Medusa's Kitchen

—Anonymous Photo

EVER GREEN EYES
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

I love to call them evergreens
because they’re ever green.

The crimson sweater that you wear—
the redness of your orange hair—
contrast to make your green eyes seem
to light up, sparkle, glow and gleam.

I love to spend these days with you,
to see you through my eyes of blue.

_______________________

SQUEAKY GREEN TENNIS SHOES
—Carol Louise Moon

the wrapping around in amplitude,
soft caveability dental-flossed into place,
snug; stair-stepping synchrony:
satisfying

cradled in rubber as if flotation were
imminent; with ease upon bending
of particles, the meeting of hard surfaces
and portions of biosphere—which rock
and teeter the tennis

flexible foot armor, and more—
Kenpo ease of ankle joints
deflecting, rolling, but otherwise
Jarring movements

a quoish sound emitted when
passing through grassy plains:
satisfying enough

but when pushed to urban concrete
or kitchen tiles with ear-wreaking racket
at alternating intervals:
enough to annoy.

__________________________

HAVING NO RECOURSE BUT TO PULL A PRANK
—Carol Louise Moon

So, I threw the curly-haired decoy dog
into the neighborhood street
right in front of the speeder and cried,
“My baby, my baby. What have you done
to my doggie?”

“And, I hope you have insurance…
which is beside the point.
You’ve hit my dog so hard he is no longer
human, and you are not human, speeding
through our quiet neighborhood
on a murder mission. And now,
you’ve done it, you’ve murdered a
Miniature Maltese Mix Mutt.”

“Never mind viewing the gore. I’ll wrap
him quickly in this blood-spattered blanket,
whisk him away, and bury him neatly
under the myrtle before the sun goes down.
That’ll teach you not to speed out here
where the sign is clearly posted
15 mph—Please!”

_________________________

I HAD SOUGHT OUT THE COMPANY OF MIMES,

… having grown tired of the poets.
The mimes I had thought to be
a controlled bunch:

no blurting out poetry prompts
no telling me where to end my poem
no asking me to speak up
no suggesting submission guidelines
with strict limitations.

I was right.
Mimes could say it all with just one
gesture, just one glance, one frown:

“What? You actually think
you’re a poet?”

—Carol Louise Moon

—Photo by Taylor Graham, Placerville

DEATH OF GREEN  

—Taylor Graham

Where will the lovely blue oaks & sweet beasts go?
—Tom Goff

  Past the freeway grade, through hills March-

 green, grasses bending to wind rich with distant

 news—but soon to parch, this grass; the hill

 leveled and ditched, paved. Houses buil

t  where once my dog head-high would cruise 

the wind, would range ahead, out of sight, above 

fog, searching for the lost. Now, how strange

 to see earthmovers, survey stakes. The hill is lost

  to condo homes. How progress fences, parcels,

 takes the spirit’s freedom-scape to roam.

 Our puppy in the other room 

sings dirge for green in briefest bloom.

________________________

A DREAM?
—Taylor Graham

Look! Choppers flying in formation
over the desert floor, through sawtooth gaps
between black cinder cones. Even in this season,
just after dawn, the sun is lethal.
One chopper to our left at 10 o’clock, one
to our right at 2, more coming from the north,
staggered like birds in flight, a dance
with high-desert clouds. From each uniform-
drab chopper, a cable hooked to a beautiful fruit
gold as paradise; each chopper a bird of pray-
for-peace, rescue under sky of clouds and flocks,
the hazards of weather over bare desert
on a spinning globe, sun and wind
moving toward their imagined horizons.

________________________

ANOTHER MORNING

—Taylor Graham

Downpour of water from the tap. Dishwasher
hums counterpoint functionality to the fridge,
a song of lasting love till it runs out of
warranty—gone chill, or tepid (just listen to
celebrity-gossip on the morning news, stranger
than sea-creatures); song of love mottled
and familiar as window that won’t scrub clean
in spite of all the products on TV; curtains
faded— but look, beyond the pane
the world’s gone green and leafy, Blackbird’s
singing from a crown of oak, the Midas sun
touches every growing tip with gold; and spring
lambs practice their highest leaps, uncalculating
gambols with life.

Water
—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

AN ORACLE
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole

What an honor
when you open to me
as if I were an oracle
on an ancient road
to Athens or Rome—
your journey's pause
for a lighter load.

A listener, I remain
silent until a fountain
of shared secrets rises
and falls between us—
brackish water in our wells
replenished drop by drop
with freshest of waters.

________________________

NO PASSPORT NEEDED
—Claire J. Baker

Come, let us join
the multitudes
on the journey
toward peace.

We, the people,
motley, memorable,
poised, unprepared,
gay, and not so happy,
handicapped and holy,
varying
yet all the same—
getting out of
our own way.

No tether, weather
or war can hinder
our journey,
our passage.

Peaceably we go,
peacefully we stay.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

IN SEASON
—Claire J. Baker

Almond
blossoms:
snowflakes
as
flowers.

______________________

—Medusa, thanking today's contributors and noting that the latest issue of Canary, the Bay Area's environmental poetry journal, is now online at www.hippocketpress.org/canary

Green Dots
—Photo by Katy Brown

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

MORNING SOUNDS AND COLORS

Mauve-gray
of pre-dawn
just after night’s blue rain.

Winds of no color
break through the night,
sending the dark green trees
and leaves into a flurry.

Even so,
small chirping sounds
of softest yellow
burst here and there.

A squirrel scampers
along a frail board fence
outside the listening window.

I hear all this through
a slow, reluctant waking,
gray threads
of dream-fragments tearing away.

Then comes
the soft gray blue
of morning : 6:00 a.m.
Just like the clock dial said.

________________________

HAPPY

The way everything changes color
when you look at it again, like shades
of turning light on the second day of spring,

like old moods gone crazy, becoming
new things. A boy holds a colored scarf
in his mind. It flickers orange, then blue.

His small dog dances on hind legs.
The rain patters around them and bounces off
his green umbrella.

Under his feet the small lake forms
and invites him to splash. His shiny yellow boots
stand upside down in the water,

and he is happy. A mauve shadow
passes over and becomes a menace.
The boy is stuck in his puddle

and the small dog is trying to beg.
The boy holds a purple world in his hands
and looks for an opening in it.

His face is turned away to his new divining.
Somehow the day contains all this
on a single page; it flutters loose then turns into

a small paper boat that drifts away…
like the wish… like the dream…
like the thing come true in the small boy’s wish.

THE GREEN WOMAN

How serenely she wears
the art of the painter’s hand
who painted her all green—

or is it the deception of light
turning her into
a numinous map of the sea

that follows her contours
with shapes and symbols
of intricate design—

even to the closed mouth
and eyelids, the hair sculpted
into deep waves: how

ever swim back now
to the real
and lose all this… how

ever clothe, and hide
the breathing design of her body,
so perfectly stained…

________________________

THE SMOOTHNESS OF THE DANCE
After "Lines & Spaces" by Cynthia Hurtubis

And there are myths to be gotten over.
New ones to make up.
Tragedies to memorize, with their betrayals and…

it is a dance, never finished,
columns of light to glide between, distances
to measure, why not just let…

let’s take, for instance, green—a sky of it,
a wash of light, a suggestion
of birds lifting up in rainy conversations that…

‘trail’… is that the word you mean? Those blotches
are barriers. They could be anything that impedes
the dance, which is the metaphor here, as if…

smears of light are to be considered,
how they relate,
and the mystery of the four dark barriers…

gates?
brush strokes?
a reflection of yellow, like water-shimmer in…?

a square room, without windows or doors;
a dance floor; all those green shadows of movement,
other dancers with their invisible presences…

besides, there were five—five darks;
the blur hides one. You are to be forgiven—
you with your impatient eyes. Why do we always…

keep these shadows for reminders;
How perfect you are in this light; how beautifully
we dance together in our different rememberings.

OF SUCH SAFE GREEN

I drag some beauty past your eyes,
some little laugh,
some tease.

It is not easy for me.
I am locked within the
anxious habit of our lives.

I’ve no more newness
in my smile.
My love’s a safe place for your own.

*

I want to change the danger of our days.
I try another path—
get lost—turn back—
your eyes are there,
continuing their dark.

You drag a bullet through the air
to kill some bird against the grass.
He flies away.
I croon my sympathy to each of you.

*

I wish I were a stranger to us both,
someone with large commandments,
easy ways,
with eyes that didn’t go
so deep as mine.

I give up the charade of trying to please,
undo my happiness
like some flown bird
who left the frightened sound
of such safe green.

THE UNEASY HOUR
After "Piranha Alley" by Ben Kaja

A basement window.
An alcove doorway.
The sallow green of city dusk.

Old writings on the door.
A dim light from the window.
Shadowy motion in the street.

Someone lives behind the door.
Someone stares up through the
basement window.

Something will happen here.
It is too soon.
Let us not tempt fate.

