 6 did a feature story
on Pale Purple, dubbing it the
(quote) Color of Low
Self-Esteem (unquote).
What a shame. What a sham!

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

LIFE CHOICES
—Mitz Sackman, Murphys

All life is choices
From patterns seen and unseen
Open one door
Another closes
Open your heart
Your mind can see further
Trust your hand
To choose the right door
Let your heart fly
Through the window beyond
To the rest of your life
You now have chosen

_____________________

Thanks to today's lady-chefs for these culinary delights, including these fine mask photos from Cynthia Linville. Welcome to Helen Treulufian, who comes to us from the Women's Wisdom Art program in Sacramento (www.sacramentofoodbank.org/programs/womens-wisdom.html) that is facilitated by Davis Poet Laureate and SnakePal Allegra Silberstein. And welcome back to Michelle (Mitz) Sackman from Murphys, who's been absent from the Kitchen for a while, partly due to a nastily broken wrist that required a plate—and no, a Kitchen plate wouldn't do. Carol Louise Moon sent us these tasty riffs on color (yesterday we were talking about what inspires us), and Janet Pantoja sends us a Pleides based on our Seed of the Week. If you'd like to fool around with Pleides (the 7-line, 7-syllable/line, same-cap-letter-starting-each-line form), you can exchange them online w/The Moon and Stars Pleiades Circle, care of Carol Louise Moon at dadsdesk@hotmail.com; include "Pleiades" in the subject line.

And nobody corrected me on my misspelling of "tuanartsa" yesterday, which should've been "tuanortsa"—being, of course, "astronaut" spelled backwards. For more about tuanortsas, see www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1918 It seems like you can either repeat the middle line or not. Carl Schwartz's example yesterday didn't...

—Medusa

African Mask, de Young Museum, San Francisco

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

Spring Seeds Sprouting

2012-01-26T06:16:00.000-08:00

LOCKSMITH
—Caschwa, Sacramento

(Inspired by dawn dibartolo’s leather jacket & boots)

Such a delicate touch
The world at his fingertips
He was very, very self-sure
Excelled at his art
Not too hard to reach
It is good he stayed above the law
Not too hard to reach
Excelled at his art
He was very, very self-sure
The world at his fingertips
Such a delicate touch

____________________

WHAT IS SHE SAYING?
—Caschwa

Mother Nature tears down trees
With forces far fiercer than
Chain saws

Re-routes rivers without
All the discussion and delay
Of committees

Keeps life going despite immense challenges
And plucks it away
Quite easily

Gives us a cornucopia of
Food and colors and tempers
When she feels like it

So we are left to read between lines
That are constantly changing;
Wonder what she meant by that?

_____________________

BAD INTO GOOD
—Michael Cluff, Corona, CA

Cursed by numbers
before civilization established them,
twenty-six miles out of Long Beach,
twice thirteen,
the native fox
of Catalina
is now in better stead
than before
thirteen distempered
nearing extinctual years
now mercifully
let to rest.

Introduced by rabid dogs
brought over from shore
by dodos of men,
nature takes command
and balances the ledgers
for fauna
this one rare time.

_____________________

GUSTS
—Michael Cluff

1

The cheeky breezes
bromides hiding prejudice
in social
professional
intellectual insults
unsettled Noelle
much more
than the wild winds
of plasma
shooting off
the sun
a boiling brontosaur
which never hides
behind homilies
traditions, any isms
and the three-piece
pinstriped suit
her professor
almost always
dons at dawn.

2

The cheeky breezes
tap out my boredom
and boorishness
a battalion of possibilities
prance outward
to defeat
the draughts of ideas
that hold me under
a pool of pruned promises.

The wild winds grab
the released me
carry it into
the corona
of the solar balloon
that tints the inviting
indigo and iris of the
liberating dusk
sliced off
peacefully
from the numbing
nimbuses
of noon.

3

Camille texts me
her paper
was blown over
the car
into the still soppy drainage ditch
lost to the acts
of a capricious nature.

Having had my loose
new silk birthday necktie
ripped from my unbuttoned-down collar
make me mellow
towards her
not myself
for planning
to wait until
I reached my office
to create the perfect
dimple
and
knot.

The wind does not care
one way or another
it just howls
joy accenting
the final notes
of passing.

4

The clarifying
occurs when wild winds
scour out the residue
of what the skies
unwillingly inherited
from the actions
of 21st-century man

and the cheeky breezes
slap at the hems of dresses
the ties of men
the kites of kids
and the wings
of fighter jets
to establish
who will win out
in the end.

5

Cheeky breezes
drive me to the balcony
and then
play rehearsal.

Tomorrow
the wildest winds
will have to step in
and bluster and impel
me back to work.

_____________________

RUSTIC HUSBANDRY
—Taylor Graham

A cottage paved with knees of sheep
laid joint-to-joint a shank-bone deep.
Think of the lambs that used to leap—
how newborns on their knee-caps creep,
then sweetly by their mothers sleep.
What odd economies we keep.
If tiles are pricey, bones are cheap;
just pick them off the garbage heap.
Floors of scrolled ivory—hard to sweep,
but most attractive. Bones we reap.

_____________________

RIDING WITH WIND
—Taylor Graham

This stiff wind,
tickling-whim wind,
dim first-light bird wind,
cliff-high fling-wind—
it's itch, hitch-this-wind
wind, it flirts &
clings, trips, sings, this
fizz-hiss-thrill-wind,
bright whirligig
kiting wind, night-lightning
wind, this winding-
whining-driving,
this I'm-its-kin wind.

_____________________

WHAT WIND

blew you here, off-course
from the road to Halsted? You're looking
out to sea and those rocks
named on the map—The Manacles—
corruption of a Cornish word. This sunny
afternoon, shearwaters skim the tops
of waves whose sparklers flare and flicker.
A sea-breeze beckons divers.
What treasures glitter
below The Voices, The Minstrel,
Carn-Dhu—where old sea-wrecks lie
scattered on the bottom?
Those rocks have bound so many men
to doom. From shore you imagine
voices—ideas of water and air—or
maybe it's an ill wind whistling
through distant cliff-caves
so it sounds like moans
of drowned sailors,
cold fingers fumbling riggings
in a storm. Or is it
the soft song of mermaids
beckoning, while the sun is high,
to swim out to those sparklers
that light the surface
as if reflecting, from below,
jewels of the dead.

—Taylor Graham

____________________

Thanks to today's chefs for some tasty fare! Their inspiration seems to have come from here, there, and everywhere.

Where do you get your inspiration? Taylor Graham says her monorhyme ("Rustic Husbandry") is based on something Elihu Burritt saw on his walks at Bicton in Devonshire—a cottage floored with 76,000 sheep-shanks for “a delicately-sculptured surface of great beauty.” Medusa tries to fan a few flames for you with Seeds of the Week (currently "Wild Winds and Cheeky Breezes"), Forms to Fiddle With (right now it's the monorhyme), and our new feature, News-Seeds—keep up with all of those on the green board at the right of this column. Carl Schwartz (Caschwa) and Mike Cluff were moved to poetry by the article about the rebound of Santa Catalina foxes.

It's also fun to see poets inspired by other poets: DR Wagner, Taylor Graham and Katy Brown have been writing to each other on these posts for some time now; today Carl Schwartz was inspired by dawny-D's boots (see yesterday's post)—but not in the way you think... Cool form that he used; is that a tuanartsa?

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.

—Catherine the Great

____________________

—Medusa

Welcome to the world, Riveter and Boomerang!

—Photo by Taylor Graham

The Art of This Day

2012-01-25T06:09:00.000-08:00

fractal (anonymous)

storm in the making
—dawn dibartolo, citrus heights

the symphony of winter leaves
blowing down the quiet street
heightens my poetic senses, and
I wish at once that I could paint
the way the naked, white trees
against the canvas of rain-laden,
slate-colored clouds is lightened
by the sun shining from behind me /
from around me / from within me.
I am the silhouette of shadow
cast upon the art of this day;
I am the speck of unintended splatter
that adds character to the piece;
I am the signature of an artistic God
upon his most memorable creation.
I am a storm in the making.

_____________________

flames
(Torry)
—dawn dibartolo

the candle burned wildly
in the wind from the ceiling fan
spilling wax onto black lacquer
and down to the wooden floor
in spikes of honey colored menace,
seemingly frozen in fragrant mid air.
if the fire had leapt from its wick,
he would breathe deeply,
unbroken calm, and say merely
“look at that,” pointing. in the cold
he does not shiver, in the heat
he does not sweat, unscathed
by life as it burns out around him.
he is not charred as I am,
unaware that days can become
inflamed; his skin is still armored
and his eyes bright with promise.
he is the porcelain place-setting on
an oaken table, the room
filled with smells of cooking meats
and garlic mashed potatoes,
undisturbed and waiting, stoic
in the belief that hunger
is only a phase. and here am I,
the starving junkie fearing
and anticipating ahead of time
the overwhelming super-high,
the sizzle of blue-red veins and
roiling blood, the very thought
making my heart beat double-pace,
even now, screaming from within
that the house is again in flames.

_____________________

leather jacket & boots
—dawn dibartolo

if I cud bottle the leather jacket & boots
wear it like a fragrance
to repel the constant bullshit
I’d perhaps bite my tongue
& keep the angers to myself
coast thru day unphazed
be the sunshine intoned by the name
on the fringes of solemn autumn
be the sunshine intoned by the name
coast thru day unphazed
& keep the angers to myself
I’d perhaps bite my tongue
to repel the constant bullshit
wear it like a fragrance
if I cud bottle the leather jacket and boots

_____________________

color printer
—dawn dibartolo

end of life.
magenta is dead.

rest in peace,
she says.

morbid way
to start the day,

but I’m wearing
mourner’s black;

pull the tab, and
now everything has

this lovely pinkish hue.

_____________________

resolutions
—dawn dibartolo

it all seemed so simple…
a breed of newness

that will rise from the old;
simple as words to a page

atop the scribblings of
a “throw-away” poem;

the new story will be read.
some don’t believe and want

to tell you who you are and
what verbs your poem should use,

but for the poetess, the very word
“verb” is redefined on a whim.

yes, I am simply made and
can be simply new

however the words tend
to grace this given page.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.

—Steven Wright

____________________

—Medusa

fractal (anonymous)

Those TIny Savants

2012-01-24T06:27:00.000-08:00

Ivy

—Photo by Joyce Odam

THAT I CAN WRITE OF BIRDS,

sparrows maybe
as tiny savants of distraction
and be so led

from ground
to tree
through air

at disturbance
or some nervousness of
being

watchful
at one with survival
and I

merely watching
enchanted by their quickness
their disinterest in me as foe

as threatening presence
as anything at all other than
shape or movement

so I keep a patient stillness
to give them no reason
to fly from me

(after "Etude" by Ted Kooser)
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

______________________

THE SOUL AS CAGED BIRD
—Joyce Odam

The soul is a caged bird:

Let’s say this is so.
And you want the bird to sing

and be joyous in the cage.
And you want to own this bird
and praise it—over and over—

for its singing. But
it will not always sing;
sometimes it will claim its
own silence as a separate power.

_____________________

THE DARK BIRDS
(after "Dark Birds, Dark Sea", 1959, Milton Avery)
—Joyce Odam

Midnight birds in a dark blue river,
held by a spreading path of moonlight,
their gold beaks shining
in the shimmer-silence of the hour.

They seem too shadowy
to be real—as if painted
by a midnight child
in love with midnight’s deep blue color.

(first pub. in Brevities, 1999)

_____________________

THE PALE BIRD IN THE DREAM
—Joyce Odam

It was the pale bird in the dream that I remembered.
It flew down a shaft of silence and found my window.

Glass broke in my mind and I shattered.

The pale bird entered my broken dream
and bled and bled its whiteness clear to the horizon.

_____________________

COLD BLUE (an Octo)
—Joyce Odam

Today I look long at the birds:
winter sparrows in a dead tree,
waiting for green—waiting for spring.

Both tree and sparrows etch the sky
of such cold blue—teasing the eye,

waiting for green—waiting for spring.
Winter sparrows in a dead tree:
today I look long at the birds.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

THE TURNING
—Joyce Odam

Blue bird, sky bird, fiery-winged
against the lowering sun,
causing the horizon to catch fire

and the moon to rise—
blood red—
and near—
soars into the red moon
with a cry that is a prayer.

(first pub. in Brevities, 2011)

_____________________

Thanks to Joyce Odam for today's poems and pix, wrapping up our Seed of the Week: Our Feathered Friends. Our new Seed is Wild Winds and Cheeky Breezes; send your poetic thoughts (poems, art, photos) to kathykieth@hotmail.com

My apologies to Caschwa (Carl Bernard Schwartz) for inadvertently truncating his poem, "Goaltending", yesterday. Herewith is the complete poem:

GOALTENDING
—Caschwa, Sacramento

The ball is heading
Into the basket
Too late to interfere

The fetus is in its
Third trimester
Too late to interfere

The corporation has grown
Too big to fail
Too late to interfere

The church has hired
Molesters to steer our faith
Too late to interfere

At risk youth
Get thrown in jail
Too late to interfere

The experiment in democracy
Doesn’t always work
Too late to interfere

A fortune teller’s product
Is entertainment
Too late to interfere.

The threat of global warming
Might just be valid
Too late to interfere.

Bankruptcy is chosen
Because there are no other choices
Too late to interfere.

Instructions to a sesame seed:
Don’t stop now,
You’re on a roll.

_____________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Joyce Odam

Like Old Friendships

2012-01-23T06:04:00.000-08:00

Nude in the Bath

—Painting by Pierre Bonnard, 1941

NUDE IN THE BATH
—Jane Blue, Sacramento

A woman lies in Bonnard’s bath
floating encapsulated, nearly faceless
in a shroud of blue water. I feel nothing
she thinks to herself, golden light
filling the panes of a leaded window
at the end of the tub, falling like yellow
tiles between the slabs of blue tiles
on the wall above her. She’s stretched
thin in the tub, oddly sexless, the tie
holding back her hair blue like the small
diamonds of tesserae on the bathroom floor.
She’s trying to keep her head above water
to keep from slipping under without
seeming to move a muscle, above
the tub’s claw feet, a scatter of gold there
on the floor, dropped from the thick sun.
She’s a cold muse and getting colder
as Bonnard works to get the mosaic right.

Outside the opaque window are trees—
she doesn’t see them, birds—
she doesn’t hear them, her parents
wishing they could do something, her sister
and someone is picking plums.

(first pub. in Antigonish and also in The Persistence of Vision by Jane Blue, The Poet's Corner Press, 2003)

_____________________

THE BIRDS THAT EAT IDEAS
(Ptaki Ktore Jedza Pomysty)
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

The shearwater stays just above
The tops of waves. The air pushes
Their bodies upward inches from
All the ideas of air and water.

Bodies of fire exclaim.
A ball of shining made of ivory,
Made of wood, made of the beaks
Of ten thousand shearwaters.

A scroll unfurls itself, full of allegations
About who gave what gift to whom,
A sliver mine, a pillow full of love
Being wound around sharpened pins forever.

Surely there is a way to keep
These ideas safe. They glow
Like old friendships slowly
Being dismantled by birds
Birds feeding on the soft music
Of believing in things like songs
And the idea that animals can fly.

(first posted on drsspoon.blogspot.com in 2010)

_____________________

GOALTENDING
—Caschwa, Sacramento

The ball is heading
Into the basket
Too late to interfere

The fetus is in its
Third trimester
Too late to interfere

The corporation has grown
Too big to fail
Too late to interfere

The church has hired
Molesters to steer our faith
Too late to interfere

At-risk youth
Get thrown in jail
Too late to interfere

The experiment in democracy
Doesn’t always work
Too late to interfere

A fortune teller’s product
Is entertainment
Too late to interfere.

The threat of global warming
Might just be valid
Too late to interfere.

Bankruptcy is chosen

____________________

YOU HAVE 2 MESSAGES
—Caschwa

Wolfgang
Amadeus
Mozart

Bavaria
Augsburg
Minuets

Travel
Haydn
Archbishop
Nannerl
Köchel

Yung
Opera
Unter

Maria
Anna
Aloysia
Munich

_____________________

HOMELESS HORNETS
—Caschwa

Set up house right on my patio
What do you think about that?
In eaves over where humans gather
To sit, grill food, and chat

Despite multitudes of hornets
Far too poor for paying rent
It only matters what is fair
To the ruling 1 percent

Tonight we will evict them
With a special can of spray
That awful nest of hornets
Will not see the light of day

_____________________

Photo by Taylor Graham

THE TWINS, A PHOTO
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Two sister ewe-lambs, 3 months old,
explore their new world of grass
lightening into a new spring morning.

Beyond, still deep in shadow
of the eastern hill, a garden fence
whispers “trespass” and “temptation”

as gardens always do. It's early
morning. The lambs step tentatively,
attached to their long shadows—

shadows opening, becoming
larger than life, a dark passage
across May-green grass.

The photographer planned this shot
with sun-angle in mind,
to keep herself out of the picture.

But she casts a shadow too. Her twin.
By day's end drifting to dark—
to memory and art—as shadows do.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.

—Barbara Kingsolver

_____________________

—Medusa (with thanks to today's cooks. Do you see the hidden message in Caschwa's (Carl Schwartz) second poem?)

Tiger lilies, Butte Meadows

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

Be sure to check out Medusa's Facebook page

for a new photo album:

Katy's Excellent Adventure in the Buttes

by Katy Brown!

Moon Language

2012-01-22T06:18:00.000-08:00

The Painter: To The Moon

—Painting by Marc Chagall, 1917

WITH THAT MOON LANGUAGE

—Hafiz

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them,

"Love me."

Of course you do not do this out loud;

Otherwise,

Someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this,

This great pull in us

To connect.

Why not become the one

Who lives with a full moon in each eye

That is always saying,

With that sweet moon

Language,

What every other eye in this world

Is dying to

Hear.

(trans. from the Persian by Daniel Landinsky)

_______________________

—Medusa

A Rose in Winter

2012-01-21T06:34:00.000-08:00

Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

OCTOBER'S CHILD
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Sun enlightens
backyard oaks
as red leaves fall
enthusiastically
from blue hills
in tenuous shadows
and a child
we know all too well
makes friends
with nature's words
writing his initials
on a branch.

______________________

WINTER IN CONFLICT
—B.Z. Niditch

In a knotted hatred
of war since childhood,
domestic or foreign,
my lonely initials
from my right hand
held your immigrant suitcase
by ash trees
in their cold shiver
like our own
at first light
near the train station
hearing questions
in broken English
anyone would ask
moonstruck by miles
between two shores
awakened by red eye
in lonely latitude
enveloped by darkness.

______________________

WINTER BY OCEAN
—B.Z. Niditch

Waiting around
on silence

The sun turns
on our backs

Clouds hide
seabird voices

Stretching sailors
ice fish

A graffiti artist
at the lighthouse

Dunes breathe
an eternal winter.

_____________________

WINTER GUEST
—B.Z. Niditch

On wintry nights
when conversation
like auspicious ivy
wears out
our hospitality,
and darkness
in the living room
exhales vagrancy,
as lamp lights
beneath a reflection
of elm and evergreen
cannot judge
our past cadences,
a cool silence spins
on our long day faces
until we recognize
the familar steps
of belonging.

