Restless in Time

November 28, 2018, 7:11 am

≫ Next: Some Kind of Magic

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Shasta Slope

—Poems and Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

CLIMBING HILLS

just out of Burney, my ears popping,
the road cuts through white layers
of chalk.  I am in the realm
of ancient volcanos: Shasta, Lassen.

The pressure of altitude makes my ears
ache—pressure from elevation above
sea level, while all around me, chalk strata
murmurs of an ancient sea bottom.

Ancient secrets formed in early darkness
thrust skyward into mountain sunlight
by subterranean volcanic forces—
deep sediment restless in time.

LESSON OF THE HAWK

I watched her land on the very top
of a swaying cedar tree
with the sun, bright behind her.

I recall the hawks my brother kept
when I was just a child. The
two injured hawks he helped

rehabilitate from the injuries
that took them from their flight.
They resented being weak.

I remember the fierceness
of their look:  warriors, seeking
a way back to the gathering clouds.

They returned to the mountain wind,
with lessons of the almost-loved.
Tenderness is a luxury of the hunted.

The hawks soared beyond
the need for gentleness:
reclaimed their untamed hearts.

 Abstract Red

I have an ugly scar

where they stopped my heart
and cracked me open like a lobster.
Nearly 20 years ago, they plucked
my stunned heart from its dark
place behind my breastbone,
mended it, and put me back together
with surgical grommets and sutures.

My mended heart remembers old wounds.
Injuries that I thought I’d buried rise like ghosts
to haunt dreams, stalk reverie, attach meaning
to current incidents—the heart is a dynamo,
generating a charge that attracts memory.
Scars of a wounded heart run deep.

They cut through bone to reach my heart—
bone and the ramparts I’d carefully constructed
all my life to wall-in memory, to wall-out risk:
my defenses, physical and emotional—breached.
The wounded heart will take revenge for such affront.

EVENING IN COASTAL REDWOODS

They move through these woods,
the spirits that time forgot to name,
inhaling the cool breath of giants.

I see them as a flash of twilight through
darkly barred shadows in fading light.
I hear them breathing just beyond

the screen of evening ferns.
I’m drawn over and over again
to this stand of trees.

Something ancient, benevolent
glides through the world here,
whispering stillness in the mossy light.

To stop, to breathe the quiet air,
to listen to the rusty call
of a distant raven—
these are gifts worth traveling for.

OUT TO THE END OF BEYOND

You have to want to go—
to find the little road that
climbs out of Ferndale—
a deceptively charming
country lane through mist
that settles in distant hills.

You have to want to see
the end of this continent
on our western coast—see
the Pacific driven by
Oriental winds.  Hear
the roar of unstopped waves,

the sharp artillery-crack when
the glassy, cresting sea
collapses—the boom of breakers
hitting the rocky shore. Taste
the mist of salt water driven
on a relentless wind. 

You will need to take
the Lighthouse Road, a gravel
track that runs through
stands of pole-thin ghost trees.
Keep moving if the ford
is full of water or ponding mud.

You will be the first
to breathe this air that has
come so far on a restless sea
—the first to see water
driven half-way across the globe.
You have to want to go.

And then you have to want
to return to the paved world
—to go back to your walls
and silent solitude, embracing
the memory of this last land
to treasure in your reverie.   

POTENTIALS AND POSSIBILITIES

I no longer have faith in a nest of potentials:
those rounded mysteries that may burst
into something vibrant and alive.

There are no packages waiting for me under
some future tree; no tomorrow to unwrap.
Today, with all its shadowed corners

is all I am given.  The dust of yesterday
clings to my windowsill, Time sleeps
in the doorway.  Tomorrow, if it exists,

is playing with rollicking children
in the schoolyard across the street.
Possibilities? No, there are none today.

5 AM, pushing a wall of opaque light

up the twisting road, climbing
out of Fort Bragg.  No other cars
intrude on my moving cell of light.

A startled doe freezes
by the side of the road, one leg lifted,
ready to cross to the greener side,
if you could see color this dark, this fog.

I have left my wallet somewhere north
and am desperate to find it.
I hope to be at the last place I used it
before they open the bistro.

In the dark, alone on the road,
I have a lot of time to think about my
habits, the people I can count on,
how hard it still is to ask for help.

I feel so incompetent—in the dark,
alone—mostly alone.  No shoulder
to cry on.  No two-heads-better-than. . . .
No hanky offered with compassion.

This is what I tell myself:  if I can
come out on the other side of this
with my wallet and my life in hand,
I can stop looking, stop longing.

I can make it through the night,
appreciate the dawn, and gather the bricks
that once protected my younger heart—
start rebuilding that seamless wall again.  

Today’s LittleNip:

BEFORE DAWN

under a paling sky
from the dark cypress
beyond my back fence
two owls calling
each to the other
until they join
in haunting harmony

—Katy Brown

___________________

Many thanks to Katy Brown for her seamless poems and photos! Katy is a frequent contributor of photos to the Kitchen, but it’s good to have her poems on the table, too!

Yesterday was the #GivingTuesday Fundraiser for California Poets in the Schools. I don’t know if they’re still accepting money, but check it out at www.facebook.com/donate/298325997682284/. At least you’ll be able to read more about this wonderful organization. See also www.californiapoets.org/.

—Medusa
 

 “…the rusty call of a distant raven…”

Grandfather Raven
—Photo by Katy Brown
Celebrate poetry!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

---

Some Kind of Magic

November 29, 2018, 7:30 am

≫ Next: Fragments of Life

≪ Previous: Restless in Time

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—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

KALEIDOSCOPE

We’re sitting at manual typewriters 
inside the gallery’s open door. November
cold draft off the street. People come
and go, no one asks for a poem. We’re about
to pack up when a lady stops, considers;
she’d like a kaleidoscope poem.
In this gallery of white walls and bright art
prints, I remember. The magic tube of colors
shattered, mirrored to designs almost
beyond imagining then gone
with the slightest twist of wrist, never to
repeat; almost brighter than real.
In time my magic tube disappeared,
maybe to Goodwill while I was away
at school. Now, volutions of technology,
my iPad camera turns reality
to kaleidoscope, repeating designs
to puzzle the world-bound eye.
Same kind of magic? bright as imagination.

THE WILD BRIGADE

I love turkeys. I don’t mean the 19-pounder
from the supermarket that came vacuum-sealed
and had no attitude. I mean the five turkeys
who parade around our house, almost venturing
up the back steps. They act like they belong here,
and they do—though they vanish a few days
before Turkey Day and won’t reappear
till sometime in January. Wild fowl, they
won’t be vacuum-packed this year.

QUIET MARCH

Do wild turkeys protest the festival
nicknamed Turkey Day?

No, from field and fringe of oak wood,
from roadside and rural homestead

they take a vacation
to tangled deeps of wild land.

They simply disappear
until the New Year.

CLIMATE UPDATE

Late November before the first big rain,
the pond still summer-baked hard
and dry. No blue heron on the lagoon;
egret is gone from the wetlands mouth.
This landscape looks dead. But—

from oak and buckeye woods
comes a march of prehistoric silhouettes
scuffing, kicking up dead leaves in search
of acorns. Turkeys. Such a mess life makes.
Turkeys on the march, head-pumping

forward along the edge of what once
was water; not complaining querulous
when-will-it-rain? Dinosaurs among us;
passing, gone—up the hill where oaks
still let acorns fall, their living food.

WILDWOOD TURKEY SEASONS

June: female with 3 chicks; 1 day-roosting
in the oak that overhangs the field.
August: 7 by fox den, 1 calling from creek.

September: 7 strolling oak-rock hill
pecking acorns—watchful of Cowboy
padding softly, giving turkeys wide berth.

October: mornings and evenings, 8 toms
circled & circled the house. Early November,
3 toms did a circle-dance around the flock.

Was it a farewell dance?

PRAISE THE RAIN

On every boulder
the mosses are opening
their green mouths to sing
and the leafless twigs
gleam, rain-beaded with diamonds.

The eucalyptus
dances with all its leafy
feather-boa boughs.

 Placerville Festival of Lights

RAIN ON MAIN
    Festival of Lights, Nov 23

The rain stays on Main Street pavement,
traffic lanes a-blaze with soft reflected flame—
holiday lights, the same I recall from long-
gone ways—and people passing gaily walking,
calling, strolling in light rain. Some stop amazed
to see—in our awning’d bay, alcove of Ancient
Gold across from Custom Frames—our manual
typewriters of good-old-days. Does poetry pay?
Someone hands me a candy cane. We came
to type poems on request, on the spot.
Donation jar goes to charity. Pavement glistens
with rain, festive-day cheer, refrain of Sleigh
Ride, and I’ve lost my train of thought.
Rolling paper on platen, typing away, see where
it takes me. This man claims a poem for Alayne,
for twenty-eight years of his lady’s holiday-
radiant smile, soft and steady as snowflakes,
as rain. And still it rains, the first in half a year,
our winter blessing. See how the lady smiles.
My poem is the rain.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

NOVEMBER FARE
—Taylor Graham

Along the roadside
these Burma Shave-type signs that
read: Tune-Up Special,
Catalytic Converter,
Burritos, Eggs Benedict.

__________________

Thank you, Taylor Graham, for some rainy-day fare this morning! She writes, “I wrote "Rain on Main" for James Lee Jobe's The Other Voice Poetry Grouponline, and I just found out he's posting it on his Yolo County Poems blog at yolocountypoems.blogspot.com/.” For more about joining TOVPG, write to James at jamesleejobe@gmail.com/.

Poetry in our area tonight includes Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento at 8pm; or get funky at The Funky Good Time Poetry Event in Old Sacramento at Laughs Unlimited, also 8pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 Celebrate poetry!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Fragments of Life

November 30, 2018, 7:41 am

≫ Next: Send Out the Call

≪ Previous: Some Kind of Magic

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—Poems and Photos by Ann Christine Tabaka, Hockessin, DE

KENYA

The dream becomes real
before my eyes.

Golden sunrise,
blazing vermillion sunsets,
lush green savannahs.
I have witnessed all.

Great Rift Valley,
Cradle of Mankind,
prehistoric memories
reverberate throughout.

At Lake Nakuru,
a thousand diamonds dance
as flamingos march the shoreline
of shallow water. 

Breathless rush of wings
rising from the marshes.

Leopards crouch in wait,
while mischievous baboons
and monkeys tease from above.

Crowded villages filled
with friendly smiling faces,
and the laughter of children
playing ancient games.

Amazing sights, creatures,
landscapes and people,
catalogued forever in my mind.
A journey of the heart fulfilled.

The dream becomes real
before my eyes.

