Medusa's Kitchen

—Poems by Carol Louise Moon, Placerville, CA

—Dance Shoe Collection Photos by John L. Westling

A PAIR OF TWO

Moss Green and two shades of pink
past which two white bunnies wandered

clutching silver purses one on each
open arm, strolling hand-in-hand,

whistling two lovely tunes
on the second day of May.

On breezy spring days my twin and I
would crouch near the garden gate.

I loved Short Bunny with sequined purple vest;
she adored Tall One with periwinkle shawl.

“Let us join them.” Falling in line behind,
we dance into sparkling sunbeams.

(first pub. in Updrafts, 2007)

ANOTHER DANCIFUL DAY

Whirling Dervish of a child you are
(scolded larged-aproned jovial mama)
and I’ll not have fuzzy mole holes
dug into my Persian carpets.

Out with you, Deeona.
Green grass beckons you—you
merry, whistling, Leaping Gypsy,
as the tinkling bells I now hear.

What! Mud-green pixie footprints
on newly-waxed, crystal hallway—
a mirror image of Pan sprinkling
grass clippings through the meadow.

Marching to Pretoria is a clever way
to step into your brother’s pajamas.
Be assured this homespun dance recital
is over at bedtime, with lights out.

Now begins the moray eel “dance of
darkness” muses Deeona cautiously,
black eyes peeping out
beneath coral blankets.

THEY DANCE

You know they dance, the dogs.
I’ve seen them, the way they step...
lightly. Grace of a tennis player,
quick, then stopping for the turn,
head proud... the glance.
Curve of spine. Their eyes gleam—
not just in moonlight—but that
knowing, that knowing...
about the dance. It’s theirs.
They wonder, too, if we dance,
or are we just self-absorbed and
confused... confused in which way
to go to side-step a dog, because
we don’t want to dance with a dog...
not even in moonlight,
if we are asked.

DANCING WITH THE CYCLOPS

You’re scaring me with those
size 18 purple leather shoes,
swinging your rustic elbows
to the beat of the juke box,
to the crunch sounds
of French fries,

all the while
a slobber drool
as you telescope your
one eye past me
to bottles of red syrup
at the soda fountain.

EMPTY JEANS

Often I hear country western music in my dreams. “All My Exes Live in Texas” I get straight from George. Just now, I am awakened by a man in long-legged denim, asking if I wanna dance. “Right here? Right now?”

No, Silly, after you do up all my denims. Then, if there’s time, we’ll go dancing at Wilson’s Bar tonight.

Let me dream about the man of my dreams. Baby, while you start the blue laundry load, I’ll take a nap. I wanna dream once again that you are swing dancing in denim—boots tapping the dance hall floor.

I’m lulled by music now, and feel the beat of your boots. Or, is that the bounce of an uneven spin cycle reverberating through the floor of our trailer? Let me just dream about a blue denim, hot-dancing man. You’ll find the jean stretchers just over the washer, Dear.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
   Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
   They danced by the light of the moon,
             The moon,
             The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

—from "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" by Edward Lear

____________________

Many thanks to Carol Louise Moon and John Westling for today’s fine team-up of poems and photos! Definitely danciful!

Ladies of the Knight read tonight at Sac. Poetry Center, 6pm, hosted by Bob Stanley. 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 Dance!)

Country-Westerning Out in the Country

—Anonymous Photo

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.

Sacramento Valley, Produce is Never Far Away

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

The lamp stands guard by the open window,
Greeting the darkness with light.
Sounds throughout the valley
Include the breeze, a barking dog,
Laughing children next door
And a laughing wife here.
A great emptiness.
“This is the way,” says the lamp,
But the laughter says it better.
The full moon of September.

JLJ, Early in My Radio Career, 30 Years Ago

Crows speak with authority in the chilly morning light.
Flowers awaken and call out to the bees,
“Come taste my pollen
And share with me the pollen
That you gathered from my friends.”
The old barn owl makes one final lap above the field
And then returns to sleep for awhile.
Men in work boots, wearing hats,
Move out into the fields, ready to work.
And me? I watch it all with dreamy eyes.
Summer’s end in the Yolo County farmland.
Autumn begins.

Poet at 62: Bad Knees, Bad Lungs

In the sky today I saw clouds like cotton balls
Floating above me.
Sometimes it feels like the valley sky
Is the roof of the world.
The Vaca Hills and the Sierra Nevada Mountains
Are the walls holding this roof up,
And the Sacramento Valley is my room,
The room where I live.
In my room are farms and cities,
Highways and railways, rivers and creeks.
I live with people, owls, herons, raccoons,
Deer, cattle, and house pets.
And still there is plenty of room.
I am not sure how I've got this room,
But I will find the desk clerk
And see that I keep it for a long time.

I Make a Powerful Iced Coffee

We are grains of sand
On a beach with no end
And a cold, cold ocean.

Above the pine trees
Big winds
Like time passing.

In the heart of the five-petal rose
Is the truth
You think you deserve.

The winds go on and on
Through the night
Of many stars.

JLJ With a Question

This quarter-moon will set in the midnight hour tonight,
So let me call upon the darkness in prayer.
I pray that people find their compassion every day,
And that we might learn to live without competing.
Compassion comes from the heart
And heals the heart. Both.
And competition? Too many times
No one wins, but everyone loses.
Quickly, before this quarter-moon sets tonight,
Hold up your heart to the light.
Let your compassion grow.
Call upon the darkness in prayer.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Rain again, and again, and again—
My birds watching it through the window
In silence.

—James Lee Jobe

____________________

Our thanks to James Lee Jobe for his Saturday morning wake-up call today! James will be hosting two events in Davis next weekend: The Other Voice on Friday, March 15 at 7:30pm, featuring Brad Buchanan, Stuart Canton plus open mic at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Patwin Road; then on Sunday, March 17 at 2pm, Mary Mackey will read at The Davis Arts Center Poetry Series, 1919 F St., Davis.

And tonight, down to Sac. Poetry Center for the Second Sat. Reception for Sable & Quill’s 10th Anniversary, including artwork and refreshments from 5-6:30pm, and poetry from 6:30-8pm. 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!)

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.

Dogwood

—Poems and Photos by Jane Blue, Sacramento, CA

GO WITH ME, GOD OF THE DOGWOOD

Wind howled the rain sideways, horizontal
when I was young. My father

was gone. I walked, head bowed
into the wind.

Oh the elements when you are a child!
How you love them. 
Go with me, god of the dogwood
and god of the rose.

My mother
pulled aside the homespun curtains

and showed me the Milky Way
like a storm against the sky.

Go with me, god of the dogwood
and god of the rose.

 
(first pub. in Fragments, an Internet
collaboration, ed. Dean Pasch)

Dogwood Buds

SNAPSHOTS 

Tulip magnolias brave the cold mornings
bleed into frost. People take pictures of them
budding, satiny, in layers of magenta and cream. 
They are like laundry on the bare branches,
freezing and thawing, freezing and thawing.

It's January in California and spring
pops up everywhere: camellias

dropping petals like ragged petticoats
from the laundry line; flowering quince

flaming from unleaved branches spiky
with thorns. Calla lilies poking up their
shafts, ready to unfurl into flowers. 
People also like to snap pictures
of the moon. The moon is so close

they feel an intimacy they don't feel with the sun.
The sun turns its fire to us every day. 
The moon hides its face, has phases
like we do, pocked as with some human

disease. With zoom lenses they feel
as close to the moon as to their hung laundry.

 
(first pub. in Avatar)

Calla Lilies

AT THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE

1

Through a second floor picture window
I'm eye level with the crown
of a magnolia, the first blooms of summer
that start at the top, creamy cups held
in sleek green leaves with their
suede undersides and I realize
I am alone.
 
2

Another day, outside, under the row
of magnolias on the street
someone has pulled out miniature
agapanthus from the planter bed,
strewn the little onion bulbs
on the sidewalk to be trampled. I think
a child jumped for the fine sky-blue
flowers. Children like to leap for flowers.
 
3

Once I saw a very small girl bobbing
in my window, appearing
and disappearing up and into
the dogwood tree, until her vague
father ushered her on, white petals
littering the lawn She wanted
only a handful of stars.

Eric Weaver w/baby Ray

A LEAF DROPS
for Eric Weaver

The rose vine after pruning
shoots up every day
like an animal, like a rooster
strutting in the morning breeze
after a night of rain.

Like a rare breed of rooster
with wattle and crest, it will grow
to the roof, the gutters, above the eaves.
Put up a wall of crimson roses,
yellow stamens at each center.

A dry leaf swirls slowly to the ground
and disappears.
And we are left here, disbelieving.
And the lilies and daffodils push up
out of their crumpled bulbs.

Which is the body and which is the soul?

The tulips, the mass of daisies
in the lawn.
And there is the sudden realization
that it is spring.

 
(My son-in-law, Eric Weaver, died February 18, 2016)

Geraniums and Roses

 
A CAT SITS UNDER THE MOON 

A man sings exuberantly in Spanish
up on the roof across the street.

I have died at least once
but I keep talking.

The world as I know it doesn't exist.
A swimming pool takes up the old yard
filled once with the blue of delphiniums
and the red of roses; and a plum tree dropped
its little bitter fruit.

I have died at least once
but I keep talking.

Looking through pictures I've saved:
a woman with a gaping hole
where her heart should be, a stream
gushing out of it.

I have died at least once
but I keep talking.

Another woman cut from a newspaper
leans out a window, elbows on the sill
looking to the right "in the soft light of Italy."

I have died at least once
but I keep talking.

 And a cat sits under the moon.

__________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Do not plant a garden until it has snowed on the Dogwoods!

—Ancient Legend

__________________

A hearty thanks and welcome back to Jane Blue for today’s fine Sunday brunch! These poems are all from her book, Obsession with the Dogwood (July 2018, Flowstone Press, Michael Spring, editor/

publisher). It's available at Amazon: www.amazon.com/Obsession-Dogwood-Jane-Blue/dp/1945824174/.

For more dogwood legends from the Dogwood Garden Club in the Sierra Foothills, see dogwoodgardenclub.org/legends-of-the-dogwood/. Another sweet blog from 2012, also from the Sierra Foothills, can be seen at salmonfishingqueen.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/snow-on-the-dogwoods/.

—Medusa, dreaming of dogwood and reminding you to set your clocks ahead this morning, if you haven’t already! (Celebrate Poetry!—and the Dogwoods!)

Jane's Cover

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.

—Photos by Susan Sigge, Martinez, CA

YES
—Nick LeForce,
Sacramento, CA

Of all the strange
and wonderful things,

of all the seas sailed
and mountains climbed,

of all the wishes
given to the wind
and the great distance
that love traveled
to find us while we
looked elsewhere,

all it really took was
for us to say “yes”
to open the door
to our wishful hearts.

In a nod and a wink,
a world cracks open
and, with a little faith
and a little courage,
we can step through
together.

Shall we?

____________________

MOONSHINE

—Nick LeForce

Can you feel
this yearning
stirring in the pot?

We are brewing
an elixir
that will light
a fire in us.

Let’s drink
the moonshine
we have distilled
out of ourselves

and let it course
through our veins
making us tipsy,
on the edge of falling,

our hearts
spilling out
into each other.

STARFISH
—Nick LeForce

I want a new body;
a new dream;
a do-over of the days
I didn’t know how
to love you;

my roaming eyes
were clocked by curls
and curves, while you
wandered over the desert
of my life, seeking
redemption.

Now that the bridge
we couldn’t cross together
has been torn down,
I can only go back
to the place we ended
and look out across
the lost sea, counting
on starfish to teach me
how the missing limb
fills itself in.

___________________

EMPTY AIRWAVES
—Nick LeForce

When the airwaves are silent
and the distance is great,
truth is on a timer.

There are only a few times you
can hit the reset before it burns.