_____________________

RESPONSES
—B.Z. Niditch

At three
am or pm
there is little
to ask for,
crucifixion
takes place
outside the city
gates
at the nameless hour,
the electric chair
is always ready
with present company
only to execute
judgement,
there is little mercy
on the sleeplesss walls
when a red rose appears
in winter
outside the hospice.

_____________________

A WELCOME
—B.Z. Niditch

Until the sound
of sparrows
at the edge
of first light
in dawn
of barely awakened
wisdom
as to the day
breathing in
the large mountain air
in one commotion
of birds flying upward
near the roof's melody.

By evergreen leaves
trailing in the yard
we overhear
resuming echoes
by the balcony sun
we welcome
unless we should close
the coverlet
and resume our rest.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

Today, while begging food, a sudden downpour.
I waited out the storm in a small shrine.
Laughing—one jug for water, one bowl for rice.
My life is like an old run-down hermitage—
poor, simple, quiet.

—Ryokan (trans. from the Japanese by John Stevens)

_______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's cooks in the Kitchen. Katy Brown will be reading at A Starry Night Poetry Series in Lodi this coming Sunday (tomorrow) at 2 pm; go to www.astarrynightproductions.com/poetryseries/poetryseries.htm and scroll down for more info. And you can learn more about B.Z. Niditch at community-1.webtv.net/buzz-worthy/TheWorldofBZNiditch

And please take note of our new feature on the green board at the right of this column: N-SOWs (News-Seeds of the Week)—poem ideas that have been taken from the news.

Canada Goose

—Photo by Katy Brown

Washing Up On This Floating Rock

2012-01-20T05:53:00.000-08:00

Fishing Boats Leaving the Harbor, Le Havre

—Painting by Claude Monet, 1874

WINTER, 1879-81
CLAUDE MONET GOES TO WORK
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

These Winters had been extremely
Cold. Le givre, the frost, covered
Every morning, demanding the Seine
To be still, quieting the landscape
For days. There were no birds at all.

Camille was gone; a mist in the grey
Swirl that was all of Vetheuil that
Year. There was always the river.
It seemed to carry the most elusive

Of Colors for brief periods of the day.
This was a good place to look at without
Thinking. The ghost trees away, across
This frozen place would become translations.

Painting. The days passing. The ice finally
Moving changing into floes. Painting.
The sun trying to move the season.

Painting denies language and all
Mortal sounds. The Winter mutes
All things further into silence. Years
Later this time will have no appearance
Other than landscape, a view, an object.

It would take Monet years to paint
The river. The sunsets, the ice breaking
Up finally the coming of the Spring,
The palette changing, the light lengthening,
Apple trees in blossom by the water.

(Camille Monet, Monet’s first wife, died at Vetheuil on
September 5, 1879, at age 32. )

_______________________

1923 AND 1938
EDOUARD VUILLARD PAINTING
—D.R. Wagner

It was the rooms that mattered.
They were the weather embracing
The figures, the glitter the spirit
Festoons itself with as it embraces
Time, the objects, the shadows opening
To reveal intimate spaces, everything included.

Washing his hands, Vuillard looks
Into the mirror, into the room,
The walls are covered with paintings
Of paintings, a chance to see
Them as they were, still becoming
What they would be, still changing.

Memory works this way, passage by
Passage. We are in the middle
Washing up, looking into a mirror
Reflecting the entire room, reflecting
An open window, reflecting our image.
This time it has become the painting.
We recognize the figures as reason enough
To make these complex observations.

Trying to say everything. This is how it was.
This is not remembering. “Here is that
Very chair you see. You are having tea.
Form that same cup she holds in the
Picture. She was delighted to see how
The painting showed many things she knew.

She has long since died. That
Room you see is no more, even
The building is gone. I come in here
Often to look at the painting.
This is how it was. It is like talking.”

______________________

PIERRE BONNARD AT LE GANNET, 1932
—D.R. Wagner

It was now 9:00 A.M.
The light would be entering
The bathroom just now.

The way the trees outside
The window caught this time precisely,
Bouncing it over the walls, mixing
It with the surface of the bath
Water. This was the time to paint.

Over and over again particular
Transparencies in the flesh sustained
Great challenge, stopping time
At every occasion, saturating the room
With trinkets of pale tints, quick
Necklaces precipitated by the season.

Again and again, each time without
Remembering the last, he moved
The paint across the canvas.
Each mark an instant only. This
Time exactly. This time exactly.

He sometimes thought the yellows were
Like singing, then not, then pattern.
The figure moving through them,
Rising, bending, claiming all the space
Object by object. Even once Pouette
Entered the room, lay down on the rug,
Waiting for Marthe to finish
Drying herself....Bonnard surprised
At the momentary intensity of his red
Dog, swirled against the grey-blue tiles.

(Poette was Bonnard’s dachshund;
Marthe was his wife.)

______________________

A VISION OF BORGES
—D.R. Wagner

I was in Missouri, the green
Hills outside Warrenton with
A stillness about them, rocks the
Color of Weinheimer dogs
And with their same color eyes.

In the middle of a glen
I saw da Messina’s angels
Holding the body of the dead Christ,
His limp wrist touching the cheek
An angel presents to the dead man.
The points of their wings attenuated,

The light became crippled in October
When everything seemed to us
So clear, became clouded,
Now abandoned and still, with
The lovely rocks piled just so
To hold the glow coming from
The body. I could tell no one.

That night, Borges appeared to me
In a dream. "I saw you in the
Woods.” He said, “I will tell no one
What has happened here.”

I am no longer able to dream.
The quiet invades my room
Thinking I am a lover, touches me
Where my love rises through the lateness
The hour presents to me, telling
A story I stand unable to explain
In any other way than this imagined

Dance to music leaking into the room
After one A.M. and here I am, darling,
Sitting on the edge of the bed,
Unable to weep or smile or
Recall how I even am allowed
To be here with everyone,
Feeling proud and erudite and
Perfectly silly that I may walk
Through these places without being arrested.

It seems, always, we are unable
To understand much of what happens
To us here on this floating rock.

I for one, am glad that music
Seems to be moving through me.
I think it is our blood moving as
A new Covenant, given
To us for the remission of
Sins, and as part of that
Covenant, we may have communion
With everything we encounter.
What do you think?

_____________________

Thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's painterly potpourri!

Don't forget the Sac. Poetry Center lecture series that begins Feb. 16. Only $99 (10% off for SPC members). $65 Mix/Match Pass (any four lectures you wish). Or, $20 per lecture. Runs Thursday evenings, 7:30-9pm; Feb 16–April 5. Proceeds benefit the Sacramento Poetry Center. Contact Tim Kahl (916-714-5401) for more information. Here is the schedule:

Feb. 16: Joshua McKinney — "Bolo and Bullshit: The Other T.S. Eliot"

Feb. 23: V.S. Chochezi — "Poetry Collaborations: Sacramento and Beyond" [Gary Snyder and Tom Killion, Electropoetic Coffee (NSAA and Ross Hammond), Poetry Machine (Mario Ellis Hill and friends, Fo'Shange, Straight Out Scribes) and much more]

March 1: Molly Fisk — "Women Poets: Friendship, Critique & Support"

March 8: Emmanuel Sigauke — "Contemporary World Poetry through International Poetry Web"

March 15: Bob Stanley and John Allen Cann — "The Blab of the Pave: Rhythm, Texture, Silence and Other Elements of Post-rhyming Poetry"

March 22: Judy Halebsky — "Japanese Literary Traditions in West Coast Poetics"

March 29: James DenBoer — "Kenneth Rexroth: The World Outside the Window"

April 5: Tim Kahl — "Surrealism and its Academic Discontents"

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.

—Pablo Picasso

______________________

—Medusa

Pietà
—Painting by Antonello da Messina, 1475

Needless Gerunds

2012-01-19T07:17:00.000-08:00

Pinky's Pizza in Petaluma
Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

TURNED YELLOW BY THE VERY THOUGHT OF IT
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

Worked for a while with
The Fair Oaks Theatre Festival,
Just before they went semi-pro.

Did the newsletter, readings
From plays, talks for clubs,
The usual PR stuff.

Realized it was time to move on
When they offered to build
A chicken suit for my appearances.

_____________________

I dreamed that I suddenly got a white horse—
out of nowhere he just appeared in my backyard
I didn't even think what I was going to do
For some reason I said to the horse I think I'll call you "Equus"
even though I know that was some freakin' weird play
about a mentally ill boy who blinded horses
I then just decided to hop on him with no saddle
All of the sudden the traffic and roads disappeared
and I rode him on the trails around the American River

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

______________________

The nurse assures "Come on, it's just a routine screening..."
I can't even look at the tools supposed to penetrate me
"Haven't you had sex?"
even though she knows I haven't had children
"What the hell does that have to do with this test procedure?" I answer,
"It's just not the same"
But this plastic clamp won't hurt like the metal ones
which I told her I got hurt on long ago when one I guess went wrong
"You'll just feel pressure"
like she was just describing a massage instead
But any "toys" I've used don't prod me like this does
And I swear I have vulval nerves that shoot pain throughout my body
I decide I can't go through with it unless I get something to numb
as one would have, getting a cavity filled at the dentist

—Michelle Kunert

______________________

OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS #4
—Michael Cluff, Corona, CA

They and I
play a game of patience
with my car
underneath the eucalyptus.

Learning their dietary
cycles and flights,
I can time my moves
my castling
of rook and king
unless parking restraints
force me otherwise.

The sparrows don't
pay any notice
if my Charger is
in their bombsite
the cement and blacktop
then suffer more
that they would do usually.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

IN SEARCH OF AN ACRONYM
—Caschwa

YIPPEE! – Your Investment Portfolio Proudly Exceeds Expectations!
SIGN HERE – Security Is Good Neighbors, Hope Eternal Resides Everywhere
THOUSAND – True Hearts of the United States of America Never Die
SOAP – Serenity, Optimism, And Peace
WALNUT SHELL – Whoever Arrives Last Needs Us To Show How Excellence Lasts Longer
POETRY – People Over-Eat Then Repose Yawning
WISHFUL THINKING – What If Sudden Hot Flashes Ultimately Launched True Happiness In Not Knowing Infinite Needless Gerunds

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's cooks for some wonky sh*t, as they say..... :-)

Apple Hill, 2011

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

Mac-n-Cheese Day

2012-01-18T06:49:00.000-08:00

In the wilderness

You survive

By the skin of your teeth

On the flesh of men

Or you die

And you die

—Photo of Donner Lake and Poem
by Ronald Edwin Lane, Colfax

MLK
—Charlie Mariano, Sacramento

picked up my granddaughter
yesterday
so we could go to our
secret place

our
not-so-secret place
is Boston Market
and according to her,

“the best mac-n-cheese in the world!”

for now
this place rules

while gobbling that goo,
she says,
“Happy Martin Luther King Day grandpa”

between sticky gulps
i said,
“well thank you, same to you”

she puts down her plastic fork
and looks at me all serious,

“grandpa, i don’t know what we’re supposed to do
this day”

“what did they teach you in school?”
i asked

“my teacher said this is a holiday for people
with dark skin,”

“is that so,” i said, “she said that?”

“no, she called them something else”

“African-American?” i asked

“yeah, that’s it,” she said, “that King guy
was important”

“very important,” i said
“you know, you have dark skin too,”
i told her

“but i’m dark like you, they’re different,”
she added,

“no, not really,” i said, “we’re all the same”

her face got all scrunched up
trying to soak it all in
then she smiled,

“ohhh, so today is for everybody?”

“sort of,” i told her

“Happy Mac-n-Cheese Day grandpa”

_____________________

DRY SPELL
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Winter-brittle grass
at the edge of dirty pavement.
Every mark on the gauge
reads empty.
No juncos, no robins,
a month since rain.
Soil wrinkles like old skin,
the pasture's waste.
Not a wing
feathers the air.
Sheep move
as if under a spell
under this unbreakable
blue sky.

______________________

WHERE HAVE THE BIRDS GONE?
—Taylor Graham

samisen music sown on rumor—
sewn in reminiscence.
memories revive: a mecca, a caress,
cucurrucucu.

a wren, a crane, a vireo, a swan.

once-aurora, now an eve.
susurrus. musicians score an aria
sonorous as au revoir.
we owe a raven's ransom.

a sorrow soars.

____________________

HE RECITES “TO A SKYLARK”
—Taylor Graham

Utters
mutters
flutters
stutters
They all laugh. He mutters, stutters—words
wing-clipped, till he flutters, utters birds.

____________________

LOOKING FOR THE ROSY FINCH
—Taylor Graham

Grinding
winding
finding
blinding
The trail steep and winding, grinding, long.
Birds against sun blinding, finding song.

____________________

McGEESE
—Caschwa, Sacramento
(Inspired by Michele Kunert’s photo of Canada Geese in McKinley Park—see Medusa's Kitchen post Monday, Jan. 16)

They flocked here from Canada just as others before
had from Ireland, Scotland, and England
Disease would cut short the lives of many,
And some would be shot for sport

They did not migrate here to flee the inadequacies
Of Canadian Universal Health Care in favor of
The allegedly better services offered when big gov
Puts big bills in the collection trays of private enterprise

Each quacky one, as they enjoy the serenity of the park,
Remembers those fateful days when predecessors of
Our “better than them” health care professionals darkly
Feared the side effects of X-rays more than a lodged bullet

Putting poor William on a permanent path to gangrene
By today’s standards, assisting the assassination
Hamstringing first responders with the mandate:
Wait until the FDA finally, officially says it is OK

______________________

OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS #1
—Michael Cluff, Corona, CA

They please me
with their melodies
merry and sweet in natural
trilling without restraint
and bias unless
the call of bees and avians
are involved.

The cage is a killer
even unto the domesticated,
wings were evolved
for a purpose
that contains many acres
of unbounded skies
and clouds.

__________________

OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS #2
—Michael Cluff

MAXIM:

Emus, ostriches and chickens
find
eagles, orioles and canaries
enviable
as well as offensive.

__________________

OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS #3
—Michael Cluff

Deluded and elated
he flew
ever upward
towards freedom
what birds obtain
naturally
without construction.

Dad warned Icarus
that escape
does have its downfalls
if ....

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

I love bamboo how it looks
and because men carve it into flutes

—Ikkyu (trans. from the Japanese by Steven Berg)

____________________

—Medusa

Canada Goose

—Photo enhancement by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

When You Listen

2012-01-17T07:15:00.000-08:00

Photo by Joyce Odam

LIKE GRIEF

—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

What a gift—this plaintive
sound from your imagination—
this little crying,
heart-shape, heart-size,
growing larger as you listen.

You have heard it before,
when you were a child
in another season.
The sound was lost
and you had to find it,

save it,        hold it.
And it seeks you now,
as if you were its mother—
like grief—and remembrance
of grief, having found each other.

_____________________

PROCRASTINATION
       (after “Coming Home at Twilight in Late Summer”
        by Jane Kenyon from her book, Otherwise)
—Joyce Odam

It was simply this—as simple as
simple is—as slow and careful
as procrastination—almost
deliberate, the way we

drifted away from tedium
and went out into the
cool sad dusk to let our shadows
touch the shadows there.

It was something we would
remember and care about—
our little deviation from duty . . .
from clock . . . from need to do . . .

we took a walk—
it was as simple and easy as that,
not caring what piled up
behind us, or out-waited our return.

____________________

WHEN THERE IS FEAR
—Joyce Odam

This is the all of it, the resistance,
the surrender,

when all argument is done and each value
proven—

the purity of all that is given in return
for what is taken.

All of this.
All is all. And enough.

Nothing disproves this.
The balance is held, and still is tested.

It is where reason goes
when there is fear—

some dim, unreachable place full of shadow,
full of following light.

____________________

WHEN YOU LISTEN
—Joyce Odam

What is in the box of silence
that echoes so thinly—
little less than a whisper

but louder than a shadow—
a word that comes back to you
with all its meaning—

still insisting—but silence
has been laid-away for good
and cannot be resurrected now.

____________________

GOODBYE
     (after “Goodbye” by Robert Creeley, in
      American Poets Say Goodbye to the 20th Century)
—Joyce Odam

Say it simply. Say it softly and sadly.
It is the longest word you will ever say.
Give it a black border for the death it imitates.

Let it go freely.
You cannot call it back.
It is a word without meaning.

A quick word. A spondee word.
It will come of its own volition.
You cannot regret it.

Let it take everything it needs.
How you hoarded it.
How you refused it—keeping it

longer than necessary.
Let it have your regret, that baggage of doubt,
that second thought.

_____________________

Thanks, Joycey, for whipping us up such a tasty stew today!

Be sure to have a look-see at the new stuff posted in the green box at the right of this column: this week's Form to Fiddle With (the Tyburn); a couple of new Kool Thing(s) of the Week; and our Seed of the Week: Our Feathered Friends. Are we talking about birds? Icarus? Angels? Feathering our nests? Featherbrains? Send your mighty SOW musings to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though—see Calliope's Closet in the green board (under the Snake on a Rod) for all we've tackled throughout the ages...

While you're scrolling around, take note of the gradual increase in poetry readings in our area, now that the holidays are over. Those are on the blue board under the green board.

And if you didn't catch it yesterday, Michelle Kunert has the current album on Medusa's Facebook page, this one of the Sac. Poetry Center's Writer's Brush event for Second Saturday. Check it out!

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

ATTRACTION
—Joyce Odam

Come to my light, says the dark corner of love—
shadow outstretched, like an arm, a glow in the middle,

like an eye. I will promise you whatever you need,
says the lie. And the other enters—enters to be held,

since one has a need of the other—and they meld.

____________________

—Medusa

Photo by Joyce Odam

Stone Songs and Artichoke Hearts

2012-01-16T07:15:00.000-08:00

Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento
(Be sure to check Medusa's Facebook page for
more of Michelle's photos of last Saturday's
Writer's Brush event at Sac. Poetry Center)

J.S. TAKES FLIGHT
(a fantasy)
—Taylor Graham

Papa Bach is scarce about the house,
overburdened as it is with death
and childbirth. Ironies of fathering

so many diapered geniuses, some
already gone too young;
it could make a musician nervous.

Under stained glass he pumps
at the organ, chord on polyphonic
chord, the bellows swelling intricate

and silken, a hot-air balloon of woven
color. The vaulted ceiling gapes.
J.S. climbs aboard; on contrapuntal

easterlies he rises over rooftops,
farmland, rivers, along the coast, as
Anima mea drifts down, mist upon sea,

its endless segue of shore
into breakers, Gloria Patri sounding
its way to the soundless deeps.

_______________________

ELEMENTAL
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

They placed stone atop stone,
each row lighter than the one below,
each course reaching out of earth
into sky, which they called the breath
of angels, light defining space.

The walls of stone leaned in, one
toward another, till at last
they almost touched, rock wishing
to be lace, harp, or lily, longing
that arched and spired like music.

Stones became praying hands
to shelter candle-flame,
till plainsong couldn't be
contained, but curved on itself,
echoing and dancing

in lines and strands of tone
beyond unraveling or exegesis,
but rose like earth into sky;
voice of clay, voice of stone,
dust on wind.