(first pub. in Atunis Poetry, September 2018)

___________________

NO TURNING BACK

Parting rivers.
Parting ways.
The truth laid bare
at my feet.

Deep dark secrets hide
within converging storms.
A cadence of emotions
marching by.

My words are not your words.
We speak in different tongues.
It is as if you know the answer
before the question is posed.

You know me so well
yet not at all.
Fragments of life
falling into oblivion.

Forlorn and forgotten,
forsaken and lost.
Death closes the door
that love once opened.

Parting ways,
there is no turning back.
Time does not allow
such luxuries as that.


(first pub. in Ariel Chart, June 2018)

________________

UNRAVELING RHYME

The rhyming and the not,
as if I had forgot
my words of many years,
embedded in my tears.

Days of youth have passed.
The die has long been cast.
Pieces of my life
still wading through pained strife.

Time has come and gone.
I waited far too long.
My words have all grown stale,
now lost beyond the pale.

A fire that once burned
has long ago been spurned.
My passions, all I gave,
lie cold beyond the grave.


(first pub. in Indiana Voice Journal, July 2018)

 —Drawing by Ann Christine Tabaka

LIFE RENDERING

Pencil to paper,
an image forms.
Delicate curves,
sharp lines,
soft shading.

The eye knows what it sees,
the hand follows suit.
Through all ages
artists pour out their hearts
in crisp lines and muted tones.

Telling stories,
immortalizing faces,
capturing love and beauty.
Roundness of a shoulder,
gleam in an eye,
hair flowing in the breeze.

Rustling leaves on autumn trees,
bilious clouds above,
sensuous landscapes,
breathtaking rise of a mountainside. 

Still life and models,
all brought into being
by the stroke of charcoal,
graphite, or brush,
as the artist breathes life
into all he touches.

Music without sound.
Poetry without words.
Visual magic.
Life as art.
Art as life.

(first pub. by Synchronized Chaos, October 2018)

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.

―Friedrich Nietzsche

____________________

Our thanks to Ann Christine Tabaka for her fine poems and artwork today. Chris, as she goes by, was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry, has been internationally published, and has won poetry awards from numerous publications. Her most recent credits are: Pomona Valley Review, Page & Spine, West Texas Literary Review, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila-Na-Gig, Synchronized Chaos, Pangolin Review, Trigger Fish Critical Review, Foliate Oak Review, Better Than Starbucks!, Mused, The Write Launch, The Stray Branch, The McKinley Review, and Fourth & Sycamore; her books may be found at www.amazon.com/Ann-Christine-Tabaka/e/B06XF2PWSK%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share/. Chris lives with her husband and three cats in Delaware, and she loves gardening and cooking.

About today’s photos, Chris says, “The two photographs that I included are of a conte pencil drawing that I did, and a photo from a safari in Kenya that I took with my adult son in June of this year.” Welcome to the Kitchen, Chris, and don’t be a stranger!

—Medusa

 Ann Christine Tabaka
Celebrate poetry—and poets!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Send Out the Call

December 1, 2018, 7:16 am

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Davis, CA—Rain
—Poems and Photos by James Lee Jobe, Davis, CA

Bring forth the silent, still surface of the lake at midnight,
And bring forth the smell of the pines, the smell of dirt.

Light the incense and the candles. Strike the gong and call
The humans to the gathering. Kneel together as one.

Bring the sound of a child's first footsteps
Against the wooden planks of the cabin floor.

Send out the call—across the valley, through the hills.
Send out the call—the hour has come at last.

You are welcome here, just as you have always hoped.

This is the hour of offerings, this is moment of genuflecting
To something that is greater than us, and cannot be seen.

Bring your hearts in their finest offerings of love,
Love that is pure and untouched by want or need.

There is no past, no future. There are no sins or regrets.
Leave all the darkness behind you and step into the light.

Bring the children and the elderly and the infirm.
The hour of offerings is for everyone, for every soul.

You are welcome here, just as you have always hoped.

 Davis, CA—Rain

The thought was immense.
It took all of us to think it through.
Thinking a thought like that required tools and an assistant.
All day we worked under the sweet valley sun,
Laboring with mindful attention.
When the evening came we put that thought to rest,
And all around us was the sound of crickets. 

 Davis, CA—Rain

A Cuban torch song from the 1950s plays in the background,
A little too loudly. Perhaps the song is actually in the foreground.
It is a beautiful spring day, but I cannot bring myself to go outside.

My son has been dead for one month, and his ashes wait
In a little box on the table beside the hallway to his old room.
During the day, when I walk past, I touch this box very lightly.

My, how long the days have become. How slow.

 Davis, CA—Rain

In the middle of the night I woke up. I often do.
I went into the living room for a while. I sat.
From a dark corner I heard a voice, rough, harsh.
Or did I imagine it? Had I dropped off for a moment
And dreamed this voice? That’s possible.
It seemed to want something from me.
Was it my dead son? I wondered that, alone in the night.
It could be him, I thought, angry at me
For being a worthless father,
For failing to teach him enough to even survive.
“Go, Son, rest now. Don’t stay here.”
I said it out loud. “It’s been over a year;
You should be resting now. Sleep.”
I left the living room and went back to bed,
But I didn’t sleep right away.
For a long time I stared at the lamp
That I just couldn't bring myself to turn off.

 Davis, CA—Rain

The universe is a river and often she bathes
And swims. Lovely in her nakedness, even
After so many years, she slips into the water
And lets the universe wash her clean again.

The universe is a river and often I bathe
And swim. In the rushing water I can lower
My guard, be weak, show my vulnerability.
I can let the universe wash me clean again.

Come to the river.
Lay down your clothes and swim.

_____________________

The stars tonight shine like love.
The moon glows in agreement.
Your lips and your kiss are enough
For me again tonight. Wife.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:
 
Restraint and patience. Wisdom and diligence.
Above all, kindness and generosity.
May I seek out ways to practice these every day,
And be thankful that I can.

—James Lee Jobe

_____________________

Our thanks to James Lee Jobe for his fine poems today, and his photos of Davis in the rain! This blessed rain…

Tonight is the annual fundraiser for Sacramento Poetry Center, an event which is now called The Miller Party in honor of Burnett and Mimi Miller who hosted it for many years at their lovely home. Tonight it will be held at the home of Bob Stanley and Joyce Hsiao, 4010 Random Lane in Sacramento, from 6-8pm. There will be food, fun and frolic, with music by the Elizabeth Unpingco Duo and poetry by Lawrence Dinkins (NSAA). $30/person at the door.

Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 Welcoming Rain!

—Anonymous Photo
Celebrate poetry!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Visit of the Poets

December 2, 2018, 7:23 am

≫ Next: The Color of the Day

≪ Previous: Send Out the Call

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“The silence of the meadowlark”
—Anonymous Photo
 

VISIT OF THE POETS
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
 
Then come to us
and we will give you
mysterious breads
and honey,
and we will give you
fruit to peel
and dates from
an apothecary jar.

And we will give you
all the hours of the night
for poetry
and bitter wine,
and we will give you
so much love
that you be drunk with us
and we with you.

And in the silence of
the meadowlark
whose broken song
has echoed through and through
and through,
we will give you
burning eyes
and a sun-torn hour
to take away
with you.


(first pub. in Aye, 1974, and The Poet, Being mini-chap, 2002)

___________________

Thanks, Joyce, for this beautiful poem! And note that the MoST Poetry Association will be holding a reading today at 240 Broadway in Turlock, featuring Joseph Nolan and others. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

The Color of the Day

December 3, 2018, 7:12 am

≫ Next: My Seven-Minded Horse

≪ Previous: Visit of the Poets

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—Photos by Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

THE IMPORTANCE OF FINGERS AND PALMS
—Michael Brownstein, Chicago, IL

They lived on the edge of the graveyard
Their yard lit by spirit light
Their side door always welcoming.
They kept their garden courteous
And they never deceived or angered.
Their home was not rooted in dispute,
Their evening walks samples of simplicity.
They held hands long into their years,
Spoke to few and kept to themselves,
Ate what they grew and ate simply.
We did not know of their death
Until the lights from the edge careened
Outwards, stopping traffic nearby
And causing havoc near the hills.
Their door was wide open, lights
Were in motion, and they were seated
Comfortably on comfortable chairs,
Dinner before them. They must have
Passed away together, hand in hand.
Go past their home now and hold
Your breath. You know they are
Watching and remember—this is important—
If you are with someone you like,
Never walk past their house
Without holding the other’s hand.

TRIOLET* NUMBER 14
—Michael Brownstein
 
Let us rise and shine
and see the color of the day.
dawn is drawn in wine—
let us rise and shine,
enter the Antigua blue design,
find the turquoise water of the bay:
Let us rise and shine
and see the color of the day.

*A 13th-century French poetic form

IDLE TIME AT DUSK
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

Flipping through another magazine
I see some pretty actresses
As they’ve made the scene,
Showing off some skin
In glamourous dresses,
Sidling their boyfriends.
Later, there’s caresses,
I assume.

Shifting to the cell phone
For the news—
A way to pass the time away,
Escaping doldrums’ blues.

Time spent alone on a train
Coming and going
Thinking things one thinks
When so alone,
Surrounded by so many,
Going home
When it’s getting dark. 

INDIAN SUMMER
—Joseph Nolan

Your place
Looked lovely
In the summer,

When the rain
Washed down
The tree leaves,
Near,

When the heat
Was just
Insane,

And no-one
Ever wandered
Down the street
In pouring rain,

But I loved
Sweet September--
Indian Summer,
Warm and plain,

When it seldom,
If ever,
Rained,

And grass
Went brown
From the
Farmers’ fields,
All the way
Into town.

THE KNOWINGNESS OF ANGELS
—Joseph Nolan

Angels have always known
And they are knowing still,
Strengths and weaknesses
Inside of men,
Things twisted and broken,
Wounds unhealed,
All secrets revealed
In the light of
Twenty-thousand suns
Focused to a single point
Of penetrating light
That shines through skin,
Through bone,
And all within,
In the burning clarity
Of an angel’s eye,
Contrasting you with Eternity,
Your life
And the place you will lie
When your life is done
Angels have always known,
And Angels are knowing,
Still.

They can see the ash
Of things that burned away
Inside a man,
Ground down—
Things lost, released, abandoned.

Angels say,
“Don’t beguile yourself
With manufacturing
Your own internal shadows,
Or confuse yourself
With imagining
The opaque
Might remain so,
Before the brightest light
That pours past every whirling atom
Throughout the day
And even through the night.”