Footsteps on the sidewalk.
Then and now.
Never and not yet.

Sounds caution down to hear echoes.
There are none. Someone completes
the detour by turning the corner.

________________________

BETRAYALS

It is enough—all of it felt at once :
joy and anger—relief—the unwinding word.
How strong the yearn.

And what does the yearn want—
something that it can’t have—something that it
does not know—whatever else is true.

There is nothing here.
Let us go somewhere else,
enter somebody else’s poem with our words for it.

Look how the light
shines green through these trees at night,
how we walk under them, wrapped in green shadows.

Green night birds sing
(or is it only our thought of them)
it was summer when we loved.

Mirrors loved us—
mirrors with their impossible perfection.
Should we have warned each other?

A long train came through the years
on its reverberating tracks,
always in some small hour toward morning.

One of us was always on it,
leaving the other caught in the different dream,
unaware of such travel.

IN THE GREENHOUSE
(Theodore Roethke)

Imagine the long dark of morning, the slithering aside,
the soundless whisperings heard above growing :

The ghost : come from the skeleton, come from the
flesh, come un-weighted by all, save death, moving
in deep sea-rhythm, made of the same stuff as wind,
looking around with new force—being both seed and
withered conclusion, both orchid and moss—moving
now to the source of love : Memory and its rhyme . . . .

Looking toward the glass distortion to the sky
(made of that light) the images in the glass :
Fragmented eyes that are green, struck blind by light,
glancings of time in shock-value of
timelessness . . . turning that look aside . . .

so out of death (whatever death is) the ghost, male
and aware, knows all that it gave old questions to,
dreaming back to all the error and concern—
teaching again, whatever next comes to learn :
All that moves here—all that is alive in the
grave-like dark, damp as a forest—are
transmutations, in stubborn life (whatever life is)

celebrating this most perfect place that is
everywhere, but here most especially :
Ghost of Roethke—putting it all back—
whatever was out of order—whatever was harmed.

__________________________

Today's LittleNip:

GREEN TWILIGHT

what am I looking through :
far from my face

leaves
growing out of the mirror

the window behind them
reflecting twilight

I am so still the leaves begin to move
in the still room

for what do I yearn?
my unhappy face

caught in leafy green light
the room empty except for this

except for the leaves

_________________________

—Medusa, thanking Joyce for today's toothsome titillations in the Kitchen today, and noting that our new Seed of the Week is Obsessions, Sweet and Otherwise. Tell us about your own obsessions in poetry, photos and artwork and send it all to kathykieth@hotmail.com/. No deadline on SOWs.

—Poems and Photos by Martie Ingebretsen, Sacramento

POPPIES' FICKLE ROAD

Sturdy         yet fragile
a face of grace
holding on to air that moves
petals like wings
she loves wind’s hands upon her face
but with tenacity's fingers
crumbling clods to slowly build gates
listening she yearns toward the road the river takes
wanting to travel someplace unnamed      like him
to follow the sound he makes        her whim
maybe a mean wind she thinks could take one small part
an orange piece of heart
that could go with the flow
even where cement would ransom beauty
into the arms of the sea
but she turns away instead
to dance naked with the tree
one arm still holding tenacity.

JASMINE

The earth has breath night-blooming
so fair her night turns light within

Through the heat of day she has waited
the changing
then finds some sleep-drenched man
half undone wanting

The light of air so sweetly seeds discovery
no moon will despair the grace one gives another

She appears with her shiver true
and topples the fence and the window screen
following the sheets in rumpled sleep to a dream
I dream of you

With her instinct made from purity
she knows that distance is man-made
and so she magic-melds both time and place
making together lift the longing
with just one breath

IRRIGATING ARID ARIAS

In it comes
(the window like a welcome)
the Santa Ana of the day sky warm
across my resting skin
hot tub breath of healing

He wakes me to my might
a touch that I dream about
is the music playing in my hair
if I could just reach far enough
light sound laughter all singing there

The sunflowers are thinking water
I can hear them grumble
speaking in yellow,
the dirt loves the hose
where a tiny trickle of neglect
is like a mountain stream
to its need

Watch him like a rock to my river
calling to me from within my own neglect
I can feel it running up into me
and I am wet again with love

I will be the queen today
and witness the subjects of my crown
all nestled around the sprinkler,
oh, the power!
to turn it on just right
and waste not the precious secret
of blooming

The wind knows the curves within me
and his power folds my bones
until I am sky too
blowing beloved into trees

SLEEPING WITH THE GARDEN GOD

Into tendril I eclipse and more
And lit to fond with color blue adorn
The sky a dye of time and also magic
Beaming with bees I lay down with romantic

Close my eyes now into slivered moon
I’ll untie each celestial ribbon soon
While night and shadows hold me in my sleep
Knowing we are only in a prison when we keep
Our feet from feeling earth as opening gate
Into the pulse of mighty music’s till
A song from bless of meadow’s lift and still

The stroke of air is changed within this place
And breathing is the beat within the sound
Where peace distributes moisture to the glade
And I pressed to the garden god am made

With the love made sweet in time ecstatic
I'll cover each bulb to cool in time elastic
They'll open green and graceful
Colors blooming from the dirt
The wonder of this pleasure is
This birthing does not hurt

_________________________

Today's LittleNip:

MEADOW

A meadow of winged monarchs
and bloomed-out purple
withered upright
faded to periwinkle iris

I would bed with such color
bogged and drowning green
breezed with wild rose

Listened stream of riffled rocks
I am song too

________________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Martie for today's poems and pix!

...Upon Which So Much Depends...

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

POTENTIAL

Expecting so much from life
as the sun began
this morning
the possibility of early spring,
a sight of a pandemonium of birds
on the birches
a day of green expectations
everywhere in a melee of joy
even in our deconstructed time
that language will conceive music
from its existentially dormant potency
undisclosed from winter blues
there is a flurry of hope
in the windy air,
a love potion on everyone's lips
a marathon to be completed
and a hundred lines of poetry
on a free press
running through
our earth-wise world to be heard.

____________________

HESITATION

At the glass window
a once-daydreaming student
now twenty-five
and endeared to poetry
hesitates to put on
her brand new skates
until she reaches
a blind blue hill rink
invisible to the quarry,
as a visitor of graffiti whispers
in the wind as he initials
the local Elm
marked above her
that he, her former tutor
in the language department
is in love with nature forever
waits by the tallest tree
near the clearing woodland
frozen in ether
with a photograph
from winter's last welcome
of bears and foxes
now has written all over a branch
of a hundred-year elm
his new poetic lines
and waiting for her to skate
at the annotated spring.

SAN FRANCISCO BLUES

Not expecting to go back
to the features of the '90's
expecting awareness
of a Beat poet's adventure
enamored of enchanted
words taken off City Lights shelves
my posthumous self declined
like a quivering expression
from a straitjacket gesture
and jackbooted memory
still frozen from my urban read
a brother still in the shivers
of alley darkness
with an apotheosis of my sax
blown on the streets
and park bandstands
embracing a life's work
in a Whitman existence
prepared on the night sands
of Venice Beach
by secret slopes as life stops
for love making everything new.

_____________________

WHITMAN

You managed to arrive
early in my life
while budding ideals
surfaced along two Coasts
in subterranean joys
as I climbed up to dive
in a flow of ocean
having traveled
cross-country
having cut short
all circuits
to my becoming a poet
surrounded by birds and fauna.

____________________

IRISH BREAD

Mary, the earth was not singing
through lilting melodies
of cloudy melancholy or dance
on St. Patrick's day, 1966
when you made Irish bread
for us in an impoverished March,
after your two sons were drafted
sent away by Uncle Sam
to a far country
sister tracing in school on a map
a worn-out distant Vietnam
yet rays of first light appeared
on your closed showery window pane
through your hope chest
and fragile furniture desk
where we read Ulysses
of James Joyce in secret
writing in my three-storied novella
the hearth riddles and tales
in the clutch of spinning
top of the morning greetings
between the bread and wine
lids of potato skin and corned beef
at last celebrating peace
in bottles near the sacristy
doomed to a mother's capacity
for love and trembling faith
in a world of home bound magpies.

IDENTITY POLITICS, 1970

I can't tell what you are
or who you are
trembling inside
your foreign tongue
words move me
from your harried fingertips
outside your managed pretenders
who escorted and extorted us
in the ways of conversing
bridging the love gap
of a decade's surprises
crossing a court of thresholds
of blind dates.

______________________

LIFEGUARD

Chuck, the life guard
now far away in Frisco
saved sister
from drowning
she was a rainbow to us
when we were nine
dropped into a bloodshot world
from a diving board
all of us only small bodies
that summer of haunting shadows
needing rescue, drafted to 'Nam
we even named our cat Chuckie
after you.

_____________________

I.D.