_____________________

RODENT OLYMPISM
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

And then the determined mouse
balanced
an eyelash on a toothpick
rolled
the rubber of tiny erasings
swung
on a large paper clip
lifted
a cotton swab up ten steps
danced
to a ring-tone,
and then
swam in the cat’s water bowl.

_____________________

CAMELOT
—Caschwa, Sacramento

The lowly worker
Played the Lottery
And won!
But not the lottery

His prize was
Newfound knowledge
Of how to prosper
He has yet to collect it

It is right there
Waiting at the corner
Of Getouttamy Way
And Dark Alley

Bring your own light
Bring your own map
Bring your own police
It’s that kind of place

Clinging tightly to mystery
Like the Bermuda Triangle,
Writer’s block,
The Black Hole of space

You can’t win
If you don’t play
You won’t win
If all you do is play

Fate sets its own course
Defying human logic
Spearheading rebellion
Changing your lucky number

____________________

WARSHIP A HIGHER POWER
—Caschwa

Can’t use real names
Or ruffle the feathers of
People who own lots of
Real, commercial, residential,
Intellectual, or physical property

They will bring out the big guns
And sue your ass off
Throw you in jail
Toss your future in the garbage

But we still have our precious
Right to vote which lets us
Nominate electors who will
Choose the “right” people
To steer our government, our thinking

We must trust these chosen ones
And everything they say
It is for your better interests
You know, the ones they picked
To honor a higher power

____________________

TIRED POEM
—Caschwa

Feet tangled in the sheets
Head buried in the pillow
Snooze button moot
It is Saturday

The telephone rings
It is a wrong number
Or the right number
At the wrong time

I am not going to honor it
With a reasoned response
Unless you find logic
Coded in my snoring

Yes breakfast will cook itself
While the checkbook balances
All household chores are delegated
To entities outside Dreamland

Clear skies, rays of sunlight
Pierce through the blinds
A rainbow of eyelid colors
I’m being pulled over

For sleeping too fast
Failing to yield to the inevitable
Shock of waking up
Now it’s Sunday…

_____________________

CURRENT EXCHANGE
—Michael Cluff, Corona, CA

The penny you picked up
was not meant for
your pinched ways.

Leave it for me,
the homeless
sidewalk sitter——

I will go on
waiting a long time
for another penny

Just so I can,
if you
are willing to
listen,

put my
two cents
in.

___________________

DUALITY
—Michael Cluff

Mr. Lambeau
teaches pre-school
in Sedco Hills
but works undercover
on the weekend
and holidays.

His services
amongst the maven
and matron sets
are quite exhaustive.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

He brought artichokes
picked at the height of ripeness
and left with her heart.

—Patricia A. Pashby, Sacramento

____________________

—Medusa

Canada Geese in McKinley Park, Sacramento

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

The Death of Words

2012-01-15T07:22:00.000-08:00

Secret Garden

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

I, OR SOMEONE LIKE ME

—Marvin Bell

In a wilderness, in some orchestral swing

through trees, with a wind playing all the high notes,

and the prospect of a string bass inside the wood,

I, or someone like me, had a kind of vision.

As the person on the ground moved, bursting halos

topped first one tree, then another and another,

till the work of sight was forced to go lower

into a dark lair of fallen logs and fungi.

His was the wordless death of words, worse

for he remembered exactly where the words were

on his tongue, and before that how they fell

effortlessly from the brainpan behind his eyes.
But the music continued and the valley of forest floor

became itself an interval in a natural melody

attuned to the wind, embedded in the bass of boughs,

the tenor of branches, the percussion of twigs.

He, or someone like him, laughed at first,

dismissing what had happened as the incandescence

of youthful metabolism, as the slight fermentation

of the last of the wine, or as each excuse of love.

Learning then the constancy of music and of mind,

now he takes seriously that visionary wood

where he saw his being and his future underfoot

and someone like me listening for a resolution.

______________________

—Medusa

Happy birthday to Cynthia Linville, and don't forget that TODAY is the deadline for submissions to WTF from Rattlesnake Press: See www.rattlesnakepress.com/wtf.html

Lucky To Be Alive

2012-01-14T06:24:00.000-08:00

Purple Marguerites

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

KING LEAR ON THE HEATH
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

The swarms are moving in. They pass
Through our breath and fog the glass of days
Completely. If they have bones, they use
Them to make music, a curious dry, music,
The sound of grasshopper wings in a still field.

We begin to write the opera they contain.
“I am more alive than you,” wail the flutes,
Lugging their way through storms and broken
Reed to light upon the quick scarves of the
Tongue and burst into colorful flame, capes
Unfurled, as if they were not paying attention
To how the story might go. They eat heroes
And heroines alike, spitting out the small bits,
Extinct and irrelevant but always catching us,
Making us regret their actions, passing us
With thick arms and buckets filled with fascinating
Treasures from the deepest parts of the sea.

Finally we are asked to walk among them,
Suspend belief, give ourselves over to their
Crackling displays that take language out
Of the senses violently, pulling our hair
To direct us in the direction they will have us
Go. We become weary meeting other people,
Looking for the light in their eyes that allows
Us to understand they have seen what we
Have seen, heard what they have heard.

From on high we can watch the doors of perception
Swing open and closed, millenniums of behavior,
Always similar to our own but finally crouching
Behind one another. As flies to wanton boys,
Are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.

We will leave the room quickly, dress without
Caring, only to be warm, find our way into the snow.
We will get into our automobiles, humming to ourselves
To keep some sanity and drive off into music, finally
Done with it, lucky to be alive.

_________________________

THE HIGH GOTHIC
—D.R. Wagner

And what is this then?
A tumbling captured by a harp
As it plays against the night
To form its own landscape.

We tell the tales. The symbols
Have their parade. The candles
Crowd to the sides of the nave and pulsate
As the breathing of angels might
As they gather our selves to the space.

I will tell you of the great spires
High above the cathedral roofs
Bouncing what small light is left back
To the precious moon. And we design
Dreams, oh we do, we do.

But they are not dreams for ourselves.
The centuries walk back and forth
Across them. The singing comes and goes
Within the choir and the sparkling from
The high altar stops us once again.
The moment itself before us, totally unexplainable.

_______________________

COURAGE AGAINST THE LION
—D.R. Wagner

He will rend your flesh from your bones
And show his red and bloody mouth
Below vacant eyes caught in the thrall
Blood brings to that mouth.

Courage then, for yours is the voice
The beast wishes for speaking.
We are the ones to tell the tale
Of its lordship of the jungle and
The steppes and the plains.

The lion in the desert. This is
His voice then. “Do not touch me.
Look upon my words and see that
My own blood pours from them.”

Yes they will heal and I shall be
Once again stalking along with death
As if we had nothing better to do.

All these words gathered here
For the sake of what could be a roar.

_________________________

TRYING TO FLY ONCE AGAIN IN THE WINTER
—D.R. Wagner

I have forgotten you
For over one hundred years now.

Here I am tonight once again
Dreaming of your thighs and your embrace.

I can see all the way over to the
Coast. The waves are growing
In size. Their edges have a glow
To them as they meet the shore.

I once had wings but it was at night
And it was cold. I could not fly
For long. I kept falling to the earth,
Picking myself up and trying again.
I could hear your voice.
Maybe I only thought I could
Hear your voice But I did fly.

The first stars are about to come
Out for the evening. One can see
Them dressing beyond the clouds.

I will climb back into
My bed and pull the covers
Up toward my head and I will
Smell you somewhere in this harp
Music that is playing in the dark
My room presents to me. Come here.
Kiss me. It is now
That you are able to hear this.

We shall meet the morning together.
We shall still be making love.
None of this will matter anymore.

______________________

THAT THE MOON
—D.R. Wagner

That the moon doesn't care for Spring.
That it doesn't fill itself out as an announcement
That a season is coming. It has its own games,
Water, the blood moving through mammals,
Huge hatches of insects making another music.

Still it shines brighter than all else in the night
Sky. It opens the earth itself in rain or clear
Light and gives names to the waking of the ground.

No matter where we go, if the night is open,
Clear and the course of this spinning planet
Is open and not just showing off the stars,
There she is, her royal majesty, directing everything
From the top of the night, not caring who or what
Sees her light, the llama races or mischief
In the eyes of old magicians somewhere in Mexico.

Slipping through the fog above the Great Lakes,
Holding court before the Northern Lights,
It is still the moon, careless and reclining
On the whole of our sky with us always loving it.

______________________

ANGELS
—D.R. Wagner

The tips of your fingers.

I wish there may be nothing
Ever else to talk about
Than what is clean, the wind,
The rain, in its many waves.

This dance the snow entertains
Us with, as we laugh at its
Pure beauty. And the flowers!
Have you seen the flowers?

What color is the wind?

Hate and war and power have
Gone now. Shhhh...No one can
Know them any longer.

Oh you angels.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

GAESATAE
—Caschwa, Sacramento

They stood naked on the battlefield
Except for their precious pieces of jewelry
Shedding the fabric of uniforms
To avoid entanglement with brambles

Throwing themselves into the bonfire of dedication
Giving service beyond the call of duty
They perished like water under the bridge
With no medals of honor to outlast them

These battles repeat throughout history
The War on Drugs
The War on Crime
The War on Poverty

Each drawing more Gaesatae
Who surrender only their clothing
Which their enemies proudly hang
High above from telephone lines.

(Happy Birthday, Carl!)

__________________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Caschwa (Carl Bernard Schwartz), Sacramento

Today Is Your Lucky Day!

2012-01-13T06:06:00.000-08:00

Lucky Horseshoes

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

AND THE DREAM WENT ON
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

             Man had a wooden leg;
             It wooden work.
                     —My Father’s Favorite Saying

I dreamed my father got drunk
With Bill Veeck, the baseball
Rebel, and iconic owner
Of the Chicago White Sox.

Dreamed they woke up beside
The dumpsters behind
Comiskey Park, each wearing
The other’s wooden leg.

I know it was a dream:
My father was careful who
He drank with. And Bill,
Though he’d share a beer
With anybody, was leery
Drinking with folk south
Of the South Side.

I know it was a dream.
But somehow, these yellowed
Season passes in the mailbox,
And the note, “It was my
Left leg, and I want it
Back. Let’s do it again.
Love, Bill.”

____________________

AND THEN,

Mr. Calderon
spilled the coco-coloured coffee
over his yellow dress shirt
paisley tie
and light blue dress slacks.

Jimmy was in elations
since he thought
class would be cancelled
due to his philosophy instructor's gaffe
and lack of balance and concentration.

And then,
when the professor
arrived to class
in flop-flops
white t-shirt
and blue sweat pants,
Jimmy and Anabel
were happier than before.

—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

___________________

AND THEN #2
—Michael Cluff

And then,
Edgar methodically
put down
the phone
crusted with salt
from tears
and smiled
knowing someone
was out of pain
at last
at least.

The sun peaked
over the craggy crest
and today
decided to continue
moving upward
closer to heaven.

____________________

AND THEN #3: January 9, 5:31 p.m.
—Michael Cluff

The phone rang
right after Jacob's mom
called to check in with him.
They are so close
in all the right
and safe ways.

Casting was complete
and I had gotten
the role:
Abe Goldman
the father and dry cleaner
from Chicago via Hungary
of two daughters
one married
the other still not.

I was pleased
and surprised:
the solo sad moment
was when I realized
I would have to go
to several dry cleaners
to pick up my parcels.

The cost of many things
is too fluid
to ponder at times.

_____________________

AND THEN #4
—Michael Cluff

The coffee and copies
were not precise and perfect,
the staples were a tad too tight
and the wrong color of paper
was found by Mr. Fairman
upon his hourly inspection
of the office.

But he forgave
everyone except
Deanna, Mabel, Stephanie,
Natalia, Kiki and Rhonda
for not knowing
better.

Oh
Pablo, Amir,
Matsuo, Sven
and Lamar
in addition.

____________________

RIPPLES
—Caschwa, Sacramento

As we get older
The glass over mirrors
Transforms to dichroic
Ripple texture

Smooth is no longer
A visual possibility
It is now confined to
Rare oral sensations

Get used to vinegar
It will follow you
Like the Paparazzi
There is no escape

Don’t you like purple?
It so becomes you
It is written
You must embrace it

The Shakespeare and Beowulf
Logs are rekindled
For those who still have hearths
To share with their grandchildren

Prepare for life after death:
Keep your subscriptions current
Don’t share your passwords
And leave a forwarding address

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

One hundred years ago, the British government sought to quell once and for all the widespread superstition among seamen that setting sail on Fridays was unlucky. A special ship was commissioned, named "H.M.S. Friday." They laid her keel on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, selected her crew on a Friday and hired a man named Jim Friday to be her captain. To top it off, H.M.S. Friday embarked on her maiden voyage on a Friday, and was never seen or heard from again!!!

Happy Fri/13! Watch where you step...

—Medusa

Raven Gets His Just Desserts

We Will Dance Again

2012-01-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

Raven Dances

DANCING DICE
—Caschwa, Sacramento

A lady sat limply at the light rail stop
Tattered slacks baring tattooed ankles
Her focus fixated on 3 or 4 pair of
Different colored dice on the ground

If she was to have any luck at all
It would be with the right numbers
Coming up in the right order
She put her trust in those dancing dice

Trains and passengers came and went
Every 15 minutes, predictable people
Commuters, convicts, connoisseurs,
Posers, papas, patrons of the arts

Each with a cell phone or similar device
That disconnected them from light rail reality
And put them somewhere else
Apart from downtown and punctuality

The lady with the dice remained in one place
Rolling those same dice, watching results
Rolling those same trains, over and over
Everyone’s luck depending on those dancing dice.

______________________________

EMPTY DOMES OF DELHI
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

I kneel by the kitchen flap
fist made like triumphant, it loosens
drops small amount of flour
into the steel bowl.

When there is water
there is no flour.
When there is flour
there is no salt.

Cold New Delhi air
chokes me awake.
I’m banging
on hotel room doors
asking for work.

One Rupee to press a pair
of jeans, means
masala—
will make food dance
on tongues.

When there is salt
there is no masala.
When there is masala,
there is no dall.

A blind beggar girl
on the silt covered street
gestures towards me
with her forehead,
pointing to my Rupee-lined pocket.

We all have a third eye.

I tell her a story about
beautiful flowers floating softly,
drifting in the sky,
sending their scent
to all of the little
girls of India.

When there is dall
there is no spoon.
When there is a spoon
there is no bowl.

The girl is holding
a small steel dome
empty, wanton of
soupy, spicy dall.
She and her bowl
enter my steamy kitchen.
There are no
missing ingredients
just
hungry mouths.

_____________________

THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR
—Sibilla Hershey, Davis

When I was a child in Latvia,
during Russian occupation,
we held our breath at night
listening for the KGB knock
on the door, fearing deportation
to Siberia, from where
few ever returned.
My father’s brother
was deported from the apartment
on the floor below.
My father slept in the bathtub
to avoid detection
or rode the street car
at night to escape deportation.

Now, safe in America,
living in a rustic college town
on a quiet suburban street
where roses bloom all year long,
at age 76, I sometimes listen at night
for a knock that, according to statistics,
comes around at 4 a.m.
An unknown Agent
is said to deport, those selected,
to a place from where
no one returns.

_____________________

DISSOLUTION
—Janet Pantoja, Woodinville, WA

fall dissolves into winter
as nights grow longer
days shorter,
darker, colder . . .

sun
hides
behind
clouds,
mist,
fog . . .

winter
solstice
comes,
goes
and
then . . .

we become
aware of slightly
longer days, and somewhat
lighter evenings—mood shifts to hope, renewal . . .
spring time, summer warmth, longer days . . . happier times ahead.

_____________________

TIME STEP
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

dance while you can
with or without
in time or out
forward and backward
single file and double joint
along the river
up the road
around the bend
down to the lakes
across the deserts
hum while dancing
spread the fingers, linking hands
around the waist and arch of neck
dizzy with love
of dancing forward
out of time

______________________

DANCE AGAIN (for Aaron)
—Patricia Hickerson

We will be holding hands,
under the sun and planets
dancing for joy
down the avenue
up the alley
around the bend
dancing out of town
along roads
beyond houses
where horses, goats, sheep graze and nibble
where tomatoes shine
strawberries tumble.

We will dance again, yes,
circle the world, skim the seas
call out to each other at night
crossing the street from a theater
moon will light our faces.
There will be joy under the trees
in the bear caves and wolf dens
dogs and cats will scramble at our feet
all creatures our pets
as we dance across fields of mustard, poppies.

There will be a time, I promise.

_____________________

Thanks to today's poets, including Davisites Sibilla Hershey (welcome!) and Pat Hickerson (who's writing a lot about dance these days), plus Sacramentan Rhony Bhopla, back in the fold after some absence, and Washingtonian/ex-Sacramentan Janet Pantoja. About his poem, Carl Schwartz (Caschwa) writes that "The scene of this poem was downtown Sacramento on K Street, at the base of that multi-faceted building so beautifully captured in the photo you recently posted by [Davisite] Katy Brown."

Speaking of Katy Brown, she brought me the piggie picture postcard [see below] as a souvenir of one of her trips to England a few years ago. How did she know I'd get spammed?? Was she the spammer, or does our Katy have a special prescience? Is that the title of a poem? Can you even SAY "special prescience", with all that mush-in-the-mouth shushing...?

Sac. Poetry Center has a busy weekend planned, including Bellingham Review Editor-in-Chief Brenda Miller visiting tomorrow (Friday the 13th!); Writer's Brush on Saturday (not Monday, my error I briefly posted yesterday—thanks to Trina Drotar for the heads-up); and the Martin Luther King, Jr. reading on Monday. See the blue board at the right of this column for all the details.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

SUNNY STAGE
—Patricia Hickerson

butterfly line
film of yellow chiffon
soft shoe of rhythm
girls dancing in the light
ripple of applause
wings lift
they fly up to the sun
wings wilt
they drop to the floor
their dance is complete
sun motes cover the stage
applaud the flight
the pile of sun

_____________________

—Medusa

Caption: "What's Spam, Mum? It's something on the Internet, darling!"

What's Behind Us?

2012-01-11T07:08:00.000-08:00

Photo by Taylor Graham

SLEEPING STRAIGHT THROUGH
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

And then I try to reconstruct the dreams I didn't have
or don't remember. I used to dream amazing things,
then lie awake to make them poems. An ark, pitched
above the brink of flood. Runes, keys. I'd lie there,
dark, remembering. Insomnia, they
called it. There's help, they said. Stay awake
till midnight. Then, just sleep till the
alarm goes off. And then I
wake up, woozy, tilted
wrong. By dawn, the bed
so full of sleep,
there's no room
for my
dreams.

_____________________

LEAF
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

Does naming an object
somehow alter or change it?

Coming to this place, in this
slice of time, I dare not move.
I was not summoned.
It is I who seek to know it.

I dare not be this sacredness—
for I hint of myself as already known
too much.

And so, I stand as in reverence for stasis
as I peer through its light,
neither touching nor knowing,
but feeling only sadness,
for my tongue has moved yet again.

_____________________

GREYSTONE
—Carol Louise Moon

This two-tone gray stone,
dead shadow of an egg
misleads me.

It sits tight and introspective
in its own omniscience

forcing my brain to bend
and squirm under the weight
of its own gray matter.
Or white matter. But, no matter…

This stone’s dull shimmer,
even before the great flood of tears,
draws me.
Yet I come no closer,
not wanting to intrude.