STRANGE DREAMS
—Joseph Nolan

The wise fool
The crazy sage
Rumpelstiltskin laughs,
He wants his fee,
A newborn baby
For his posterity.
How horrible
Contracts can be!

I wake with sandy eyes.
I hear a baby cry
In the next room.
I am so relieved.
Such strange dreams!
Where do they come from? 

I AWOKE
—Caschwa
 
Some would say I was lying, and
others that I was laying, anyways I
was in a bed in ICU, sometime after
10 days in a coma they tell me, with
a full left-leg cast and a big bandage
wrapped several times around my
right thumb

They asked me to wiggle my toes
and were joyously happy that I could

I have zero memory of the fateful
motorcycle crash, and was later
told by some kind of “mental expert”
that if I had actually seen the car hit
me, or witnessed being hurled 45 feet
till I landed head first on the pavement,
that the very trauma of the experience
would likely have blocked that from my
memory

Why, oh why, is that mental protective
feature not working now, when we have
taken the kindergarten class clown and
put him in charge of the White House?

NO COVER
—Caschwa
 
After reading “Cover Design As
A Torn Page” by Joyce Odam,
Medusa’s Kitchen, 11/27/18


Kids today navigate whole
libraries of databases held on
little microchips, built into one
or another pocket device.

No more need at all for those big,
heavy books to look up a fact or
a phone number, no more need
for stone tablets in backpacks.

The open invitation to “correct me
if I’m wrong” has now become a
solo scenario, the quiet, covert
pressing of a few buttons.

Pose with me for a selfie and
then we are done here…
you own the world, right in your
pocket.

CAN’T BEGIN TO KNOW
—Caschwa

EXAMPLE A:

Born to rich parents
who hire the best advisers
to create the right optics
so we look less like misers

“Thoughtful” is measured in
rounded dollars, skip the cents
they are beneath our calling
like loose ladies for the gents

Problems disappear because
we hire strength and grit,
owning land gives us money and
clout…that about settles it.

EXAMPLE B:

Accidents all, no good cards
show up in our deck,
our dream is to rise to living
paycheck to paycheck

A dilapidated derby is our
fancy three-cornered hat,
broken mirrors never lie, and
that about settles that!

ALONE IN A TOWER
—Caschwa

(sung insincerely to the tune of
"Away in a Manger")


Alone in a tower, no wife in the bed 
Petty Tyrant Donald paid a whore, it was said
Media up high recounted each throb 
Petty Tyrant Donald, asleep on the job.

The stories are flowing, The Donald awakes 
Petty Tyrant Donald, no crying he makes
I love me, white hero, he looks in the mirror 
Let’s rest in my tower till morning is here.

Please hear me, white woman, I ask you to stay 
Close by me for awhile, and love what I pay
Hope all the dear white folks in my tender care 
Don’t open that tower to clear the foul air.


PUSHING IT
—Caschwa

This is going to take some imagination
as if you are an envelope, and someone
is going to push you and contort you in
ways that you really didn’t anticipate.

Let’s just ponder the advantages of
replacing our real estate tycoon president
with a truck driver:  big semi, tractor double
trailer, loaded, and consider how much
better off our whole nation would be.

Such a driver would professionally check
the rig to make sure it is trip-ready, not
leaving significant gaps for others to later
find and fix, and negotiate that behemoth
machine along steep, winding, challenging
highways, always keeping focus on the road,
much, much too concerned with precision
maneuvers than to waste any precious time
or energy finding new ways to shame people,
or separate families, or tweet messages
meant only to hurt people.

And for this driver, backing up is something
done artfully to contribute to a healthy stream
of commerce, not as an afterthought to take
back those sharp barbs thrown in hateful tirades. 

Dream on.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

DREAMING OF KOALAS
—Joseph Nolan

I dream of marsupials
Clinging to a tree
Eating eucalyptus
They can get for free.

I dream of cute koalas,
Cute as they can be!
Eating eucalyptus,
Clinging to a tree.

What’s all this to me?
It’s only what I dream.
I’m fond of cute koalas
And eucalyptus trees.

_____________________

Our thanks to today’s contributors for today’s poetry and to Caschwa (Carl Schwartz), in addition, for his photos! Poetry events in our area begin tonight at Sac. Poetry Center with readers from the latest issue of American River Review, 7:30pm. On Tuesday, 5-7pm, Poetry Off-the-Shelves will meet at the El Dorado Hills library on Silva Valley Pkwy in El Dorado Hills.

Thursday, in addition to Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento, 8pm (featured readers and open mic), chill out with the Love Jones Chill Night of love poetry at Laughs Unlimited in Old Sacramento, 8-10pm. Then on Saturday, the Second Saturday Reception from 2-8pm at the Sac. Poetry Center Gallery will feature Women’s Wisdom Art, including the Cowgirl Sweethearts performing music from 4-8pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 

 —Anonymous

Celebrate poetry—and read relentlessly!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

My Seven-Minded Horse

December 4, 2018, 7:32 am

≫ Next: Luminous Spirits

≪ Previous: The Color of the Day

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Garden Memories

—Poems and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

TEN

in the sky
like a high
promise made of sunset and
voice of, say God, in His Most

Religious Moment—shining there
like a private illusion, not at all (un)like
some Neon-Cloud Formation
made of pollution dust in a windless sky,

the ocean blazing beneath it
with shimmering red light from the
disappearing sun, and lapping against

the consciousness of everything
even the silhouette of the very earth…
the breathing trees…  the (un)breathing stone
picked up at random and carried in a pocket,

where some divining hand can feel
the comfort of it. Oh, sweet digression,
you have carried me away from

The Number In The Sky
which seemed so vain
with its self-congratulation—and was

so admired by the (un)discerning,
and the envious, like an ad for happiness :
Oh, One;   Oh, Zero;   Oh, Ten.

 Winter Scape

OWNERSHIP

I, with my seven-minded horse,
go through the visions of its eyes.

How high the night
we grip and ride.

Three ears east, we listen.
It is the light.

We make a silhouette
and define ourselves against the sky.

The horse dreams.
I guard its sleep.

Later it tells me :
One innocence. One flaw. One kind forgetfulness.

I am its strength,
it, my direction.

Sometimes we feast
on grass and rain.

The rest is hunger.
We are lean.

My mind is one.
The horse is free.

And always, it turns just before the
fall from where I lead it.

Sometimes we fly,
but only after death.

The rest is sad :
recapture and simple grazing.

 Tremor

WHERE THE RIVER FLOWS

how deep the red sunset water
how steep the blue images of trees
how smoky the sky in the reddened water

how blind the place where the river turns
and you want to turn there
though the blue trees shudder
and the red goes deeper
and the slippery bank is too dark to grasp

but you turn with the water
the redness folds you in
and the clouds continue
and even then you want to grasp at texture


(first pub. in Brevities: A Mini-Mag of
Minimalist Poems, May, 2009)
 
__________________

THE TIMING

It was the red cow under the gray crackle of sky in the
gold field-light—the thundering back of sound—the
soft reverberation into nothing—the slightest movement
that the stillness knew. It was the far-off moment waiting
to be this one. It was the timing.

 Looking in Windows

THE STEEP ROOF

Three levels. High blue sky of blue clouds—
below, two tall trees—nearby, a tall lit house
for night to see—
exaggeratedly built :

square box bottom
red roof
held up
by another
square,
also lit.

The hill is next, rounded in night’s special green,
sloping down to a hidden valley—who lives here
with this sky, these trees, and this beaconed light,
closer to heaven’s own dark mystery,
churning all around, like a scenery . . . .

__________________

THE PERIMETER                            

Late afternoon—
the day’s light turning cold—
two girls in thin white dresses
stand on a high slope facing the
gray and distant winter sea, which,
for the moment, is calm. The girls
seem out of context—like future
beings, or ghosts of some earlier
time—one as the desire of the other—
pondering life and questioning the sea,
which always answers with long, gray
sighings that pull beyond the girls’ 
hearing—standing so still—
leaning forward to listen
—outside the perimeter
of the rickety white fence—
where they seem frozen
except for the sheer,
white movement
of their dresses,
flaking shades of gray
thickening around them
in this capturing moment
that threatens to hold them forever.

 Turning Point

HOLDING THE FUTURE
(Tritina)

Soon they will pleasure to the night and love,
holding the future closer than it is,
yearning that far together with their eyes—

all that they mean and want, hot in their eyes;
all that they give to trust, wild in their love.
What they will learn is what the difference is.

Passion is what the first compulsion is,
and what remains will suffer in their eyes:
infatuation stays in love with love—

and love—before it is—will haunt the eyes.

__________________

HIGH RISE IN THE RAIN

An unfurling of white umbrellas
from a great height of weightlessness
on a day of spent light—moving
like ripples and bouncing the raindrops

over the wet streets. It was a camouflage,
I thought—a great mass of winter souls
in migration followed by a white singing
of birds that were invisible.

I felt my window tremble with joy
at the spectacle as the floor swayed 
and I wondered how so many
floating umbrellas could fit the space

of my watching. My own umbrella
stood dry and folded beside the door
with my keys and things that I needed.
I wanted to be down there among them,

but did not want to give up my view
as the umbrellas kept touching
and parting in their maneuverings—
occasional bits of sidewalk showing through.

The height deepened and left me no time
to decide—the window opened
and the room-light poured through
and my umbrella flew into my hands.

 Barrier

OUR LACK OF WEEPING

Note this craggy waterfall struggling down
the jutted rocks—the land broken—

the one tree barely alive

and the tufts of straggle-grass—
the flat white sky—

and the clumsy way we stumble
over this terrain

as we go
from one word to another

and your eyes are hot,
and mine are cold,

and we have left the even ground
for this—

this terrible moor,
something to get across—

admire even—for its significance,

this trickle of chance
for anything to survive until the rain.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

HEROICS
—Joyce Odam

The night
you
leapt
off the roof
into the arms
of some beloved
admirer—you flew
—flew down the dark
into the net—caught.
 
____________________

Many thanks to Joyce Odam for her poems about our Seed of the Week, the little house in the dark woods: its roof, the darkness, the rain... Ekphrastic poetry, as you know, is not just a description of the picture—it's about what the picture evokes. It's okay to talk around the picture. And Joyce notes that the Tritina form (as found in The Bird Catcher by Marie Ponsot) is three stanzas, three lines each, each line ending in one of a set of three words, patterned:

1, 2, 3  /  3, 1, 2  /  2, 3, 2  /  1, 2, 3  

An additional line at the conclusion of the poem contains all of the end words.   

Our new Seed of the Week is Too Rushed For My Own Good. Send your poems, photos & artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty of others to choose from.