I.D. lost
no passport
only a transport to death
on Good Friday,1945
you being an ordinary actor
in a small hamlet out of nowhere
when your poems fall out
of a Salvation Army jacket pocket,
with a color photo you naively spy
a round-up of children
heading for a scout meeting
by campfires on the tall grass
and sent to their ashes.

____________________

A LIFE WITHOUT US

Time placates these words
in a deserted breath
stopping by this green taste
of spring in a repast
crunching Japanese rolls
in a Zen garden
on this peace bench
admiring the yews
far away from home
in a life without us
or a second time
to check us out
in our absent tour of duty
yet resilient memory
nailing a poem by my right hand
of a once-pledged friendship
plagued by twigs of war
and forecasts of prophetic peace
now by sunlit riverbeds
will pass over a pardon
for our last photo and narrative
addressing us by name
by the coffee house
a soul offers to cross over
with me, hand to hand
at the finish of a marathon line
with only love's forgiveness
at the other side of the world.

CITY SPARROWS

Here we are, poet
exiles, gnomes
or vagrants migrating
with a seasoned
destiny like sparrows
but with no one
in your specter
to take you in,
perhaps people think
we are curious
a bit eccentric
like hesitant words
in muffled speech
and language,
perhaps another poor poet
in the Americas
will recognize me
through his glasses
jumping over hills
or at intersections
of the winding sky.

______________________

SILENCE, EVERYWHERE

Sheltered
by the silence
behind trees' first light
of a wintry vacation
maps our hours out
on a park bench,
I'm slowly drawing
pictorial sketches
from haiku
when red ink
falls on the hands
by my melancholy watch
brushing away
odd-and-end thoughts
as suddenly photographs
in music as a cat
crawls under a park bench
with a frozen numbness
alarmed by the voice
of the poet I hear
in my spirit
Dylan Thomas
reading "Under Milk Wood"
wanting only to drink
at the local pub
as familiar faces
run from the cooling breeze
of the fountains.

_____________________

WHEN YOUR LIFE

When your life mushrooms
in your earth-wise field
near the windy dunes
of your hiding place
which whisper
from a sheltered sunshine
words of an excited embrace
stolen from your diary
and you listen to bird song
in a belated pleasure
which holds you today
to the retracing
of that desire,
if only that echo
of a past tenderness
were not a lost mirror
in the pockets of memory
of your lover's shabby coat,
it may be time to listen
to the ash trees
once again in your face's tremor
amid boughs and branches
in this blushing brief sun shower
making no noise
yet rain falls on every leaf
in the woodland foliage
as a whitetail deer stops to eat
motioning his nostrils
in the taunting soft air,
you ask to live through
a trackless field
to locate a pointed path
you were once guided to
you wait without a map
clustered by a lover's quarrel
for a noonday welcome
without any more suffering.

Poet's Table

PAUL VERLAINE'S DAY
1844-1896
MARCH 30

There is still a frosty glaze
of shower waters from heaven
across the wet streets
of a shivering Paris loft
where the wind whispers
its surprises and embarrassment
between stones and shadows
from echoes of a bygone age
of this poet also here alone
who remembers your words
on a French printed page
wishing to celebrate you
though the earth may have
forgotten your brief life
caught in a round of memory
touched by brief facile loves,
long-suffering lapses
bearing so many curses
betrayed by escorts and friends
intimidated by awkwardness
and the seven familiar sins,
lifting up his red wine glass
by this high window's tavern
waits on a vibrant toast
to Paul Verlaine
though few will acknowledge
what quenches us
in this unsettled universe
rising to remember
the Courbet portrait of you
in notebooks at my desk
from my time at the Louvre
this is your amazing day
Paul Verlaine,
amazed by an arch of small circles
of sunshine behind the curtains
by the strangeness of the hour
my eyelids also shine
at the aching icicles outside my door
waiting for spring skies
of this mostly cloudy adverse March
yet each moment
has a secretive light
reaching out from rain showers,
knowing that even below the Alps
there is a flower bed beneath the trees
trembling to give birth
to neon and gold butterflies
in the darkened breeze.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

A WAY TO GO

A tapestry of red rugs
pointed from a blinding light
to a poet's secret language
we exist waiting
for understanding
as a verse suddenly
fills a watching eye
grateful to be astonished
by emerging spaces
of a fragment of a universe
in gestures of trembling
yielding a collection
of sheltered nature.

_____________________

—Medusa, with profuse thanks to today's contributors! Katy's pix were taken in the garden of Davis Poet (and Poet Laureate Emeritus) Allegra Silberstein.

—Anonymous Photo

—Poems by Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO

—Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA

PECKING ORDER

We hung suet out
on the deck today
hoping the wrens
would come
and stay the winter,
nest in the yard
and next summer
fill the air with song.

In an hour or so
the wrens arrived
but minutes later
the beak of a flicker
hammered at them
and they flew away.

The flicker had time
for a snack before
a blue jay brusque
as the weather came
and took over.

The jay as well
had a snack before
a squadron of starlings
landed to feast
and Fuzzy the cat
rolled over the fence
eager to leap.

With the starlings gone
the cat lost interest
and moseyed around
for a minute or two
and then dove back
over the fence.

With no one around
and the suet deserted
the wrens came back
and ate some more
until the jay came back
and took over again.

Any minute now
we expect to see
the starlings return
and take over the suet
for a raucous dessert.

MRS. O'MALLEY

Mrs. O’Malley
from across the alley
has another small job
for my father to do
which makes my mother

unhappy because
Mrs. O’Malley’s been
bothering Father for years,
parading around in shorts
and halter top, watering

flowers in her yard
when Father goes out
to cut the grass and weed.
Neighbor ladies have
warned my mother

about Mrs. O’Malley
from across the alley
because too many husbands
have too often helped
Mrs. O’Malley too well.

_____________________

THE QUILTERS

They’re widows,
old and gray, bent over
a quilting frame, sewing
to meet a deadline

for the next raffle
talking and sewing in
grand memories
of husbands

dead for years
remembered daily
missed deeply
loved forever by

six quilters, all
cheerleaders waiting
to leap when their men
walk through the door.

DR. SANDER'S WIFE

Dr. Sander’s wife
is a woman of means
who dresses down
when she visits
food pantries

as do her neighbors.
They take surplus in
every few weeks.
At the end of the year
they claim a tax exemption.

A neighbor told her
how to do it while
staying out of dark
and murky places.
Together they drive
cans and bottles to

their suburban pantries
run by nice people who
serve the frail elderly or
those laid off
and looking for food

to maintain a lifestyle
and pay their mortgage
while finding a job.
Dr. Sander’s wife would
never drive into the city

and help the destitute.
Why go into harm’s way
just to be free of clutter
and pick up a little
tax exemption.

AN INTERVIEW WITH ADOLPH

How are things, Adolph?
This is Brian, on leave from NBC.
Thanks for the interview.
It’ll run when I get back
sometime in September.
You’ve been gone
70 years or so now.
What’s new?

It’s hot down here,
says Adolph.
Not a drop to drink.
My mustache
burned off the first day.
All my soldiers now
shout “Hell!” not “Heil!"
Osama and I talk about

what went wrong
but he’s been busy lately
telling the guys from ISIS
this isn’t paradise so
quit looking for virgins.
We expect the boys
from Boko Haram any day.
Oy, will they be surprised.

______________________

LADY IN THE SNOW

I turn the porch light on at 4 a.m.
to see if a miracle’s occurred
and the paper's landed somewhere

in the snow blanketing our lawn.
Instead I see a clump on the mat
a one-eyed cat dazed by the cold

looking at me as if to say
“Are you the guy I saw
a week ago before I ran?"

Every morning now I feed
two feral toms at our back door
but never a cat at our front door.

My wife might say okay
once she knows this cat's
a lady in big trouble.

When I open the door
the cat runs across the street
turns around, sits on the curb

looks at me and says, “Listen, Mister,
I’m cold and hungry but we just met.
One quick peek is all you get.”

SNAKE CHARMER

After 50 years Wilma
at her class reunion thinks
Waldo’s changed with age

that he’s nice now, not
the snake she wed
right after high school

and quietly divorced.
Both are widowed now
and Wilma looks lovely.

Tonight she has Waldo
swaying to the rhythm
of her voice but Wilma

needs to know a cobra
coiled in its basket can
wait to nip its charmer.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

A LOW VOICE AND A NICE WALK

Gramps by the fire
in his rocker, hunched over,
is rolling his smoke with care

when Tom, his grandson, asks,
“What’s the most important thing
to look for in a wife?”

Gramps stares into the fire intently
then finally says, “You want a wife
with a low voice and a nice walk,

a low voice because later in life
your ears give out but her odd jobs
become more numerous

and a nice walk because you want to
let her go first forever and make
all that extra work worthwhile.”

______________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to today's contributors!

Goats

—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA

TREES THINKING AND TALKING.
WE WATCHED THEM AS THEY BEGAN
TO TORTURE THE TREES.