I may excuse my wounded heart
or blame my pace on a limp,
but the door to heaven
does not open unbidden.

The truth is trapped in me,
in my silence, not in the empty
airwaves, while my heart’s affection,
held like a tight bud, hinges on
your sunlight for its flowering.

Will the unspoken then breathe
out of that fragrant blossoming
to bridge the gap? Could I

then lay my body across
the curve of the earth and
open myself up to you?

EVERYWHERE I GO
—Nick LeForce

Every where I go, my heart
is tethered to you.

Your flowering colors,
your native sky,
your flamingo elegance.

Even the sweltering heat
hugging my skin is
the nearness of you,

though I fear my clothes
drenched in sweat
will displease you.

I can think of a thousand
reasons you might turn away
but my heart remains yours.

I’ve already given
all my tomorrows
to the secret heaven
where you flourish.

TRAGEDY
—Ian Copestick, Stoke on Trent, England

My wife's mother, father and brother
All died quite suddenly, within 14 months
Of each other. Not one of them had
What could be called a long illness
Her father went first, of an aneurysm
One day he was fine, the next he was gone
Her mother fell over and broke her hip
That's all, but in hospital she got sepsis
And within a couple of weeks, died a
Horrible death. Her brother was
Diagnosed with cancer and that was it
Two weeks later he was dead.
It's awful that one family can have
So much bad luck. I don't know how
She can keep going, if it was me
I really think I would have killed myself
By now. So, over the last two years
She hasn't been easy to live with
I understand that, of course I do
But when she takes her frustrations
Out on me, it can be incredibly hard
To be the understanding, sympathetic
Guy that I try to be. Tomorrow her
Mother's ashes are to be interred
With her father's. A final goodbye
And then it's all over. The tensions
In our house are high. I try to be on
My best behaviour, really I try.

THREE PLEIADES
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

TIRADE

Toss clichés out of here now!
Throw aside convention and
terminate yesterday’s work.
Today begins new kinds of
thought, new lifelines to the whole
truth that had slipped down between
the stacks and hidden away.

****

SOS

She had danced all day among
stunning whirlpools of loose leaves,
stopping briefly to launch a
study of strange light patterns,
signals of distress from some
stranger caught snugly in a
storm drain deep below her cares.

****

ER

Excavating a splinter:
Easy as ABC, till
excessive plunges under
excruciatingly sore
epidermis raises pain,
exacerbates infection…
Emergency Room, big bill.

CONFORM SCHOOL
—Caschwa

My mother and my mother-in-law were both
left-handed and suffered verbal, physical,
and mental abuse for being so, administered
by teachers, classmates, and older siblings.

At high school, everyone had to smoke, or at
least fake it.

All students were given the same assignments.
Those who didn’t need any instruction or teacher
intervention at all to successfully complete the
assignments were awarded highly treasured
academic and sports scholarships. All the while,
unsung hero teachers worked very hard to help
students who struggled with the assignments, but
the administration only wanted to praise those
teachers whose class scores made the school
look good.

Let us praise the Lord
not the chairman of the board’s
umbilical corrd.

______________________

EMPTY TANK
—Caschwa

To a youthful motorist who possesses precious few
years of living, precious few driving miles, and a
precious few dollars for fuel, running on fumes may
suffice to stand in for the complacency of having a
full tank of gas

“It’s working now, it’s getting me there, this is nothing
I need to prioritize as some kind of emergency.”

Then the needle on the gas gauge sinks below the
“E” level, and the vehicle stops dead in its tracks.

“Damn gas gauge, anyhow!”

Climate change is one
more annoyingly correct
gauge we just ignore.

PRICE-TAG ON THE SKY
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

I hung a
Bright-blue
Price tag
On the sky,
Enticing
Passing
Motorists
To stop
And ask me,
“Why?”

Why, with
The world
Down below,
Already
Bought-out
And owned
By
War-winners,
Financial-sinners
And others
Who never
Touch the sky,

Why, now,
Hang a price-tag
On the sky?

__________________

THE LATEST ACTION MOVIE
—Joseph Nolan

Lots of guns.
Lots of bullets and shooting.
Bang, bang, bang!
Run, run, run!

There’s always a reason
To justify this insanity.
I wish I could remember
What the plot was,

But I really just remember
The guns.

__________________

Today’s LittleNip:

GOLF-BALLS LIKE RAIN
—Joseph Nolan

I live aside
A golf-course
And complain,
About the
Golf-balls
Falling down
Like rain.

My friends
All ask me,
“Why don’t you move?”

I tell them
I’m trying
To find
My groove
Among
The divots
And idiots.

__________________

Good morning and good Monday, as we try to recover from losing an hour to Daylight Savings Time yesterday. And thanks to the fellas whose poems, and the gal whose photos, have started the week out for us in fine fashion, including Nick LeForce, who writes that these poems are from his fifth e-book of love poems, released for Valentine’s Day. Those who wish can download a free copy at www.nickleforce.com/heartbreak/.

Busy week! Poetry events in our area begin tonight at 7:30pm at the Sac. Poetry Center, with Don Schofield and Dennis Hock, plus open mic.

SPC workshops this week include Tuesday Night Workshop for critiquing of poems at the Hart Center (27th and J Sts.) on Tuesday, 7:30-9pm (call Danyen Powell at 530-681-0026 for info); and MarieWriters Generative Writing Workshop at SPC on Wednesday for writing poems, facilitated this week by Ann Michaels, 6-8pm.

Another workshop you might be interested in will take place at Wakamatsu Farm in Placerville on a week from this Sunday, March 24 from 10am-12pm, led by Taylor Graham and Katy Brown. Explore the first Japanese colony farm in North America, then write a poem about it and take photos if you wish. More info and reg. at www.facebook.com/ElDoradoCountyPoetry/photos/a.1238391289535096/2818564331517776/?type=3&theater/.

Also coming up in Placerville: WakamatsuFest150, a four-day celebration in June with four days of poetry including, according to Taylor Graham, “a table within sight of a ‘reflective stage’ for quiet stuff like haiku. Hope to have 2 poets/2 hour-shifts to man the table, get the public involved in writing and performing poetry, writing short poems and ‘wishes’ to hang on the great blue oak ‘wishing tree’, etc. We need signups especially for Friday, June 7 and Sunday, June 9!” More info later on the exact location and how to sign up to help.

This week on Wednesday, March 13, Poetry Off-the-Shelves poetry read-around meets at the El Dorado County Library’s main branch, 345 Fair Lane, Placerville, 5-7pm. On Thursday, Mar. 14, Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe and Juice Bar in Sac., NSAA (Lawrence Dinkins) will read (plus open mic), 8pm.

Then on Friday at noon, join writers at Cafe Bernardo, 234 D St., Davis, for Lunch w/Writers, Poets, and Literature & Language Instructors from 11:45am-1:15pm. Then stay in Davis exploring all day, and later attend The Other Voice (Brad Buchanan and Stuart Canton plus open mic) at 7:30pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Patwin Rd.

On Sunday, also in Davis, the Davis Arts Center Poetry Series presents Mary Mackey plus open mic at 1919 F St., 2pm. Or head up the hill to Diamond Springs, just southeast of Placerville, for Poetry in the Sierra Foothills, 2pm, for eco-poetry with Scott Edward Anderson plus open mic (bring nature poetry, eco-poetry, etc.) at Caffe Santoro (caffesantoro.com/), 493 Pleasant Valley Rd., hosted by Lara Gularte. This is a new venue for an already-establishing reading series (Poetry in Placerville) which has a new name and location, so don’t be confused. Take Hwy 50 to Missouri Flat Rd. (just before Placerville), turn right and follow the road to the end, then turn left. Caffe Santoro (#493) is across from the fire station. More info at www.facebook.com/ElDoradoCountyPoetry/photos/rpp.1237910429583182/2802799406427602/?type=3&theater/.

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.

And check out Kevin Jones’ past-blast at www.facebook.com/100001558935984/videos/396944071138215/?story_fbid=2223853521009924&id=100001558935984/.

—Medusa (Celebrate poetry!)

Spring, thy name is ladybug!
—Anonymous Photo

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.

Eloquence

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

TELLING YOU WHO I AM

i am the child you never knew
half made of all you mean to me
half made of selfishness

i am the little girl with the
pouting mouth and the sulky eyes
that grab at everything they see

i am so old in my young dress
wind taken bows archaic curls
i wonder who my mirror thinks i am

but i am not so old i cannot sign
your faded book with something clever
you can’t even read

i am the angry child at the edge of love
shut out from the playground of my play

hugging some doll till it dies of me
closing its eyes with my fingertips
as i mope away

(first pub. in Charas, 1972)

Promise

RIGHT BEHIND YOU

Mother, I am clambering right behind you
over perilous distance. We are competitors.
Loose stones fall behind us; I mutter and
follow, grabbing at anything.

You laugh and gain a better hold.

If I fall, you will be angry, scold my un-
skilled clumsiness. If you fall, I will have
to hear forever your impossible descent,
our echoes mingling.

___________________

WINTER GHAZAL

I confess my selfishness to you, offer you another
crumble-cooky, some weak but scented tea.

In this light, the room enlarges, grows vague with
thin shadows and that sound that shadows make.

You press me for details. I resist. I have taken down
the mirrors, your face still in them.

In this light, the room darkens, broods. Birds come
out of their cages, fit their own shadows, like belonging.

You talk in monotones, mention cruelties, do not notice
the way I change and no longer fit myself.

In this light, the room compresses and wears an old
      disguise.
I go into one of the cages, balance there in the echoes.

You wallow in the last of the mirrors, fascinated by your
own eyes, which reflect tragedy. You stare and agree.

In this light, the windows hesitate, then spin with
     openness;
the cold air clashes with the warm tearing of the
     curtains.

You play with the words upon your plate, work them
     into a final
cajolement, heavy with threat and innuendo, your own
     confession.

In this light, the room fastens to the clock which has stopped.
The birds are the only memories left. I refuse to mourn them.

You become that photograph on the small table under
     the window,
the rage emptied, the rare soft smile on your face, me beside
     you.

State of Mind

TARIANCE AT A SMALL SIDEWALK CAFÉ

Eating a white dessert, all by myself,
with small red bites of strawberries in it

—rich as a sugar—disguised in many
ways. I savor

the treat, melting against my tongue.
Outside: the threat of rain—

not here yet—at this gray window
with its ominous gathering of clouds

and glassy blur of people. Sated, I linger
over my cup of lukewarm coffee.

Every day I try to diet. When I am thin
again, I may forgive the obesity of tears.

__________________

EFFORTS TO PLEASE

I gave you the yellow bowl
and the yellow cup
with the red design,
but still you were unhappy . . .

I put raisins in your oatmeal
with a dash of nutmeg on the milk,
but still you would not give up
your sadness.

I sang a song and made a speech,
but you were still quarrelsome
and your eyes would not
give up my face.

And I went breaking like a dish
slipped out of
failing hands
and I went crashing to a cry,

so angry now
that both of us,
of your dark moodiness,
could die.

Yesterday

All the sadness is here, in the innuendo,

the sudden gasp at a thought
that will not go away.

an innocence of some dread.
Nothing written out,

as in a script,
only a recognition of a recollection

—too late to avoid,
some complication

that bodes evil, bodes evil.
How can such a misleading thought

quiet such possibility?
Nothing safe now.

Look around.
Feel the surroundings.

Talk it away. You bring it
with you everywhere you go.

It threatens. What was that sound
that sounded like a yes-s......

After “Dolor” by Theodore Roethke

CD Cover: This Perfect World by Freedy Johnston

DANGEROUS TRAVEL
CD Cover: This Perfect World by Freedy Johnston

They told us to stay where we were.
They took our identifications—
our money.

They threatened us with exposure.
They made up lies for this.
They said we were not tourists, we were spies.