______________________

TUNNEL OF STRANGE ANGLES
(based on a photo by Viola Weinberg
that appeared on Medusa's Kitchen Monday, 1/9/12)
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

The light somehow penetrates
this river of stone tunnel: a glacier,
all light on self-grinding glass, abrades
the cobblestone throughstreet flanked
either side by cobbled walkway. Follow me,
traveler, out this gateway arch, the light cries,
and I will guide you straight ahead smack
into a windowless stone wall (lovely dead end!),

or, if you turn right, into a temple-serene
false house, a second gateway
arch into another tunnel (how
often, cries this second tunnel, do you get to
reenact your birth-canal struggle out,
once forward, then retrograde
into another far-from-eager mother?)

(Do you feel yourself
shrink, my beloved, as I debirth you?
Whose is the labor now, I ask?)

Oh, and if you turn a hard left you’re
back outside and under my hottest light,
says the light. And headed—as you are,
whichever of these three true-false ways
you take—God knows not when or to what
or for why.

________________________

INSTRUCTIONS TO ONE COMING AFTER
—Taylor Graham

Hair wild with all the words wind makes
as I wake up with last night's dreams
on my tongue, ears loud with voices
you might not hear—the sound of rain,

of each drop becoming current,
hair wild with all the words wind makes
and a rushing inside the mind.
There are three rivers in my eyes,

pieces of a portrait, mirror
to be shattered and rearranged—
hair wild with all the words wind makes,
a portrait to be thrown away.

Our footprints melt: what's behind us.
Find the compass-rose of azimuths,
then walk. Do you see my rivers?
Hair wild with all the words wind makes.

_____________________

Good Morning, friends, and thanks to our cooks for today's Medusa fare. Some items of note:

•••Jennifer Pickering and Trina Drotar will be appearing on Capitol Public Radio TODAY at 10 am to talk about the upcoming Writer's Brush event at Sac. Poetry Center next Saturday. Go to www.capradio.org/programs/insight/ to hear it online. Jennifer has also been very enterprising with her artwork. Go to shop.cafepress.com/jennifer-pickering to purchase ups, magnets, prints, tiles and T-shirts that feature her work, or go to fineartamerica.com/art/all/jennifer+pickering/all for prints and cards. Her paintings are part of Writer's Brush and will be shown at SPC Jan. 7-29, and she will have a showing at the Red Dot Gallery in Sacramento (www.redotgallery.com) in April. PLUS, her artwork will be on the cover and featured in Blue Moon Literary & Art Review (www.bluemoonlitartreview.com) in the coming weeks. Busy gal, and an inspiration to us all!

•••This Sunday, Jan. 15 is the next deadline for WTF from Rattlesnake Press. See www.rattlesnakepress.com/wtf.html for details.

•••The latest issue of Canary is out. See hippocketpress.org/canary

•••See www.newsreview.com/sacramento/myth-still-magical/content?oid=4715870
for Kel Munger's review of Swan Scythe Press's latest chapbook winner, The Measured Breathing by Michael Hettich.

•••Sac. Poet Laureate Bob Stanley writes: I have a highly esteemed publisher who is considering having me edit an anthology of poems about wine, and the California wine world in particular. He's asked to see some poems as examples, and I wondered if you would be willing to contribute a poem that touches on any aspect of wine, and allowing me to include it in my proposal. If you want to write something new, please do, but older or previously published work is fine as well. The poetic traditions of wine go back a long way, and whether or not you believe that Li Po died in a drunken boating accident, I'm guessing that many of you will have a poetic angle of your own. Feel free to draw from your personal experience—joys, fears, politics, agriculture—whatever bubbles up to the surface. Please send me something by the end of the month (at stanleybob2010@gmail.com) if you're interested, and I'll keep you posted if this project has "legs."

•••916 Ink, a new Sacramento nonprofit, is helping local youth write and publish their original work, and the group needs volunteers to help young writers this spring. If you’re a writer who likes to work with kids, consider becoming a volunteer for 916 Ink. The commitment is 2 hours every week for an 8 week session, plus a three hour training on either Jan. 16 from 6-9 pm or Jan. 18 from 4-7 pm at the Salvation Army in Oak Park.

This spring, 916 INK is working on three projects:
1. High school students from mid-February to the end of April on Wednesdays from 4-5:30 pm.
2. Third, fourth, and fifth graders from mid-February to mid April on Wednesdays from 2-4 pm.
3. "Tweens" from mid-April to the end of May on Thursdays from 4-6 pm.

All the writing for 916 Ink culminates in a book publication for the youth who participated (printed on the Sacramento Public Library's new book machines) and a celebratory young authors’ reading in June at the downtown Galleria.

You can learn more about 916 Ink at www.916ink.org They were recently highlighted in the Sacramento Bee's Book of Dreams. You can also email Katie McCleary at 916ink@gmail.com if you have questions.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip(s)

PIRATE PERCH
—Taylor Graham

High in the oak,
a nest
overlooking
everything—

a feathered crest,
hooked beak,
hawk.

COUNTRY LANE
—Taylor Graham

This row
of mailboxes
beside
an empty road,

each box
waiting
for good news.

____________________

—Medusa

Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

And Then...

2012-01-10T07:16:00.000-08:00

Owl

—Photo by Joyce Odam

THE GRIEVANCE
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

I go to the vast window
with its scenery that falls away.

I have no cat—even though
birds avoid my gaze and disappear.

I hold the curtain back with my shoulder
and watch the day—how it shortens

and grows chill. I should turn away,
but something holds me here . . .

_____________________

THE SAD WINDOW
—Joyce Odam

Turning to my small window, I see the view:
a boring wall for me—a scrap of sky for you.
From what bleak difference now do we stare—

I, at shadow creeping over brick—
you, at night that comes down thick.
What do we care, Love, what do we care?

Wall is for safety—sky is for roam;
you at your distance—I, at home
with brick and shadow. I don’t cry.

In this division, why compare:
you in your nowhere—everywhere—
only one of us left now, tending this goodbye.

_____________________

WINDOW LIGHT
—Joyce Odam

Ah, light, you have found me, caught me
dreaming out the window, distracted,
with a moody, non-look on my face.

You have caught me
dangling by my threads—
mobilic in your warm and tender strands,

you have found me dancing to myself
in pleasant echo
of your flickerings,

swaying to the light… swaying
to the light… yearning
to be drawn right through the glass.

Oh, light, you have saved me from
the pulling of these rooms
with their deep corners.

I have come to your bright window
to be done with winter
with its cold shadows and dispiriting intent.

______________________

IN MUTED WINDOW LIGHT
(based on Sir William Orpen's
"Sunlight", c. 1925)
—Joyce Odam

What has adoration to do with a woman
in muted window light—pulling her
stockings on, or pulling them off:

It is the pose of her body in that light—
the mystery of her attention to
her own beauty,

as though disregarded, as though no one
is watching: not the artist:
or the reader of this:

or the brooding man in a dark room’s chair
who thinks of her, as if she is real
to his thinking.

She is only in the slow, seductive art
of dressing—or undressing—leaning
back—one leg lifted in the air—

the soft light approving and lingering.
And she will do this for as long as
anyone is watching.

______________________

THE WINDOW AT SUNSET
(based on G. H. Rothe's “Bougainvillea”)
—Joyce Odam

Sensitive to light, you stare through
the crimson leaves and reddened flowers

on the window. Your eyes refuse
to withdraw from the eyes

of your reflection. You put your hand
to your mouth and kiss the scent

at your fingertips. On which side
of the glass do you exist?

Your shoulders merge with the
crimson-lighted leaves—even the sky.

You float within yourself
and all but disappear among the flowers.

______________________

THIS WINDOW FULL OF STARS
—Joyce Odam

This window full of stars, and gray clouds
moving, and shift of prayers—or perhaps just
angles of old light, still fading into the end of
itself—this long day, taken like the others into
slow eternity.

Why do I mourn it as if it were the last one. . . . ?

Soon the window becomes black, and I tire of
looking through it into such a cold dark sky, and
I turn back to my dark room—turn on the lamp,
and become a small and equidistant square of
light to the immense, unnoticing night.

_______________________

Thanks, Joycey, for today's tasty stew! (Poets lie, you know. She really does have a cat, despite what it says in her first poem.)

Our Seed of the Week is And Then... What happened next? Did the pirates get away? Did the baby go to sleep? Is this a story, or a tone poem, or just musings about life? What comes after "Then"...? Send your SOWs to kathykieth@hotmail.com; no deadline on the little suckers—and see Calliope's Closet up under the Snake on a Rod in the green box next to this one for previous SOWs. And while your browsing the green box, check out our Form to Fiddle With this week: the Septolet. Hm...

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

AT A WINDOW
—Joyce Odam

You
open
a window,
look out upon
the moonlit hour—
wish you were not stricken
with mundane obligations . . .
the night floods in with sympathies.
You are released . . . into what power?

_______________________

—Medusa

Last Leaf

—Photo by Joyce Odam

Good Morning—

2012-01-09T07:07:00.000-08:00

Photo by Viola Weinberg

BEAUTIFUL SOLITUDE
—Viola Weinberg, Kenwood, CA

(for Monsieur Edw. Cahill of Montparnasse)

There is no romance as rightful as that found, unbound
walking in a strange city in ringing silence, there is no
love greater than a poet falling in love with a place
where no one speaks her language and it’s raining

I know the sultry nights, the marbled stones, the absinthe
of dreaming in beautiful solitude, the intoxication of gas lights
breathing evenly along a small street off the avenue where you
have penned a word with blood red lipstick on a matchbook

taken from the drunken hand of a Russian sailor in a tiny
bar called Le Cave, where the vodka flows and everyone
is laughing, living and dying in the same breathless moment
and you don’t feel beautiful, as much as wondrous and invincible

I know the sense of being utterly alone, as if in a womb
unimpenetrable, an unflinchable tower of the heart pulsing in you
a city that was always waiting for you, as if this city is your
true mother and not that poseur you remember from a spanking

This place never grows old in your imagination, or even
in a waking hour when the spirit of all you wished for as
a girl has faded, and a dirty floor calls your name or
when dinner, banal and inconsequential, is still uncooked

Trust me, this romance will outlast the miasmic linoleum of tattered
wishing although, by its very nature, it is mysteriously shellacked
by desire, because this city, this poem of your nature, this is more
honest than any impetuous promise or bond, this, ma cheri, is fact

____________________

INSOMNIA
—Viola Weinberg

4 a.m. and your face appears
like winter shedding petals or
snow coming down on a tree bough
quiet, weightless, ephemeral sapphires
bobbing in the night skies, your life force
lighter by the moment, slipping, away
from the warmth, forever out of my
grasp, child of mine, outlived by
your mother’s grief, your aching mistakes
a hob knit chain of downward spin
a broken song of beauty left in broken notes
left and gone, my little baby, a beauty
so seemingly unconstrained, so full of life
now missing from life’s puzzle, everywhere
and anywhere, everywhere and nowhere
somewhere, you may be a pink streak of daylight
come home, come back, and end this endless night

_____________________

FOUNDLING
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

He claimed no memory of how he came.
Did he take first breath on wind-steppe,
or door-step scrubbed on Mondays?

His language was a mystery, how he
worked his mouth around the sweet taste
of birdsong. No word for himself.

Sans identity or accent—so many incognitos
this world offers. Did he run his fingers
through a she-wolf's mother-ruff, listening

into her grumble-croon-deep sleep?
What kind of dreams?
He wept at the Tombeau de Couperin,

as we watched through window-glass,
a futile means of capture.
He slept curled into the piano like

a warm shoulder. Which of us
can name his own true parentage?
Maybe music was his mother.

_____________________

LUNAR ECLIPSE
—Taylor Graham

But where is the moon, I want to know.
It's right there, in the rabbit's eye.
It's passing over the dismal downs.

I don't find that on the map.
The moon is a silver pushpin that holds
the calendar together on the wall.

The world through corrective lenses.
Moon is a joy-song in Medieval script
limned on disintegrating parchment.

But I was looking out the window.
Do you see those thin strands dangling
with tickets and tokens like jewels?

Tonight the sky is too heavy to see.
The moon is a deep-blue pond
waiting for earth to get out of its way.

Is it important that I see the eclipse?
Everything's held up by the pond.
Watch where you step, you might fall in.

_____________________

ELDERLY
—Caschwa

The news item said
An elderly man died
In a house fire caused by
Cigarettes discarded outside

One source said he was 60
Which is pre-MediCare
Teetering on the threshold
Of being elderly
If one’s life is not cut short

Perhaps the story’s author
Was one of the younger folk
Who left burning butts
On the lawn to be blown
To the house, sparking the fire

Revolution is in their blood
Defiantly they disprove the actuaries
Who carefully count the days of our lives
Driven by an overwhelming impatience
They hasten the end.

_____________________

HOOFIN' IT
—Caschwa

At first it seemed like
Such a nice machine

Then the cataclysmic converter brought doom
There was a rebellion of the slave cylinders
Mr. Clutch lost his gear at the airport
Both air bags were deployed to a war zone
The undersized spare was beat up by bullies
That old antenna couldn’t stay erect long enough
And the universal joint was confiscated by narcs

So today it’s just me
And my cheap shoes
Plodding along

_____________________

Thanks to our Master Chefs today: Taylor Graham (you can catch a glimpse of our famous TG at Poetry Off-The-Shelves in Placerville this Weds.—see the blue box at the right of this for details); Viola Weinberg, Sacramento's first (with Dennis Schmitz) Poet Laureate who now lives in Kenwood; and Carl Bernard Schwartz (Caschwa), whose botanical bonanza is the new photo album on Medusa's Facebook page. As you may have noted on our Kitchen post yesterday, Kathy Kieth's Hotmail acct. was hijacked on Saturday night; many of you were amused/horrified to receive ads for Viagra, Moroccan restaurants, and other such nonsense. I'm sorry about that, and the problem has been solved, so you can go back to using the Hotmail address at kathykieth@hotmail.com. If you're uncomfortable with that (even though the baddies have been expunged), write to me at kathykieth@yahoo.com

Anyway, some interesting things did come out of the hacker-spamming: I heard from some old friends, including Colette Jonopulos, who has moved to Denver! Viola Weinberg sent us poems and pix, bless her. Charlie Mariano had an intriguing take on the whole thing: use it to inspire more poetry (of course! Whatever else would a poet do??). And Carl Schwartz wrote the hackers a poem; see today's LittleNip.

This other poem by Carl attempts to ask our Question of the Day on Sat/Sun: Can one EVER have too much Beowulf?

BEOWULF REWRITTEN
—Caschwa

This version was adapted for the modern TV audience:

Beywatch, hero of the Heats in Savannah Naval Yard, comes to the help of Rover, the king of the Great Danes, whose dog house has been under attach by a human being known as Geraldo.

After Beywatch slays him, Geraldo’s mother attacks the dog house and is also met with poor reviews. Beywatch goes home to Savannah and becomes king of the Heats.

After 50 seasons, Beywatch defeats a gargoyle, but is fatally injured in the battle. After his death, his sponsors bury him within a TV tomb in the Heatland.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip (dedicated by Medusa to spammers everywhere):

Baby Boomers too rigid
To sit on their hinds
Lose some of their boom
Before losing their minds

Can that boom be restored
With one little pill,
Or will Destiny control?
It is all in God’s will

—Caschwa

_____________________

—Medusa

Photo by Viola Weinberg

Wear Me Like Rain

2012-01-08T07:23:00.000-08:00

Rain

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

STANDING ON THE COMPASS ROSE
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

The entire world below my toes
Rises up and off I go
High above the lands of snow
When all beneath me cold winds blow
And I finally relax, enjoy the show.

The greatest gift is to die
And our form mutates, comes apart and flies
Our selves back together in a new sky

Where what we were and now are
So far away from changes and we cry
To see ourselves so totally new and sigh
Once again at our strangeness and why
Such a thing could happen yet again.

You will wear me like rain
For I will be the rain.
You will dress yourself in pure light
For I shall be pure light.
You will call me by a name
And I again will answer,
Come to your side and see
The sun just begin to rain
Storm, you running on ahead of me.

_____________________

Friends, it appears Kathy Kieth's Hotmail account has been hacked. I'm so sorry, of course—but DO NOT click on the link they will give you, and for now, write to me at kathykieth@yahoo.com. Ah, the world of cyberspace has its robbers, too...

—Medusa

Too Much Beowulf?

2012-01-07T07:10:00.000-08:00

Enhanced photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

NEW JOB
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

It’s bone cold, so cold
that my dog refuses
to go out.
I fumble
for her leash so that
I can somehow bribe her
with a quick walk.
The curb is lined with
yellow and auburn leaves, sticking
to the asphalt, making
me feel guilty about not
raking.

We approach a small house
on the corner, walking
through our steamy breaths.
It’s a garage sale, and I find
an old pipette oil can,
rusty to the core. Something
I can paint red, and maybe put
some pens and pencils in.
There is a barber chair
and a pack of customer aprons.
The man sucks his cigarette
hard, after I ask him about the chair.
We haggle about the price.
Finally, he said for a deal he’d rig
his old truck and bring it over.

The chair has a metal loop bar on the
bottom, where you put your feet.
It swivels around and around.
I give it a few twirls, then notice
all of the dust, and maybe some
hair stuck to my shirt. After a
good cleaning, I make room for a trolley
with a pair of scissors, electric shaver
and one of those soft brushes.
I steal a construction wooden
horse sign, use it as signage:
Southside Barber Shop.
Then I wait for customers.

Hey guy! I call out. I want to cut
your hair. You need one!
Sometimes
You have to volunteer or work for free
to get business.
He’s up for the idea, and sits
on the chair. I turn on the small
black and white television,
I plug in the shaver.
My dog
cocks her head to the side
at the buzzing sound.

_____________________

ENTERPRISE
—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

Cornelius espied
through an open window
an apple pie,
he later learned,
cooling in the tepid Temecula air
at Melinda's house
on the sill leading
into the Colonial dining room.

Hungry, he availed himself
and swiped it away
clean and swift.

He had not eaten all day,
not of his own accord.

He took it out to the parkway
checked his blue pinstriped suit
and grey plush tie
in the side mirror
and opened his Mercedes.

Driving off
he recalled
the expensive Serbian wine
he had purloined
from Otis and Cornelia's cellar
dedicated to such
while they were vacationing
in Gstaad.

Not half bad
he thought
as he admired
the polish on his penny loafers
he had.....

bought at Allen Edmonds.

___________________

ASSESSMENT
—Michael Cluff

Through the open window
the past is staring back
at me in now neutered forms.
The stale air mixes with the new century
campanula, peppertree and zinnia accents.

I have not actively lived here
since deaths overrode the need
to be so alone and onery.

Poetry from the early nineties
nestles in the red plush chair
that no one has occupied
since Gore was Vice-President.

On the second couch
flyers about readings
point to the unaware ceiling
and remember
the sound of some now-silent voices
that rattled the beams above
a fire pit in a coffee bar.

Dress shirts and pants
sleep in the closets
knowing I would have to adapt
to them and so would
the world of fluid fashion
for them to leave
their pleasant hibernations.

Azure goes to umber
the sky says goodbye
to the sun
and today's memories
are born in the unformed
grass and purple shadows
on the right wall.