Poetry Off-the-Shelves meets in El Dorado Hills tonight, 5-7pm, at the library on Silva Valley Parkway. And there’s an addition to our Thursday calendar: Mary Mackey will read from her new book at the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis (plus open mic), 8pm. Mary and Andy Jones can be heard in conversation on KDVS (90.3FM) this Wednesday night, 5:30pm, on Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 —Anonymous
Celebrate Poetry—and the art of slowing down!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Luminous Spirits

December 5, 2018, 7:38 am

≫ Next: The End of Beyond

≪ Previous: My Seven-Minded Horse

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—Poems by Dah, Berkeley, CA

—Anonymous Photos

THE SPIRITUALITY OF A RAINBOW

The spirituality of a rainbow:
a colorful thought
from universal consciousness
manifesting across the sky.

The living colors of water and light
illuminating in silence,
as if a wisp of innocent beauty
from eternity’s memory,

smearing, stretching, arching,
its raw finish, its vibrant nakedness,
for all of creation to delight in.
I bow to the ephemeral visits

of rainbows,
to their
fleeting impressions
of luminous spirit.

TRIBE OF CREATION

Stillness: at the edge of this meadow,
motionless against air’s clear skin
a luminous red coat’s white-tipped ears
are on the sound of my breathing, with
ancient eyes on the motion my bones make.

An air current streams my human scent
to the fabric of its sensors. I stop
in a space that inserts the intimacy
of our understood curiosity.
I ask nothing more of this divine red fox

than to know my friendship or my eyes
that adore it or my spirit’s dignity in offering
peace from the tribe of creation that we are.
I sit as the fox sits along the countryside
of our ancestors.

In silence: within the instinctive expression
of stillness together we breathe and take in
dawn’s nourishment as if estranged friends
remembering an old friendship
from another lifetime.

THE NIGHT’S BREATH IS MORE LIQUID

The wind kicks up the baked sepia dust, turning it
to a vigorous cloud in low motion over a thirsting ground
mixing its physics into sails of circling yellow leaves and debris.

I walk across the early evening light like Jesus lightly
over the water, my eyes stuck on some distant crow ascending
with its mouth yakking.

The wind tips the bird to the right then to the left
refusing to leave it alone. The air, the scent, the light
emphasizes autumn’s arrangement: the night’s breath is more liquid.

MUCH OLDER NOW

Much older now: I have returned to my soul,
holding earth’s stained skin in my hands.

A great illusion is in front of me,
the sky spreads its moons.

Time is dying yet never stops creating
and destroying life.

I have spoken of perfect hours, the accomplishments of years,
unfaithful silence, a rush of salt from the seas.

In this world the sky is a poet and the whole of life
inhales dawn and dusk—consider this:

Love:
a meeting place upon our mouths.

Loneliness:
a shadow a body no longer wants.

Love:
give me your hand
and feel my breath spilling over.

Harmony:
a hidden sweetness, the sky’s silence,
a piece of love from a finished kiss.

Nocturnal Love:
wildly scented bonfires, shadows
against emptiness, sunlight
held by the moon.

Winter’s Light:
a fresh wound of delicate aromas,
a transformation of air to glittering rain,
a mouth that sings like a banjo.

Under layers of life death rots to its very end:
life has set fire to us, we must burn.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

FROM THE HEART OF LOVE
—Dah

I want to drink
from the trees
from the sky
from the clouds
from the eyes of love

I want to drink
from the rivers
from the deserts
from the fog’s drizzle
from the nipples of love

I want to drink
from the body of love
from the heart of love
from love 
I want to drink

_____________________

Many thanks to Dah for this mornings poems! Dah’s seventh poetry collection is Something Else’s Thoughts (Transcendent Zero Press), and his poems have been published by editors from the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Spain,Singapore, Philippines, Poland, Australia, Africa, and India. He is a Pushcart Prize and Best Of The Net nominee and the lead editor of the poetry critique group, The Lounge. Dah lives in Berkeley, California, where he is working on his eighth book of poetry. Welcome back to the Kitchen, Dah!

Sacramento Poet Mary Mackey and Davis Poet Andy Jones may be heard in conversation on KDVS (90.3 FM) tonight at 5:30pm on Dr. Andy's Poetry and Technology Hour. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa 

 Berkeley Poet Dah

Celebrate Poetry!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

---

The End of Beyond

December 6, 2018, 7:27 am

≫ Next: Still Ticking

≪ Previous: Luminous Spirits

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—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

ONE WORD GETS ME STARTED

This morning after rain
every footprint’s washed away but
my dog catches scent—something on the wind
or rising from earth—as early sun
strikes wet pavement at a certain angle, mini-
dazzle. Listen! Wild goose is calling
overhead. And here’s a dirt path into woods.
Oak woods, leaves tarnished pewter.
This one old oak, gray wrinkled bark, a wisdom
of acorn-lore. Toyon's heavy with
Christmas-berry.
One step and then another, as one word
leads to the next, a typewritten line I can’t take
back. Life’s paragraph. It takes me
on a winding path that climbs
then branches as a tree might, as a life.
Cloven hoofprint fresh this morning;
all the quick, unseen creatures who live here.
Who knows where a walk, a poem leads?

LOKI’S DREAM

Curiosity or too much energy
for anybody’s good? She’s namesake
of mischief’s god, shape-shifter,
snuggled on the couch this moment;
the next, scouting mice
from pantry to antique desk, never
quite at rest. Her ambition,
to sniff every inch of earth; for what’s
above or underneath the surface;
what’s there now or once has been;
pulling her handler head-
long by the leash. Ambition?
It’s her dream to know the world
and all that’s in it. Just
a dog? An untamed heart.
While humans classify by species, 
color, race, her race has no finish-line.

UNIVERSE WITHIN HER SIGHT

A winding road by sun or moon and star,
by sea-wind, tide, by train or bus or car,
by caravan as homeless travelers go,
she wound up here. A bench. A door ajar.

And still she weaves her ink-strokes tiny, slow
and measured into tales of long ago,
of signs and symbols, wisdom passed along
down generations. Eyes of ancients glow

in hers like rivers weaving land to song,
a landscape parched to desert far too long.
From exile she can see beyond the war
a universe where all things still belong.

SHAKY TREES
    “Resilience” at the Confidence Lab

This living room replicates forest, trunks
of fabric painted to look like trees. Building
has stood 150 years, repairs are needed
in upper floors. Chain across the stairway:
“Don’t even think about it.” Keep out
of dark you can’t see. We stay in the lower,
living room; walk among textile trunks
that waver with our steps, our conversation.
The floor seems steady but fabric trees
take on a living of their own; ghost trees,
breathing as we inhale green.  Do they
mourn the solid trunks that used to grow
here for ages before the place was town’d?
Town still growing, trees on shaky ground.

THE VAULT
    “Resilience: A Living Room”

A venerable pine cone like a sacred hat
in burnished wood-tones on ebony pedestal.

This is where they keep precious things
dormant but alive. Seeds. Fir and pine,

hope for generations of breathing life
like sunlight secrets, safe in a black box,

a lamplight beacon in a dark cabin
in the wilderness; our future.

FOREST LIKE DREAM

From Fairplay the road climbs
into forest, unearthly this almost-winter
morning. A winding road
flanked by spectral pine and cedar,
their constant cool breath hovering in fog.

No other traffic on Mt Aukum Road.
My dog says Stop. I find a wide spot, inhale
the scent of green; think of becoming
woods—December silence
restless in time while my dog

orients her nose-map, then looks back at me.
Time to move along, road cutting
through gray toward the end of beyond,
weaving us into forest as I drive,
forgetting destinations.

Today’s LittleNip:

CABIN
—Taylor Graham

River shaking earth
under mountain dark
and light diffused by cloud mist,
it squats tiny but sturdy.
Its windows have gathered sun.

___________________

Our thanks to Taylor Graham for today’s fine poems and photos as she circles around that cabin in the woods, last week’s ekphrastic Seed of the Week. Her “Confidence Lab” poems were inspired by the "Resilience" installation at El Dorado Arts Council’s new Confidence Lab on Main St. in Placerville.

Tonight there will be three different poetry events in our area, each beginning at 8pm: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe, with featured readers and open mic; or The Love Jones “Chill Night” of love poetry at Laughs Unlimited in Old Sac; and Mary Mackey will read at the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, 8pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

Beautiful Loki: An Untamed Heart 

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis, CA
Celebrate poetry!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Still Ticking

December 7, 2018, 7:29 am

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≪ Previous: The End of Beyond

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—Poems by Michael Ceraolo, S. Euclid, OH

—Anonymous Winter Photos

A BELATED, THREE-QUARTER-HEARTED APOLOGY

It was sometime
during my senior year of high school,
either late 1975
or early 1976,
I don't remember which,
                                    though
I do remember wearing a winter coat
when heading there
My French IV class went one evening
to one of the local colleges,
John Carroll University,
whose French Department was staging
a production of Racine's Phedre
(Phaedra for those opposed to French)

In one of the climactic moments
in Act V,
              the heroine kneels down,
puts her ear to the supine hero's chest,
and makes a dramatic utterance
in French alexandrines
                                    From those
who either weren't strong in French
or weren't familiar with the play
in English translation,
                                came the whispered
What did she say?
What did she say?

                               And I,
keeping in mind the ubiquity
of John Cameron Swayze's
Timex watch commercials,
                                        said
It's still ticking

At least six rows of the audience
erupted in laughter at my remark,
and though neither of the actors
onstage was a professional,
they were unfazed by laughter
at a moment in the production
calling for the opposite response;
they continued on the finish
without missing a best,
and then took their bows to a round
of well-deserved applause

Forty-plus years later,
I would like to apologize,
                                     and
perhaps satisfy their curiosity
as to what prompted the laughter

CLEVELAND HAIKU #523

Frozen winter moon—
seventeen below zero
on my fifth birthday

* * *

CLEVELAND HAIKU #524

Prolonged spring fever—
weather doesn't coincide
with the calendar

* * *

CLEVELAND HAIKU #526

Fishing spot—
discarded lures wound around
an electric wire

2077 CAMPUS ROAD

It is near the boundary of two watersheds,
a little ways down the road
from Notre Dame College,
                                       and
it's a little bit boxier
than the rest of the surrounding houses
But when it was built in 1932
it was not merely distinctive,
it was pioneering:
                            the first
one of its kind built anywhere

The Ferro Corporation,
first incorporated in 1919
as the Ferro Enamel Corporation,
decided in the depths of the Great Depression
to build an experimental model home
at the above address
as a way to showcase other applications
of its relatively new product,
porcelain enamel

(porcelain enamel, aka enameled steel—
a thin coating of glass fused to the metal
at temperatures between 750 and 850 degrees Celsius—
1,380 to 1,560 degrees Fahrenheit)

The house was designed by
local architect Charles Bacon Rowley
(designer of
the Shaker Heights Public Library,
the Mayfield Country Club,
the Clifton Club,
                         and
several schools and other houses locally
as well as three halls at Kenyon College
and buildings in Cape Cod;
some are gone, some remain)

With a steel frame,
and the porcelain enamel used as siding,
it had two main selling points:
it was fireproof,
                       and
the exterior never needed painting
A similar design would be used
the next year for a house at Chicago's
Century of Progress Expo,
                                       and
porcelain enamel was a major component
in the prefabricated Lustron homes
built after World War II

Today, without trespassing
I can't tell if the porcelain enamel
is still in place; I find out later
it has been covered with vinyl siding
(because of rust?),
one of the many changes one might expect
in a house over eighty years old

There is, as of yet,
no historical marker on the site

Today’s LittleNip:

The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.