They took a photo of us for proof.
They said we must wait until sundown
before leaving the bench—

then walk separate ways
and not look back.
They said we must forget each other.

When we got back to the hotel
there were warnings everywhere…
in the notes…

on the mirror…
No one remembered us.
We had no credentials.

We left separately. We never wrote…
we never mentioned…
we forgot each other.

___________________

THE OLD WARS

Do we forget
how cruel words can be,
our old war has begun again,

with our old threat—
and each becomes the enemy,
the one that war can never mend.

How could we let
love lead us into trickery:
You lose. I lose. Love will not bend.

Boutonniere

GLOBE OF SUMMER SAVED FOR WINTER

It was summer, and there was no cause
to fear the rumor of ice—that old threat—still
used by dire-predictors, weather-people,

people with charts and ways to know such things.
How could we believe such misconception;
the high sun glittered on our bright horizon

in this, our longest summer ever—but,
the ice was quick with sealing. One morning, waking,
we found that we were locked in a time-lost globe,

turned in a winter hand for a staring eye,
shaken until small flakes of white went swirling,
and we lost our connection to each other.

But we control the memory of flowers.
Six frozen birds still fly in our ice sky.

_________________

FROM A FOOL’S MEANDER

A Glosa: Broken is as broken doesn’t
missing’s where the would be wasn’t.
I know broken, I know missing
better than the doves know kissing.
—Scott Michael Taylor

Broken is as broken doesn’t,
oh, yes
mad eyes
bodies
crowding
wanting out of themselves . . .

missing’s where the would be wasn’t.
oh, they
who are
from dreams
from dreams and nightmares . . .

I know broken, I know missing,
the sorting out
of who they are
serious with waiting
they pick me to assemble them
for pity and instruction.

better than the doves know kissing.
they will fade
they will not threaten
they will stay where they are
back in their own
disharmonious existence.

Retrospect

REUNIONS

they danced
upon narrowing lawns

years pulled them back
old lives corrected themselves

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

old lovers loved again
strangers who came remained strangers

nothing is ever the same
some wept at this

some carried
old reasons within them

“old old”
was the name of the next song

the dancers danced again
their shoes lost under chairs and tables

the drifting dancers hung onto the
sloping shoulders of each other

time came back too soon
they went home

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

DOLOR
—Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)

I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.

___________________

A soon-to-be-springtime thank-you to Joyce Odam for her poems dealing with our recent Seed of the Week, "So mad I could..." and her beautiful flowers today! I’m glad she mentioned the Theodore Roethke poem, which I’ve posted as Today's LittleNip. Three forms Joyce mentioned:

Lisana: 3 stanzas of 2/8/8 syllables each
Glosa: see poetscollective.org/poetryforms/glosa-glose-or-gloss
Ghazal: see www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/ghazal

Can't get enough of poetry forms? Check out Robert Lee Brewer's "10 Short Poetic Forms"on Writer's Digest at www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/10-short-poetic-forms/.

Our new Seed of the Week is Blue Sky, White Clouds. 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.

Yesterday I mentioned WakamatsuFest150, saying that they were needing poets to help during their four-day sesquicentennial festival from June 6-9 (especially June 7 and 9). There will be a table within sight of a "reflective stage" for quiet stuff like haiku; we hope to have 2 poets/2-hour shift to man the table, get the public involved in writing and performing poetry, writing short poems and “wishes” to hang on the great blue oak "wishing tree", etc. Taylor Graham writes that poets may contact her at poetspiper@gmail.com/. Here’s a link to the event, which will be held at Wakamatsu Farm, 941 Cold Springs, Rd., Placerville: www.arconservancy.org/wakafest150/.

—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.

—Poems by Ann Wehrman, Sacramento, CA
—Photos by R. Christopher Feldman

TREE SISTER

cold metal bench painted black by the city
trash bin reeks on my left
but early spring breeze
diffuses the smell
sun smiles,
fills late afternoon with warm light
I wait for the bus
for insight, instinct to guide my feet
just beyond the trash bin
grounded in earth bright green
from winter’s heavy rain
slim, strong redwood
dances in the wind
her beautiful plump
deep-green needles softly wave
her greeting opens my sad heart—
companionable presence
bobbing in the breeze
rich plaits tipped in reddish gold
like new seeds glowing in sunlight
like diamonds

Signs

BLACK DESERT NIGHT

You lead me
through black desert night.
Obsidian deep,
the velvet sky blazes
with red, yellow, blue-white stars,
the absent moon fails to guide us.
“Just trust me,” you whisper.

Milk-white, night-opening blossoms
carpet the desert floor,
their faces glow with stellar radiance,
our feet thread carefully through them.
I follow you.

(first pub. in Toyon, Humboldt State University Literary Journal, 2000)

Squirrel

...but that might not have been what you were thinking...

in the photo you took that day
one you sent me after you flew home
squirrel peers out
camouflaged on his perch
twigs festooned with
desert mistletoe
jet eyes like a smile
timid, friendly

inside, teaching yoga class
I’d asked you to join us
or maybe wait at Starbucks down the street
but you chose to wander the park
drinking heady oxygen from the trees
cold, clear air after rain, early January

I wrapped up class
you met me at the door
eyes bright
shy, excited at once

Abstract Starfield

TO FOMALHAUT

oh, solitary one, Fomalhaut
lonely autumn star
what do you feel as time stands still
400 million years or more
in your rainbow-shrouded darkness
time to remember, digest, forgive
time spent alone
at the edge of the world

life proceeds
pleasure, pain tip scales right, left
you remain untouched, silent, alone
will you host new worlds someday
will planets spin around you
will we someday know
your surface skin, your fiery heart
your life-giving warmth
your inevitable cooling and death

(first pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2012)

Poles Abstract

FANCY DANCER
After Claude McKay’s “The Harlem Dancer”

the pole gleams silver
my hand grips it loosely
body jerks, swings around it
keeps careful balance

music beats on
hotter, faster
long hair twists, hips flick
around, around

eager youth approaches
tucks a bill through
sequined straps stretched
tightly across my flesh

I twist away
flash an empty smile
one more dollar
toward the rent

(first pub. in The Matrix, Humboldt State University, 2000)

Desert in Bloom

IN THE GARDEN

The immense pine stands in the center
of a dark green ocean of prayer plants,
their soft, triangular leaves folded in its shadow.

Lofty branches spiral from just above the base,
its trunk spans wide and warm.

I long to run over,
curl up next to its rough wood, and sleep;
I want to come back someday
with my lover,
spend long twilight hours
in this tree’s welcoming lap,
let it warm us throughout the night.

(first pub. in Inside (love poems), Rattlesnake Press, 2011)

Kitchen

Today’s LittleNip:

DINNERS AT NANA’S
—Ann Wehrman

I sit in my room
as Nana cooks,
smell the deep pungency
of sirloin steak broiling,
the crisp, baking
chocolate sweetness
of layer cake
in the oven.
Setting the table,
I notice Pepsi
bubbling over ice,
bright red, plump,
fresh strawberries.
At Nana’s, I am never
made to diet.

__________________

Many thanks to Ann Wehrman today for her fine poetry, and to her friend and Medusa-newcomer Christopher Feldman for his photos! R. Christopher Feldman has been a photographer since he was sixteen and says he should probably be much better at it by now. He has a B.A. in Religious Studies and an M.A. in Asian Cultures with an emphasis on religion & magick in Japanese popular culture, and currently teaches Globalization Studies at a private university. He is a bishop of the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica and has led seminars on esotericism and cultural studies at ecumenical conferences for close to thirty years. Welcome to the Kitchen, Christopher, and don’t be a stranger!

Chris Feldman

Today, 5pm, Poetry Off-the-Shelves meets at the El Dorado County Library on Fair Lane in Placerville; and MarieWriters Generative Writing Workshop meets at Sac. Poetry Center, 6pm, facilitated this week by Ann Michaels.

Tomorrow, another workshop will take place in Sacramento from 11:30am-1:30pm: Wellspring Women’s Writing Workshop will meet at the Wellspring Women’s Center, 3414 4th Av., facilitated by Sue Daly. 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

Ann reads at The Book Collector, 2011

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.

—Anonymous Photo Courtesy of Sue Crisp,

Shingle Springs, CA

—Poems by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

PATCHES
for Sue

No sense getting mad at a gift
from grandfather—family inheritance
of a sort. Humungous piebald,
handsome hunk of horse, way too tall
for you kids. Good enough
on the ground—but on her back, an eight-
second ride and you’d be rodeo queen.
Did you ever stay up that long?
Just mounting was a feat—flashing teeth
and storming hooves.
Once astride, it was whirlaway
to the far end of pasture, Patches trying
every move known to horsedom
to throw you.
Remember that big loud guy
who swore he could ride her? Patches
did a crazy trick with the girth,
he was hanging
upside down headed full tilt
for the gate. But you rode her,
for moments at a time,
like a duty, a quest.
Somehow you survived. After Patches,
all the other stuff fate has thrown
at you—husbands, predatory bosses,
health going south—is just stuff.
Maybe it was Patches who made you
such a tough lady.

NISENAN MEADOW

Sky’s low this morning,
chill wind instead of birdsong
in catkin willow.
Cedar-bark tepees heavy
with silent echo of drums.

WHAT DID I SEE?

Hundreds of tiny wet stars
on the rainy deck this morning?—no,
that’s birdseed scattered by titmouse,
finch, junco at the feeder. Imagine
birds are actually stars flitting in and out
of constellation. That nuthatch,
clinging upside-down to a post, waiting
its turn at the feeder—maybe when it flicks
its quicker-than-blink bright wings
into motion, it’s the newest
heavenly body. Do the dying stars
wish they had wings?

MUSE OF RAINSTORM

Colossal storm in our little canyon. Muse hit the roof like inspiration, sliding down the pitch, singing in the gutters, the whole choir directed by a husky gale. This county doesn’t lie flat or predictable. Were we flooded? Our culverts, meant to transfer Stone Mountain runoff downstream toward the delta—that’s the ideal scheme. Muse has different ideas. Swirls of muddy water with small branches, dead leaves, punctured beach ball, hunter’s decoy (blue-wing teal) from up the hill. All caught at our culverts. Whirlpool rising over driveway. The Muse of Rainstorm makes a mess of a poem, love-hate ode to water in a dry land.

mallard floats on pond—
feathers bright as the morning
after all that rain

TRAMPING SONG

That old Hebrides folk song for walking
our dogs at bedtime, tramping come-along song;
feet keeping the rhythm going—

not a song of parting. Dogs scenting mist
from the pond, as man and frogs sing the tang
of bog and peat; the call of sea and shore

in these foothills so far from ocean.
Call of rain that makes our creek run wild,
singing the chanty of ocean calling its waters.

Tonight it’s raining. After evening’s walk
I’m toweling Loki dry in old russet terrycloth
favored by generations of dogs.

She pushes her face into fabric,
in anticipation of her bedtime biscuit,
and joy of tramping dog-feet on wet soil.

Latches

DON’T GET MAD, GET THINKING
for Latches

So, you unplugged my bread-machine as the loaf was in its final rise. You disconnected my external drive in the midst of a backup. Who do you think you are, stealing a wallet off the table? You, who’d get back in my good graces by tickling my hand with your whiskers. Your seductive purr. Getting mad at you is useless. You just curl up in what was my favorite chair. I take precautions: fortify the bread-maker, do backups behind closed doors. Last night, the last straw. You stole the pen I keep beside the bed for catching scraps of dreams and poems. Yes, I got mad. Then I leashed a new pen to the bedstead by a chain.

inscrutable cat
eyes peer through almost closed lids
innocent cat-nap

Today’s LittleNip:

WATER SONG
—Taylor Graham

Rain carols with rain
as it clears out the gutters,
rushes the dry creek.
Voice of rain is song of praise
where creek becomes the river.