____________________

JANUARY 5, 10:58 p.m.
—Michael Cluff

Auditioning to play
the Jewish father
I never had,
the section on the Seder
was not acted
but real.

I may not get cast
but I felt back home
in this space
even though
it was in a church
auditorium in Ontario
just north of Edison
on Archibald.

Being Abe
in Beau Jest
with his suits,
herringbone trench coat
and wingtips
would be nice:
a touch back to a culture
I miss

I am happy to
just have been
allowed to act in his shoes,
attempt his Hungarian accent
for that little tab of time.

____________________

SO MAYBE I WAS A LITTEL HEAVY ON
BEOWULF IN THE SYLLABUS
—Kevin Jone, Elk Grove

“Another lecture
On Old English,”
Moaned the student
Perched
On the windowsill.
“I can’t take no more.”
And he jumped.

The classroom was
A Fed surplus module,
With windows
Floor to ceiling.
He hit the ground
Running, headed
For the cornfields
And was never
Heard from again.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

MIMI
—Michael Cluff

Placing honey
in my mouth
holds no intrigue
for Mimi anymore
only vinegar wine
will do it
for her alone.

____________________

—Medusa

Leaves, Mike's House

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

Surviving On Our Blues

2012-01-06T07:19:00.000-08:00

Roman Glass

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

STILL LIFE
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Still life
loses balance
in all the baggage
we fear,
just in case of
improbabilities
on our daily canvas
may vanish
and we will turn into
waves of obscurity
so we paint,
compose,
sing,
frame
notes, portraits, poems
and survive
on our blues.

_____________________

IN THE CORNER
—B.Z. Niditch

Your first holiday
with a love letter
falling into strangeness
out of hand
barefoot by dunes
on the warm shore
after summer school
seeming immortal
in sober exercises
and lesson plans
that never go into effect
making up
for laziness
and lost time
in those marred days
of false disciplines
down heated corridors
with hospice smells
and artificial lilacs
on purple-edged vases
replicas of the Etruscans
in the corner hall
where you read
in liquid silence.

_____________________

TO BE LIKE HAMLET
—B.Z. Niditch

To be like Hamlet
mind breathing into words
exceeds any answer

every hand
is turned away
clenched by time

and here is Ophelia
in the fourth act
waiting the curtain

any private whisper
or murmur
in the human landscape

leaving
the stage
like all of us.

___________________

AUDITIONS
—B.Z. Niditch

Dressed down
resembling
a street fighter
for a two-bit part
passing for Hamlet
to read his soliloquy
in Old English
before your turn
and you quoting
from memory
your elegy
about your friend
from your school play
who also died
from a love affair
of a different age
and gender
language flowed
on the edge
taking shots
under pressure
when the lights
went out
and you got the part.

____________________

TONE POEM
—B.Z. Niditch

We breathe in night air
from falling snowflakes
outside the recital hall
before a concert feast,
already contemplating
long conversations
and fine reviews,
the second violinist
talks to the first
in a foreign tongue
giving him a soft tug
on the shoulder
reminding the other
of those arpeggios
in the string section's
finale and fixing
his own spotted tie,
as the doors open.

____________________

TRIO
—B.Z. Niditch

Listening
with a harmonium ear
imagining out at sea
floating to Ravel
tasting echoes
in our tongues
outlasting the distance
between two oceans
of a denoument,
suddenly an applause
of thunder
inside the marble hall
of chamber music
as we embark
catching the sunshine
of our own trio.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

—William Shakespeare

_____________________

—Medusa

Detail, Chataqua bronze

Ashland, Oregon

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

A Week Past Novilune

2012-01-05T07:21:00.000-08:00

Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

MY SOUL WAS A WINDOW
—James Lee Jobe, Davis

When this night lifts away from the world, like a blanket

torn from a bed, I will finally leave this body.

I have been waiting, counting

years like days.

What comes next is something I cannot know,

but it doesn't matter.

My spirit rode the ark

through the flood.

My soul was a window to stare through

and day dream.

I will leave this body, and some day

you will leave yours, friend.

These shells we ride in are like used cars, parts wear out,

until finally it is done.

It has been a long night,

empty, and cold.

My only companions are a clock

and a worn out book of poems.

And that's alright; even now the first rays

of the newborn sun are kissing the earth.

Goodbye

and goodbye.

____________________

THE NIGHT SHE LEFT THE WINDOW OPEN
—Jame Lee Jobe

Lovely indeed, she had lit many beeswax candles

of yellow and white; the tiny flames escaped

one by one through the open window, flying

off to heaven to become the stars. The scent

of her perfume and her oils drifted out

on the evening breeze to cover the flowers,

the jasmine, and the honeysuckle. And she sang!

Her song gave life to the moon, whose dance

pulled the tides in and out, wave and splash,

the waves of another day, another chance

at living. At being human. Life escaped

through this window only to return as love,

as the kindest dreams of our children,

as a chance, a slim chance, of a future.

____________________

WHAT'S NEXT
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Here's the shop on Main Street with
its windows blank. For Lease. Nothing
inside. It used to be a bookstore,

window on the world, and time—
mankind's history and his prospects,
every imaginable adventure

bound in words. I'd pick a volume
off the shelves; flip through pages. Feel
its heft and fiber, comfort of its spine.

The bookstore's out of business.
Now there's Nook and Kindle. I hold
a brand-new one in my hand,

there are no stories stored inside.
It weighs less than the book I close
like a window on the ages.

I stroke the buckram cover
as if I could feel, slipping
from the printed pages, its life.

_____________________

SICKROOM WINDOW
—Taylor Graham

The moon is a merchant ship sailing
half-rigged across the ocean of blue sky.
Graceful as Arabic alphabet,
those lovely, curving letters in her sleep
fresh as bed-sheets never were,
in this tedium of lying on a fever-tide.
A week past novilune, in the Latin
way of telling a waxing moon
that's come sailing through east-window
on the waves of late afternoon,
foam writing some alien script full
of unknown meaning, still fresh as salt-
water lapping at her inner ear.
Listen, it says.

_____________________

THE FOUNDLING AS SEEN FROM A HIGH OPEN WINDOW
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

There was something about his breathing,
Quick short breaths, as if a spider
Monkey was doing the breathing. There
Was no way to explain why this was.

He moved with a liquid elegance
Seldom seen in any interior space.
The sky seemed to lift his body
Higher than one might expect just
Looking at him standing there.

The room began to attract many birds,
Way too many birds. The noise was
Becoming overwhelming. It was as if a dream
Had broken away from the great
Cart of dreams somewhere on a high
Path and began to hurl itself down
A road never meant to carry more than
One or two riders at the same time.

I should have warned you this kind
Of thing was going to happen.
That all the principals in the poem
Would be forever without identity,

Tossed over a cliff high up on
A mountainside before anyone
Caught a good look at them
Or could construct any idea of why
This might be occurring at all.

The night quickly gathered all the
Players in her arms. The wagon
Spun into the open air off
The cliff edge, high above the
Town. Townspeople thought it was
A meteor rather than a discovered
Bit of language working as hard
As possible to become a great
Mystery. Within three-quarters
Of an hour everyone had forgotten the
Incident, only noticing the
Way the crowd took sharp, quick
Breaths and made their way away
From the windows, to their homes
Moving as quickly as possible.

____________________

NIGHT JEWELRY
—D.R. Wagner

There was a break in the cloud
Cover just as we reached the meadow.

The moon had been busy arranging
Things and when she poked
Through the clouds it was like
A lute solo had been remade
With shadows and that yellow-blue
Moon light bubbling out of a crescent
Cauldron and changing the entire landscape.

We could read the night of a sudden.
The fingers of light seemed glass-like
And more nervous than memory,
As if anxious to explain why this
Had happened just now, in this way.

“It’s just the moon breaking through
The clouds. You seem to think it is some
Kind of beautiful mystery.”

I was taken aback. I could feel
And touch and taste my own center.
“Of course it is,” I said. May we applaud this whole
Thing? It is so much more jewelry than anything else.

_____________________

SOME FRENCH PIANO MUSIC
—D.R. Wagner

Tonight I will follow the plain
Out to where the adagio lives,
Where the Pavanne is still danced,
Where the melody takes the bass
Out against the cloth of night
And presses it as close as breath.

Where we are the prayer in
Ravel or Poulenc or Satie,
Or Deodot de Severac, or Fauré.
France comes to our bed and
Caresses us as we have never
Been touched before. It settles
In our heart and in our hands,
In our memories of something we did
Early on in life, when every day was long
And every night, longer still.

We will keep this close. We will
Breathe and the music will pulse
Through, yet remain, and we shall sleep
In the hands of the masters.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

WORD-A-DAY NAANI FOR NEW YEAR
—Taylor Graham

The skull's a mazard,
a fragile brain's helmet.
Tilting at windmills
spins our thoughts dizzy inside.

Through the window,
morning dawns numinous—
by 10 o'clock bored.
Where does awesomeness hide?

Google “noosphere”—
the whole world's knowledge
at a mouse-click.
Too much thinking; set it aside.

____________________

Thanks to today's master chefs for our Kitchen fare! Taylor Graham is checking out the Word-a-Day link at the bottom of our green box to the right of this and using it for inspiration. If you're wondering what a Naani is, go to "Forms to Fiddle With" higher up in that same box. And have you ever used the word, "novilune"? Every day brings new surprises, yes?

—Medusa

Photo by Katy Brown

Windows All Over The World

2012-01-04T06:03:00.000-08:00

Rome, looking over rooftops

toward the Vatican

—Photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento

EAST WINDOW MEMORY IN AN UNCONVENTIONAL WAY
—Ann Menebroker, Sacramento

It was dark, the way dark can be
when there is no light, but for street lamps
outside the house and someone was at
the window, trying to get in; a younger
woman sat in a chair, holding an unloaded
ancient rifle that had belonged
to her first ex's granddad, and thinking in circles
of genuine fear of survival and life
without her in it, waiting for this fool
to come in, ask her out for breakfast
in an unconventional way. The mind's
little games, the heart's smallest
rules, a night that came down like one
hell of a rain storm, and it was about
2:30 a.m. after he'd closed his restaurant.
He kept holding up his day's income
as if that would make her open the door.
(Or the damn window!)
But she kept the rifle aimed and he looked
genuinely shocked that she sat so quietly.
The dark room. The old part of night.
The giving up and going away. The window
so thin in its glass, not dividing violence
by more than a thought, kept shut.

_____________________

AT THE WINDOW (for Rachel)
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

during the long night
I held your hand

in the street below
a police siren started up
stopped in mid-scream
its abrupt terror
spinning out to claim a fresh victim
from among the broken and helpless

at the window our murmurings
like doves in conspiracy
cleared a space for us
in the city’s dense web

Many nights I held your hand.
Many years.
Many afternoons I hoped you were safe.
Many hours I guarded you.
Many hours I dreamed of you.
Many hours I rejoiced in you.
Many hours I regretted you.
Many hours I loved you.

______________________

BROKEN WINDOW
—Patricia Hickerson

still I dream large and wild
windows wide open, arched
curtains flung roomward
sheered with sunlight
where once I paced, waited

watched her,
windowless and wanton,
warping the weft of weeks

watched her thru a window
went out to dinner, waited to go home
to a police note tucked in the front door
your daughter….

to wickedly polished floors
gleaming with a satin sheen
rooms beyond were warm with carpet
dogs stretching from their naps
gazing, brown eyes wistful

the undulant fever of my daughter’s mind
lost in all rooms among chairs and tables
hands at my throat
smashed panes in the French doors upstairs
she tried to break out

so intensely the house behind its eucalyptus shadow
rooms haunted at the rim of the canyon
wisteria purpled the driveway
acacia yellowed the sunpad below

_____________________

WHAT I SAW FROM MY HOTEL WINDOW ON MY 80TH BIRTHDAY:

an expanse of still water running deep, slow, hardly moving
(like me now)
and hidden in its depths—outrageous, secret, tumbling life
as in the note I wrote 45 years ago.
I said to him I am sitting, an exile from our love, at a window on 48th Avenue
looking out at the Pacific
next stop—China
wishing myself a world away from the pain of having to give you up.
Years later, you, now a dead man
buried faraway in Alabama
you are feeling no pain.
And I feel almost none.

—Patricia Hickerson

(first pub. in Rattlesnake Review)

_____________________

WINDOW WORSHIP
—Caschsa, Sacramento

Enter softly, gentle sheep
To the sanctuary of love
Where stained glass windows
Cast their magic plumes
From aeries far above

‘Tis a darkened oven chamber
Warmed by random acts of kindness
Intensely colored
Rays of truth that
Find their way through blindness

Come now, approach and greet the light
That shapes and molds your soul
Unite your spirits
Hand in hand
Two hearts become one whole.

____________________

PLAN B
(A true tale)
—Caschwa

We were off to bed
On a blustery night
Soft pillows to head
Our windows shut tight

When the roar of the wind
Whipped the roof off next door
Tiles plummeted no end
Gaping holes where they tore

Our window was history
Just shards and a frame
But the source was no mystery
Those loose tiles were to blame

We called our landlord that night
And they sent their Mr. Fixit
Who nailed plywood over the blight
Good as new, ipse dixit

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

OPEN WINDOW
—Sandy Thomas, Sacramento

The steeple spirals
toward the heavens

the gargoyle watches below
atop Notre Dame de Paris

just above the open window
that looks down on the rooftops

in the distance
the Eiffel Tower calls

_____________________

Thanks to all those who've opened up windows in the Kitchen today for our Seed of the Week: Through the Open Window... Carl Schwartz (Caschwa) writes: Walking along 12th Street this morning, a merchant’s Closed sign read “Sorry we missed you.” Fortunately, it was not a guns and ammo shop!

It's not too late to send us poems on this subject—or any other. The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry........ That's kathykieth@hotmail.com (Remember: the p.o. box we used to have in Pollock Pines is now closed.)

—Medusa

Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK

—Katy Brown, Davis

Window Into a New Year

2012-01-03T07:38:00.000-08:00

Sad Under Roses

—Photo by Joyce Odam

THE SAME OLD ROSES
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

First he will look at you—so sad—
so sorry—so you won’t stay mad,
then say whatever he will say—
words that will help him work his way
back to your hardened heart: beware,
ever-so-humbly standing there—
flowers extended with such flair:
first the look, then the small sashay,
looking down at his polished shoes,
laughing his two-way laugh—you choose:
is he God’s gift or just bad news—
how he first looks at you—so sad—
so sorry—so you won’t stay mad.

_____________________

FINDINGS
—Joyce Odam

I used to obey the direction, face forward,
walking in a straight line, to the corner and
across the street, bouncing my golf ball on
the loud sidewalk—counting the distance—

so many steps—bounces—resounds—
the sensate pattern of the cracks,
obedience to superstition—another
mother—eyes in the back of her head,

I got to school this way, no snow, except
in Seattle. I lived in sunshine: summer—
summer—summer all my life. I learned to
shortcut through alleys, past the garbage

piles and there found marvelous things,
planted—I thought—for me to find
by kindly fairies straight out of
my fairy-tale books. Once a teacher

gave me tap-shoes from
the poverty closet. I was ashamed,
but loved the shoes. I went
tap-tap-tapping home from school—

feeling eyes
at windows—scolding eyes.
I don’t remember if Mother . . .
I don’t know when I lost the golf ball . . . .

_____________________

BUTTON HOOK
—Joyce Odam

Bending to her shoe.
Priest. My mother told me of.
Priest. Bending to her shoe.
One shoe then two.
Buttoning her shoes.
Her crippled shoes.
Bent to his mother.
His dark symbolic mother
with whom he lived.
For and with.
Priest with mother
dark above him on her chair
her long gray swallowing skirt
touching the floor at his knees.
Shoe. Shoe. Priest and shoe.
Her grim presence.
Ill… Ill… Old and old.
Sitting there expressionless.
Sad duty: Son. Mother.
Priest my mother told me of.
Kneeling there
with ivory button hook
before her.
Priest. Shoe. Priest. Mother.
Prim shoe… High shoe…
of polished leather
with so many buttons
my mother told me of…

(first pub. in Etcetera, 1998)

____________________

REUNIONS
—Joyce Odam

they danced
upon narrowing lawns

years pulled them back
old lives corrected themselves

the falling music threatened to die
the old musicians stayed in tune

old lovers loved again
strangers who came remained strangers

nothing is ever the same
some wept at this

some carried
old reasons within them

“old old”
was the name of the next song

the dancers danced again
their shoes lost under chairs and tables

the drifting dancers hung onto the
sloping shoulders of each other

time came back too soon
they went home

(first pub. in Blue Unicorn, 1991)

______________________

WINDOW DISPLAY
—Joyce Odam

The plastic boy in the window wears
a woman’s wig, a pair of long pants
and a plaid shirt. A tilted mannequin
on a stand beside him wears a falling-off

evening gown and no shoes. She has
painted-on hair and a chipped-off smile.
A newer mannequin in a corner, by the
nail full of belts and the folded umbrella,

wears a velvet hat with feathers and a
flowered skirt and long green beads
over a purple sweater. Inside the display
case, I catch my own reflection,

staring out, through the array of odds
and ends—accessories and picture
frames—books and vases—
a one-eyed teddy bear—
some baby shoes—a candy wrapper . . .

dead flies
lie upside down inside the glass.
The sign says: Enter. Open nine to five.
No checks. No smoking. Help wanted.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

Every single soul is a poem.

—Michael Franti

_____________________

Thanks to Joyce Odam for today's poetry stew, and let's take a clue from her talk of windows for this week's Seed of the Week: Through the Open Window... What happened there? Did somebody escape, or sneak in? Did you see something you weren't supposed to see? Or was it metaphorical—a window of opportunity? Send us your window poems at kathykieth@hotmail.com, either now, this week, this month, or in the years to come. No deadline on SOWs.

—Medusa

Rose Leaf on Gray

—Joyce Odam

Of Comets and Teacups

2012-01-02T07:11:00.000-08:00

Angel

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

BEYOND THE PURDAH
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

The vinyl bag is filled with objects,
some hard, some soft,
something like a handle of a tea cup,
something that has a pulse,
a little sticky like school glue.

Who knows what they are
except the one who put them
together. Who, like that sinewy
boy, who sleeps under tarp
and brushes his teeth with his
index finger.

Don’t be disturbed. Hold on.
This might be an award winning
poem, there might be cream filling
in the center, or we just might go
to sleep tonight having
decided something important.

The boy’s right hand grasps a half
empty water bottle—
cricksy cricksy slopks,
makes the sound of it rolling
like the unpredictable noise
mini firecrackers make.

They don’t take bottle caps at the recycling center.
The first time he learned this, he stood
in the rain
unscrewing every cap.
While he did it,
he came up with the idea to make
a giant beetle with all of those caps.
It could be entered into a high school
art contest. He would win of course.
Someday, he will get his diploma.

We had no idea,
Those translucent caps,
jerked counter-clockwise,
then clock-wise, were a sort of
an anomaly.
We were
in an uproar over all of the plastic,
hissing about the growing landfills,
shaking our heads despairingly about
the homeless, not to mention
world hunger.