There was no way they could get them
To say anything. It was raining.
The trees kept thinking about time.
It had a broken sound like the rain
When it hit the windows.
They would only talk about the seasons.

Just outside the window
One could see paper lanterns
Glowing to the distance
But they do not lead to any heaven.

We could see smoke begin to rise
From the far side of the forest.
I thought I could smell the smoke
But I was often wrong
About things like that.
Trees burn. They remember.
They always remember.

Now listen to the frogs.
They know. They really know.
They see the light fade.
Nothing moves in the night.
I can’t explain any of this.
It is too difficult to sort out
These feelings with the trees
Being tortured as they are.

In our hearts the trees reveal
How they love us.
They pump oxygen into the atmosphere.
They know the difference
Between light and dark.
“We will live,” they say.

The big trucks are coming closer
To us now. We can see the bodies
Stacked upon them.

_______________________

WHAT WOODS
for E.R. Baxter

The altitudes have gone past tension.
We are required to know just how
High we are, what names the dead
Animals by the side of the road
May be identified by, what has happened
To the amphibians that the Spring
Isn’t as full; the vernal pools
With their pale eyes reflecting
The cool morning, the wakening
Rustle of the season, all green and up.

So we stand and watch the buzzards
Ride the thermals, circling 'round
And 'round, and we learn to listen
To our breathing as we do so.

We can meet here as often as we are able
But let us speak to one another
About these changes, remind one another
Just how temporary it all is.
Or, if I am unable to see you here again,
I’ll be sure to text you, maybe that
Will be our attempt at presence
As Spring replies with confounding necessities.

Night Coming (Student Drawing)

THE COVE

We don’t have the room
So we keep climbing the stairs.
We are well above the houses.
We can see the meadows and now
Over the hills to the edges of the cities.

Still we climb. We don’t have the room.
Books are left behind. They cannot
Run behind us, but feed us well enough.

I was able to see you last night
In your home next to Lake Ontario.
I was climbing till the clouds obscured
The way and I was made to sleep.

We don’t have the room
So we keep climbing the stairs.
Here the past is ahead of us always,
The future farther above, leaving clues,
Filling crates with ideas, so there is
No room. We climb higher.
There is no end in sight.

__________________________

THE CREEK

Something had stalled the mouth
Of the creek so the water slowed
Where we sat on the bank fishing.

There was little chance we could catch
Anything, but that was not the idea.
The idea was our being there
And it being Summer for awhile.

The trees were at peace.
We were believing in poetry
And music at that moment.
They made promises to us that
We might probably believe were true.

The day was graying over in small
Exclamations. Frogs making splashes
Now and then. You found a feather
And stuck it upright, as close to the water
As possible. “So the fish might see
It and perhaps enjoy it,” you said.

There were reports that one country
Was killing people from another country.
Nothing too unusual for such a day.
Perhaps they wanted to sell something.
I looked into your eyes as you watched.

How could such a lovely
Reside there. Dances could
Have been going on in them
The way they sparkled.

0

Are you getting tired yet?
Maybe we should check
For directions. This seems
Far away, like childhood
Or daydreaming in March.

We never really wanted to know
Anyway. Far away a car door slammed,
A dog barked as if it had something
Of importance to say. We knew
Things would never be like this
Again. Still, you smiled at me
And I smiled at you. This
Thought remains fascinating, like wondering
What might be found at the top
Of that hill.

Jack's Walk, Bolinas

TALKING TO FISH

They do not know what water is.
They think the world is dancing
Constantly. Songs are ecstasy as they
Enter their bodies completely. They do
Not need ears to hear them.

o

We seldom see them in trees,
But there they are, thousands of them,
Decorations of the Amazon jungle
In flood. Leaves are the souls
Of fish, sculptures of fish
Never previously seen. Here
In the high jungle they become gems,
Tales of the elders. Fish.

o

We used to walk along the edges of the smaller lakes in the summer. The crappie and small perch would rise in the evening and jump at flies or gulp bugs that fell into the water. They would make concentric circles on the surface of the water, soft splashes in the twilight. It was a language. We had no idea what the fish were saying, but they were saying it. Maybe it was about the heat or the rain coming the next day or what they had seen beneath the surface. All those years later without a word, yet so much of blood and its salt, reeds and thin lines trolled through the water, the quiet that came from eyes that never close, from pressure on lateral lines, from talking on and on to fish.

_________________________

THE BIRDS THAT EAT IDEAS
(Ptaki Ktore Jedza Pomysty)

The shearwaters stay just above
The tops of waves. The air pushes
Their bodies upward, inches from
All the ideas of air and water.

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

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

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

Sedum in Bloom

FUCKING AROUND WITH THE MUSE

She wore a green-and-white blouse,
Had a halo like a saint
And it too was green and white
But it glowed like magic paint.

‘Come here,’ she said
‘Let’s go to bed.’
It put me in a swoon.
‘I’ll take you up.
I’ll take you down.
You will shine just like the moon.’

‘Who are you,’ I asked, I asked.
I caught my breath.
She laughed and took my hand.
‘Come on inside,’ she said.
‘I’m here to hear the band.’

‘What kind of thing are you?’ I asked.
‘How come you glow?’
‘You talk too much,’
She said to me. ‘Shut up!’
She cooled me with her fan.

‘I’m your muse, you fool.
I want your tool.
I want you to understand
That sometimes you must go with me.
Don’t be that fool,
Or I’ll turn your words to sand.’

I went with her.
It got me here.
I didn’t give a damn.
‘I’m yours,’ I said,
‘Until I’m dead.
Make me into a man.’

‘You are a man,’ she loudly cried.
'Stop fucking with my gifts.
When I call, you come, you hear?
I’ll help you write the myth.’

She kissed my lips, my fingertips.
She sucked upon my pen.
I guess I’d do that anytime.
She called, ‘Just do it then.’

________________________

SWEPT AWAY

We never would have believed they had weapons
As powerful as the ones we encountered,
Rational thought removed from incredible
Distances, the idea that history was a voice of reason,
A kind of clarity and certainty that we need go no further.

Passion offers us a seat, claiming it is turning
Us loose, that we have forgotten the easiest
Part. The pastel-colored clouds are ordered
Into position. They wait in line near the horizon.

We discuss if it is visions we are having, elevated,
Degraded, mansions we were never supposed
To occupy, let alone live in. Every age has its own
Idea of the genuine. We avoid it at all costs.

These figures keep returning. They hold out
Their hands to us. They offer us gifts that
We are unable to accept. They seem depraved,
Do not serve the good of the many. Absent love.

Alfredo's House, Locke

SILENCE

Silence is herded
Where dear queens ever think
Of how the fish shines,
How the knives know their
Red duties and what men do
To make them so.

We know it isn’t tomorrow yet.
It isn’t time for a pathway to open,
For that sickness that is such a
Special creature to draw close,
Speak of wondrous light and
The long coats waking brings
To this silvery estate.

So silent. I braid her hair,
Decide to call all of this ‘sleeping’
So we won’t puzzle over the closed
Eyes and supine bodies, or the
Cities burned to the ground,
For that matter. We persist
In naming lands we do not know,
What produces good action,
What this white wind might mean to us all.

_________________________

THEY ARE

They are standing on the edge
Of the stair, gazing at the jewel
That is the dawn unfolding, neither
Afraid nor apprehensive. The day
Will cascade upon them, then through
Them, wiping its silly smile across
All that lies before it. A blessing
Of a kind, but without the quiet
Voice that calls the powers to itself,
Dispersing again in a million
Amens. They drift before
The wave crashes, before the fire
In the fireplace really takes hold,
Declaring the memory of trees
To the damp air, before the clanging
Bells that threaten to topple
Childhood, clear water and singing
Into a collective murmuring of illusions.

Still they stand before it, eager to be
Enveloped. This is the world, for heaven's
Sake. What choice is left at this point?
We kiss it full upon the mouth,
The surface of the eye floating
Scars and image alike, a gray morning
Suddenly relieving itself of the clouds
And exclaiming at the green presents.

_________________________

Today's LittleNip:

Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through any one that suits you.

—Jim Morrison

_________________________

—Medusa

Houseboats on the Slough

—Anonymous Photo

PINE-TREES AND THE SKY: EVENING
—Rupert Brooke, 1887-1915

  I'd watched the sorrow of the evening sky, 

And smelt the sea, and earth, and the warm clover, 

And heard the waves, and the seagull's mocking cry.   

And in them all was only the old cry, 

That song they always sing— "The best is over!

 You may remember now, and think, and sigh, 

O silly lover!" 

And I was tired and sick that all was over, 

And because I,

 For all my thinking, never could recover

 One moment of the good hours that were over. 

And I was sorry and sick, and wished to die.   

Then from the sad west turning wearily, 

I saw the pines against the white north sky, 

Very beautiful, and still, and bending over 

Their sharp black heads against a quiet sky. 