—Lee Iococca

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Michael Ceraolo for his fine poetry today!

 —Anonymous Photo
Celebrate poetry!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Warm on a Cold Morning

December 8, 2018, 7:30 am

≫ Next: The Mind in the Heart

≪ Previous: Still Ticking

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Red Tailed Hawk, Capay Valley, CA
—Poems by James Lee Jobe, Davis, CA
—Photos Courtesy of James Lee Jobe

Warm on a cold morning, I have the blood of my father
And the strength of my mother. A gray mist
In the air is stimulating. I can live with that.

The music of Coltrane and Sonny Rollins,
Dexter Gordon and Bill Evans; I can fill my time
With notes in the air like lovely birds.

I have a fierce wife, she takes on the crimes
Of an unjust society. Sometimes I join her,
Other times Coltrane and these poems are enough.

Sometime ago I passed sixty years on this Earth.
A grandchild joined us and a son was lost,
I cannot walk as well as I did, such is life.

For no reason at all I am updating you.
The jazz is up loud. The coffee is strong and fresh.
Were you to join me here, I’d pour you a cup.

 Tule Elk, Pt. Reyes

A clear mind in life, a clear mind at death, and in between I will love the earth below me and the sky above me. I will love that water is life, and that kindness heals the troubled soul. At night when I lay my body down I will do my best to forgive people their slights, and hope that I am worthy of forgiveness for my own slights.

________________

If the cockroach could sing,
What would be its song
While crawling through the kitchen at night?

 Otter, Putah Creek

I draw circles around the things I love.
I prefer to wait until life quiets down.
At night.
Or mid-day.
When I am alone.
I have this pencil filled with thanks instead of lead.
I use this pencil.
To draw my circles
Around the blessedness of my own humanity.
Or around a picture of my granddaughter.
Or even something as simple as my coffee pot.
A favorite album.
Miles Davis or Monk or Jamal.
Now I am at it again.
A circle around my soul.
A circle around your soul.
A circle around tonight.
Another circle around tomorrow.

 Rattlesnake, Knights Landing

In spring, my peach tree blooms,
And the bright sun covers the tree
With a million tiny kisses.
In this way, my sweet peaches are born.

 Woodrat, Woodland

Spring comes on in waves, cool, then warm,
Then cool again. Back and forth
Until warm finally wins, just before summer.

So it goes with the ups and downs of living.
Some good things, some bad things,
Some easy, and some hard, joy and sorrow.

One of them wins out just before death,
But which one? It doesn’t matter.
Live in the moment,

Embrace your troubles like they are blessings.
The end matters no more than the beginning,
And the beginning doesn’t matter at all.

 Barn Owl, Cache Creek

Today’s LittleNip:

Zazen at midnight,
The quiet mind, still at last—
And then, a hoot owl.

—James Lee Jobe

__________________

Thank you, James Lee Jobe, for today’s fine poems and photos!

Stop by Sac. Poetry Center Gallery today, 2-8pm, for the Second Saturday Reception featuring Women’s Wisdom Art, with refreshments and music from The Cowgirl Sweethearts from 4-8pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 Celebrate poetry!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

The Mind in the Heart

December 9, 2018, 7:34 am

≫ Next: Dog Vacations and Doughnut Holes

≪ Previous: Warm on a Cold Morning

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—Anonymous Photo

THE BIRTH OF WONDER
—Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007)

When I am able to pray with the mind in the heart, I am joyfully able to affirm the irrationality of Christmas.

As I grow older
I get surer
Man’s heart is colder,
His life no purer.
As I grow steadily
More austere
I come less readily
To Christmas each year.
I can’t keep taking
Without a thought
Forced merrymaking
And presents bought
In crowds and jostling.
Alas, there’s naught
In empty wassailing
Where oblivion’s sought.
Oh, I’d be waiting
With quiet fasting
Anticipating
A joy more lasting,
And so I rhyme
With no apology
During this time
Of eschatology;
Judgment and warning
Come like thunder.
But now is the hour
When I remember
An infant’s power
On a cold December.
Midnight is dawning
And the birth of wonder.


—From The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle

__________________

—Medusa, wishing you a glimpse of wonder…

For more about Madeleine L'Engle, go to www.madeleinelengle.com/madeleine-lengle/.

Dog Vacations and Doughnut Holes

December 10, 2018, 8:00 am

≫ Next: A Small Bridge Over Quietness

≪ Previous: The Mind in the Heart

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—Photo by Ann Privateer, Davis, CA

KINDLY
—Ann Privateer

It's the first of the month
At the end of the year
People are thinking
About presents
About how to live
A good life
About family and friends
In the key of C
Christmas and Hanukkah
Here we come.

_________________

ALL THE WHILE
—Ann Privateer

Living well
Spells other people
Sharing and caring
Creatively
In a less is more
Way, linking up
Increasing enjoyment.

 —Photo by Ann Privateer
 

SHE
—Ann Privateer

Carries a baby
Holster style
Dangling in a sac
From her neck

He sobs and sobs
She coos and rocks
Back and forth
There there

If only he could speak!

 —Photo by Ann Privateer

DOUGHNUT HOLES
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

The world’s not flat
It’s round
With a hole
Right through the middle,
Engulfing me and you.
It’s why the sky is blue.

Something is sorely missing
We can feel it in our hearts.
Something from our middles
That was torn apart
From the rest of the dough
And we miss it, so!

It’s why we don’t mind paying
Through the nose
For doughnut holes.

 Dramatic Waves

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

DOG VACATIONS
—Joseph Nolan

Dogs never go on vacation.
Why should you?
Dogs honor you with their
Willingness to always be there
With you,
Their master.

They never take a break
Or feel the need to,
To head out to the local pub
For a few beers
With their fellow dogs,
To gather with their alternative pack.
Why should you?
Why do you?

Have you ever
Wondered why you need to?

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

___________________

FINER POINTS
—Joseph Nolan

It’s hard to put a finer point on things.
Getting things half-sharp is easy,
Even routine.
A half-sharp knife is not hard to turn out,
An ax, analogy,
Simile, or metaphor.
It just gets hard when you make it more,
More precise, more perfect, more adroit,
When lacking all weakness,
It is hard to exploit.

 Sun, 3PM, Smoke-filtered

—Photo by Katy Brown

CROWS MUST TRAVEL ON
—Joseph Nolan

A time will come for crows to fly,
When they are ready to leave,
When they are tired of being here
And they’d rather be over there,
Somewhere,
Maybe anywhere,
Other than here.

Time in one place can be so long!
Too long, for nearly any crow to take.
Crows appreciate a change of place
A change of pace
A place of grace in which to caw,
As they were meant to caw—
Out loud,
Loudly and in graveled tones
Without restraint
That comes from tired places,
Tired from too long.

As they sort their weary bones
Upon the wing again
They may not caw “Good-bye.”

 Shaking Off Spray

—Photo by Katy Brown
 

DID YOU GET IT?
—Joseph Nolan

Did you get it?
That thing he said
About understanding the esoteric
As the lambasting of
Post-modernist impressionism?

I’m having a difficult time with that.
I feel I am being triggered!

Whatever happened to rows of crows
Waiting for corn to ripen
Until the rows are covered in snows?
When did that go away?
I just loved the old-style ambiguity there!

__________________

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF IMAGINATION
—Joseph Nolan

In a moment,
In a second,
Imagination
Disappears,
Like a rock
That falls from heaven
Into water
So clear!

The ripples spread
Throughout your head
And kiss
Surrounding ground,
When things go solid,
Like a rock that fell from heaven
Just missing your toe,
So you let go!

 Otters Pay Attention

—Photo by Katy Brown
 

UNKNOWN
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

Hello there! I am
Bick Pentameter, please pay
attention closely

*****

Hold hands with the nice
lady standing to your right
the rest of the night

*****

Take her home, invite
her inside and offer her
the best TV seat

*****

Whatever you do,
just keep your lips closed tightly
and all will be fine

*****

If you two should take
a liking, or fall in love,
so much the better

*****

Now it is time to
stare at pictures on the wall
and write poetry

*****

Please ignore the high
coo of the doves dying from
oven-cleaning fumes

 What ARE They?

—Photo by Katy Brown

HISTORY LESSONS
—Caschwa

Creation or Darwin, take your pick
at some point Fire
a miraculous Exodus from Egypt
don’t forget the Ten Commandments
and those Old and New Testaments

the marvelous Printing Press
showcased an Industrial Revolution
the New World
our Democratic Experiment
the War to End All Wars, plus another
Nuclear Proliferation

The Cold War
Global Warming gets the cold shoulder
daily Armageddon forecasts
Jehovah’s Witness Protection League
The Cubs win the World Series
President Cofefe

 Just Watching

—Photo by Katy Brown

STANDING ALONE
—Caschwa

On a green grassy knoll
quite bare of utility lines,
stands a playful structure
built of square roots and sines

Its yellow light shields the gray
of threatening clouds above,
inside dance seven turkeys
all madly in love

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

ACCENTUATION
—Caschwa

There has been
forMIDible
conTROversy
calCUlated with
conTINental reach
to disrupt our
conCENtration from
kinDERgarten on.

______________________

Our thanks to today’s fine poets and photographers for today’s gathering in the Kitchen!

Poetry events in our area begin tonight at Sac. Poetry Center, 7:30pm, with readers from Kate Asche’s workshops, plus open mic. Joey Garcia will read at Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe on Thursday, plus open mic, 8pm.

On Sunday, Davis Arts Center Poetry Series will present readers from the new anthology, Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California, 2pm. Also on Sunday, Poetry in Placerville (changing its name to Poetry of the Sierra Foothills) will meet (this month only) at Caffe Santoro in Diamond Springs and will present Yuyutsu RD Sharma. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 —Photo by Katy Brown

(Celebrate Poetry!)