We live in purdah, an
acceptable segregation.
Our tea cups clink
then a handle breaks off.
We recross our legs,
swap the cream for the sugar,
lay the spoon on the tray
and watch through
the swirling cataract curtains.

_____________________

THROUGH A COMET'S DARK
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

On the way home your beeper
went off. Small child missing in rimrock,
juniper and pine. Clouds gathered and
pulled back, intermittent snow.
A comet stood in cold black sky impassive
as it passed over festivity and fear.
They say it comes once
in 15,000 years. Luck of a volunteer,
to give up hearthside and
family cheer; load up search pack,
winter gear, grab a thermos of coffee,
take the dark road to nowhere.
Rimrock's cup of time,
a new year's comet. You paced out
the night; a lost child waited
to be found. Listening
into silence, what did you hear?

_____________________

LAST POEM OF THE YEAR, 6:46 p.m.
—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

Night falls a touch
and the hiker
scuttles along
the rim
separating the rime
from the treeline
he always wants
to go above this point
but the green entices
just as much
as the sudden
white of cold
needs to be defined
equally and eloquently
he plans to hold
his balance now
that is the best
he can only
and forever
do.

____________________

FIRST POEM OF THE YEAR, 9:22 a.m.
—Michael Cluff

The park across
the valley is still
unoccupied
no tennis
no touch football
maniacal joggers
hell-bent on setting
personal best times.

The peace is elusive
holidays are temporal
but the dirt
slopes
maintained solid
green grass
continues
staring back
at me
both without
smiles or
sadness.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

ARS POETICA
—Dana Levin

this hush, my pollen—the ordinary grace in the buds.
          the crowding,
                    my basement sorrows—salt and shadow, saying
          Lucky, lucky, your tiniest sadness,
this desert of fragments,
                openhanded voyage,
                             this urge to making a scrapbook of stars—

_____________________

—Medusa

Kites

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

The Magic Number

2012-01-01T05:56:00.000-08:00

As we turn a new leaf...

—Photo by Joyce Odam

TURNING THE YEAR
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

The year—deciduous at last—its days
all counted down, its worries and its woe,
its seasons done, the testing of its ways—
and one more January looms.
Our favorite holiday, we laugh, and go

toward it with the energy it brings—
our yearly resolutions strong again
until they end up with the other things
that fit our mental storage rooms—
the ones we try to clean out now and then.

____________________

BREATH OF TIME
—Joyce Odam

The view is good from here.
Snow birds cry love to me.
The mountain peaks shine.

The sunlight pours down
on everything.
I hear the thin ring of bells

from valley churches.
I can even fly—soar,
through dreams—

all explained.
My body is light. My mind
has never been so deep.

Love shines from within me,
touches everyone.
It is brief but good.

I feel a swarm of color.
I am surrounded by sunlight.
I transform into all of it.

I have reached the magic number
of myself.
This year I celebrate.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives, not looking for flaws, but for potential.

—Ellen Goodman

_____________________

—Medusa, with New Year's Tidings for all in this Year of the Dragon (see www.squidoo.com/year-of-the-dragon). For some good and not-so-good New Year's resolutions for writers, go to billanddavescocktailhour.com/10-bad-new-years-resolutions-for-writers-bad-advice-wednesday-holiday-edition

Photo by Joyce Odam

The Wolf in All of Us

2011-12-31T07:22:00.000-08:00

Chibi Kieth, descendent from wolves

WILD HORSES
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

It must have been the wind
that told me—just like you always rode
alone. Private words for your buckskin horse,
and the wind down dry washes;

your hands working magic
with the reins. One day you left the horse
at home; hiked halfway to nowhere,
a seep in a gully; waited silent

as noonday shadow until they came.
Wild mustangs flicking their ears, sampling
the sky. One mare held you with her gaze
before lowering her muzzle to water.

You stayed long after they galloped off.
You told it in a poem. But
now the magic of pencil on paper
has slipped from your fingers.

You need no name for the rim-
rock place where,
without touching foot to earth,
you could wait for the wild horses.

_____________________

MEMORY AT NEW YEAR
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Not denying
the darkness
nor forgetting
the day
you parted
like violets
on a bedside vase
letting go
by sunlit water
lapping breath
of an uncoiled past,
as cabin fever
removes the coldness
of disbelief,
we opened up
the linen closet
of a recoverable past,
a screen of colors
to embrace.

_____________________

TRYING TO
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

I was trying to remember if it was
A long time ago that I saw you.

It was in the April time, I’m sure
And then again the leaves were falling.

I was waiting by the waterfall.
You were walking on the shore.

The sky was dressing itself with great clouds.
I was waiting by an open door.

There were dreams all about the camp.
There was magic in your hands.

There were songs. We both sang them.
There were words we could understand.

It was like this forever, I recall.
It was never this way at all.

I only know that it was you I loved.
I never knew you at all.

______________________

THE TREES LEARN THEIR STANDING
—D.R. Wagner

From her unwavering gaze
And rivers, their kindest of moods
From the arch of her eyebrow,
The turn of her lips to smile.

The sun pulling itself above
The greeny hills, spends its
Entire morning looking in her
Direction as do I and the
Birds, the wind, the gathering
Clouds lost there too.

May the night forget its way
This evening. We have this
Cup of time only. Do not
Envy us a few poor words.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

Let this coming year be better than all the others. Vow to do some of the things you've always wanted to do but couldn't find the time. Call up a forgotten friend. Drop an old grudge, and replace it with some pleasant memories. Vow not to make a promise you don't think you can keep. Walk tall, and smile more. You'll look ten years younger. Don't be afraid to say, 'I love you'. Say it again. They are the sweetest words in the world.

—Ann Landers

____________________

—Medusa

B-300 ("Sophie"), mother of OR-7.

Welcome to California, OR-7! May your historic crossing

be fruitful (and safe!) for you!

For more about OR-7, see
www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2011/12/or-7_heads_into_california_--.html
or howlingforjustice.wordpress.com

Air Gorgons for the Gnu You in the Gnu Year

2011-12-30T07:17:00.000-08:00

Kids' robot sculpture made from litter

Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

NEW SHOES I
—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

The man in the muted cardigan sweaters
always bought new shoes for
his two sons
Rick and Danny
two days after Christmas
unless that was a Sunday.

He seemed the prefect
suburbanite model
dress shirts
not too tight white slacks—
at least he was to me.

Later Mr. Turnbull
was arrested for
something Mom would not
elaborate upon
and Rick and Danny
began to wear tennis shoes
with more stains and
displaying more veer than before.

____________________

NEW SHOES II
—Michael Cluff

Edwina eulogies
her ballet slippers
now fit her sister Sylvia
only.

But she recalls
those days
with Madame Helene
and the nutcrackers
ruefully.

Today
Edie will put on
the velcro foot cast
and figure out
how she tripped
off the pergola
so nimbly.

______________________

NEW SHOES III
—Michael Cluff

Bought for graduation
in June 1973
thirty dollars
have lasted well
up to this day
past the demise
of Two Guys Department Store
four marriages
three college degrees
the deaths of both parents
and famous dreams.

These heavy
brown brogues
would carry on
without me
but I am glad
they do not.

_____________________

ROME, GEORGIA: December 26, 1:03 p.m.
—Michael Cluff

Up to Mt. Berry
to see my son-in-law's kin
today is very merry
according to his wife Jen,
they were engladdened to see me
from the West Coast,
a special treat was to be
of which they would boast.

In the front yard near the porch
they had constructed an heirloom snowman
from bushes of the Mojave which had been scorched
by 1962 desert blasts and sliding sand.

The tumbleweed Frosty had moved
from Parcelete to Floyd County
it had been quite costly
but added to the Gamble's Christmas Bounty.

I was taken aback to 1972
Uncle Rudy's house in Piru
today was yesterday and maybe tomorrow
from this nice gesture my memory will now borrow.

____________________

ATLANTA AEROPORT: December 28, 7:52 a.m.
—Michael Cluff

On the tarmac
I stare at the flatness
the tawdry stale nature
of terminals
and sardine cabins
too many minutes
to come on a plane
headed West
with no real food
or room to let
my elbows rest free
and akimboed.

But by the time
the Mississippi passes
down there below,
I will meander
freely within
air pockets
of artesian
schemes
scenarios.

_____________________

PHOENIX: December 29, 10:16 a.m.
—Michael Cluff

Hauled into the Hummer
to visit the second daughter
in Phoenix
she was not remade
invented there
and that is good.

As for the grandchildren
it is a wash
they have about 491 years
before the verdict
comes back
one way or
the other.

_____________________

PMM
—Caschwa, Sacramento

Being around people who have ADH
Get to the point!D
Takes some patience

Each a virtual perpetual motion machine (PMM)
They are ready to go to the next step
Sooner than others

Thus the California rolling stop:
I checked, it is safe,
Why not just go?

Thus the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster:
We’ve been over that before,
We must meet deadline

Thus marriages for life and eternity
That crumble to nothing
Much sooner

PMMs feed upon others who sleep
And consume their ideas
Good night.

______________________

THE COLOUR GREY
(After gazing at the “Rejoice” photo by Joyce Odam*)
—Caschwa

I learned from my father
A WWII Seabee
That battleships were painted
Gray

My mother, a reader
Of James Joyce, et al.
Was adamant it was spelled
Grey

The truth at the center
Of this rather odd
Fórmidable dilemma,
Cuz:

There was no real centre
Around which to prove by
Formídable logic
‘Cause

We live in two werlds
That use different roolz
With defiant codes of onner
So!

[*see last Tuesday's Medusa post]

___________________

GNU SHOES
—Caschwa

It can be hard to get gnus
To wear shoes
But since they are Gorgons
They’ll at least try them on

Air Gorgon XI—
White patent leather
Fine for sprinting past
Predators

Air Gorgon XIII—
Panthers paws
For when stealth is
Essential

Air Gorgon XIX—
Black Mamba snake
Rivals the other king
Of the jungle

Gorgon 2011—
Four colorways
One for each
Hoof

Pricey all,
But image is
Everything
For the gnu you

____________________

Today's LongerNip:

INSTRUCTIONS
—Caschwa

Read this poem like you are
Cramming for a big test
Quiet room, lots of light
Focus, focus, focus

Start at the bottom
Then scan sideways
Take note of just the verbs
Make a mental list of them

Forget about adjectives
They are just a distraction
And so is the title and the form
You are not tested on distractions

Verbs are a poem’s punches
Roll with the punches
Throw some yourself
Batter that poem!

Don’t let the poem
Do all the talking
Pound that keyboard
With your priorities

Remember, in poetry
It is just as easy to commit
Global genocide as it is
To kill one mockingbird

Okay, you’ve done your work
Good job.
Lights out.
Get some sleep.

_____________________

—Medusa

Clarksburg Truck

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

(Be sure to check out our latest photo album,

"Historic Locke by Cynthia Linville"

on Medusa's Facebook Page)

Next Year's Words

2011-12-29T07:19:00.000-08:00

David in Diapers at Deseret

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

GRAY HAIR
—Cathy Hackett, Sacramento

It turned slowly,
probably sometime after forty.

Gray hair was hidden
under color for years.

Hiding the gray to look younger.

To fit in a society that worships youth

Looking more competitive with
Younger co-workers and bosses

The dye stopped not long ago

Now I honor gray hair
not trying to please anyone
anymore

____________________

STROKE BLUES
—Cathy Hackett

It sneaks up on you
A slight slurring of speech
A weakness in the knees
Double Vision

How is it possible that
Life could change
in just 24 hours

He walked, drove a car,
took care of himself

24 hours later he needs
24/7 care

____________________

COBBLER, 1860
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

He fingers each nail before hammering
it into the sole. A sturdy boot,
this platform between foot and soil.

But isn't it foolish to pound so much
metal into leather, so a man
must stomp his way across earth?

Imagine standing on a hilltop, gazing
at distant features of a landscape
that beckons in all directions—

like standing on the compass-rose
of life. Couldn't lightening the step
also lighten the soul?

______________________

NEW SHOES
—Taylor Graham

The snake casts its skin,
the sheep rubs its old woolen coat
against the tree-trunk and comes away
without its itch. It is done by us all,
as God disposes, she's been told.
It has to do, she thinks, with currency.
Last night the moon, dark
as a dying year, cast its jawbone
to the morning's dogs. Like
last semester's teacher, pale specter
in a bright crisp sky. Today,
her old soles fell into the trash.
Without a glance behind, she slipped
into fairy-sneakers, salamander
skins, her new skip-hop-
dancing self.

_______________________

IN AND OUT OF MIST
—Taylor Graham

Glimpsed so briefly, a point of land
between horizon and the tide.
We left our footprints in the sand,
we watched the gulls and petrels glide

from shoreward to the other side;
glimpsed, so briefly, that point of land
we puzzled off the map, denied
its presence. Must be sleight-of-hand,

a trick of light and eye, some grand
illusion that would not abide,
glimpsed so briefly. That point of land
became a myth: somebody lied

to set his tedium aside.
As shadows gather and disband,
shall we just let the question slide?
Glimpsed, so briefly, one point of land.

_____________________

SHOES
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

Horses did not always need shoes.
The mustangs of the steppes and deserts
Do not wear shoes and yet they hurry
Across the great spaces, keeping the sky
In its place with their hard running.

The Katak dancers of Northern India
Tell their stories without shoes, their feet
Keeping taal and sliding us into
Endless patterns as the tabla
Drives their feet to be calloused and split
Open even as they cycle us through
The hours, days, seasons, years.

I am wearing heavy shoes today, the kind
Used to hike to high places. My
Feet need these shoes. They are too
Soft and do not touch the earth
As much as I would like them to do.

The ground gets hard. The air gets cold.
I enjoy the warmth of socks on my feet.
The shoes become friends, comforting me.

I never wear shoes when dreaming.
My feet always find the way to proceed.

_______________________

TIGHT ROPE
—D.R. Wagner

Eyes glazed like tar.
Cool nets
Are tossed over our body
Meat. The air thrills
With our writhing.

We are substitutes
For fame. Red-faced
Factories full of
Discord and the smell
Of merciless victory.
We are lists of the unidentified
In unknown cities. There are chips
Of us encoded in silicon
Dream warp belts.

       They apply their warm
       Sticky selves to our outer bodies.
       You could synthesize pain
       Like it was the real thing.
       I was no good at this.

We would whisper together
As we walked. Occasionally
I would bleed from the eyes
And ears. “You look like
A souvenir,” you would say.
My thoughts would scab over.
The stage lights would come on.
We could barely hear our music
Above the noise of the crowd.
“Take it to the bridge,” you
Would say.
I could only understand
That we were traveling.
I looked down.
There wasn’t any net.
The air thrilled a second time.

_____________________

Thanks to today's contributors! Check out Cynthia Linville's photos of historic Locke on the Medusa's Kitchen Facebook page; thanks, Cynthia.

Cathy Hackett is a new poet on the scene, part of the Wisdom Woman's Art Program at the Sacramento Food Bank, where she attends Allegra Silberstein's poetry class each Wednesday. She says it's "a rare mix of woman from different backgrounds. Each has a unique style." A chapbook was published in December, and it can be purchased from Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services. (Contact Helen Plenert at HPlenert@sacramentofoodbank.org/) For more about Wisdom Woman's Art program, see www.sacramentofoodbank.org/programs/womens-wisdom.html

Also, D.R. Wagner has a new chapbook out, called Pentecost, from Green Panda Press. All of the poems have appeared in Medusa's Kitchen. You can get a look at the cover at greenpandapress.blogspot.com/ There are six poems, 9 pages stapled, stamped, no fold. 60 copies only, $5.00 each. Green Panda Press also has a page on Facebook.

Errata: About yesterday's second photo in the Kitchen (by Jane Blue), Jane writes: That is Cathy's husband, Eric Weaver. (Also, Peter is not her dad—he is only 8 years older that she is!)

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice.

—T.S. Eliot

______________________

—Medusa

Photo by Cynthia Linville

From Her Heart a Lily Grows

2011-12-28T06:43:00.000-08:00

Jane Blue and her daughter, Catherine Weaver

WHEN MEETING A TIGER
—Catherine Weaver, Palo Alto

Bemused like a bewildered butterfly,
He started a thousand things in an afternoon
The glittery gleam of gadgets fluttered by
Like a will o’ the wisp in June.

When meeting a tiger you must catch his eye
And hold his gaze in your own
And don’t look after a far-off sigh
Or allow your sight to roam.

The flashing lights and big brash sound
Coming from here and there
Kept his attention spinning round
And he never got out of his chair.

When meeting a tiger you must catch his eye
And hold his gaze in your own
And don’t look after a far-off sigh
Or allow your sight to roam.

So when his possessions were prised
From him, and his rights were crudely ripped
The glazed expression barely left his eyes
Until his mouth was zipped.

When meeting a tiger you must catch his eye
And hold his gaze in your own
And don’t look after a far-off sigh
Or allow your sight to roam.

_____________________

THE FALL OF ICARUS
—Jane Blue, Sacramento

O! I am the center of the universe; the sun
revolves around me! Icarus thought in that
plangent moment before the wax of his wings
melted, and the feathers fluttered out
into Breughel's blue sky; almost consumed
by the cloud of amorphous, pale light
that Breughel smudged, lemon-colored,
across the upper right quadrant of the canvas.
The sun was that close in those days; Daedalus
warned his son, "Don't fly too close," but Icarus,
being an adolescent, did exactly the opposite;
the contraption was Daedalus' own invention:
a test, sending Icarus first as you might ask
the host to taste the wine for poison, or
give a bit of meat to the cat; in a flash Icarus
is in the green Cretan sea, head first, legs
jutting up, flailing only a little; fat Daedalus,
wearing a woolen robe, reaching timidly
from the bank toward the drowning boy,
too late; ashamed to call for help. And life
goes on; birds sing, water laps;
sure-footed sheep munch up and down
the steep hillside, almost to the cove where
Icarus sinks; a young man plows tiers
into rough soil, pushing as the horse pulls,
both their heads bent to the task; the focus:
work, daily life, a red blouse; a ship sails away
from Icarus' splashing; the shepherd
rests on his staff, glancing up to the left
where he thought he saw a speck in the sky.

______________________

PROMETHEUS WITH AMNESIA
—Catherine Weaver

When I was but a girl,
I looked at the elder folk and wondered
What they knew that I didn’t, and
How they were steering the world
So confidently.
I looked at the buildings and cars,
Listened to their discussions of
Money and politics,
And I closed my eyes and
Sang to myself,
Secure in the knowledge that
The world was
In good hands.
How came the world to be a place
Where crocodile tears are shed
In public
While our livers are torn out
Day after day,
While we believe the tears,
Like Prometheus with amnesia?
The curtains of lies have become
Threadbare from overuse
And when the wind blows
I think I see
A glint of truth
Through the gossamer tatters.
And I know the elders of my youth
Were not so confident and sure,
But were putting on
A brave front
So that I could have the time
To close my eyes and sing.