_____________________

Our thanks to Taylor Graham this morning for her fine poems and photos, and to Sue Crisp for hunting up the photo of the horse similar to her Patches! Sign up now for Observing Spring at Wakamatsu Farm: exploring the first Japanese colony in N. America, then writing a poem (and taking photos if you wish) a week from Sunday, March 24, led by Taylor Graham and Katy Brown. Info: www.facebook.com/ElDoradoCountyPoetry/photos/a.1238391289535096/2818564331517776/?type=3&theater/.

Tonight at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento, NSAA will read (plus open mic) at 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

After all that rain…
—Photo by Taylor Graham

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.

godseye

—Poems and Photos by Smith, Cleveland, OH

BIRDWORM

Down and basic
bird wants to eat live worm
worm wants to eat dead bird
ebb and flow
eat and go
gone before you're done
down the throat
through the gut
becoming one with one

Red Tailed Hawk

BIRD BITS

Wake 4:30 every morn
to the sound of music
the programmed A.I. turns on
because wife is Star Trek weird
and thinks this is the way of would.

Get up, pop two Tylenol
give wife her morning pills
whack the cat with the cloth carrot
she loves as she claws the couch
and purrs.

Drink coffee wife made
feed fish
and go out every morning at 7
whatever weather
to feed the little dinosaurs
waiting in the trees.

If it gets below 15 degrees
we feed them twice
cuz life is hard.

The flying dinosaurs
often thank us with song
multitudes of movement
and flashes of red and blue
amidst swallow brown.

And I check for signs of our wild turkey hen
her tracks in the snow
her roosting on our car roof out back
or lately sitting on the front porch
watching the bird feeder.

Recently saw her eating the seed
I pour on the ground
and said "Well hello, good to see you"
she looked at me and went
"Chirrup, chirrup"
which I heard as thank you.

She's been around since August,
chased up from the industrial Flats
by bike path construction.

Last summer she had a hawk companion
who folk thought was hunting her
but I don't think so...
he never attacked,
just stayed nearby, stared.

We three were on the sidewalk out front
by busy West 14th Street
with the turkey 8 feet from me
at one angle
the hawk on the fence 8 feet away
at another angle
hawk and turkey 8 feet apart
at a third
watching each other.

Turkey started into the street traffic
and hawk flew up and chased her back
to the sidewalk
twice.

Later looked out back window
and saw her eating a pigeon
the hawk had caught and decapitated
and dropped for her.

Strange that a pigeon I'd fed
had been killed and fed
to a turkey I fed.

I think he was in love with her.

6 months later hawk's gone
turkey remains
and the little flying dinosaurs
still chirp from the trees
waiting for me
to fill their feeder with seed.

We all bleed in need.

Starrise

Black ice, white ice
color don't matter
just balance

Back of night
requires bone of day
to dream

Brightnight

WAIL SONGS

A trio of wails
—cop siren
—ambulance siren
—fire engine squawk
trail near in night
an angry need and heed of haste
in horror of going there
the horror there
and horror coming back
yet maybe later will be better
who's to judge?
not me

Siren sounds could be
TV, movie, outside under tree
all three
or none
who's to judge?
not me

Someone's broken
some place in flame
blood is token
pain remains aim
in this whale of a wailing game
who's to judge?
not me

I can't live your life
you wouldn't want mine
this whole kit's gone caboodle
we're all dying on the vine
can't stop the avalanche
nor budge current's grudge
but who's to judge?
not me

My Inner Clown

NORTHCOAST WINTER

Driving Cleveland grey
around Dead Man's Curve
in old old cold
the windshield blurs
so I give it a couple sprinkles
and hit the wipers
and vision smears gone
in freeze

Sometimes you do do right
still get done wrong

This Section Closed

Sitting in pre-dawn diner
staring at the SECTION CLOSED sign
hoping I'm on the right side

Redeyez

LADY FROM THE WOULD

A lot of life
there's what I want
and what I get

safe to say
they're seldom the same

but then there's what I didn't want—
a relationship
and what I got—a wife

with a whole nuther life
running around
behind old iron curtains
Marrakech
and Mexican nights

she makes interesting more so
banal cast away
as her surreal floor show holds sway
with camels
coffee mountains
and magic mushrooms if I may

she slipped from the Elf-Woods
stole cross my warning gate
to lick my wounds
and wait

now night is not as long
nor day as loud
in crowd or throng
we sing song
for my green-eyed Lady
lies golden on my mind

Sunburst

DINNER’S SERVED

I lie on my back
in the dead grass dried and wilted
looking for shapes
in the atomic clouds roiling overhead

There—a 3-pointed frog
slowly boiling in its own broth

Here—a cow giving curdled milk
to partial piglets, and Pooh

All around money torn from its treasure
burns slow, and alone

Flesh, formerly firm, flows unfixed

And there, right there
there's a radioactive cloud fish
swimming in the radioactive cloud sea
off the radioactive cloud Fukushima

Bon appetit

Fog-Eye Smith

Today’s LittleNip:

Wife asleep on couch
Cat asleep on wife
Me awake in wonder

—Smith

_____________________

A whopping’ big thank-you to the lively Smith (Steven B. Smith), who sends us his fine poems and artwork today on these Ides of March!

Today at noon, join writers at Cafe Bernardo, 234 D St., Davis, for Lunch w/Writers, Poets, and Literature & Language Instructors from 11:45am-1:15pm. Then stay in Davis exploring all day, and at 7:30pm attend The Other Voice (Brad Buchanan and Stuart Canton plus open mic) at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Patwin Rd., hosted by James Lee Jobe. 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!)

Car Hood Turkey

—Photo by Smith

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.

—Poems by James Lee Jobe, Davis, CA
—Graphics by Zen Monk Thich Nhat Hahn

Up at dawn, editing poems
And listening to Moby’s B-sides.
The moon westers, the air is still.
Outside the redwoods stand like giants
Guarding this old house.
Poem follows poem. Eventually
The sky is a soft blue, like a watercolor.
I have lived 22,775 days.

I dream of the 1959 Baltimore Colts
And owning a themed restaurant.
Also in the dream I have a lover
Who is dissatisfied with life.
I can’t help that, no one can.
Waking up, I decide I want to see the sky,
So I slip into the old Birkenstock sandals
And go out onto the patio, quiet as a cat.
Fluffy clouds, gray and white, cover the sky
And are back-lit by the Waning Gibbous moon,
Almost dead center in the sky. It’s lovely.
Returning inside the old house, I stride,
Now fully awake, to my makeshift desk
And begin to write. 3 am.
A long time until dawn.

Moonlight on the treetops of Davis, California.
It is a light like a diamond shining. Silver white.
The trees are elm, valley oak, pine, mulberry.
There are fruit trees, already harvested in September.
And below these trees the moonlight is filtered, dappled.
Walking between the trees, I very quietly give thanks
For this beauty all around me. The full moon,
The many trees, the way the cycles of life roll on.
Just before I turn for home I hear an owl hoot.
He lives near me, and I often hear him,
But I rarely see him. His voice is like an old friend.
I call out, but he doesn’t answer.

A perfect day in early autumn
And my granddaughter has turned five
With a party in the park.
Pizza, cake, a piñata and presents.
Children running on green grass
Under a cool breeze,
Adults who don’t see each other often
Reuniting, and old friendships continue.
In short, a perfect day.
Later at home I cried for my son,
The uncle who missed the party,
Dead now 536 days. And counting.
He dearly loved both pizza and cake.

Does poetry build extra rooms to the house of my life
Or just fill my rooms with useless objects,
And the more I own, the more I am owned?
Outside the sun toasts the afternoon like a bagel.
I have butter, friend, I have jam.
And I have pen and paper.

The trees listened in as I was talking about poetry,
Dropping their branches down low
As if each limb held an ear.

“What is he saying about poetry?”

That it blesses our lives with a richness
Not found on television or the internet.
Words like music, like honey, like love,
That grab our souls and lift us up
On a magic wind, past the clouds,
Past the sun, and on into the reaches of space.

That’s what I said.

________________

Today’s LittleNip:

North wind in the pines,
A clear, cold sky—
Just a breath of fresh air at midnight.

—James Lee Jobe

________________

Good morning, and thanks to James Lee Jobe for today’s poetry and graphics! James will be hosting Mary Mackey (plus open mic) at the Davis Arts Center Poetry Series on F St. in Davis tomorrow, Sunday, 2pm. 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!)

Midnight Sky
—Anonymous Photo

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.

Those gilt taps…
—Anonymous Photo

THE ELEGANT POEM
(on reading Frederick Seidel)
—Neil Fullwood, Nottingham, England

The poem looks round my house, shakes its opening stanza
Sadly. It says
I need to reacquaint myself with the hoover,
Remind myself
What a chamois leather is for.
The poem amuses itself with some rhymes
For spit and polish,
Elbow grease.
I tell the poem to fuck off,
Adding—before it has chance to take umbrage—
That if it were as elegant
As it likes to pretend
It would have said “expectorate and polish”.

The poem has lived in London and Paris and holidayed
In Dubai
Where the gilt taps
In the hotel lobby men’s room
Could have paid off my mortgage and made my overdraft
A thing of the past.
And don’t get me started
On the poem’s taste in Ducati motorcycles
Or the address of its tailor
Or its cufflinks
Its smoking jacket
Its long thin cigarillos
And the man who comes twice a week to do its cleaning. 
The poem has created itself in its own Anglophile image,
Pure Knightsbridge lifestyle porn.
We’ve had a referendum,
I remind the poem,
And some pretty ugly shit has come to the surface.
The poem professes an academic interest
While affecting disgust.
This is the poem’s modus operandi.
The poem wants to be a renaissance masterpiece
Painted over a dirty picture.
The poem wants to play the Mass in B-Minor
While fucking groupies
And doing arrow-straight lines of coke.

The poem
Wants to tear its clothes off in public
And wallow in the reaction.
The poem
Wants to rut in the mud like a frenzied thing.
The poem
Wants to make a statement to the arresting officer
Using a vocabulary
And a range of erudite references
Designed to belittle him.
The poem
Will accept that it “fell down some stairs”
With the same insouciant indifference.

The poem
Wants a crack at making something noble
And self-serving
Of six hours in a holding cell,
Or at the very least
Will use the time pleasantly to recall
The streets of Baghdad
And something it probably shouldn’t speak of.
The poem
Has committed vile acts but was always
Fashionably dressed.
It takes a last look round my house before it leaves
And uses its closing stanza

To criticise the curtains.

____________________

Top of the morning’ to ye on this, St. Patrick’s Day, and thanks, Neil Fullwood, for your elegant poem! Neil is one of our British SnakePals; he lives in Nottingham, England, but he assures me he is not the Sheriff of Nottingham… Check back into the Kitchen next Friday for more from Neil.

Poetry events in our area today include eco-poet Scott Edward Anderson (plus open mic) at Caffe Santoro in Diamond Springs, 1pm, and Mary Mackey (plus open mic) at Davis Arts Center on F St. in Davis. 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!)

For more about Frederick Seidel, go to www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/frederick-seidel/.

Did St. Patrick really drive the snakes out of Ireland? Click here and see: news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140315-saint-patricks-day-2014-snakes-ireland-nation/.

Blackbird Keeping an Eye on You...

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

RATHER NOT
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

First the monotone of two left feet in
a rental tuxedo, meandering onto a
shiny, hard wood, dance floor

duple and triple meter call out from
the printed score, light years distant
from muscle groups in the legs

the dreaded wall mirror refuses to be
calm and reflective, choosing instead
to send raging waves of discontent

maybe someone will call a bicycle to
comfort this misplaced soul with a nice,
even, level, symmetrical, ride home

the next time an agent of the royal court
comes calling, they can just wait in line
behind blue skies and white clouds

(CS paired up the SOW and Joyce Odam’s

recent reference to “monotone” for this
poem.)