Photos in this column can be enlarged by

clicking on them once, then clicking on the x

in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

A Small Bridge Over Quietness

December 11, 2018, 7:38 am

≫ Next: A Song to the Weavers

≪ Previous: Dog Vacations and Doughnut Holes

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Compression

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THROUGH THE NARROWS

As you glide through the dark sleep
of your life
a strange boat passes—

slowly, slowly, through the dream.
I had to say this.
It is the truth.

You glide through,
wary of the sound and the light
which are simultaneous;

you follow the currents
and avoid what you can,
forever rounding the sharp corners

and squeezing through the narrows—
the strange boat is always just
ahead of you or behind you,

and you know it holds all your grief
and solutions as you try to lose it
and it tries to find you.

 Room For All

EFFORT

I push through barrier after barrier with my life
which is crowded with intention and failure.

I am huge. I fit everywhere, for I am forceful;
I am my own jungle of resistance.

Trees crowd into me—
challenge my right to be among them.

I push them aside.
As long as I am strong I can do this.

At night I sleep among
the sleeping trees.

Each morning
we begin again.

___________________

AS IF I AM THE IMAGE OF REGRET

the rush of wings
through a fast mirror
made of air;

as if I am the waiting glass
for the escape of
something wounded—

a word of long ago,
finding me here for its use,
and I am blessed—

as if I am the certainty
of wisdom . . .
to let all this happen,

even as I hold my breath
through the forgetfulness of others.

 Lamentations

A HISTORY OF TEARS

This dimensionless depth, this brimming pond,
a fringe of light encroaching, squeezing in.
What does she look for in this black water,
her own reflection? She has become a silhouette. 
night redeems her.
                                   She steps in. It is shallow.
She bends to splash herself, feel the slow ripples
begin. The water pulls down, draws her into her
reflection. She has been told she will meet herself
in the future. Is this where it begins—this
small black lake of her own weeping?

             
(first pub. in Poetry Now, 1998)   

_______________________

                                   
THE KNOWING
“Listen to the sounds of waves within you.”
                                                        —Rumi
A bell.
A feather.
A string of white nerve.
Your mind in a frame of thought—
deeper than deep, where you are now,

in curve of blue, in shine of light. 
Don’t go too far—
stay in the real,
know where each is,
eyes closed for inner balance—

letting life go into un-life,
mystery of who and where,
the push and pull
of real and unreal—
you between.

How ancient you are.
How new.
One is the same,
except for the difference,
except for the fleeting loss of self,

except for the knowing
which will forget.
The bell
makes a sound.
The white string twists.

The white feather loses connection,
floats down as you float,
inward,
your mind
continuing its curious journey.

 Trio Exemplified

RECALL

Where is it—the old sour trace of a memory—
co-mingled, more bearable than interesting; 

is it not better than grief, which is stale—like the
white bread of childhood, buttered and sugared? 

But there is not enough relevance for such
an ambiguous thought—there is the beautiful

blue flame of the gas burner where toast was
made on a held fork that grew hot to your touch.

But that is a different story—also half-forgotten
in exchange for another. What is it that was sour?

Oh, the milk in the ice box by the small piece of
melting ice.  But, is that not part of your mother’s

memory, something that shifts between the mirror
and the face, her secret-secrets, her non-tellings—

all the years of empty gaps—child and mother—
the cold bathrooms down the long and

desperate halls with their stolen light bulbs to light 
the darkness there—all the ghosts of feared things

—everything pushed back—and farther back—
and rancid in your teeming consciousness?

 Alas

A SMALL BRIDGE OVER QUIETNESS

Here is the bridge over quietness—
this brief arch above a descending stream,
bearing petals off from some dense garden;

where soft limbs of willows bend to the water
and the deeper shadows stay back, and have
no say, and if no one comes it will not matter

to this frail bridge that has no history to prove
in this overgrown place that is not for the weary
or the fearful—that is its own now—

safe as a picture—a small bridge over quietness,
a sun-brushed arch over a rippling stream,
bearing petals and shadows over the stones.

 Alone

MONDAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK

Now we go fuzzily into distance. Our glasses
are lost and we must learn to grope—trust

the assisting hands that reach toward us—
gesturing then pulling back. There is no

such thing as loneliness. Time will not
permit. We are ever in the non-revolving.

Music wobbles when we listen for excellence.
Facades are well-structured and have proven

themselves real. How can we believe otherwise? 
There are Sundays we must fill with our own

blessings. Some presence is always there. 
Our souls whisper. Our glasses are pushed back

on our foreheads. We laugh at Monday,
finding us unaware—time blurring up to us,

fresh as a beginning— and we realize
that we have been living backwards all our lives.

_______________________

Today’s LittleNip:
 
ADVENT
—Joyce Odam

Reach for light. Now reach
for dance.
Be as butterfly from cocoon.

Unfold your arms
from self’s dark room
into window-spill of light.  
  
Let color touch transparency.
Let your radiance
stun the mirror.

Push back
the unreflecting walls
from your bright energy.

_______________________

Thank you, Joyce Odam, for these thoughtful poems and colorful flowers as we move through Advent, 2018, trying to keep a small corner of quietness in the midst of all the rush.

Our new Seed of the Week is stolen from Joyce as we think about renewal: Butterfly From Cocoon. Send your poems, photos & artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty of others to choose from.

—Medusa
 

 —Anonymous Photo
“Now reach for dance… Be as butterfly from cocoon.”
(And celebrate poetry!)

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

A Song to the Weavers

December 12, 2018, 7:39 am

≫ Next: What Kind of Ride Is This?

≪ Previous: A Small Bridge Over Quietness

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—Poems by Marchell Dyon, Chicago, IL
—Anonymous Photos of African Quilts

 

TO THE BLACK WEAVER WOMEN

A song to the sweet weavers, mother quilters
Their love folds in every seam
Let us celebrate them
These women wearing the faces of embroidered dreams

Bring together patches ironed and colored
Bring together pieces of clothes worn long ago
From nothingness springs each corner

When all faith and hope is lost
Let the evening fires bring together
Weary and gracious hands

Many hands moving needlepoint
Cotton-filled four folds perfection

Never do these quilting hands become cold
Or do they become tired as the evening runs thin
Their loving warmth protects us from the chilled wind

We will learn from them
As we rest our heads on their knees
From this viewpoint, we began to see

By the rhythm of sight,
By the hymn of hands moving

We learn geometry by memory
This warmth,
We carry generation to generation

Into wintery nights, we don’t shiver
Something more lines these quilted pockets than silver

A song to the sweet weavers, mother quilters
Their love folds in every seam
Let us celebrate them
These women wearing the faces of embroidered dreams

NIGHT SONG OF SELF
(BANTUS)

The moon looks pale gray like dove feathers
Like my hair, ah wisdom

Like ebony stones pitched into a puddle of rain
Over the years, how my reflection rippled with change

My mirror with the dog-eared edges peels away its sheen in time
Leaving behind crows’ feet and childbearing lines

Wine and jazz still left in these bones
Livelier the melody, sweeter the song

THE LADY WITH THE GRACEFUL SILVER HAIR II

Another song for the lady with the graceful silver hair
Age might have tamed her bones
And her pain may have caused her anxiety
She remembers then her unshakable belief
In a higher divinity

A woman still elegant in all her ways
She greets you always with a smile upon her face
Because she has recognized the blessing
She has received from the Ancient of Days

Her life beautiful and good
To the world, her unshakeable faith is a marvel to behold
Her religion often misunderstood
Almost fifty years her faith never did it fold

As for the lady with the graceful silver hair
All have been enriched by knowing her
She has shown love and with compassion heard
Our sorrows and our fears of tomorrow
She looks to a bible verse to calm our nerves

She offers a deep friendship
Like the one she has with Yahweh
With these words let us appreciate her today

She is a yellow rose
Even though her petals now are not as bright
Still, she casts a golden light
On all those she knows

Even though a diamond will tarnish in stages
A diamond is still a diamond
Even as it ages

As a rose is still a rose
She will always be
The lady with the graceful silver hair
Wherever in eternity she goes

                          (for E.B.)

 


Today’s LittleNip:

My mother had bought a sewing machine for me. When I went away to college, she gave me a sewing machine, a typewriter and a suitcase, and my mother made $17 a week working as a maid 12 hours a day, and she did that for me.

—Alice Walker

___________________

Our thanks and welcome back to Marchell Dyon this morning! For more about the Bantu civilization, go to bantucivilizationinformation.wikidot.com/.

And a note that Poetry Off-the-Shelves will meet tonight in Placerville at the El Dorado County Library on Fair Lane, 5-7pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 Celebrate poetry—and quilting!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

---

What Kind of Ride Is This?

December 13, 2018, 7:34 am

≫ Next: Ask Frank Stella

≪ Previous: A Song to the Weavers

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—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

HERE IN THIS HOUSE

it’s a rush. Latches in my lap at the laptop typing
bbnnnbbbbbbv as kitty-poem, tickling my nose with
black-kink tail as I pick letter by letter toward what
might become verse. Loki lies alert in dog patience,
not understanding why an alien (feline) has free run
of the house her home where mice run at night top-
pling dog-cookie jars scattering pens across carpet
leaving mouse-scat everywhere. Hence our wish for
a cat. Latches was called Jacks by his former humans
but we couldn’t remember the name so you chose
Latch to rhyme with Hatch, and I prefer the lilt of
Latches. Loki was named for mischief and shape-
shifting but she’s no longer a pup and can’t accept
a home whose space shifts to shape of kitten. This
is the state of our house with multitude mouse.

THE HORSE, THE TRAIL

What kind of ride is this? so hurried
on a borrowed horse; my friend up ahead
talking nonstop, ready to canter
and I’m just getting tuned to my mare’s gait,
how she responds to rein, pressure
of hand and knee, how I adjust and lean
with her and the trail. But there’s
that incessant talking up-front about
everything but horse and trail.
My friend’s got a hot-seat in saddle
wired electric to her gelding. My borrowed
mare knows I’m here to enjoy her
morning. You can’t talk and ride at the
same time, someone told me.
Today I’m riding my horse on the trail.

ONE MORE AIR QUALITY DAY
on “Dinner for Two in One Month of Smog”
by Kim Abeles

Prepare the table
on the roof? white linen cloth
spotless all these years.

We’ve lived here so carefully
inside our walls under sky.

Sun on porcelain
heirloom plates from your mother,
grandmothers before….

They lived before the sky turned
foggy-dark on a clear day.