And there was peace in them; and I 

Was happy, and forgot to play the lover, 

And laughed, and did no longer wish to die;

 Being glad of you, O pine-trees and the sky!

_______________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Taylor Graham

SCOUT
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

I call the pup but does he hearken?
What’s my voice to him, just weeks from
the womb? Sparrow trill or bleat
of lamb, one noise of many. I might as well
be a squat tower on the lawn calling
“Puppy Come!” Even the simple command
is beyond him. At edge of brambles,
he’s in a world of sky, of airborne freedom
outside his fence. Scent! His nose
goes down—involuntary, genetic. News
rises from underfoot. Crushed grass
decomposing, leftover spoor of what passed
in the night. Odors sweet to him
as fresh-baked bagels to me on a frosty
morning. As if a saffron thread drew
him across the green—forefeet reaching out,
hind propelled by thought-less intent,
he’s on my trail, following scurfs of skin,
what drops off us humans, melding
us with sky and earth. A quarry to pursue,
puzzle to unravel. What he's born to do.

___________________________

SPRING BURNING
—Taylor Graham

Do the trees live in terror of us?
As we set match to burn-pile, I wonder
at a shiver in the oaks above us on the hill.
How to explain, this is not random
brutality. We’re burning winter’s dead-fall:
shepherding fire to make us fire-safe
come summer—the wild elements
proportional as the mind of man. Are live
oaks mocked by my arguments? See
the scars where, long before us, someone
sawed away a limb—leafy arm
of a tree, its rotten cavity that might have
housed a nuthatch nest; gone. Our
burn-pile flares like fireworks; smoke
rises, dissipates, settles. When it’s over,
we’ll rake the embers, make sure it’s dead
before we go. Nothing but a circle
of ash, after-scent of char, a blue horizon-
haze on valley. The memory of trees.

_________________________

CLIMB HIGHER
—Taylor Graham

Granite, lava, sandstone—up-tilt here,
extruded rock there—my dog disappears
over the crest, catching updrafts seasoned
with scents from miles away.
The whole knit crazily together by
contours that make sense topographically,
uncut by highway or dam, man’s
attempts to re-image nature, to use or
redeem it. It sets my head spinning—
or is that just altitude gone past human
tension, intention? Here’s
a boulder scrolled with lichen’s long
histories. Buzzards kettle on thermals,
counting not naming the temporary dead.
I’ll follow my dog a little farther
uphill as landscape falls away. Could I
see the world she hears, smells,
knows in her bones?

—Photo by Taylor Graham

BUTTERFLY EFFECT
—Taylor Graham

A lacewing lands on my palm—I might clap, smash it, or let it
rest and, when it wishes, fly. Shockwaves in air widening circles in a
pond fluid dynamics the laceflight of wings, or my bare hands
concussing. Listen. I’ve heard a single butterfly passing through sky
has consequences not guessed. If I write this down,
or speak it so the free sounds fly,
what repercussions? What ringing unrhymes? Might someone
believe the metamorphosis of words in
metaphor, so they metastasize to
something I couldn’t imagine….
What dare I
do this
day?

(prev. pub. in Snapping Twig)

________________________

FIXATION
—Taylor Graham

Walk out the meeting-room’s glass door
where once stood the alms-hospital.
Here, mercurial pane becomes a portal, you
find yourself a hundred years ago
among the dead, inmates buried on the hill.
You almost stumble on an iron spoke. It speaks
with neither voice nor name, just a number.
There were so many. This morning
they regard you with blue periwinkle faces
gazing out of green. It’s spring. Yellow
crowds the edges—Scotch broom
which even on a cloudy day blooms vibrant
as sunny life, invasive as disease.
And periwinkle—look closer
into its vinca face. You don’t know its
name but it knows yours.

Vinca

—Photo by Taylor Graham

THE SAD TRAVELING BANANA MAN
—Richard Hansen, Sacramento

Mr. Mister
designed a refined
sprinkler
inspired by an idea hidden
deep inside him

He
traded his trade one day
to work for RainBlurred but they
didn’t hire him
b'cuz
he didn't have a science degree
it
had nothing to do with his
slight
facial disfigurement which
caused a speech impediment
so
he didn’t get Frustrated

He applied for a patent instead
it was granted and
the banks cooperated
and he manufactured it
and it sold
wildly!

He paid back his debts and
all his taxes
he's a rich man now
happy with himself living
in a big house and
for a while had
nothing
of any substantiality
to
particularly
complain
about

How
the sprinkler works
with all the little tiny gears
remains a
mystery
to everyone
currently working in the Industry
and even the Chinese
and also
the Japanese
have failed to steal it
through reverse engineering

Mr. Mister
really likes his sprinkler
It’s great for ferns and things
that require
jungle-like humidity
It's easily adjustable
for growing banana trees
It
made tons of money and
bananas cheaper

Then Mr. Mister
kissed his wife’s sister
and got a blister which
really
Pissed Her Off!

She loved him you see
before
the money
and the speech impediment
made
no difference
but

She left him out of self-respect
and he’s really distraught about it
wealth means nothing now
but he doesn't mope around
anyhow
He travels the world and tells
people how to grow bananas in just about
any and every
kind of
environment

Dabbling

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch

BY WAY OF EXPLANATION
—Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch

It was about the patience of these trees
It was about the color of those bells
It was about the swimming of a kite
It was about too many Bibles
It was about three old men
Dancing arm in arm

_________________________

YOUR TURN
—Robert Lee Haycock

My life's the cat's game again
Noughts and crosses
Snakes and ladders
Seems I'm always starting over

_________________________

CIRCUMSTANCES BE DAMNED
—Robert Lee Haycock

Circumstances be damned
I've never done my best
Here's a slackard and a sluggard
And your drunkard and your fool
Always been too clever by half
Possessed of a pornographic memory
Fuck me if I can forget anything
I know I ought to try harder
But the world is so beautiful
Sometimes I just have to stare
Out the window of a train
And dream a poem home

Bedazzled

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

Today's LittleNip:

AS WE WAITED FOR INSPIRATION
—Taylor Graham

The wicked muse of our obsession
was jingling ditties to an eastbound train,
that systematic wailer of the same old yearning
on a sing-song track;
the rash that itches till we can’t refrain
from scratching at the flimsiest
foundation of a fancied fortune and a rapidly
dispersing fame.

__________________________

—Medusa

Sky

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

1924—ME

In this century, I will be born.
I will be born knowing,

yet knowing not.
I will be old-fashioned

for
awhile—

of an old nature,
then my own—

from influence of,
I will become.

______________________

THE DOOR OF THE WORLD

I knocked on the door and heard the sound
go in and dwindle out. I stood back

to listen and wait. And only then
did I notice the bare wall standing

by itself. It was only a wall—a façade—
painted that old-fashioned yellowish gray

with a crumbling relief of stone figures,
and through its windows I could see

the captured blue sky and clouds
and realized my error . . .

yet I knocked again
for I wanted to enter and see for myself.

THE BILLBOARD TRAIN

It was a crossroad
in a crossroad year.
    I was five. We
      always stopped
         awhile to watch
            the billboard
              with its train
                that moved like
                  magic in the
                    blue night air.

I always begged
my father to stop
    when we passed
      that spot; and
        he always did
          so I could watch
             in sad-sweet
                fascination
                  and believe
                    his lie:

He said
that billboard
     train was mine
       and sat, unsmiling,
         in a silence that
           was his, while I
             sat gazing—it
                looked so real—
                  held there just like
                    a wound toy going
                      nowhere in the dark.

_____________________

PREPARING THE MOOD
(After "The Sleeper" by Tamara de Lampicka)

Surround yourself with words,
like love—like old desire—

like scent of incense: Shalimar,
White Rose, Russian Musk.

Prepare the mirror and the look:
The histories remain and tempt.

There is the story, the unchanged
plot—the taunting rival,

all the doubt. And which of you
will glean the trance of time

for all that truly is
—or nearly was.

Why not reclaim, oh faded beauty,
what you see—why not?

OBSESSIONS

These are the longings I send you,
full of elaborate rages and dark pities
for myself. I send you guilt for my

predicament—name you Savior,
letter after letter of me mailed to
your old address. Why don’t you

answer? I send these thoughts
so you will realize my sincerity.
I have never forgiven you

for my happiness. I forgive you
now for my despair. Love is
too sad for keeping; I wish to

return it to you—hardly the worse
for wear. These love songs
are for your pillow.

You come back for me.
I am floating on a tangible shaft
of moonlight. Slowly I turn

toward you, break into a shatter
of weeping, fall to the floor.
You cannot repair me.