_____________________

ZSA ZSA GABOR ASKS FOR A PRIEST
—Jane Blue

She sits up slightly in her neat chaste bed, sheets
tucked in hospital corners, someone singing
a canticle in her brain; whispers that she wants
the last rites. She can speak "only a little,"
the usually voluble Zsa Zsa. And from her heart
a lily grows. The bed floats above the faded world,
no gems, no diadems. No one sees it, looking at
her crumpled, sculpted face. From long habit
she says the Hail Mary before the priest arrives.
A halo dissolves among the clustered stars,
the glowing lily becomes a giant lamp, or a Sister
of Mercy's starched headdress, which she remembers
from her Hungarian childhood, how the nuns worried
about their intricately folded creations wilting
and shrinking in the rain. Someone has thought
of umbrellas, but Zsa Zsa is floating far above them.
The paint is not yet dry in the ecstatic shadows;
she is still alive. She cannot say if she feels a tinge
of disappointment, married nine times, eight times
failed, a hunger dogging her. Drifting into
the midnight sky, the nebulae, she looks down
upon herself, the priest anointing her.

(based on the painting, "Who Lit this Frame in Us" by Alexandra Eldridge)

______________________

MY DREAMS
—Catherine Weaver

My dreams are never dull, they get me to move,
They’ll even cross the desert on a camel
Living life, with nothing to prove.

My dream-music wakes me and I dance to the groove,
My toes clicking on the enamel
My dreams are never dull, they get me to move.

My creations will never be locked in the Louvre
Or any other civilized trammel.
They’ll be living life, with nothing to prove.

No iron shoes for them, they’re light on their hooves
And aren’t a domesticated mammal.
My dreams are never dull, they get me to move.

So you may find me anywhere dancing to their groove,
Out in a field or on top of a manhole,
Living life, with nothing to prove.
My dreams are never dull, they get me to move.

_____________________

ASK A MAN WHAT HE IS THINKING
(based on Abdi Asbaghi's "Self Portrait")
—Jane Blue

A man lounges on an orange sofa, wearing
a rumpled white button-down shirt.
He is twiddling a rope, loosely attached
to wooden crossbars in the black holes
of windows behind him. The walls are gray
and bare of decoration, like his mind. His face
has been misplaced, manipulated
out of the photograph, leaving a clean-
shaven chin. You cannot know his thoughts.
If you ask a man what he is thinking
and he says, Nothing, it is probably true.
My exultant son told me of a study
in which advanced brain scans proved a man
can turn off his brain completely
as he stares unfocused into space. A woman
cannot, the same scientists discovered
in the darting explosions of color in her scans.
She dares not. She is busy creating the world.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

THE TRAP
—Catherine Weaver

Ever flowing in the desert
Comes a wild and whispering wind
Always shifting never inert
No beginning and no end.

Solid gold and gleaming gems in
Massive mountains tall and bold
Inviting one and all to step in
To the dark and hollow cold.

_____________________

—Medusa (with thanks to today's mother-daughter tag-team, Jane Blue and Cathy Weaver)

Cathy Weaver and Peter Rodman, her dad

—Photo by Jane Blue

Turn The Dream Around

2011-12-27T06:40:00.000-08:00

Photo by Joyce Odam

WHEN CHRISTMAS DAY BLOOMED,

bright as faith… quiet at last…
informed at last… the way
already paved and trod…

I’ll not inflict a rhyme
on that, too trite,
too easy:

the day, the way,
no sound that trembled
with your listening,

your quiet breathing
as you listened
to your thoughts.

All this I say to you,
to me, to any in the reach:
oh beautiful… oh perfect morning…!

—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

_____________________

LOVE PLANTING MOONLIGHT
IN THE SNOW
—Joyce Odam

cold moment ringing over us
like stars singing down to us:
be cruel, be cruel, as we are . . .
be kind, be kind, as nothing is . . .
oh, we are so judged and wanting
and the darkness is so slow
how can we but praise
love, planting moonlight
       in the snow

_____________________

GLACIAL
(based on "Moving Mountains—The glacial Erratics"
CD Jacket Cover)
—Joyce Odam

Where all things
allow perfection—
however lame.

All is healed by deprivation,
which is to say, the sky, the snow.

Only the black crow
can glow with purity against
the apparition of the vertical guitar.

Music is in the mind. The sky is clear.
The snow is deep and nothing moves
but these words.

What makes the dream allow such things?
Whose mind makes all this visible?
What skill of power—older than belief?

_____________________

IN THE SNOW
—Joyce Odam

Mother and I are going for a walk.
Mother and I are standing in the snow.
Mother doesn’t really want to talk.
Mother doesn’t know which way to go.

____________________

THE RELIGION OF SNOW
               “Through regions of snow.”
                                 —Stephen Crane
—Joyce Odam

I have gone
through white winters,
calling out my loss and my questions.

Nothing answered
but the shadows of gulls
transparent on the walls of my searching.

I felt their cries
as my own. Ah, then, I am
not alone. I said, though it was snowing.

_____________________

SNOW DREAM
(based on "Banlieue sous la neige" by
Maurice de Vlaminck)
—Joyce Odam

Some lonely place as far away as snow,
long roads of travel, and longer ways to go.

Roof tops that slope, and skies that never end.
a murky figure that must ever wend and wend

across the reaches—back and forth it seems,
trying to find an exit from such dreams.

The day won’t open. Night has lost its clue.
At times like this, there’s nothing more to do

but grope toward the nothing that is there.
Only thoughts can reach. There’s silence everywhere.

If you are lost here, what else can be found,
but hope, if hope is willing to turn the dream around

and walk into a mirror made of light.
and find a way through all this blinding white

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

BLUE SNOW
—Joyce Odam

snow under moonlight,

blue as ache
blue as longing
blue as cold fire

becoming slow translucence,
becoming blue sheen of silence

_____________________

—Medusa

Sam and I both need a new pair of shoes. As we trudge toward the new year, we all need new shoes, either metaphorically or literally. So that's our Seed of the Week: New Shoes. Tell us about the ones you got as a kid, or the ones you wore out, or the ones that didn't fit right—or go for the metaphor: tools you need to get you where you want/need to go. Send your SOWs to kathykieth@hotmail.com; no deadline on SOWs. Note: the Rattlesnake P.O. Box 762 in Pollock Pines is no longer functional. From now on, email your goodies.

Photo by Joyce Odam

Mushrooms and Champagne

2011-12-26T07:12:00.000-08:00

Photo by Ann Privateer

WHEN IT RAINS
—Ann Privateer, Davis

strange things appear
on trees. Heaven
lavishly pours
entertainment
nothing is dry
the slough
rousts everything
awake bringing
buckets of DNA

growing mushrooms
on tree trunks. Turn
down the covers
and hide, you might
wake up sporting
antlers.

_____________________

OUR PLACE
—Ann Privateer

In burning sun
with my two yearning
sisters, we’d love
to unplug, seek fame
beyond this rusty
incendiary holding place
rain down the drain
let’s bust out
live by chance
depend on trees.

We survive
Together lacing
visions of a private
space only to become
unlaced. Alone or
together, we find
our own egg place
in our local domicile.

_____________________

GLIDING INTO THE DAY
—Arthur Winfield Knight, Yerington, NV

I remember getting up
to teach a class
at the university
where I worked,
to write a poem,
to work on a novel.
It was always something.
Rushing, rushing.
My blood pressure high,
nerves shot. Now,
retired in rural Nevada,
I read the paper
when I awaken,
have a glass of
cranberry grape juice,
then watch the news,
while I drink a glass of wine,
gliding into the day.

____________________

HASH BROWNS AND CHAMPAGNE
—Arthur Winfield Knight

We have hash browns
from McDonald’s
and champagne from Spain
for breakfast.
We’re drinking
our champagne
out of lead crystal glasses,
so they have a nice ring
when we toast each other.
Kit and I are celebrating
out 35th anniversary today.
I’m her second husband
and she’s my fourth wife,
so people were
betting against us,
but we fooled them all.
We were living in the East
at the time, but moved
to California,
where I’d grown up,
twenty years later.
Finally, we settled in Nevada
with our old dog,
a retired, racing greyhound.
We’re getting old, too,
but we like to tell people
we’re falling apart
with as much style as possible.
We forge on.

_____________________

GETTING OFF THE BUS
—Caschwa, Sacramento

Scene One:
Touch Here to Open Door
One passenger follows instructions, and nothing happens

Scene Two:
Push Like Hell on the Damn Door
Another passenger lowers shoulder and shoves, still nothing happens

Scene Three:
We dare you to open this door!
All the passengers line up with a battering ram, the glass breaks but the door won’t budge.

Scene Four:
Ask the driver for help
The driver pushes a button and the door opens easily

Scene Five:
Thank you for riding with the transit company
The passengers start shopping for cars

_____________________

BEFORE HISTORY
—Caschwa

(Yale scientists have recently reported
finding evidence of other solar systems
with planets that could support life)

The loving parents gave their children
A little ant farm, of all things
With just one instruction:
Go ye forth and multiply

So they went out to playground Earth
And watched for eternities
Occasionally interceding
While the ant farm grew and grew

They saw the little farm
Explode into great hills
Colonies becoming civilizations
Working together, warring, what next?

Now those children have totally outgrown
Their interest in the little ant farm on
Playground Earth, and have moved on
To some freakin' awesome adult toys …

_____________________

HAPPY TRADING DAYS
—Caschwa

Notwithstanding the separation of
Church and State
These recessionary times call for
Bringing back the tithe.

Let’s start now with the 2012
Presidential race and take
One tenth of the contributions
From the several individual campaigns

Pool it into a single fund that
All the different candidates, to really
Prove their worth for public office,
Can together decide how to use

For the benefit of the United States
Because as modern politics teaches us:
Money talks ever so much
More loudly than words

____________________

DIGGING OUT
—Caschwa

Government is spending way too much
So we look for things just right to cut
But not this, but not that, etcetera
Leave our pork intact from hoof to butt

How ‘bout if we consolidate
Merge two programs into one
License marriages at DMV
Classes A, B, C, so fun!

Veteran and veterinary medicine
Already share so many letters
Let’s put them under one roof now
Form a cooperative of debtors

When it comes to courses hard to finish
Golf and law first come to mind
A pro must also pass the bar
Losing players are jailed and fined

We could just shrink the government
Back to one king on a throne
Let royalty collect what the people earn
Working their fingers to the bone

But didn’t we have a revolution
So we wouldn’t have to live that way,
Or is that just a fiction of history
‘Cause it’s all about stock market play?

_____________________

A SEA TALE
—Caschwa

Out in the Pacific a Navy warship
Beached on an island
And could not move

A little boy from the village
Put a message in a bottle
Telling of this spectacular occurrence

He cast it into the ocean
Carefully between waves
And watched it sail away

Meanwhile the captain
Ordered his crew to dispatch
An urgent call for help

They considered urgent colors:
Would this be a red, an orange,
Or just a yellow?

Then they pondered all
The ramifications of the wrong
People getting this call for help

We don’t want everyone to know
How vulnerable we are
Better use some kind of code

And better not let the admiral know—
He was captain of this vessel before—
Never had any such problems

A few days later the bottle was found
By the admiral’s grandson
Hey Grampa, looka’ this!

Must be a practical joke
Why don’t you just write a reply
And put it back in the ocean?

_____________________

LOW TIDE
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

You've walked as far as you can walk,
to the edge of land.
People claim that, long ago,
Peace was settled here.
But all you find is a barren shore.

A glimpse. Haze on the horizon.
An island. War has burned the bridges
and the stairs. Did Peace
sail there? You have no boat, no oar,
not a piece of knotted

twine. On the reft shore, nothing
but what the sea brings.
Broken shells. You hold an empty
spiral in your hand.
Some creature lived inside and then

moved on. Which tide took Peace
away? Mankind has dynamite
in his blood. The mind
is a spiral, an ark, as wind can be
a prayer. Your breath inflates the sail.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

Some like poetry
                  wry
some like it
                     on the fly
others want it to make
them cry
           a few to be a lie
                 I
like all four
              don't ask me
              more
I could try
       but I really
                        don't
      know

—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

____________________

—Medusa

Photo by Ann Privateer

The Gift

2011-12-25T07:28:00.000-08:00

CONCHES ON CHRISTMAS
—Mike Chasar, Salem, OR

Diluvian, draggled and derelict posse, this
barnacled pod so pales
next to everything we hear of red tides and pilot whales
that a word like “drama” makes me sound remiss

except that there
was a kind of littoral drama in the way the shells
silently, sans the heraldry of bells,
neatly, sans an astrological affair,

and swiftly, sans a multitude of feet, flat-out arrived—
an encrusted school of twenty-four
Gabriellan trumpets at my beach house door
and barely half-alive.

Oh, you can bet
I picked them up, waded right up to my ankles in
there among ’em, hefted ’em up to my ears to hear the din
of all things oceanwise and wet,

but every of the ancient, bearded, anthracite,
salt-water-logged spirals,
every of the massive and unwieldy, magisterial
mollusks shut tight—

no din, no horns roaring reveille, no warning, no beat, no taps,
no coral corpus,
no porpoise purpose
except it was a secret purpose kept strictly under wraps.

A fine Christmas gift indeed, this
obscure migration,
this half-dead conch confederation
which would have smelled yon tannenbaum like fish—

a fine set of unwrappable presents
and no receipt by which I could redeem them.
I lifted one up by its stem
and thought of how, by increments,

all twenty-four
must have lugged those preassembled bodies here
sans Santa, sleigh, and eight little reindeer,
to my drasty stretch of shore.

And, no other explanation being offered for the situation,
I thought that I might understand
how one could argue that the impulse driving them to land
was a sort of evolutionary one—

misguided, yes, redundant, a million years too late,
a needless, maybe rogue and almost campy
demonstration of how history,
even in the world of the invertebrate,

repeats itself—breaker
crashing down on breaker in the Gulf, Gulf War
coming after Gulf War.
O Maker,

there is so much slug inside these shells,
here, at the end of December,
at the edge of a world I couldn’t blame if you did not remember.
Miracles sell well,

but Lord, it can be numbing
to a people who cannot
tell between a second nature and a second thought,
a second chance, or a second coming.

(first pub. in Poetry, 2005)

For more about Mike Chasar, see mikechasar.blogspot.com

____________________

—Medusa

Merry Christmas from Rattlesnake Press!

A Glimpse of the Island

2011-12-24T07:18:00.000-08:00

Christmas Lights

—D.R. Wagner

ONE WHO KNOWS THE NAMES OF STARS
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

The rabbit stopping in the snow, in the blue
Light of the Winter moon, catches that light
In his eye and throws it back into the sky
With an eye so small, a star we see so bright.

Giant trees tower above us as we walk, snow
Crunching beneath our heavy boots. We have
Camps to reach and villages to find, before the dawn
Has any thought of molding the objects of the morning.

From where we stand we can see the grey wolf shadows
On the hillside far across the creek from us. They move
Away and down the slope, “looking for yet another star”,
Your wisdom seems tempered by the hour and the perfect
Stillness this single night has as we move through it.

“One who names the stars has called us here, that we
Too may know the names of stars.” Fish below the ice
Gaze upwards as well, the sleeping bear listens to the naming,
Rolls slightly and nurses the cubs close against her fur.

This is so perfect, here on this whirling planet
With its bright blood and vales of tears. Let it
Retain its stillness just a moment more that we
May notice, in this moonlight, a quick mouse
Upon the forest floor and see an owl—not see it
As its feathered flight in silence recites the litany
Owls might make as they too know names of stars.

_______________________

BURNING THE STAIRS
—D.R. Wagner

There is a low wail coming
Up through my skin. When
I listen in, head close
To the radio I can feel
The pulse, the full pulse,
The pulse, pulse of the electricity
In its circuits. I can smell
The ozone. I can tell
It needs flame. Even the music,
Even the announcer’s voice,
Lifting and falling, selling stereos
And car tires has the stink
Of flame around it. I wish
For evening, a room far away,
The arc of a great bird
Across the sky, etched air.
The wail will have none of this.
It becomes louder and shrill.
The dial begins flickering,
Its mouth full of flame.
It begins to melt.
I quickly pick it up,
Toss it into the air.

The stairs of the angels catch fire.
The air is filled with burning stairs.
There is no way to get to heaven
Any longer.
The fire storm rages down.
It is like dreaming.
It is like moving clouds
Away with one’s hand.
I stand at the top
Of the stair and look down.
Someone is listening to a radio
So intently
I believe
They are an animal.

______________________

AFTER THE HEAT
—D.R. Wagner

Dynamite in the blood.
The veins are fuses, hot
With mockingbirds in the
Long air of delta summer night.

I listen to the sputter in
My chest, smell the gunpowder
Of tomatoes and snap beans
Racing through the tall
Grass toward my brain.

I become the fields
And burst into flame,
running from my bedroom
Blinded by sheets of flame
Higher than the crust of smog
Above my head, choking on smoke
Of my ancestors, as the dream
Banks break over my mind, flooding
The synapses and thought canals
With wave after wave of soothing
Water. Towers of steam rise up
Throughout me. I am pale and shaken
With the delta. Clouds of me hover
Over the levees, find the languid sloughs
And presently regain the river, winding, unwinding.

______________________

A GLIMPSE OF THE ISLAND IN PASSING BY UNDER SAIL
—D.R. Wagner

That land could be so close
To the water and not part
Of it.

The palm trees seem to start
As green bursts in the air pushing
Their long stems down to hold
The earth around themselves.

Along the shore all of the fish
Come to see this edge of the land.
It is an event in a world of water.

Without lights at night
They aren’t there until
You hit one. Without a view
Of the bottom in daylight
It is already too shallow
Or much too deep.
Your guess is as good as
A knotted rope.

______________________

Thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's photo and poems, and to Michelle Kunert for the photo and for her photos of the final Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe of the season (which was all open mic); see Medusa's Facebook page for those, and join the gang at Luna's for another new year starting Thursday, Jan. 5.

If you'd like to immerse yourself in seasonal poems, here are a couple of sites (of course there are many more...):

www.carols.org.uk/christmas_poem.htm
www.poetryfoundation.org/article/240866

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

—Charles Dickens

______________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

Holiday Noir-ish

2011-12-23T06:50:00.000-08:00

For the Squirrel

The trick

Is to get his girl

to sit

Beneath the mistletoe

And steal a kiss

—Photo and poem by Ronald Edwin Lane, Colfax

_____________________

XMAS NOIR
—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

Enid holds Christmas snow
a precious gift
hardly ever obtained
in a china-thin hand,
the cost of losing virtue
is well worth it
albeit it goes so quickly
up the nose.

Brodie mixes holly berries
into the Christmas snow,
another year without
the spirit
of a soul
does not merit
a carol to be written
or one to be forever sung.

______________________

HOLIDAY NOIR
—Michael Cluff

I improvise on the fly:
"There is nothing Jewish about snow"
but after the gig is gone
I then pause and recall:

Nana used to gather some
to convert this solid into a
life-containing liquid
by a weak fire
during the few hours
the goyim allowed her
to have on
during breaks in the pogroms.

There is nothing Jewish about snow
except common pain.

_____________________

A SEASONAL WISH
—Michael Cluff

I want a cello
to play in Montebello
date a woman named Seraphina
living in South Pasadena
a house on the Isle of Man
and musical abilities like Pan
some grog
and a collie dog
a genuine Dali
at an auto rally
star in a Pinter play
rest in the bath all day
no math
and a chocolate bath
less taxes
entertaining faxes
and golden iPod
no plates of scrod
some apple tarts
without the farts
some peace on this planet
we all are worth it Janet
dammit

Snow covers all but
the gloved hands of a cellist
who hits sour notes.