What will you serve us
for dinner on this cloth, these
fine china dishes?

We will dine on white printed
with smog designs from the sky.

MYSTERIOUS WAYS

Is “Forest Preserve” an oxymoron
in this world a-rush with the pro and con
of climate change? Over my head, clouds pass

with no promise of rain. Above the pass,
snowless November—oxymoron
or deadly rub of Fate? How shall we con-

serve gifts that we turn toxic? and how con-
vert mistakes to rehab? Trails diverge, pass
beyond our reason like oxymoron.

Oxymoron? Pre-serve? Con-serve? Trees pass.

WOODS CABIN

From deep under the floor, a keening
echo of pine trees in a hard wind,
roots holding for purchase, as when they    
hear the saw bringing down a brother.

The crying intermittent, not ending,
from underneath—a winter’s den
weeping. Today I found bare foot prints
in mud, as if hands; studded with tidy

claws; digit-stubs reaching forward
in gravel that used to be dirt road; soon
to be paved. Can we sit here at home
when under us the pinewood floor

moans like a memory? As if the walls
were breathing, planed wood still vibrant.
A chord, maybe voice of bear and pine
tree united in plaint. Open the door,

nothing’s there walking, creeping, or
flying. A flurry of leaves. How long can
we live here, at home inside walls
not airtight, not impervious to crying?

HUNTER, PREY

Yesterday the hawk made our gatepost
come alive—sudden launch into air,
then accipiter flap-flight
to tree-line and into deeper woods.

Hawk makes songbirds scarce,
scouts the rocks for snakes,
and lizards beware.

Today, twitch-nose on our deck,
long-eared leaper—small
enough for hawk to get.
Not wild, but hanging around,

not to be caught. Rabbit
or hare? Someone’s pet? Begging
gentleness; or escape of untamed heart?

Today’s LittleNip

MEETING FOX
—Taylor Graham

From shadow to shadow into light
as briefly as a flash at midnight—
broad morning. Hot-breath hunting. A slight
shifting of focus, wild-beast eye right
into mine. Human needs names. “Fox!” I thought
to box the vision, to hold it bright.

___________________

Thank you, Taylor Graham, for today’s elegant poems and photos about rushing and other ecopoems. About her work, Taylor writes: “There's some rushing [Medusa’s recent Seed of the Week] in a couple of these poems... ‘Meeting Fox’ was inspired by Dah [Medusa’s recent post of his work] and accompanying fox photos; it's a hir a thoddaid (one of those foxy Welsh forms). ‘Mysterious Ways’ is a tritina. ‘Woods Cabin’ is a rewrite of a poem from the old conversation between myself, Katy Brown, and D.R. Wagner, I think in response to one of DR’s poems. Your recent ekphrastic cabin reminded me of this one—mysterious ways of a poem.”

For more about the hir a thoddaid, go to www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/hir-thoddaid-poetic-form/. As for eco poetry, see www.scarlettanager.com/fire-and-rain.html for info about the new Fire and Rain anthology, and don’t forget that there will be a reading from it this coming Sunday at Davis Arts Center, 2pm.

Tonight, Joey Garcia will read at Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe, plus open mic, 8pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 —Anonymous Varmint Photo 

Celebrate poetry!

  

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Ask Frank Stella

December 14, 2018, 7:25 am

≫ Next: How Could I Not?

≪ Previous: What Kind of Ride Is This?

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—Anonymous Photos

—Poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Lake Eliot, Ontario, Canada

SAM SAID

he would be
into work
but he called in sick
and left me hanging
when I was really
sick
but needed the money
which is a whole different
kind of sickness,
and the foreman
kept eyeing me
so that I could see how
he looked
when he desired his wife,
that hog-hungry hatred
of too much time
flaring plugged nostrils
into veiny solipsism,
and when I saw
Sam next
I told him I would
be into work
even though we both knew
neither of us
was going to make it
in that state.

____________________

MILE ZERO

A man
can start a fire
by simply being a
fire:

roaring
searing

out of control

whole worlds engulfed
by the maddening fury
of his simple 
desire.

A man can be many other
things too:

a husband
a father
a long haul
trucker…

Which reminds me,
distance is lie.

Do not believe it.

The road
is your outstretched arms
working their way back
to the shoulder.

 

BLADE RUNNER

I remember
taking a razor to myself
long before I knew what suicide
was.   

Standing over the sink
beside my father
as he got ready for work
in the morning,
copying each movement
even though there was
no hair

ear to chin
like a pro

as my father sprayed
more shaving cream
on

and I pretended
I had a moustache
like gentlemen who speak French
and sit in coffee shops

for long
hours.

__________________

HORNS CHEER YOU ON AS YOU DRIVE
180 MILES/HR. DOWN THE APPIAN WAY

grease the wheel and the palms
make things happen like drive headlong
into oncoming traffic
the bottle tilted, a glove compartment
full of green paper clips
your foot superglued to the accelerator
while the cigar in your mouth
plays at being
Cuban.

ACTIVE SHOOTER

I have never known
another kind

even the straight shooter
has purpose

is lively and vigorous

the shooter girls
at the bar
all with smiles that could
stand in for gold

but the news is reporting
an active shooter
as opposed to an inactive one
which he will be once he
is shot dead.

________________

FRANK STELLA AND HIS
CONTROLLING HUSBAND, ART

the essential
elements

what you see
is what you
see

a post-painterly 2-D
abstraction
of throwing up over the toilet
after a night of straight vodka
and much kissing on
the mouth,
what would that look
like?

I do not know.
You would have the ask
Frank Stella.

 

BIRDS IN THE BEAKS OF HUNGRY WORMS   

taking an eyelash ride
roller coaster face
shaved eyebrow sky overhead
birds in the beaks of hungry worms
for a change
and who put the gumball machine in charge?
war in the name of peace is as good as any
don’t you know why all your bedsheets have eyes?
I’m taking a ride
the circus is in town 
and I hear the bearded lady
is single
drunk on the floor again
spastic cheekbone bonanza
in love with half the ice tray,
the waste basket 
making eyes.

__________________

BULLET

I take my ticket stub for the train
from this short black lady with tight greasy ringlets
that look like how I imagine the human genome
would look if it were stricken with body lice
and scared of losing its job.

And the man in the window seat beside me
is an imbecile.
He reads the paper and believes it
as though he is reading
Dostoevsky.

Nods his head in affirmation
with a throaty: ah ha!
before each turn of the page.

The other man in front of me
keeps slamming his seatback into my knees.

Miss miss!
he waves,
my seat is broken.

Darwin wouldn’t have even let this one
onto the Galapagos to compete.

And the fields that speed by us
cannot be bothered to be fields.

Bodies of water, more of a pooling
than anything else.

When I disembark,
the rain is there to
meet me.

Red ticket stubs litter the platform
as the still-encumbered
wait for their bags.

LAUGHTER IS MEDICINE

She was the daughter of a celebrity
so everything was comped:
parking, dinner, drinks, friends,
party favours…

And when an interviewer asked her about
the meaning of life she laughed.

And I thought that was the greatest answer
she could have given.
   
Even it was barely audible.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

HOW DO YOU TREAT YOUR WOOD?
—Ryan Quinn Flanagan

The lumber yard has much advice
on the matter.

So does Freud.

All I know
is that a little down time
never hurt anyone.

And that the many strippers
the hardware guy offers me
all come in a can
and look nothing 
like the strippers I used
to know.

__________________

Thank you, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, for your fine poetry this morning, and for rejoining us around the Kitchen table!

And don’t forget that Sacramento Poetry Center will feature the release of Levee Magazine’s first issue tonight, 7:30pm. Congratulations to Levee on its new enterprise! Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 Celebrate poetry—and the mighty railroad!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

How Could I Not?

December 15, 2018, 7:35 am

≫ Next: Bittersweet

≪ Previous: Ask Frank Stella

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Fence, El Dorado County
—Poems by James Lee Jobe, Davis, CA
—Photos Courtesy of James Lee Jobe

Li Po speaks when the wine is finished.
“My mother dreamed of a huge white star
Falling from the sky and I was born.
How could I not be a poet?
I drink the wine and watch the sky at night.
The stars are lonely, not me.
How could I not be a poet?
Last night a bird sang, it was past midnight,
And I could hear footsteps beneath my window.
How could I not be a poet?”

 Fence, Nevada County

I fear what the businessmen will do, in the end, to the Earth,
So I need stands of trees around me, to walk beneath,
To measure with my eyes and my heart. Movement
Among the limbs and branches returns me to myself.
I am grateful for that. I can sit in silence there in the woods
And also in the nearby fields, rich with this years corn
And alfalfa. Good, tilled soil with crops; that is a match
To the untamed and unchecked woods, dance partners,
Each flourishing with the strength and grace of the other.
The woods and the fields. My eyes and my heart.
The world of business has nothing on us.

 Fence, Solano County

In the dream the late actor Martin Landau wants me to fix a car
And give a poetry reading to Heather Hutcheson’s class.
What I want to do is take my clothes off and write a poem.
I keep picturing the poem in my mind, all written,
And then I forget it again because of Martin’s interruptions.
I am getting angry. I am young in this dream
And it comes to me that Heather must be a small child,
Such is the difference in our ages. Martin is now someone else
And I know that I am dreaming. I should wake up
And make a list of things to do today. It is 4 AM.
Making the list, I see that Dream James was correct;
The list is long, I would never have remembered it all.
Subconscious and consciousness have melded perfectly
Just as darkness and light meld to make a day,
To make a life. My youth and my old age come together
In a balance, my darkness and my light in a balance,
And all is well, except there is no poetry reading
Going to happen for Heather Hutcheson’s class,
And the dream car remains quite broken.

 Fence, Sutter County

Awake ‘way past midnight.
Through the long night the starlight
Lays soft across the window.
Is it any wonder that in my heart
I sometimes still feel young?

 Fence, Yolo County

Today’s LittleNip:

A word after silence; let it be Peace.

—James Lee Jobe

__________________

Thank you, James Lee Jobe, for today’s fine poetry and photos! James will be hosting a reading for the new anthology, Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California this Sunday at the Davis Arts Center, 2pm; then next Friday, Dec. 21, he will host The Other Voice in Davis at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Patwin Rd., 7:30pm, featuring five poets: Allegra Silberstein, Charles Halsted, Carlena Wike, Dorine Jeannette and James Lee Jobe, plus open mic, and taking donations to raise cash for the UC Davis Campus Ministry Winter Retreat. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 Do Not Feed the Monkey

(Celebrate poetry instead!)