________________________

BLACK GOWN STUDY
(After "Homes for the Disembodied" by Mary Tuma)

Black dresses
hang
in high-
fashion
mourning—
ceiling to floor—
trailing into
each other like a path
of grief
made of tear-water.
Though bodiless,
a sympathy can be felt
for them, hanging so starkly
black
and sheer
as if a message
of confession:
gowns of surrender;
gowns of release
from all their vanities
and fatal loves.
No breeze
disturbs them
in this bright gallery.
They hang as a study of
silence—wearing dust and light
like penance (though one dress turns
at this—upon its hanger—and a shudder is
felt—for what can this mean unless a way to disagree).

THE MANNEQUINS
(After "A curia, 1963" by Robert Cremean)

What are they but depictions of desire,
reduced to abstract objects of perfection,
multi-faced from one—ideal and idolized.

That they are featureless is for the numbness
of the mind; their curves
are lyrical—half nude—half garbed,

in bits of fashion and design: hats,
and no hats,
circles of light highlighting here and there.

Windows protect them. Light animates
their stillness. They face outward into stares.
Who loves them this way— little balloons

of thought, a-float in multiple discussion.
What holds them so perfected there,
if not your whetted admiration?

______________________

FIRST STAGE FASCINATION

they went then
to the
skyview roof
of the hotel
just to
top off
the excitement
of the evening
so trusting of
each other
and giddy with
intensity of
rapport and then
in unison
fell off while
still continuing
their animated
conversation
politely not
looking in windows
on the way down

ONLY IN THE HOLLOWS NOW,

the old echoes muffle
and expire
with no light
and no sound waves
to carry them forever,
where memory
is only made
of failure to remember,
created out of all
our eloquence
and exuberance;
the stillness of this place
is heavy with gravity.
It settles and spreads
and only says listen
in a fading voice . . .
and true to our loneliness
we have learned to listen
to the silences,
as if they were the love.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

FADING MEMORIES

that drift of memory
catching on snags of thought

dissolving in
thought’s intensity

no longer what it was
no longer true

something to lose
the way it loses you

_____________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for today's fine poems and pix, and a note that the new Poet Laureate Park is now completed; photos by Trina Drotar are on view at Medusa's Facebook page. Be sure to click on each one for commentary by Trina.

Our new Seed of the Week is Mysteries of Spring. Send your poems, photos and artwork about those mysteries to kathykieth@hotmail.com; no deadline on SOWs.

_____________________

—Medusa

Green Man

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis

GREEN
—Ann Wehrman, Sacramento

explodes
all around in froth
gentle baby leaves
shoots of grass
green as pistachio
as celery

lie back, close eyes
heart chakra
vast, swells green light
warm, bright, expansive
love, delight

tears roll down cheeks
lie on the floor
sobs quake, yet happy
heart open
joy, life, spring
green

______________________

ON OBSESSION
—Ann Wehrman

more than a cheap perfume
yet common in that
every human knows it
once, or more than once
her gaze melts, his
frame of vision opens, broadens,
darkness blurs memory
that fragrance she wore
smell of sweat under his collar
intoxicating scent of her
excitement, release
of his urgency
obsession burrows within
is known through the senses
3:00 a.m., alarm set for 6:00
sheets crumpled, pillows askew
obsession lives in memory
lilt of her voice
crinkles around his eyes
obsession renders sleep impossible
dark circles reveal
one’s secret by day
take a ten, take an hour
take a week off—obsession
makes work unreal, irrelevant
makes one gamble
risk it all for the
seemingly unreal
unattainable
managing obsession
a contradiction in terms
better to slake one’s thirst
mouth open, guzzling
until sated

THE MUSIC MASTERS
—Ann Wehrman

Brahms sings of
personal affection
lifts his cup
moderates, shares love with
brethren, sisters
diminuendos to decency, quiet
forest’s depth
Brahms’ warm, tender heart
expands, contracts
rests by the stream
forest of his fathers

Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony
Allegretto raises sound in shining silver
to the sky, pierces
red, white, golden clouds
explodes as sun’s rays
claims eternal victory
goodness crowned with tears
silver column builds bridge
truth, affirmation, undeniable
explodes in Presto of joy

_______________________

TRAVEL
—Ann Wehrman

for you means other lands
skins, religions, temperatures, foods
I open the window
a new world awaits
journeys to trash bin, mailbox
pool flood my senses
with newness, difference
joints, blood through veins
to the brain, breath
each moment is fresh
roses bud in March, trees sprout
tight green pinwheels, about to unwind
new leaves follow
squirrel cocks her head
as I plead, Get out of the street
world as microcosm
each breath a treasure
each moment on loan
each month, year speeds
travel from my inner world to visit
life all around me
a short journey, but enough

BEGET SPRING
—Caschwa, Sacramento

My elementary school
Tested us huge
On numbers

Dates in history
9 planets, 48 states
7 continents, 7 seas

Then we had to adapt
The concept of
More or less

To everything we had
So carefully learned
And faithfully recited

Even to the belief that
There is only 1 God
Some say 1 fewer than that

All this learning
And relearning
Machine gun epiphanies

Powerfully hitting us like
Beacons of light while
Others lodge in mystery

What will future generations
Know as common sense that
We could never have guessed?

AGE FIFTY-NINE
—James Lee Jobe, Davis

sit at this desk and consider eternity. the measure
of it. its shape and scent. its presence. outside,

there is rain, grayness, low clouds. fat drops slap
the window. eternity wears a rain slicker and eases

across the back yard, toward the street, out of sight.
a car drives by. the sound of tires on the wet street.

______________________

LOOK AT THE FORKS IN THE HANDS OF THE DINERS
—James Lee Jobe

look at the forks in the hands of the diners,
they're like bibles in the hands of the priests,
like guns in the hands of the killers.
forgive me, father, for i have sinned.
it's been fifty years since my last confession.
please pass the salt and the ammunition.
i've drawn a bead on the waiter,
you take out the chef.
and relax, go with it.
this place has wonderful desserts.
they serve them right after communion.

_____________________

RISING ABOVE ALL THIS
—James Lee Jobe

the dream was one thing at first, and then
it changed. i was in a dark room, alone, mentally
reviewing all the slights of my lifetime. the first wife
who ran off and slept with several of my friends.
the job where i was screwed over. like that. and these
were slights from my real life, not just dream slights.
that done, i went over my failures, one by one. that list
was far longer. really, i failed that first wife. really,
i was lousy at that job. i would have fired me, too.
i began to pray in my dream, 'allah, please show me
how to rise above all this and live with some kindness
in my heart.' i woke up then. it was still the middle
of the night, and the house was still and quiet.
i wasn't sleepy anymore, so i turned on a radio,
there was a symphony playing. i didn't know
what symphony it was, and i didn't try to find out.

Today's LittleNip:

AT BIG LAGOON

—Ann Wehrman

White light froth
bubbles and rushes
toward my toes.
My fingers reach,
pinch cool foam.
I laugh
as it dissolves
into clean
viscous liquid,
potent with
the brew of life.

_____________________

Our thanks to today's master chefs—as Sandy Thomas says, it's always HOT in the Kitchen!—no April Fools here! Sandy was kind enough to send us more photos of the new Poet Laureate Park; watch Medusa's Facebook page for those later today.

And tomorrow night at Poetry in Davis, Katy Brown will be reading with Davis Poet Laureate Emerita Allegra Silberstein, celebrating Allegra's new book, West of Angels, from Cold River Press, for which Katy did the cover photo. That's John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st St., Davis, 8pm. Be there!

—Medusa

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

—Photos by Sam the Snake Man

IDES OF MARCH
(for Emily Dickinson
1830-1886)

Driving no love away at night
in my hansom cab
Emily and I ride on a horse
my heart murmurs at her urges
to write poems together
keeping my quiet handsome rumors
of a Beat poet's secrets to himself,
on a mute road full of birches
with icicles hanging on
a country-white church
here mourning bells and doves
sing and ring over a winter retreat
in the smell of a scented woodland
seeing dawn come into focus
at first light in a small town
by the bride of Amherst Common
where Emily Dickinson resides,
near the forest of black bears
who also hide out on the Square,
I'm acting tonight as Brutus
focused on the Ides of March
to air out his poetry
by the powerful new branches
waiting for a green spring,
searching for bread sticks
and a Caesar salad
at the Lord Jeffrey Inn
and later to attend
a college Shakespeare symposium
and later to watch
the Visconti's film Ossessione, 1943
amid emerging birches
in greening of this hour
eyeing fragile limbs of saplings
in gentle tidings yet to flower.

CLOSE TO HER
(for Emily Dickinson,
1830- 1886)

Close to her love for words
with a familial feeling
like a bluebird
of being alone yet free
in our unconventional nest,
reading her secret passages
trying to understand,
she is clothed in a silk dress
at a poet's haven and royal realm
by golden butterflies
confessing to me on my laptop
her foiled imaginary sins,
we rest in folded pages
and passages of my own diary,
here by New England's flower beds
this poet's soul forgives
all that is contrary to love
and lives in eternity's hours,
we rest on greensward grass
by her cemetery river bed
I'm presenting a red rose bouquet
to Emily of Amherst
feeling obsessed like her
by being always an outsider
implanted like lovebirds
by branches in a first spring garden
watching from our swings
the tiny spider
dissolving its web by the birches
urged on only by the East wind
over the honey and apple walls
of the farmer's market
perched near the horses' gates
feeling like a thirsty outrider
knowing her discovery of verse
has no regret in language,
which has blessed and pardoned all.