___________________

LIKE A CRUTCH
—Caschwa

Still have a pair of crutches I used
a long time ago, wooden struts with
holes drilled for inserting machine
screws and securing with wing nuts
to adjust the length to your height.
Those crutches hide in the closet,
still set just as I had left them.

Seems like some peoples’ memory
works like those crutches, and once
they experience an image, or event,
or some dialog, it stays there hiding
in their closet just waiting to be
recalled at a later date.

Not so with my memory. Déjà vu is
the best I can do, wondering if I had
ever encountered that notion before,
often having to resort to starting
back at square one.

Sure looks familiar,
maybe I’d seen it before,
maybe on TV.

Quicksand Meadow

PARTY POLITICS
—Caschwa

The main reason I don’t invite Citizens United to
my birthday parties, even though the Supreme
Court has held that they are “people”, is that their
dominant political influence has acted to effectively
siphon off my discretionary funds

denying money to workers who sorely need it so that
more funds are available to honor the woeful cries of
investors whose needs have already been met many
times over

If only a few
words could highlight what is wrong
and fix it also.

__________________

DUST BEWARE!
—Caschwa

Our present pathetic excuse for a POTUS
has created a monumental vacuum in terms
of leadership in plotting a good path to take
to successfully address our most challenging
issues. The quest to go green, for example,
has put core supporters at odds with each
other to articulate
1) our most pressing needs,
2) feasible funding sources
3) a realistic course and timeline to follow, and
4) legislation necessary to get favorable results

We need to impose
liquidated damages
on laws that don’t work

FEEL IT
—Caschwa

A president without poetry is like a grand piano
without strings. From our founding fathers to
today’s assortment of living presidents, ten have
written poetry: Washington, Jefferson, Madison,
J.Q. Adams, Tyler, Lincoln, Grant, Harding, Carter,
and Obama.

On the whole, these poet presidents demonstrated
high regard for reaching out to people, which is the
core of poetic work. They showed the warmth of
sympathetic vibrations with the heartbeat of everyday
people, rather than the fire of war chants fueled by
raw emotion.

The next election,
will we vote for another
poet who feels it?

GUMSHOE CLUES
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

Gumshoes
Draw up
Hidden clues

We fear
Might one day
Show

Subliminal,
Omitted news
We’d rather
Have ignored,

Presenting
Strange anomalies,
Unfortunate,
And more,

If we had our
Druthers,
We’d shove them
Under rugs
Or out our
Back-doors!

__________________

A MIGHTY TIGHT KNOT
—Joseph Nolan

A mighty knot
Of tightness made
Defied the hand
And needed blade
To cut it all
Asunder.

Such a wonder!
How tightly
We might tie
A knot!

The Robins Are Back!

THE AMBIVALENCE OF THE DEAD
—Joseph Nolan

Are the dead
As ambivalent
As the living?
Or have they lost
The need to roast
The living
For their foibles
Since they
Gave up the ghost
Of needing to be
Proper, in line
With a proper line,
And ghosts don’t
Need to work
Overtime?

_________________

OUR BLISS, NOT LESS THAN
OUR EXISTENCE
—Joseph Nolan

It’s useless
To be alive,
To be angry,
To try to find
The meaning of
Existence.

We all grow tired
We all work jobs
We all serve bosses.

We try to
Save our wins
And lose
Our losses.

We range
And feed.
In our private
Moments
We lick
Our painful wounds
And bleed.

We have
No need,
More than this:
To seek
Our bliss,
As though
We were
Not less
Than our
Existence.

________________

Today’s LittleNip:

DUST
—Joseph Nolan

Dust
Only lets light through
If it must;
Otherwise,
In blocking light
It trusts—
Into a gray and hazy
Fuzz.

_____________________

A big, almost-springtime thank-you to today’s contributors! Photographer/poet Katy Brown will be co-leading (with Taylor Graham) a workshop this Sunday at the Wakamatsu Farm in Placerville, starting at 10am: “Capturing Wakamatsu: A Poetry Workshop: Observing Spring at Wakamatsu Farm”. Contact Julie@ARConservancy.org to sign up and for carpool info.

Speaking of Spring, Sunday, April 14, is the deadline for the 10th annual “Art Where Wild Things Are” contest in Sacramento for nature-themed works in all visual art media: paintings, drawings, sculpture, fiber art and photography, hosted by Sacramento Fine Arts Center. Works will be judged and then the winners will be exhibited from May 14-June 2 at the Center. After that, all accepted works, winners or not, will be taken to the June 8 Spring Gala and Auction benefit at Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael for sale. Go to www.sacfinearts.org and click the “Show Entry” link for info and to enter online.

Poetry in our area this week begins tonight at Sac. Poetry Center with Scott Edward Anderson and Alice Pettway, plus open mic, 7:30pm. SPC workshops this week include Tuesday Night Workshop for critiquing of poems at the Hart Center (27th and J Sts.) on Tuesday, 7:30-9pm (call Danyen Powell at 530-681-0026 for info); and MarieWriters Generative Writing Workshop at SPC for writing poems, facilitated this week by Christin O’Cuddehy, 6-8pm.

Thursday will be busy, starting at noon with Third Thursdays at the Central Library (Sacramento Room); then Ladies of the Knight in Yuba City at Justin’s Kitchen, starting at 6:30pm; Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe and Juice Bar in Sacramento, with features and open mic starting at 8pm; and Don Schofield (plus open mic) at Poetry in Davis, John Natsoulas Gallery, also at 8pm.

Saturday at 10am at SPC, Writers on the Air presents The Celtic Hour w/Mary MaGrath, Bob Stanley, Carol Lynn Grellas, Brigid O’Malley, Nick LeForce, harpist Alex ives, plus open mic. Saturday afternoon in Placerville, Poetic License meets at the Placerville Sr. Center lobby, 2pm. 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.

Can’t get enough of President Trump? Books abound, even poetry books, including:

•••The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump by Rbt. Sears: www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Poetry-Donald-Trump-Canons/dp/1786892278/ref=asc_df_1786892278/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312089030079&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10471306352717190300&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9032472&hvtargid=pla-415511088626&psc=1
•••Bigly: Donald Trump in Verse (Make Poetry Great Again) by Rob Long, Ed.: www.amazon.com/Bigly-Donald-Trump-Rob-Long/dp/1621577309/ref=pd_sim_14_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1621577309&pd_rd_r=fb73228a-473b-11e9-969f-a1ee2b4b46aa&pd_rd_w=75wsA&pd_rd_wg=oya4S&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=DA632K78CWE53PR2ZTG1&psc=1&refRID=DA632K78CWE53PR2ZTG1

—Medusa (Celebrate Poetry!

—Anonymous Photo

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.

Blue Sky, White Clouds
—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

WATCHING AND WATCHED
After Edward Mycue, Cover Art for Mindwalking

Black leaves against sky of mottled blue,
small clouds forming—the hour turning
the wrong way on the chalk-white wall,

losing time and meaning, and through the
latticed window an empty face looks down
at the woman fleeing from her dream—

hands held wide with effort to run, pushing
against escape. She turns her head back and
the dream can be seen through her skull—

her head full of bees where the viewed dream
is a black swarm—buzzing with warning:
hurry, hurry, she is about to waken.

Atmosphere

NEW DAY

The sky, filling with morning blue,
a fragile cloud or two, threading.

A sharpness of birdsong penetrating the silence—
brief—and from no distance other than

where it was a startled moment back. Then
that slow, soft tone of whiteness

that takes the place of early blue.  

The way you surrender the owned moment

to the intrusion of sounds and urgencies,
your reluctance to rise from the warm bed,

seductive with comfort, warm around you.
The sky again, gone flat

outside your window measure,
full of daylight now—the clouds

losing their pink direction, taking on
the heavy factory gray

that smudges them. You stretch, and sigh . . .
You look at the clock . . .

Cryptic

DAY OF FALSE LIGHT

Today is a day of false light . . .
day before spring . . .
day of swift clouds . . .
and changing motion.

It has rained.
A small rain. Last night.
It washed my car
and gave the grass reprieve.

I felt a moodiness.
Could not believe my lethargy.
Wasted the hours.
I should have started

some big change—
I felt the thought,
but could not follow.
All day I felt

myself recede
while I watched
the intricate weather
spread its rumor.

Strangely I heard no bird sing
nor felt
its shadow cross my window.
All day

I waited for something
that never came, wanting something
that I could not have,
though I could not find its name.

                                  ________________

                                        KINETIC
                          After Vasarely's Harlequin

                 you are fat balloon   escaped
                         from a circus   waving goodbye

                           you love the diminishing blue sky
                              the clouds you pass through

                           you feel like   a safe childhood dream
                               the same   black edges find you

                          you become    closed pattern of light
                       beloved toy of    darkness

                                  _________________

DRIVING THROUGH THE HILLS

these levels of hills
beyond which reach the sky
and my yen for distance
                   .
one blue upon the other
shades of distance recede into the
pale-to-darkening sky
                   .
the hills come to me now with their
overlapping tones and shadows
old twilight hills that I am watching
                   .
a thin line of river flows up the mountain
leaving behind a small lake
upon which a small island is floating

Surreality

SOMEWHERE, THE LONELINESS
After The Corn Poppy by Kees van Dongen

Wide sweep of wind across cloud-torn sky,

gray upon blue,
wild yellow grasses bending below,

a lone tree struggling in a nearby field—
this is free country,
nothing to surrender or resist,

no bird or sound but the wind.
The day is gathering the hours.
The grass is rustling. Something

must happen, else why are we here,
the only observers, a place of no
landmarks and no roads.

There are many trees like
this lone tree. The clouds turn ragged
and tear through each other, hurrying, hurrying.

Ethereal

THE TURNING

That winter day when we walked in rain
and wind, and I wore a coat, and you wore
a thin white shirt, and our wet hair
flattened to our faces as we leaned

into the elements of our discussion,

and the cold skies moved in heavy
tones of gray—immense and rumorous—
though we were only out for an easy,
winter walk, around the windy, rainy block.

(first pub. in Zambomba online, 2002)

In the Quiet

THE PINK LANDSCAPE
After The Trail by Joan Miro, 1918

That pale stone house between the soft green dis-
tance of those far trees under this generous blue
sky full of nervous clouds—this random vegeta-
tion that tangles and leans—this almost-road that
wanders through it. Here is where we will sort the
morning. Take off your shoes and feel the warm
silt rise; go in a crooked line—whichever way you
choose—but end up at the house. It hasn’t rained
here yet, so the colors sift and fuse to this soft day
of pink sun-shadow where the warm light lies. And
all around us is the silence that I brought you here
to hear—here in the way time does not fly, but waits
for us to catch up with it—here! this here! this now!—
is where we are together. Feel the quiet. Feel the cool.
Feel the promise in the air. Be content with me. No
other time will be this rare.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

TABLE TOP REFLECTION
—Joyce Odam

. . .tree-leaves in table-top reflection
from skylight/upside-down-tree/flut-
tering green sun-light in glass top/
blue sky below . . . pleasant vertigo. . .

___________________

Many thanks to Joyce Odam for serving us a hearty breakfast in the Kitchen today: lots of blue sky and white clouds, our Seed of the Week! Feel the promise in the air! Spring is headed straight toward us!

Our new Seed of the Week is Angry Birds. You can go with the obvious, the cartoon/video game, or you can listen and watch the landscape around you for birds protecting their nests, for example, or chasing cats, or...? 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 (Celebrate Poetry!)

Harlequin

—Painting by Victor Vasarely (1904-1997)

For more about Victor Vasarely, go to

www.artnet.com/artists/victor-vasarely/.

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.