____________________

ONE FINAL TO GO: 9:27 a.m.
—Michael Cluff

Lost my reading glasses
nearly as bad as dying at Manasas
computer set up not to be done
until Wednesday's noonday sun
jury duty is a callin'
interesting papers make me bawling
the new place now has no chairs
have to postpone some holiday affairs
the last set of papers
will not induce capers
but after the last page is marked
my jolly spirit will be resparked.

___________________

HAPPY HOLIDAYS?

never occur
just the way
William and Jessica hope
the turkey is always dry
Clive is stuck in England
due to weather or homeland security
and Prudence is always minorly
pestered by the law.

Yet again
good does come
from the slam jangle
between December 10
and January 2
Martin comes back home
and one out of many
is just fine by them.

______________________

CHRISTMAS MY WAY
—Trina Drotar, Sacramento

The cousins are sunning in the Bahamas.
Grandma’s photo’s at the table’s head
Nine and One on the cake, and me thinking
I should have used the one of Donald Duck
feeding her French fries that year in Disneyland
where I’d rather spend Christmas. Mom’s
photo, the one where she didn’t look so old,
so tired, so done with the holidays, placed
at the second position, a wine glass full
of cran-pomegranate because that’s what’s
in this house, and perhaps because of that
time when she and her friend, Paula, made
pomegranate wine. To Mom’s right should
be a photo of my dad, but he never spent
Christmas Eve with us, although I did bring
him for Thanksgiving one year to the horror
of my grandma and her yappy little dogs.
Instead, I’ll place a photo of Bob, that gray
and white cat who never really belonged
to anyone. Next to Bob, perhaps I should
place a photo of my sibling, there’s the one
I grew up with and the ones I didn’t. Then
again, maybe a photo of Sidney, the basset
hound my dad supposedly gave me as a birthday
gift when I was two. Maybe, just maybe,
I can set up the photos, plates, glasses,
and the silverware, and go for a bike ride.

_____________________

BREAKABLE
—Trina Drotar

When you were two, I think it was the push toy
that looked like a gumball machine. When you
were three, it was a truck or car or something
with wheels and made of metal. When you
were four, it was another vehicle – larger –
and when you were five, it became a test
to see just how fast you could break those
unbreakable toys.

_____________________

GRANDMA'S NEW DRESS

made her look like a madam in an old-fashioned, yet contemporary, whorehouse, all of the foster daughters, granddaughters, and other females sitting at her feet. The dress (from the crazy aunt who never made it out that Christmas because of snow or some other reason) slit from ankle to mid-thigh, sleeves exposing wristbones, and a plunging v-neck. Silver jewelry decorated neck and ears that usually wore none. Silver, heeled shoes upon feet that never even wore pumps, and a bouffant wig in platinum blonde (the same color that the crazy aunt always dyed her hair and tried to say it was her natural color) upon hair that was permed monthly at the shop where the “old ladies” drove this eighty-five year old grandma just a bit crazy.

—Trina Drotar

_____________________

FOR THE LOVE OF FRUITCAKE
—Trina Drotar

My cousin must be the only person I know who likes fruitcakes. Not just any fruitcakes. Oh no. Only the fruitcakes that Grandma used to make with dried fruits we’d purchase each November at the Farmer’s Market on Alemany (it’s still there, you know). Only the fruitcakes that Grandma gave her each year on Christmas Eve after she moved here from Japan. Only the fruitcakes that Grandma wrapped in brandy-soaked towels and stored in the front basement (nowhere near that Christmas tree, though) until the following year when the cakes would be removed, packaged, wrapped, labeled, and given to people who could appreciate them. People like my cousin who kept each year’s cake a few extra years just to make sure that it had fermented properly. Like a good wine, Grandma’s fruitcakes were not to be eaten too soon.

_____________________

THAT TREE

appears prominently in every photo taken at Grandma’s on every Christmas Eve since we were toddlers. No taller than three feet four inches with a gold-colored imitation metal topper and filled, or over-filled, with nondescript glass balls and too-large lights set in those star-shaped tinfoil reflectors.

Brought upstairs from the front basement where it resided eleven months out of each year (in between the canned goods and paper products), set upon the table with great aplomb by the parlor’s front bay window that looked out to Silver Avenue. The green plastic lawn and leaf bag removed, the cord unwound and plugged, and we’d all cheer.

—Trina Drotar

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

Being the fastest
of Santa's staff
ain't all that great
when you are looking up
someone's tail.

—Michael Cluff

____________________

—Medusa

Is the shore any less

Passionate than the sun

When it sets?

—Ronald Edwin Lane

The Balance Point

2011-12-22T07:08:00.000-08:00

Winter

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

RABBIT TRACKS, MEDUSA MOON
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Here's the balance point.
Persephone goes underground.

Bodiless, Medusa combs
the snake-tangles of her hair.

I carry bits of grain in my pocket—
seed for a mouse, or another season—

as Demeter's daughter travels
below last summer's roots

twining like Medusa tresses
in soil, almost root-bound—

wishing only to be pulled out
by the head, released.

A rabbit running snow-trails
pauses, twitches, gazes

up at the moon—that old year's
stone face—and, without meaning

to, throws back the live
light of his starry, brief eye.

_____________________

AT 14, THE NEST
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

the girl a woman with an idea:
baby at breast
nest waiting
the boy
the girl’s mother as villain
the girl
the couch in the dark
the boy as hero
the kiss the hand
the girl as mother
baby at the breast
the nest waiting
the girl’s mother a dark fury
the separation
the girl in heartbreak
the boy seeking a home
to bury his fatherhood in?
the girl
the couch
the dark
the boy as hero
the mother as villain
the girl as mother
the baby at breast
the nest waiting

____________________

THE DREAM SHE MARRIED
—Patricia Hickerson

he was passionate
lust and desire shone from his eyes
romance, expectation
big guy, muscular athletic and smart
all the trappings
loved the classics, music
a university professor
low, caressing voice
quoted Shelley his favorite poet
what a guy! his students loved him
enough to fulfill any woman’s dream

passionate he was—but not for her
only for shapely racetrack horses
mares, trotters, ponies
all the beauties
racing their hearts out
coming around the turn
snorting, fuming, wild eyed
like the gamblers sweating it out
Churchill Downs, Belmont, Bay Meadows, Golden Gate Fields
across the ocean Ascot, Bologna, Longchamp
he was everywhere placing his bets
Reno, Tahoe
at Harrah’s SportsBook, at OTB parlors
this unseemly coupling with strange creatures he never met
never shook their hooves hello
never patted them on the nose if they won for him
no appreciation
only if he lost, then blame the jockey, say it was fixed
the horse was doped

wild ride, dark dream
of winning money and throwing it away again
his dream
she wasn’t included

_____________________

WHAT SHE WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS
—Patricia Hickerson

she wants a bicycle, dolls
she wants to be wrapped up in a rug
by a boy who is 12 years old
she’s 5 but she wants this boy
he is dark he looks like an Indian
he tries to lasso her
with a rope thrown from his barn window
they play cowboys and Indians
she is the Indian princess he ties to a lamp post

she wants to be 14
carry lipstick in her purse
she wants to wear perfume
she wants to dance with boys, kiss them

she wants to write poems
she wants to drink a Manhattan
the way Daddy makes it
in a small glass with a cherry floating

she wants to read many books
she wants to stare at the stars, recite Keats
she wants to write novels
she wants to take the subway
the bus get out of town
get out of Jersey
cross the bridge to Manhattan
commute to college on Broadway
walk the lush New York streets
eat French onion soup, listen to French songs
party at fraternity houses

she wants to browse through museums
she wants to hang out in bars
she wants to get married
she wants to lean up against him

she will have babies
she will have lovers
she will marry the world
she will never be happy
that’s not what she wants
anyway

______________________

CUNIZZA ENTERS PARADISE, COURTESY DANTE
—Patricia Hickerson

starlit by Venus
her spirit wheels in the sky
installed as an evening cry
a deep bell clanging her call to pleasure

in life she sprinted across wetlands
courageous in lust, hostage to joie de vivre
the daughter from Romano
Venetian mainland swamp
kidnapped from her husband
enemy in the sometime wars
by the troubadour Sordello
on family orders they fled—
she the muse for his poetry

her untamed song
haunted by siblings debauched in Paduan blood
their reverence for murder
mayhem manslaughter massacre—
she mourned her dying countryside,
the carnage-coated landscape
pine forests painted scarlet
maples crimsoned, oaks, larches fired to ash
lapwings singed, screeched the pain of man and horse
fallen to earth

so Cunizza, bright mirror of mercy
throned in compassion,
sang the starry lyric: love protects us
here, there, with this one, that one,
4 times pawned for marriage she never sought—
connubial interment opened her soul
her voice straight from the throat
throbbed in their ears
so they would never forget
even after she died an old lady in 1279

Cunizza…child of a Ghibeline warrior,
descended from a German general,
with her own hardy abandon
released her slaves
her guttural outpour jarred women’s ears
set the tone for their peasant sound
raging against tyranny, tolled down the centuries
among leaves and flowers along the marsh paddies

_____________________

CAN’T STAND IT
—Patricia Hickerson

the rain, she says,
can’t stand the rain
as she sprints thru the park
slips down to the subway
rides across town
elbows through crowds
dodges the rain
enters Bloomingdale’s
riffles through racks
runs out to Lex
buys the Times
reads the weather report
can’t stand the rain
reaches her apartment
heats up coffee
hugs her dogs
sprawls on the couch
shuffles cards
plays the Ace
snubs the Queen
honors the King
screws the Jack
looks thru the window
admires the rain
from a distance

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

“The older lady harrumphed. "I warned you, daughter. This scoundrel Hades is no good. You could've married the god of doctors or the god of lawyers, but noooo. You had to eat the pomegranate."
"Mother—"
"And get stuck in the Underworld!"
"Mother, please—"
"And here it is August, and do you come home like you're supposed to? Do you ever think about your poor lonely mother?"
"DEMETER!" Hades shouted. "That is enough. You are a guest in my house."
"Oh, a house is it?" she said. "You call this dump a house? Make my daughter live in this dark, damp—"
"I told you," Hades said, grinding his teeth, "there's a war in the world above. You and Persephone are better off here with me."
"Excuse me," I broke in. "But if you're going to kill me, could you just get on with it?...”

“You know what would help this boy?" Demeter mused. "Farming."
Persephone rolled her eyes. "Mother—"
"Six months behind a plow. Excellent character building.”

—Rick Riordan, The Last Olympian

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's cooks: Katy Brown for her photos, Taylor Graham for our solstice poem, and Pat Hickerson for musing about women's lot in general.

Mossy Fence

—Photo by Katy Brown

Three Bulbs To Grow

2011-12-21T06:12:00.000-08:00

Carolers in Fair Oaks

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

HOME COOKING
—Ann Wehrman, Sacramento

What does it mean that I love my own cooking?
Is that self-love; is it bad?
Can I be objective about my own cooking;
do I more easily digest that which I make?

As a girl, I cooked dinner for our family
seven nights a week;
Mom enforced serving the same meals weekly,
prepared by following her verbal instructions,
no cookbooks needed.
That’s all your father will eat, she maintained.
Oscar Meyer hot dogs, sauerkraut,
tuna fish and peas, hamburgers, meatloaf
fried chicken, pot pies, beef stew—
then start the list again.
Memorizing menus and directions,
I standardized results fairly well by high school.
My sister always complained, though,
There’s nothing to eat in this house!

Finally leaving home,
earning little income for grocery shopping,
it took me years to set up a kitchen, cook for myself.
Once I did, I experimented,
finding classic cookbooks, recipe websites.
Feeding myself when living alone,
my home cooking got better and better;
now I can pound out a rib roast, turkey dinner,
pizza, or layer cake from scratch.
Before she died (too young), my sister
told me one day that the only thing she could eat
was my homemade carrot cake.

Whiz in the kitchen, but no one to eat it;
insufficient employment, how to afford grocery shopping!
Even on a tight budget, I
make a mean baked sweet potato
corn muffin, bean chowder, fruit salad;
home cooking for one still satisfies—
though at meals, I read
to dull the sadness of eating alone.

_____________________

WHAT I DREAMED
—Ann Wehrman

I dreamed that I opened my mind
and you walked in,
held out your arms, enfolded me,
opened your lips and kissed me

I dreamed that you loved me
for years without hope
I’d chosen another life
than that which, you believed,
was our destiny together
respecting my choice, biding your time,
or perhaps without hope,
you made another life

yet both our lives crumbled
water of life cascaded through us
swept us together
we began to be part
of each other,
though I still didn’t know you
you still lived without hope
or perhaps bided your time

until one day, or so went my dream,
you entered my heart through my mind,
which had deemed you unapproachable,
shielding myself from hurt, or from love

you entered my life
through my heart and my dream
I opened my life, heart, mind, arms to you
in my dream, you walked right in

_____________________

CREATURE CHRISTMAS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

The assessor lives atop his hill-with-a-view.
Our friend's goat, displaced by his road easement,
forages the lower, weedy slopes.

This season's bad for taxes.
The homeless camp behind Bonanza closed down.
A bulldozer pushed tents and lawn-chairs
into dirt-piles with uprooted manzanita.
That parcel has been leveled for another mall.

I drive my little car east up Main.
Window-paint angels and holly wreaths
cover For Lease signs on all the vacant shops.

Carols on the radio, "In the bleak midwinter..."
People with ample homes of their own
gather in other people's homes to eat and drink,
and discuss what to do about
the town's food bank and soup kitchen.

Neon eyes catch my headlights,
low to the ground.
I park my car, walk up my host's front steps.

A rat high-wires from porch-light to the dark
that draws a shadow beyond
tonight's holiday cheer.
Chittering above my head, it balances
by its long tail and resumes its night.

_____________________

FROM KEW BRIDGE, 1864
—Taylor Graham

A walk foreshortened by the Thames
that once would flow through field and moor—
now stitched and patched with dirty hems,
a city's out-skirts of the poor.

You used to walk here, years ago
when May put on her blossom-show.
But Progress is a subtle sweep
that changes worlds while we're asleep.

_____________________

THE INEVITABLE CHRISTMAS ORANGES
—Kevin Jones, Fair Oaks

Just after the Visitation
School Christmas pageant
(I usually had to play
Santa Claus, typecast
By physique and beard
Even in grade school),
We’d line up for our
Holiday treat, inevitably
A bag of oldish,
But not yet fuzzy oranges
(Would a Hershey Bar
Now and then have ruined
The Church?).

Father Crowley would give us
His blessing and we’d head
Home for vacation.

Inevitably, it would be
Sleeting in Central Illinois
That time of year, and we’d
Take the perilous shortcut
Across the Irving School
Playground. Just as
Inevitably, the public school
Kids would take our bags
Of oranges away from us.

Every January, the nuns
Would ask how our families
Enjoyed the treat, and every
Year we’d explain. “Ah, may
The fruits have had a strong
Laxative effect upon them,”
The nuns would always say.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

ONE GIFT
—Taylor Graham

What good can come of winter? Only ice
and snow on doorsteps—wonderland, indeed!
No holly will she hang; she won't think twice
of Christmas cheer. Poinsettias are a weed.

But what's this on her doormat, wrapped in brown
plain paper, tied with twine? A packaged frown.
Mysterious as what lies under snow:
three bulbs to blossom, if allowed to grow.

_____________________

—Medusa

Christmas Lights

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

A Table Full Of Words

2011-12-20T08:37:00.000-08:00

Girl With Rose in Basket

—Photo by Joyce Odam

BAKING THERAPY
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

All day I measure and sift
create and fill the oven
mess up the kitchen
fill the tables and the counters
spill peach juice everywhere
leave rings of flour
pick at the cake crumbs with my fingers
drink coffee after coffee
read recipe books to their endings
like a good novel
I am a baker
I send you to the store
for more flour, sugar, spices
expensive ingredients
for my fever
I make one thing after another
until I am done
and we, not hungry, eat none of it.

(pub. in One Dog Press Broadside, 2006;
Love Bites, Mini-Mag 2008)

_____________________

EGGS
—Joyce Odam

I cannot name the egg again.
It remains as mysterious as ever.
                     .
I, making ordinary breakfast
of the egg,
never consider what I am doing.
                      .
Sometimes I try to be talented with it,
cracking it open with one hand
and dropping it into the pan
without breaking it.
                      .
Nests of it turn under chickens
into a tedium of miracles
which I can hear forming.
                      .
If it floats, it is bad.
It can be saved for throwing.
                      .
Original Chicken pecks her eggs
with her curving and yellow beak
that is hard as a bone.
                      .
The eggs of the goose are stacked into
a mountain.
She will not hatch them.
                       .
I am surrounded by eggs.
I use them for symbols.
                       .
Three ducks so far have given us
three sets of ducklings.
One or two of each set always drowned,
though I always knew
that ducks always take to water.
                        .
At dusk, we gather the eggs,
stealing them from all the intention.
We go where it is dark and full of straw
and take them.

(first pub. in Permafrost, 1980)

_____________________

LIKE A STARVATION
—Joyce Odam

I ate my life like a starvation.
It was not enough.

I was hungry for sorrow.
It was good.

Now hunger lives in me
like an addiction.

I taste the edges of tomorrow
and am obese with yearning.

_____________________

POEM WRITTEN WHILE SLICING
A GREEN ONION
—Joyce Odam

And right in the crotch
of the long-stemmed onion
the good soil lies

just where the translucent
white
meets the shiny green.

Black grit
is wound in the tiny slices,
absolute, contained.

Something wise
and poetic in me
leaves it there.

We shall eat the earth
today.
We shall realize

grateful communion
with the source
of such good fare.

(first pub. in Trace, 1969)

_____________________

POVERTY
—Joyce Odam

onion at three a.m.
heavy-scented
rotting in the sack
tracking it down
that sour spoiling thing
sentencing everywhere
with its ruin and its soft
that my hand must touch
and examine the others
next to it

and I think of how wasteful
all life is
and death is wasteful too
with its unconcern for
choosing what
on the outside
looks so fresh and firm
or deceptive age
which is well preserved

and what to do with it all
for it lingers so
in the bloated air
in the kitchen
where the use for it
was lax or slow
for we never mean to purchase
what we will not use
eventually
the way cooks do
who like to invent
their recipes
from what they have on hand

like the hearty pot of
onion soup
we could have had
simmering artfully
in winter’s house
on a particularly cold
and hungry night

(first pub. in Interim, 1988)

____________________

SHOPPING LIST
—Joyce Odam

laundry soap
brillo pads
tooth picks

and why not (a poem)

something to clean
something to rust
and something to

celebrate steak

(first pub. in Lyrismos, 1967-68)

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

NOURISHMENT
—Joyce Odam

Here is a table full of words. Flesh and wine.
Gorge yourself. Never be hungry. Even the
crumbs are precious. Ask for more.

Fill your mouths and eyes.
Push your chair back. Fall asleep.
It’s all useless language. Do not speak.

(first pub. in Brevities, 2008)

____________________

—Medusa

Our Seed of the Week is Happy Holidays? Is it truly the season of light for you, or is it a rush of materialism, tension, family strife, something to get through? Send kathykieth@hotmail.com your holiday poems: memories, longings, joys, forgivenesses. Surely your muse is itching to talk about it...

Photo by Joyce Odam