EXPOSURE

It's time to be consequential
and a bit more courageous
of all our potential threats
around us,
as Beats obsessive to words
we must rise above rhyme
rhythm and our fallen reason
and get back to poetry on the streets
with new existential facelifts
not forgetting
from the outrageous past
amid reactionary and contrary walls
of surrounded Philistine envy,
but to embrace a pure love
from shadowed gates
of ancient cities and deserted towns
where the volcanic past
arises from the dust
by rains and ruins
engulfing our possessions
with sleep-housed memories
of unexplored excavations,
carrying heavy shovels in our hands
traveling the seven seas
wearing a voyager's sailor coat
of Ulysses searching for Penelope
wishing to embrace
Circe's magic bracelet
by Daphne's green tree,
our specs to the wall,
counting with searchlights
for the magus of a buried life
wanting to have a dialogue
with one of Robert Browning's
dramatic monologues,
or have a charismatic heavenly vision
of Rabbi Jesus' Aramaic journeys
up the Mount of Olives,
here in a present-tense hour
there are no dead bones
from the greatest to the least critics
after all we are vers-librists,
with a prosody and mean rap
or hearing a Rolling Stones melody
with the laughter
of Gershwin's Paris Rhapsody
insisting for music as lyricists
not ever to be embarrassed as mystics
but to live as kings, queens or priests.

WHERE SHE WAS

Where she was
ticks off in my memory
like waves
of a thousand lights
and faces here
in Tokyo,
amid twilight places,
to take obsessive pictures
of a snowy city ablaze
in its midnight life
over clear stargazers
with a daughter's enigma
of lost love
as one eye fills with water
trying to breathe in
the presence of dangerous air
where rumors stretch now
in alleys and valleys
as in the poems of Yokio Mishima
spotted for casual
or sensual personal desires
from geisha dancers
in memory of a thousand days,
a stranger is not forgotten
nor one kiss on a dense stone
even in the zen garden of peace
as an innocent west wind
whisks past our fear-sweat
and the hot fires of adolescence.

A VISIT TO MARDI GRAS

On St. Charles Street
Dixieland jazz
appears in a hat passed
out of nowhere
with confetti in a parade
of witnesses,
it must be an obsessive dream
of Poe from a century past
along Canal and Bourbon
in a Lent-costumed underground
with airs of old Absinthe
drowned in my course of tears
as Tennessee Williams is alive
crossing St. Louis Cathedral
with madrigals singing
above live jazz bloused blues
with crowns on our head
we sign out from our hotel
impressed as royal kings and queens
with shaving cream
or lipstick returned to their kits
yet our still life portrait
is not burning out in our party outfits
of fiery New Orleans memories
with gold gowns and silver coins for tips
when dawns drags out
another day as if prepared
for a last Apocalypse
a few souls carrying safety pins
in their backpacked search
for a brown or green scapula
near the St. Louis' Church
near the Mardi Gras
with a Creole pecan-laced dessert
for a last supper from their carnal sins.

___________________

WHAT MUSIC CAN DO

Regardless of any news
for any meaningless wishes
of my obsessive compulsion
to write in a rear-view mirror,
it's time to change the clock,
to emerge from your own abyss,
we hear what music can do
even with introspective blues
the rock songs of The Doors
or grave news on T.V.
our mood suddenly rejoices
in the interlude of an aria by Bizet
with its alto voice of a minor key
listening to an opera recording
here leaning out on highway
sensing at the ocean's edge
amid the mad swirl of The Pearl Fishers
we acknowledge the critical success
of Bizet's opera
in a lover's expression
taking away any emotion
of seasonal depression
in my own confessional largesse.

ADVICE FROM JOHN MILTON

Life has smeared us, John Milton
that our love for Him
or for nature will not last
circling like Lucifer's lie
that we are cast
as a lost victim in the pit,
forgetting any icicles
in the drifts out by my door
soon there will be buds of green
outside my rear-view mirror
as we drive along the Bay
covering the twigs and trees
taking it easy in the sun,
this March freeze will be over
by the Charles River,
blue jays will soon besiege us
on the Longfellow bridge
by large Puritan houses
now turned into latte cafes
where I will again play sax
in my smooth jazz way,
a Boston spring is coming
taking up my second-hand bicycle
regretting the Arctic breath
and my clouded obsessions
with the past,
opening my windows
on the future wonder
with my Beat poet's words
under the town clock's window
singing out hymns with the birds
to lyrically embrace
the birch trees in the cold wind
with all of winter's dark shadows
even on my face.

_____________________

RUSSIAN LETTER
(In memory:
Daniil Kharms, 1905-1942)

You wrote me in Russian
from the Ural Mountains
to tell me
my poetry reminded you
of Daniil Kharms
dying in a prison asylum
from starvation
during the purple red siege
of a fiery risen Leningrad
you were the third person
in the fourth country
of two centuries
to tell me as well
that there is a connection
between us,
perhaps Daniil is now speaking
at this hour to me through others
even from his unmarked grave
without any riverbed of flowers
or ready laurels
nor grave monuments beside him
or any lamented bells be heard
yet at moments of the day
we will remember you,
Daniil Kharms,
though quoted verse
of a noted poet disarms us
we will be devoted
to fulfill your memory,
in small edited books
of knowledge,
Daniil who understood
that all poetry is a gift
like songbirds scattered
in the sacred wood,
for when any of our words
are outlawed by the state
or bodies burned in a war
amid a law's scared censorship
we are all harmed at our door,
giving out my maxim
that "poets need to be appreciated
in life's secret tears and laughter
and years ever after,"
we as yet have not learned.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.

—Emily Dickinson

______________________

Our thanks to today's contributors! with a note that Straight Out Scribes will be featured at Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe tonight (plus open mic), 1414 16th St., Sacramento, 8pm, Geoffrey Neill hosting. Also check out Medusa's Facebook page for the two wonderful albums showing Sacramento's new Poet Laureate Park, one by Trina Drotar, and one by Sandy Thomas.

—Medusa

Bad-ass Bunny

—Anonymous Photos

EASTER AT THE NURSING HOME
—Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO

When bread
is this good
a morsel

will suffice
and when wine
is this good

a sip is enough
for the wraiths
and specters

coming toward
the altar now
on crutches

walkers
in wheel chairs
celebrating

the last Easter
some of them
will know

as they await
a resurrection
of their own.

CASSEROLES
—Kathy Kieth, Diamond Springs, CA

Easter Sunday: neighborhood clogged
with vans and grandchildren: stiff party
dresses and patent leather: daughters-
in-law juggling foiled-up dishes, purple
rabbits stuffed under one arm . . .
The occasional resurrection, it is: vernal

sacrifice of baked ham and deviled
eggs: plastic baskets with cellophane
grass: jelly bean rainbows in prim crystal
waiting on the coffee table, as chocolate
melts somewhere under the daffodils . . .

When I was a baby my Dad got “Harvey”
   He was a big purple stuffed Easter Bunny
   that was once part of a store display
   My Dad named him after the popular Jimmy Stewart movie
   you know the one where a large white rabbit is the eccentric lead character's imaginary friend
   Anyway my older brother and I “loved" Harvey like a big teddy bear
   we’d even fight over who could take him to bed
   and we’d rub him till patches of his fake fur would wear thin
   and the wires holding up his ears poked through
   My mom took out the wires so that he became “lop-eared”
   It was Mom’s six cats that caused Harvey’s demise
   At first the cats scratched on Harvey instead of using their posts
   Then one of her altered former tom-cats peed on Harvey
   possibly acting as if marking territory
   Mom had to break the sad news to us kids—
   She couldn’t clean up Harvey well enough
   especially because he wouldn’t fit in the wash
   My mom couldn’t burn Harvey as in the Velveteen Rabbit story
   (My brother might have taken a subtle pleasure in doing that too by then)
   But how sad to see the garbage men haul him away
   I did wish that Harvey could have gone to a heaven for stuffed toys

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

[Insert your own caption here]

EASTER SUNDAY MORNING
—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

Egg hunts always remind me of
our Elmer’s glue and food coloring
mohawks
that bled when it rained
on Saturday nights
coloring our ripped t-shirts pastel
dripping onto the drunk people
passed out on the lawn
who would rise again with the church-goers

Easter Bunny Gets Pulled Over for Speeding

Today's LittleNip:

THE SPRING HEAT
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

Tended to ripen the
Dead things towards
The bottom of the hill
Even faster. Jack
The Lab was happy
To be in charge of
That. Shouldn’t
Have been a problem:
He was the neighbors’.
But he liked us better.