Sunset, Sidney Island
—Photos by John Westling, Placerville, CA
—Poems by Carol Louise Moon, Placerville, CA

EARLY RETIREMENT

This day I go to walk the dog:
it is the edge of dawn,
I with my jogging suit and
he with jog-suit on.

We’ll walk the narrow path
that leads past those who drink
their tea and those who gather
all their gear to go into the sea.

And so we’ll saunter here today,
with cool winds picking up.
Walking slowly to the pier, he
with cap, me with my cup, we’ll

watch the yachts, the fishing boats
the pelicans and gulls. We’ll hear
their cries, the waves that crash,
the clanging of the bells.

But he and I’ll not stay too long,
nor venture very far. We must
go home, and there we’ll watch
the sunset with its fire through
picture windows, nice and warm,
then early we’ll retire.

Columbia Cove

ESTERO BAY

Springtime usually has her way—
as well she has her will.
It’s hot here and the wind is still
on a sea-salt sultry day.

Springtime usually has her way.
Cayucos ‘neath a flowering hill,
a beach town and an calm idyll.
Seashells lie in disarray—

a scattered treasure-chest display.
The lupine found atop the hill
are joined by the merry daffodil
on this idyllic springtime day.

Soaring gulls fly in to play,
to dive, to fish and have their fill.
As well, the pelicans will
surf the waves in this bright bay.

Columbia Cove

SEAWEED

These are not her socks of
blackened green, but her bare
feet that she might feel the sand
between her clumsy toes.

The hair you see is not her hair,
but seaweed lying on the cold, cold
shore. There are bladders, ripe,
on each their rubber ends if you
would care to pop the seaweed bulbs.

Within, is wash to wash your graying
mop—to shampoo with the brackish
ocean tide. Then move along the shore
to find some shells. Of these, then,
make what you would wish. Perhaps
you see her face in this sea star.

Richie

THE OLD SEA CAPTAIN

It was not a dark and stormy night
and the old sea captain was not
on the deck of his ship. He was
at the old Spanish Inn at a table
by himself. I asked him what he
was eating. He said, “Tuna on rye,
coleslaw and a mug of beer.” He
was furiously writing something
on a paper napkin.

“When it’s not a dark and stormy
night,” I asked, “and you’re
not on the deck of your ship,
do you often come to this table?”
‘Though he was busy eating his
tuna on rye, coleslaw and sipping
his mug of beer, he replied that
he liked to sit here and write.

“And, what will you do when
you retire?” I asked.

“If it’s not a dark and stormy
night, and I’m not on the deck
of my ship, I’ll probably come
to this old Spanish Inn and
sit at a table by myself and
order tuna on rye, coleslaw
and a mug of beer. Then I’ll
probably sit and write for
a while. Here’s one I wrote:

It was not a dark and stormy
night, and I was not not on the
deck of my ship. I had come to
this old Spanish Inn to sit
by myself and write at a little
Spanish wooden table. I had
just ordered tuna on rye when
the waitress asked me what
I was doing. I told her I was
retiring and had come to this
inn to sit and write poetry,
repetends mostly."

Seals

Today’s LittleNip:

HARBOR SEALS
—Carol Louise Moon

Two harbor seals
circle our small boat at anchor.
Two harbor seals
whose gray coats glisten like two eels
in this cozy sheltered harbor.
A summer’s day surprise in store—
two harbor seals.

_________________

Our thanks to Carol Louise Moon for these poems from her new series, “The Old Sea Captain”. The photos were taken by photographer John Westling during his voyage in a small fishing boat, circumnavigating Vancouver Island in 2013 with his pal, Richard Golden. He has recently published a novel about the adventure, called Counter Clockwise, which is available on Amazon at www.amazon.com/Counter-Clockwise-Mr-John-Westling/dp/1729298060/.

Tonight from 6-8pm is the weekly MarieWriters Generative Writing Workshop at Sac. Poetry Center, facilitated this week by Laura Martin. 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 the Poetry of the Sea!)

John Westling, Photographer, Writer, Sea Captain

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.

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

WHERE THEY MINED FOR GOLD

a gloss for the goat of Spanish Hill

Sprung from the silence of the hill
He hangs upon the ledge a-glisten.
And his whole body seems to listen.
—Edwin Markham, “The Lizard”

A steeply hard-panned, rutted road
to climb, where miners took their fill
of gold, and left. Yet something lives,
sprung from the silence of the hill—

whether he-goat gone wild, or some
earth spirit no one would christen
with bell or name. Up there, standing,
he hangs upon the ledge a-glisten

with shattered gold quartz, human dreams—
and this: a survey stake lodged in
firm ground. To grade and pave his wild?
And his whole body seems to listen.

BLUE SKY, WHITE CLOUDS

A tree fell root-side up, roots
weathering in air, from rain and sun
unsheltered. And look, a small
creature peeks out at daylight.
A root-piglet, or a small root-dog
in the crown of roots. Its eyes
regard me. “And so,
what are you?” it wants to know.

WILD NATURE’S TRIANGLES

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas,
three wild turkeys paraded the Spring Street
centerline, oblivious to traffic dodging potholes.

Then one morning, only two turkeys,
as if Spring Street were our town’s Bermuda
Triangle. The two stood sentinel, awaiting

a return; finally, calling loud and mournful.
Just two turkeys. In winter rain and fog,
everything but slick pavement disappears.

Now it’s almost spring. Blue skies, white clouds.
Today I hit a pothole to avoid two turkeys:
tom in full tail-fan, the hen with head tucked

demurely or wondering, is this
the only guy left in the world? Have I
no other choice?

THROUGH A BLIND WINDOW

a lisana

Leafless
branches, young oaks awaiting sun
to spring their buds beyond our sight,

and guess
what’s just bursting to be undone
from this closed room as dead as night.

Whiteness!
sparkling clouds on blue sky and one
bird singing up the woods with bright.

LATE WINTER HAIKU

through bare blackberry
bramble whistles a chill wind—
listen, spring’s coming

prints on a dirt road
waffle-tread, cow’s cloven hoof—
so many histories

no wildflowers yet,
buckeye just leafing out—look!
red-bark blossom-bells

white clouds race across
blue sky, whipped by a cold wind—
spring fleeing winter?

on a rainy day
trespassing a vacant lot
daffodils in bloom

BOOK, CAT, COMPUTER

            In the night
his eyes carry him
        to unknown places.
            He is your friend.

—William Carlos Williams, “The Turtle”

I got to the end,
skimming lines and lines—
ink on pages
once crisp white, stained
with fingers briefly
touching a word
caught between covers
left so long
closed on the shelf
in the night.

I was looking
for I didn’t know what.
Part of my brain
skipping from The Turtle
to my cat intent
on dallying
with computer cords
& cables,
scouting dark corners.
His eyes carry him

through office-jungle
to tangle of cords
communicating
energy to
circuit and screen.
What have I to do
with Turtle
but with cat-mind
adventuring
to unknown places?

My kitten, Latches,
with prehensile
ability to
open doors, explore
dark cupboards—nothing
contains him.
His purr might
be the original song,
as the book tells me
He is your friend.

Today’s LittleNip:

WHOSE CHAIR IS IT?
—Taylor Graham

The rocking chair belongs to Latches.
It used to be the man named Hatch’s
chair, but cats take precedence in all
matters from the great to very small.
By the good grace of black cat Latches,
Hatch may sit there in timely snatches
but only with Latches smug in his lap—
both of them snug in the black cat’s nap.

____________________

Our thanks to Taylor Graham for today’s fine poems and photos, including some thoughts about our recent Seed of the Week, Blue Sky, White Clouds. Don’t forget that Taylor will be co-leading a Wakamatsu workshop with Katy Brown this coming Sunday, Mar. 24. Contact Julie@ARConservancy.org to sign up, or call 530-621-1224.

The Spring issue of eco-journal Canary is now available at canarylitmag.org/, celebrating yesterday's Spring Solstice.

Lots to do today in poetry in our area:

•••Starting at noon, Third Thurs. at the Central Library in Sac. meets for a poetry read-around;
•••Ladies of the Knight read in Yuba City at Justin’s Kitchen, starting at 6:30pm;
•••Don Schofield (plus open mic) is featured at Poetry in Davis, John Natsoulas Gallery, 8pm;
•••Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe and Juice Bar has featured readers plus open mic on 16th St. in Sacramento; 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!)

—Anonymous Photo of Anonymous Cat
Caught Reading Human Books in His
Rocking Chair

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.

—Poems by Neil Fullwood, Nottingham, England

—Anonymous Photos

FORECAST

Every single day, hot and sunny. And they love it.
"Isn't it great, every day, hot and sunny?" What
are you, a fucking lizard?
—Bill Hicks

 
Here is your pre-recorded weather forecast,
here is the next twenty-four hours
extrapolated from the lazy predictably of L.A.

Here is meteorology as existentialism—
watch as an indolent front sweeps in,
a graphic pixeling across the map, isobars 
a picture of ennui. Here is another day,
week, month, year, decade of the same.
The Gobi desert considers L.A. and muses

that at least the temperature drops at night.
Humid jungles shake their heads at L.A.,
grateful for their ecosystems’ complexity.

The polar wastes, snowblind against the thought
of L.A., are too busy existing to have an opinion.
The British summer expends its two-day duration

in a beer garden, convinced that L.A.
stands for Luton Airport and all flights
will be grounded next week after an inch of snow.

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem

(The Oldest Pub in England)

EARLY DOORS

 "... the strange career of a personality begins

at five and ends forty minutes later in a fog ..."
—Frank O'Hara

 
My reassembly begins
at five o'clock, the pieces
forged in the white-hot rush
of the me-shaped blur
jetting from office to pub.

Enthusiasm, hammered flat
by eight hours of ennui,
re-inflates. Purpose renews.
I am just moments away
from that first-of-the-day taste.

Fireworks would be appropriate,
a marching band understated.
White-gloved barstaff lining
the entrance, an RAF fly-past.
I'll forego the 21-gun salute.

Give me instead the small ritual
of a pint of ale settling
on the much-swabbed surface
of a bar straight-edged
by a copper rail. Give me

the first sip and the sigh
of appreciation, then the long
satisfying pull and the lip
slicked with foam. Give me
the next forty minutes

and of the fog that follows
let me earn every cubic inch
of its blurry moisture. Of the
slurred words and shuffled steps,
of the hangover now on standby

let me entertain no regret.

Robin Hood and Little John Inn

CHEEKY

You announced it on social media,
a titter-behind-the-hand secret
as public as your privacy settings:

it was Wednesday and you’d had
“a cheeky midweek drink”,
a large G&T on a school night.

A. Cheeky. Midweek. Drink.
A. Singular. I left a comment
about only drinking on a day

with a “Y” in it. Seemed politer
than calling you a friggin’ amateur.
A drink isn’t something I’d call cheeky. 
A cheeky rolled-up twenty
hoovering the fat stash
of some clown who can afford it.

A cheeky lunchtime knee-trembler
against the stationery cupboard,
box files shunting onto Rexel staples.

A cheeky overview of Pornhub’s finest
on the work moby in the team meeting,
#milf bookmarked for later.

A cheeky vindictive prank, maybe,
involving the remains of a kebab
and the boss’s Audi’s upholstery.

A cheeky summons to the HR office,
a cheeky hand gesture, a cheeky
thrown punch, an oh-so-cheeky P45. 
But never—never!—a cheeky drink.
I have too much respect for such things.