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Bittersweet

December 16, 2018, 7:48 am

≫ Next: Waiting For Mother Sun

≪ Previous: How Could I Not?

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—Anonymous Photo

BITTERSWEET CHRISTMAS (1943)
—Dewell H. Byrd, Central Point, OR

Yesterday I saw a double rainbow arching over
the school house and I marveled at the way color
did not drain to each end.  I instantly felt

drawn to our old front porch filled with family,
laughter, HIS children struck by a double rainbow.

First Christmas I remember was filled with laughter:
no tree, no gifts, no tinsel, just lots of people…
relatives with fun pranks, games, stories and love.

Our house fairly shook with good cheer.  Each
person received an orange, a Brazil nut, two pecans
and a piece of hard-rock candy.  Cousins were wild

with excitement.  Older men stood around the fireplace
discussing the war, each proud of the strong young sons
they had sent to “Kick Hitler’s butt!”

We rushed to the front porch to see a double rainbow
arching over the school house on the hill and watched
the color fade, drain away at both ends.

Silence was broken with gasps of wonder as people
smiled, touched each other and some remembered
HIS promise in living color of water and light.

Later two army officers brought a black-edged
telegram from the War Department to my Mom.

____________________

Our thanks to Dewell Byrd for his bittersweet poem today. 

Poetry of the Sierra Foothills (formerly Poetry in Placerville) will host Yuyutsu RD Sharma today, 1-3pm, at the Caffe Santoro on Pleasant Valley Rd. in Diamond Springs. Or head across the Causeway to Davis Arts Center Poetry Series, 2pm, to hear readers from the new eco-anthology, Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

Waiting For Mother Sun

December 17, 2018, 7:25 am

≫ Next: Butterfly Dance

≪ Previous: Bittersweet

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 Grandfather Raven

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

I’ll never forget when I ate the ornaments on my family's Christmas tree

    At four years old,
    I ate the foil-covered chocolate bells Mom decorated
    Mom had told me and my brother not to touch them
    Like Eve in the Bible presented with the “forbidden fruit”
    My little psyche, like a snake, told me to disobey
    When Mom wasn’t looking
    I picked one chocolate, unwrapped it, and ate it nearly whole
    This sin was so delicious I repeated it all over the tree
    Soon enough I was “wearing” the chocolate with a ring around my mouth
    When Mom saw what I had done, she acted as if she wanted to throw me out
    Afterward she’d claim I was “allergic” to chocolate—
    Perhaps to deny me the “Eden” bliss of eating the products of the cacao tree.

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

 Raven in Flight

GUT FEELING
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

A friend had a ’61 VW Beetle
that by design did not include
a fuel gauge, but instead had
a fuel lever to move when the
vehicle had sputtered out of
gas, that would then activate a
lower hose to access that final
gallon at the bottom of the tank.

Today there’s a fellow towering
over Fifth Avenue who has
wholeheartedly adopted the old
VW fuel lever system to handle
the tricky matter of appointing
chiefs of staff…

_________________

WHAT HAVE WE HERE?
—Caschwa

Upon sitting down I
became the pilot facing
clusters of instruments
giving readings from all
modes and functions
of each and every
system.

Although I was able to
assimilate some pieces
of knowledge about some
of the individual instruments,
the big picture remained
quite evasive.

There were certain icons
pointing to various hints,
most requiring some kind
of upgrade beyond my pay
grade.

We haven’t crashed yet
but neither do we have
any assurance of a
safe descent.

 Gull With Prize

                                                                     

DREAM SHOPPING
—Caschwa

Big ol’, arrogant, dominant, religion once
controlled every part of everyone’s daily
affairs, and pushed folks to risk their lives
sailing clear across the stormy sea to start
over in the New World. 

Whew, what a refreshing change!

Nice try, but no cigar.  Formal papers
were drawn up for the new government
on the new continent to exclude big
religion, but over time we only managed
to replace the old landed aristocracy with

“It’s the economy, stupid.” 

We use cheap labor, whether it’s our
own slaves or someone else’s, and
continually manufacture excuses for the
rich and the poor to just stay that way,
‘cause that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

“It is written!”

Not by God, not in stone, not in our Constitution,
but on the Big Board, on the ledgers kept by
bookies, on the Who’s Who of obscenely vast
collections of material possessions, on the pure,
white sands of ultra-exclusive beach resorts.

“Whoever dies with the most toys wins.”

To this day we still face the dilemma of freeing
the slaves while not shaming the slave holders,
of bestowing praise to the Christ child while making
every possible effort to avoid living like Him, of
buying for ourselves the best gifts on the shelf.

Happy Holidays, all!!

___________________

E PLURIBUS SYNERGY
—Caschwa

The Special Prosecutor has several
naked suspects who, once caught,
each confidently claims they are
holding all the right cards to win a
game of strip poker.

*****

The long arm of the law reaches
far past whatever ripples a splash
of collusion may create.

*****

All’s fair in love and war:  if we go
to war with Russia, it is not out of
the question that we may set up
internment camps to harshly
sequester all persons of whatever
rank or title who are suspected of
being friendly with the enemy.

*****

Francis Bacon, the modern egghead:
“Truth is the daughter of time, not of
authority.”  “Reading maketh a full
man; conference a ready man; and
writing an exact man.”

*****

The expression “2016 Election” will
prove to be false.  When all things
are considered, the more appropriate
description would be “hostile takeover.”

*****

May the world live long enough to
forgive us our abuses.

 Gull in Flight

IN THE LIGHT OF DAY, NO LESS
—Caschwa

Back in the last century my parents
were forced to pay taxes and were
mandated to send their children to
school.

Public school teachers were required
to deliver instruction on grammar,
while students were required to both
attend and participate.

Today just a few decades down the
road, educated people commonly use
expressions like “we need to dig deeper”
as if avoiding adverbs is the rule.

So what was the point? 

My parents will never get their tax
contributions back, nor will I ever get
back that precious time that could have
been better spent sleeping or playing.

I fear that parents are still forced to pay
school systems to DUMB DOWN their
kids, using lesson plans that focus on
proper adverbs, when in fact, actually

using adverbs in public discourse will
draw more scorn and persecution than
if you were to run around butt naked.
We must react quicker and stronger!

 Iron Owl

WHAT POETS DESPISE
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

What poets despise:
Carefully crafted lies
Masterworks of deception
Impossible to penetrate
Without plastic mittens
To protect your human hands
From deadly poisons
Set about the wrappers
Of the bodyguard of lies
Designed to seal
Deeply set inside
A marvelous, perfect gem
Of dark deceit.

__________________

MODERN GYPSIES
—Joseph Nolan

Happenstance
A failed romance
Things that come
And go—
Modern gypsies.

Pack the wagon,
Harness horse.
Ambition draws us
Over the next mountain.

Another Spring,
Another trek.
Ambiguous
Our prospect.

 Elfin Owl

ANOTHER THROW-AWAY
—Joseph Nolan

She bellows out
Into the street
To any who
Might listen,
In odd-worn tones
Of hoarseness voice.
No princess, now,
Is she.

No man left
To stand for her
Or care
Or take her home,
She is at rock-bottom
And all alone.

Worn down, then,
By meaner men,
No decent father, neither;
No safe home
She could count on,
Against the ways of men.

Bruised, abused and battered,
Ransacked and overturned,
Upside-down,
She makes the rounds,
About the streets in tatters.

This way she will stay—
A woman, thrown away.

__________________

IF YOU WERE DEAD
—Joseph Nolan

If you were dead,
Would you dance?
Dance and sing,
Or cry out loud?

Or act just like a ghost
Pale and frail,
A mist in wind,
Blowing faint away?

Would you tell all of your secrets
To loft upon the air
Since you no longer cared
If really,
You ever cared a whit
For keeping secrets?

Since, after all of it
Is done,
Ghosts know all.
They already know
And they don’t care!

SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER
—Joseph Nolan

A shadowed shade
Bears down our days
And sets our hearts
To bottom.

Daylight drooping
Into darkness,
Stillness, still,
Be-stilling,
Into dark.

Winter,
With its shorter days,
This way, still-full comes.
We feel the darkness
Bear us down,
Deeply down
To bottom.

Bottom,
In its own
Gravity’s sway,
Keeps us safely
On the ground
As we make our way
Through Holiday Season.

We need the weight
To keep us well-borne down,
Facing lights
With hopes
For bright,
Bright happy,
Light-heart
Times and play
We seldom get to know.

__________________

MOTHER SUN AND HER PLANETS
—Joseph Nolan
The world is out there!
Out there, somewhere,
Spinning in its place,
Spinning in its orbit,
Somewhere, out in space!

Held in track by Sun,
With planets, each one;
Each in its own path—
Circling the Sun.

How can this thing be?
Not for an eternity,
Someday, Sun will go
Out into a great red-giant
And burn up all its planets!

What kind of mother is She?
The source of all our energy.
Has she not a kinder heart
To spin us off to farther parts
As orphans, to new Sun?

To warm anew
In other-Mother’s tracks,
Against the killing cold
Of being off alone,
Off in Space?
Or burned in grand consumption
When she can’t stop her
Red-Sun’s expansion?

A sun must consume her planets!
This is the way of cosmic law.
They get a chance to spin
Around her,
But soon,
Into her fire,
She will draw them
One and all!

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

FALLING FEATHERS
—Joseph Nolan

Feathers fall much faster
Under forlorn skies
When they’re upside-down.

When in their proper position,
They catch the wind
And spin and spin around
In circles
As they make their way
Gently to the ground.

____________________

Our thanks to today’s poets, and to photographer Katy Brown and her birds, for today’s Kitchen fare.

Poetry events in our area begin tonight in Placerville, 6-7pm, with the monthly Poetry in Motion read-around at the Placerville Sr. Center. Then, at 7:30pm in Sacramento, Sac. Poetry Center will present Yuyutsu RD Sharma and poets from the anthology, Eternal Snow: A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Twenty-Five Poetic Intersections. Also at Sac. Poetry Center, this time on Wednesday at 6pm, MarieWriters Generative Writing Workshop will meet for a small, guided group facilitated by Christin O’Cuddehy.

Third Thursdays at the Central Library meets on—you guessed it—Thursday, 12noon, for a read-around; bring poems by someone other than yourself. Then five—correction! make that six—poets (Allegra Silberstein, Charles Halsted, Carlena Wike, James Lee Jobe, Beth Suter, Dorine Jeannette) plus open mic will read at The Other Voice in Davis on Friday, 7:30pm, at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Patwin Rd., Davis. And on Saturday, Poetic License monthly read-around will meet at the Placerville Sr. Center in Placerville, 2-4pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa
 

 Celebrate poetry!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.