The Old Bell Tavern

CEILING

It’s as if the house has been inverted—
a dreamscape rearrangement
or an elaborate camera movement
in a film you caught at a strange hour
one night years ago, the title lost
and Google no help. A film you itch
to see again to recapture that sense
of something truly weird unfurling
from screen to synapse. But all of that
is neither here nor there. It’s the thing
reaching down to grab your attention
that’s got you thinking in terms
of the topsy-turvy. It’s as if the deep
comforting weave of the shag-pile carpet
has flipped up to the ceiling. But this
carpet is no welcoming expanse
that rewards slippers slipped off
and the scrunching of toes. Fronds
is how your mind makes sense of it—
like something wavering slowly
underwater. Murk is how you identify
the hue, eye and brain zipping through
and rejecting any conventional colour chart.
There’s a hint of something moving
behind the surface movement. You’re sure
this is a dream (maybe it was only
yesterday you watched the movie)
but the whole scene is in sharp focus
and there’s no lurching shift into wakefulness
as the thing on the ceiling continues to move.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

There were two Irishmen eating sandwiches in a pub and the landlord said: “You can’t eat your own food in here.” So they swapped sandwiches.

—Frank Carson

___________________

Here’s to Neil Fullwood today for his fine poems and a wink to the wonderful institution of the British local pub! I’ve taken the opportunity to post a few photos of pubs which—I think—are in Nottingham. Just a little Friday trip across the pond. Wish we could share a pint, Neil!

—Medusa (Celebrate Poetry on all the sides of the sea!)

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.

Time for Planting, Yolo County

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

Strong coffee, Thelonious Monk playing solo,
And some poems by W.S. Merwin.
We lost Merwin last week, 91 years old.
He’s been on my mind;
The poetry, his work with the trees,
Restoring a piece of the earth.
And a Buddhist like me.
Keeping his own practice, I’m sure.
I turn off the music and close the book.
I did my morning zazen hours ago,
But another quiet time has come.
I can feel it. Prayer beads
And the Loving Kindness Sutra—
I’ve worked out my own ritual with them.
Praying for W.S. Merwin in the Bardo.

Olive Trees, Yolo County

My skeleton is walking under the valley oaks,
Half past October already,
But the leaves still are green and firm.
Autumn in the Sacramento Valley is brief and late.
My bones move along through the shade.
The leaves will turn and fall soon enough;
Perhaps they are whispering among themselves
And I am not allowed to listen in.
On skeletal feet I move into the pines,
Their green lasts all year. There comes a breeze
And from the pines comes a lovely scent.

Yolo County Countryside

Valley sky. Like a steel sword, silver.
Valley floor. Like a tilled field, rich soil.
Valley man. I haunt the creeks and woods.
Valley poems. Words growing like corn.
Like sunflowers.
And I am here for the harvest.

_________________

“Who were you?” —I ask the younger me.
“You, but not completely,” he says.
I didn’t want to look at him anymore, you know.
I didn’t want to hear his words, as foolish
As I already knew him to be.
Late afternoon. Dust mites
Were floating in the softly sunlit room.

Walnut Trees, Yolo County

I could have spent my life making hammers;
It’s honest work, and someone has to do it.
No crimes are committed in hammer making,
Even the wood is replanted.
And so it might be that as I drive down the valley
I could see a fine house or a tool shed
Build with one of my hammers.
Wouldn’t that be nice? To be a part of someone’s home?
Or maybe a big red barn with the loft open
And a young lad up there,
Forking hay down to the waiting cows,
Sweating even though it is a cool morning
In earliest days of Spring.

Sacramento River, from the Yolo County Bank

Boulders in the shallow water, covered
In clean white snow. The Yuba River
In the depths of winter. The sounds
Of water on rock is as true
As the Dharma. Ssh. Listen.

_________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Let me be small, let me be empty.
That I might be but a breath in the wind.

—James Lee Jobe

_________________

Our thanks to James Lee Jobe for his quiet thoughts and images on a NorCal Saturday.

Starting at 10am today, Writers on the Air presents The Celtic Hour at Sac. Poetry Center, with readers, storytellers, and open mic. Then from 2-4pm, Poetic License poetry read-around meets in Placerville at the Sr. Center. 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

For more about W.S. Merwin, go to www.mauinews.com/news/local-news/2019/03/w-s-merwin-pulitzer-winning-poet-and-peahi-resident-dies/.

W.S. Merwin (1927-2019)
—Photo of Merwin on his land in Hawaii

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.

NOT THIS WORLD
—Joseph Nolan

I can imagine a world in which unicorns exist
And dance across rainbows in the sky,
Where tiny fairies lure children
Away with them, into the woods
To dance around campfires
To the sounds of pipes and flutes until dawn,
But it is not this world.

I can imagine a world where one day
The Left split
And anarchists and communists
Began shooting at each other,
On purpose, for some reason,
Now obscure,
In the Spanish Civil War,
While fascist, Franco,
And the Nationalist forces
Laughed out loud,
And that world is this world.

I can imagine a world where
Trotsky, the leader of the Red Army
In the War of the Whites against the Reds,
Who proved clever enough
To bring the army he led
To victory
Would later be murdered
By an assassin,
Sent by his former comrade,
With an ice-pick in his head,
To die a slow and painful death,
And that world is this one.

I can imagine a world in which
Bolsheviks cannibalized each other
In vast purges
To overcome internal dissension in the Party,
Capitalist Roaders, Revisionists,
Reactionary Elements, Crypto-Monarchists,
And saboteurs,
And war against the Kulaks,
And starve the peasants into submission,
And force them into collective agriculture,
With over three million starved unto death,
And that world is this world.

I can imagine a world in which
God exists,
God, Who Is Love,
Who looks down on our tiny planet
And nurtures each and every living thing,
Where there has never been a war
A genocide or murder,
Or any other form of evil or cruelty,
But that world is not this world.
We live in the other world.

___________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Joseph Nolan for today’s fine poem!

Photos of Pier 39 in San Francisco

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

A DAY I DREAD
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

A somber cup of coffee,
Waiting for
Light to creep in,
In my early morning,
Well before
Dawn begins.

I wish you were
Still with me.
I’d be still
With you,
In bed,
My tender darling,

But I’m alone,
Instead,

With my cup of coffee,
Facing a day I dread!

When I must meet
Your family,

A hearse
And a stone-head!

__________________

ANOTHER DAY BECKONS
—Joseph Nolan

Tomorrow,
Another chance.
Another chance to dance
With a beloved—
Another chance to win
A fine romance!

Tomorrow,
Blessed be the sun
That comes
To bring the day.

Let morning’s virtue
Summon you to greet the
Dawn’s cold fog.
Don’t be a log!

Don’t lie too long,
Lost sideways.
Come away,
From evening’s bed-clothes;
Greet the day!

The day is making way,
As morning
Comes on brightly
Into day.

A WELL-SEASONED PAN
—Joseph Nolan

Heat, grease,
Scraping spatulas,
Scratching spoons,
The slightest taste-remnants
Of a thousand dishes
Cooked well or ill
Over the years,
Darkened into blackness,

A mother’s warm expectancy,
Coaxing things toward edibility,
Hopefully to tasty!
To please the tongues
And gullets of her young,
The fire
Softly burning,
Down below,
Carefully managed,
Periodically observed,
To let it not
Get out of control,
Despite a thousand distractions,

All these things
Go into
A well-seasoned pan.

____________________

TRICKLE-DOWN TALK
—Joseph Nolan

I was the last one she’d tell
The details of her love-life,
But things weren’t going well.

A new one came to visit
When the old one went away,
But the new one didn’t fit so well,
So she had a lot to tell.

So, even I,
Her Mother,
Who’d waited oh-so long!
To hear her open up to me
Finally heard
Her raindrops spatter,
Building, as we took a walk,
Building into little rivers,
Into trickle-down talk.

Seeing a squirming and suffering earthworm
      lying on the cement pavement after a rainstorm
      Makes me hesitate to consider to help
      But then I hear the birds out singing
      And I realize if I send this worm back to the soil
      I will be denying the songbirds a possible meal
      That’s the nature of some things
      So I leave the suffering worm and walk on

—Michelle Kunert

AN EKPHRASTIC POEM, OF SORTS
—Michael Ceraolo, Euclid, OH

Nature is the greatest sculptor:
some of her work permanent,
at least on the human scale,
lasting
thousands or even millions of years;
other of her work temporary,
lasting only a few days
Some of the latter,
in the medium of ice,
were documented by
an enterprising photojournalist
and featured in the local weekly paper

A storm blew across the lake
the third weekend of January,
and
the windswept spray froze on
whatever was handy on the shore
Three interesting pieces were exhibited
near the mouth of the creek:

one,
on the pier,
had
up to six inches of ice in places
on some structures,
with
a white beard on the pier's arch
and icicles of varying lengths
dangling from the pier,
some
even reaching down to the chunks of ice
thrown onto the shore;

one
almost in the shape of a house
in a Gothic horror movie,
but
decorated for the season
with grossly overgrown hanging ice
instead of grossly overgrown vegetation;

and,
on a railing,
ice like
the jagged uneven teeth
of a snow monster with three jaws,
one for each rail
(there may be other rails
cropped out of the photo)

The weather warmed in a few days
and all were gone,
though
they remain in the paper's archives
and in this poem

FLAMING TIKI TORCHES
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

We all know those awful anti-semicolon remarks when we hear them…

To be boldly dangling a split participle, protestors postulate infinitive.

Careful writers pre-position prepositions before reaching the end.

Another form of verbal abuse is to use adverbs but not endorse the product.

I studied self-defense techniques with the help of a personal pronoun.

__________________

COMMON THEME
—Caschwa

Driving around the city, state, and country
I see streets, apartment houses, and gated
communities with names reflecting parts of
the natural beauty of the area, like Meadows,
Vistas, Vineyards, Falls, and such.

The sad truth is that much of that natural beauty
has been literally taken away in favor of real
estate developments, leaving behind only the
pretty names to remind us.

Will this also be the future for our great land of
democracy, freedom, and peace? Will foreign,
corporate investors raze and level Capitol Hill
and replace that prized tract of land with a new
shopping mall/auto mall bearing that name?

ANCIENT MOSH PIT
—Caschwa

Put on your fighting clothes and
grab your killer weapons because
The Cradle of Civilization has
opened up its mosh pit to welcome
visitors of any faith as long as it is
your deepest desire to vanquish
anyone who gets in your way.

One conquest after another has Jews,
Christians, Muslims, and others making
an abundant assortment of holy, smoly
declarations and statements of authority
meant to rid the land of all intruders who
just don’t accept whose truth should rule
the world.

There is only one God, but damnit if we
don’t have thousands of versions and
variations as to which is the highest and
best use of that heavenly domain. So
enjoy your visit, then go home and lick
your wounds.

___________________

BEYOND MAD
—Caschwa

Part and parcel of our constitutional right to
bear arms, the framers explicitly included the
expectation that gun bearers would belong to
a well ordered militia. Giving no support to
the “well ordered” component is like ripping
away the frame from a skyscraper.

So now America is left with gazillions of guns
in the hands of gazillions of people who are
anything but well ordered, and who in turn
leave a deadly trail of misuse, neglect, and
abuse.

The situation has gotten so out of hand, law
enforcement officers routinely presume that
anyone who is acting out of line is likely also
toting a gun.

Case in point: one evening when Sacramento
police responded to complaints of vandalism,
two officers saw the flash of a cell phone in
the subject’s hands and reacted desperately
as if their own lives were about to end in a hail
of gunfire. So they did as they had been duly
trained and “returned” fire, killing the suspect.

Just assigning blame to these two officers will
not solve the larger problem. One way or the
other, we need to enact and enforce effective
gun control laws. End of rant.

__________________

Today’s LittleNip:

STILL NINE
—Joseph Nolan

So many things about which
I stopped thinking
When I was
No older than nine;
Still, that level of thinking
Inhabits my mind.
It takes too much time
To keep thinking.
I’m a little too busy for thinking.
In my world, I’m still nine.

____________________

Our thanks to today’s potpourri of contributors! We’re on the cusp of April, which is National Poetry Month; more about that later. April also includes Earth Day on the 27th, and the calendar has events in Georgetown, Placerville, Sacramento, Davis, Grass Valley and elsewhere. First up, though, on April 6, is Sac. Poetry Center’s Spring Conference, celebrating the Center’s 40th year! (Info/reg: www.facebook.com/events/618295778615337/?notif_t=event_calendar_create&notif_id=1549899549849239/.) And April always brings a plethora of poetry events in our area, too; be sure to let me know (kathykieth@hotmail.com) about yours!

This Week's poetry events in our area begin tonight, 6pm, with Poetry in Motion at the Placerville Sr. Center in Placerville, then continue at Sac. Poetry Center with Gene Berson, Even Lourie, and Judie Rae plus open mic, 7:30pm.

SPC workshops this week include Tuesday Night Workshop for critiquing of poems at the Hart Center (27th and J Sts.) on Tuesday, 7:30-9pm (call Danyen Powell at 530-681-0026 for info); and MarieWriters Generative Writing Workshop on Wednesday at SPC for writing poems, facilitated this week by Christin O’Cuddehy, 6-8pm.

On Friday, SPC presents Sandy McIntosh and Mary Mackey at 6pm, and Speak Up: The Art of Storytelling and Poetry meets at 7pm at The Avid Reader in Sacramento. Then on Saturday, The Soft Offs present An Evening of Moetry as a fundraiser for SPC, 25th & R Sts., Sac. 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.

Last Friday, Neil Fullwood visited the Kitchen, and I posted photos of pubs from his hometown of Nottingham, England, saying I hoped I had gotten them all correct. Neil writes back, “Yes, all of them are still open and serving pints. I thought I’d send you a more recent photograph of the Robin Hood and Little John Inn, in the suburb of Arnold, only a mile or two from where I live.” So check out the photo below for Neil’s update picture of the R.H. and Little John. And thanks, Neil!

—Medusa (Celebrate Poetry!)

Robin Hood (and) Little John, Arnold, England

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 Gang's All Here

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THE ALL-NIGHT BIRDS

All night the birds
sang against the carrying dark,
sang for themselves and each other;
sang against my sequestered heart—
bittersweet with listening. They
sang for their love

and not for mine.
Mine had been surrendered to some
lost song—kept in the sheltered dark
in a little dark box that lay
in a safe place . . . in a safe place . . .
in a safe place.

(first pub. in Ship of Fools, 2003)

Burgundy Wine

ON DREAMS
After Birds and Flowers by Shen Chuan
(c. 1682-1760)
(Two Butterflies on Lilies)

At night, on the dream river,
where has sleep taken me?
What is meant by waking?

I have been of two lives—
bewildered in both.
At night—on the dream river,

I meet another self,
with passage between the two.
Then what is meant by waking?

If one becomes the stronger,
does one release the other,
created by night’s twisting river?

Should I not want to return,
would something still hold me?
What, then, is meant by waking?

If I had a choice,
would something relinquish me?
At night—on the disturbed river—
would there be a waking?

Beulah and Rose

TIME AS A PAGE WITH NOTHING ON IT

This is the sky of winter—this slow and heavy
gray, with its weight of ghostly birds that sift
into each other’s cries—and lose their way.

___________________

THE WINTER BIRDS FLY NEAR
After Pleasure 1926 by René Magritte

Nothing is certain, though the birds are significant, and
the girl is mysterious. And the tree. The sky is merely a
backdrop. It means nothing. There is no explanation.
The girl is emotionless, examining the bird in her hands
that has quit flailing its wings. Hunger is suggested. Or
even a disinterest beyond the moment. Behind her, the
tree moves a bit, an illusion to establish her stillness,
which is absolute. Her eyes are expressionless, looking
down at the bird. The other birds freeze into meaning.
The sky moves, shifting the white clouds around. The
tree darkens. The birds shift into shadow. The girl can-
not stop looking at the bird in its frozen helplessness.

Maisie and Daisy

STIRRINGS
After Peaceful Harbor by Kathy Mitchell (Mouth Painter)

In a little sea-town, the white boats; only their reflections
move with the deep movement of the water. Diluted colors
take on the floating colors of the sky; match the strange
absence of sound in the indeterminate hour. Is this a mirage
of memory—a stopping of time that waits for this? Why
such stillness? Why such quiet: where are the people; where
are the birds; where the slow-moving shapes of fish in their
element, swimming through the white clouds and the shim-
mering masts with no curiosity? Who but the very patiently
dedicated could capture all I remember from that long ago?
I grow homesick for the reality in the mirage.

Purple Number Five

BIRDLESS SKIES

In little steps across the day—small
measurements to mark the way from
wing to shadow in helpless flutter,
for the dream that’s ever waiting there . . .

The birdless days (which days are they)
are seasonless, or not yet here.
We check our sadness. All we wanted
was to fly in the heavy, laden sky.

Love was spent on little wars, the ones that
grieve for centuries. The devastations were
extreme. We tried to blame it on the dream.
It was the hopeless. Hope was ours.

Today the birds returned. The trees
exulted with their singing. Once more
we listen, listen loudly. All we wanted
was their being—all we wanted all along.

_________________

BOY DRAWING WHITE BIRDS

He draws a pair of white birds in the air.
They do not fly away. He has them trained.
They simply rise and hover and as keeps them
frozen there—yet fears their vacant eyes.

The day is white—a blank page for his art;
the art is his : he lets them come alive—
to feel their lift. He adds migrating swans
to free his heart and give life ownership.

Last Call

NOT QUITE SO
After Young Girl Writing at Her Desk with Birds
                       —Painting by Henriette Brown

Let not the cage
confine the thought, door open,
bird released, much like a poem, uncaught.

To trick the word, prepare another word.
Coax it. Let it surprise.
Say thank you.

Begin with daydream. Begin with stare.
Begin with pen raised over page.
Wait for page to rustle with excitement.

The page lies flat. Refuses. Songbird
becomes Muse—pulls your attention
to its nearness—does not sing.

The cage hangs on the wall,
shares its emptiness with the quiet room.
Song waits. Poem waits. They will happen.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THE CIRCLING BIRDS
After Bald Mountain by
Herbert Saslow, 1920 (American )

      birds of pure light
       claim two trees
     on a desolate peak

           *   *   *

   sheer rock mountain
       offers two trees
    to the birds of light

____________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam as she sends her birds soaring in our Seed of the Week, Blue Skies, White Clouds. Our new Seed of the Week is an ekphrastic one; see the photo below. And don’t forget to think metaphorically: wearing many hats, hat in the ring, and so on. (Remember “she set her cap for him”?) 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

This Week’s Seed of the Week.

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.

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

—Anonymous Photos (and no, this is not Ryan...)

SILLY POPEYE ARMS

It is winter in the arctic north.
I am shovelling almost every other day.
Plugging the truck into the house
so it will start in the morning.

And the snow just keeps piling up.
No need for gym pass.
I have these silly Popeye arms
from taking my shovel
and building 12-ft. walls of snow.

And ramming an ice breaker into the end of the drive.
Slamming it down into a glacier of ice for
almost an hour trying to keep the path open.

And when she gets home,
she compliments my efforts.
Knows the fingers at the end of these arms
are built on endurance.

Which women love
more than anything else.

Lasting power
and all those silly Popeye
muscles which they squeeze
in horny disbelief

while you
sleep.

UMBRELLA

Sentimentality,
how nice,
an umbrella should be there
to catch the rain

or that storefront awning
you crowd under
sharing an awkward
laugh

everyone checking their phones
pretending to be somewhere
else

but there is always a talker
in the bunch

it’s verbal torture
until a few just run out
deciding to brave
the rains

and the ones left behind
are jealous
but they are cowards

so they stand still as statues
hoping everyone will forget they
are even there.

TOTEM PHASE

Things realized, I need a trophy.
Something to hold over my head
like raising my arms
from the dead.

Trophies with the small plastic likeness
of a baseball player at bat
or some other stupid rendering
that helps you return

over and over
again.

To that time
when you were
on top.

Of course it’s ego.
Show me a single human
being that doesn’t
have it.

Even in some small measure.

You should see all my trophies.
I was really good at sports
when I was
young.

THE POACHER

sits
in the tall grass
for a long
time

playing with the scope

until everything
is right

taking the shot
when he
has it

before posing
for pictures

with the
kill.

WHAT THE THEATER SAYS ABOUT STAGES

You knew Ibsen was coming from the left
of everything
and still the many right-handers all
lined up
with ticket in wrong hand
screaming their seats back to life

Tennessee Williams
in love with his own sister
but no one seemed to care
as long as there were streetcars
to catch and places to go

Harold Pinter pissing everyone off
with his conscientious Hackney objections,
hiding his Hothouse in a tiny desk of absurdism
for 22 years

the many rootless characters of Sam Shepard
like rotten vegetables torn from a
screaming garden

Strindberg always making everything so personal,
the firing squads of Europe could never understand that

Dumas with that absurdly fat face
and ridiculous crumpled
bow tie

lose the scarf, Genet,
we can’t see your heaving barrel chest
from the balcony

Comrade Brecht,
I guess the revolution
has to start somewhere
and the playwright
too

Chekhov waiting in the wings
of flightless birds

George Bernard Shaw
losing the George
to a basket of props

all those masks and gestures and lines
each night

cues and lighting and Xs taped to the creaky
stage floor so transformation knows
where to begin

and the critics, don’t forget them,
always bringing old age
to the baby shower.

SINGLE BLUE MILK CRATE

We started so early
the sun was still and hour away
and they made me sit on this single
blue milk crate in the back of the
work van that threw me around
with each sharp turn because
they wouldn’t slow down and needed
to have their fun and at the end of the day
I would wind all the muddy power cords
around my arms and climb into the back
of the van with them, trying to hold the
bottom of the blue milk crate still
with my hands as my tired bones were
tossed around the back of the van
all over again.

CAR IN THE DITCH OUTSIDE THESSALON

We are driving back in from the border.
There is a car in the ditch outside Thessalon.
A body still inside.
No one appears to be injured.

The police are on the scene.
One cruiser pulled over onto the shoulder
with its lights flashing.

There is a light snow.
Nothing serious

How did the car get into the ditch?
I ask my wife.

I don’t know,
she says.

Look, the snowbank is perfectly intact.
It should be run through with tracks
or some impact but there is nothing.

Just the car in the ditch.
And no other sign that it went
off the road at all.

I’ve never seen that before,
says my wife.

Me neither,
I say.

It’s very strange.

Later outside Blind River
we get stuck behind the
road salter.

We are very tired from driving.
Down to one lane.
Brought to a crawl.

Watching the salty pebbles bounce up
off the pavement.

Animal tracks in the snow
from the night before.

Still an hour from home.
A Conga line of cars behind us.
Twenty deep or more.

The radio turned off with impatience.
Crawling along in silence.

Two chips in the windshield
on the driver’s side.

________________________

Today’s LittleNip:

ACTIVITY
—Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Brain activity

hyperactivity

learn an activity

suspicious activity

paranormal activity

seismic activity

gang activity

physical activity

finish an activity
like this.

________________________

Many, many thanks to Ryan Flanagan for his poems, including today’s taste of snow and the hard work it takes to live in it.

Don’t forget tonight’s MarieWriters Workshop at Sac. Poetry Center, 6-8pm, facilitated this week by Christin O’Cuddehy. 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

Writing Poems...

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.

Danciful Days

What Do You Love?

God of the Dogwood

Cracking Open The World

The Obesity of Tears

Leading Me Through the Desert

All That Rain!

Becoming One With One

Words Like Music, Like Honey, Like Love

The Elegant Poem

Dancing and Dust

A Sharpness of Birdsong

Sea-salt, Seaweed, and Seaworthy

Springing From The Silence

Cheeky

Praying for Merwin in the Bardo

Not This World

Tomorrow, Another Chance

Birds of Light

Working On Those Popeyes