_______________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Kevin Jones

Arrow

—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA

A TURQUOISE BELT

I always knew I would see you again.
The mind makes quicksilver.
It lives in our pores.

The sky above Albuquerque.
Fire coming from anthills in flame.

A ring found on the mesa.
The figures on it somehow ancient.
"Made in Japan" on its inside.

A screen at the drive-in movie
Shows a war going on somewhere.
The edges of the picture flashing silver.

We run from our homes shouting
Curses at situations in the form of people.
To touch your skin was to bruise it.

We lie on our backs looking
At the sky. UFO's were seen near
This place. We all saw at least one.

When I pray, things link
Without reason. What to say?
What to ask? Does one even ask?

The hands clasped together to pull
Everything together. It doesn't work
Most of the time. Finding stones.

We think they are of great value.
They are stones. Some have lines
Upon them. Some are even blue.

I wrap this around myself,
Wear it like a belt.

Pansies on Stairwell

WHEN I SPOKE OF THE NIGHT

When I spoke of the night
I was thinking of you the whole time.
There were animals running in the street.
I could hear the traffic sounds. Hymn-like,
Describing the air in horns and brakes.

I thought that train sounds were singing.
I did not know. I thought they were music,
Rhythmic and full of dark whistles,
The drumming of a million souls, a yearning.

A blanket of lights covered the city.
They shifted with the hours,
Undulated with the winds, blinked off,
Blinked on, reminded me of your eyes.

I thought it was your hair.
I thought it was your eyes.
I thought it was the stars,
Come down to earth to spin

Their tales once again, of the changing,
Of the way your lips move on mine,
Of your breathing in full midnight,
Of the sleeping, dancing the dreams
Through our bodies, touching our
Green hearts, our god-like souls again.

Wooden Duck

CAGED

This one is for the caged hearts.
The crazy ones trapped inside of love
That is unconditional, pacing the floor
Unable to understand the whys of the beloved.
The ones beyond dreams and fantasy
Where the entire field is wild with longing.
Desire in its high boots splashing through the blood
Stream, wanting to touch and embrace but unable
To even move the hands from the sides except to pray.

The ones where morning never comes,
But hangs by threads of flesh slightly out of reach,
Holding all that is precious with the teeth, making
One unable to speak clearly without falling into stupor,
Drunk and enraged by whips and cold chains.
Waiting endlessly for some sign, some warming
Where the breath holds a kiss or a word that says
“It’s okay. Everything is all right. Don’t worry.”

Without being a joke or a cruel twisting of the language
Into confusion and a drowning in memory
That removes the beloved even further from the moment.

Let us pray, says the flickering light,
The waking in the middle of the night,
Cold and unrested, listening for footsteps,
Wanting them to come closer, yet fearing
Them still as one would a pack of mad dogs.

D.R. Wagner, Eva West, Mikey West, Stuart Walthall

at the Max Raabe concert in Davis with the Palast Orchestra

April 2

—Photo by Alison Wonderland, Sacramento

THE LIGHT SHIFTING

In the concert hall the house
Lights dim as the pianist takes
The stage. The breath quiets.
The music begins. Something
By Liszt from his travels; he is in
Italy, an everyday occurrence,
The Angelus, declaring the work
Day ending. We are transported. The
Music remembers only a few moments
For us. We must imagine all else
With sustained notes, shifting phrases,
An understanding that this is not
A program, rather his simple observation
From a privileged room in the Villa d’Este.
We assimilate this music. Later we are
Unable to recall any one part of it.
It is already the time of supper
In the railroad yard earth. The hot-
Shot freight trains are like comets.

In the music of Debussy an entire
Cathedral sinks beneath the sea
Until it is no longer visible. This
Happens at the changing of the tides.
It too is a daily occurrence. The piano
Music becomes this event for us. It
Seems as if Debussy found the sounds
While walking along the seashore.
Perhaps he did. The light slants as
It reveals the architecture beneath the waves.

Time and again Chopin pushes us along
The edge of the evening; the moments when
The visible world gives way to what we are
Able to retain of its presence. In some
Corners the light quickens for a moment
Before it quits the objects. In others, a
Kind of glow holds day's end to itself in
An unexpected way. It feels like kisses
Feel when there are many, continuing
Even when we open our eyes, a dancing.
The window stiles and mullions collect
The last brightest lights just before the melody
Is forced to change. We are able to hear this
In the repetition offered by the left-hand patterns.
We believe that these visions are real and so.

Bach’s keyboard music shows us colonnades,
Ranks and files, the daylight through sacred
Spaces, announcements. Beethoven never
Allows us out of his rooms. We delight in
How sunlight touches each object, how it
Describes every detail and its meaning.

In the late morning we begin to understand
Mozart once again; why he is always with us
Despite time and changes. The garden looks
Perfect this time of day, the morning glories,
The dahlias forever impatient, alyssum, fragrant,
Unexpected and calling attention to everything
From marigolds to zinnias. Excursions to all
Places without leaving the yard, Vienna,
Paris, London, Leipzig, Stuttgart, all present.

*

Here it is night time, almost one o’clock
In the morning. Electric lights show me
The manner of the keyboard. I tap upon it
Hoping that music will leap from each touch.
In the other room I am able to hear indistinct
Music rising from the television set. I imagine I am
Able to compose using each second, each inference
Light offers to me at this late hour. I know the truth.

Alleyway in Locke

LIVING IN LOCKE, CALIFORNIA

It’s the edge of the night
On the edge of the town.
Even the moon’s out of sight.
There ain’t no one around.

And that night reaches up
And it curls 'round our soul
And from far ‘cross the slough
Comes a dark, dark as coal.

And it swirls through the air
And it curls around Locke.
And it holds on to the night
Like the hands do a clock.

And it won’t let us go.
And it opens the door.
And the dreams come to power,
And they pour ‘cross the floor.

There is magic around us.
It can call us by name.
And we answer from dreaming
With voices like rain.

Keep your hands on the rudder
And your eye on the road.
Keep your heart in the moonlight
As it flies 'cross your soul.

And it won’t let you go.
It will remember your lives.
It will open your dreams
With a cloud made of knives.

So we spill 'cross the Delta.
So we toss in our sleep.
So we wake in some morning.
All we’ve sown we will reap.

We will reap all the quiet.
We will reap all the lore.
We let history own us.
This place is our core.

Roses

WHY THE EVENING BREEZE
SOMETIMES SEEMS FAMILIAR

Dreams like tar
Refuse to even understand
Themselves; viscous and barely flowing,
I open them with the edge of my knife.

They are sectioned like oranges
Are sectioned, beautiful
Through a semi-transparent skin.
Able to see the juice,
We weigh them in our hands.
We call it the equinox,
The washing of the feet
By Jesus before he suffered.

The paste of oil returns
Leaving dark crescents beneath
Our fingernails as reminders
Of our deliberate actions.

Sometimes I touch you as if
My life depended on it.
You become magic because of this.

I speak … as if the tar were to speak:
“And making of her arm a wing,
She drew the sea about her.”

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

FOR ROBIN DUNCAN HARRY WILLIAMSON

He pressed the flat of the sword
Against my neck.

And I moved on the face of the waters.
The words moved against my mouth.

Will you sing the song
Or have you made your lips
Find other words?
“Shadowy fingers on the curtains
At night.”

Somewhere down below,
Things that once were wonderful
Bubble in a kind of night
That is unaccountable
To all who were there.

“What is that we are part of?
And what is that which we are?”

_____________________

—Medusa

Hell's Rabbit (silkscreen by T. L. Kryss)

Cover of Dorsey/Wagner: 24 Poems from

Hydeout Press, Cleveland, OH

Available from drwagner@ucdavis.edu

—Anonymous

BLESSED, BLESSED, BLESSED
—James Lee Jobe, Davis, CA

        now to bury the dead while the soil is soft and the grief is strong, to shovel them under and to say the words of god and heaven and life everlasting, world without end, amen.

        now to dream and hope and plan and pray and work and build and do and be.

        now to breathe the cool air of quiet midnight under the bone moon, the sound of darkness, the pull of emptiness, the power of being alive and alone, the power of still feeling the strength inside of the body.

        now to love; someone, anyone, everyone, to embrace another soul, another body, to speak and to listen, to hold and be held, to share it all, every last thing, the day, the night, the slow years and the fast ones, to grow, to become more fully yourself while accepting each other.

        now to speak the brazen truth, to stand tall in the face of the blatant lies and the cruel hatred, to say no as fiercely and severely as your bravest yes, to cast down the liars and the fast-talkers, to refuse to back down to that which is false or evil.

        now to wade out into the river, to let the current take you, to just relax and go limp, to go under to another world, a water world, life, death, suffering, release, bliss, to float and be free, the darkness first and then the light.

        now to climb out on the muddy bank and hold your arms up to the sky and give thanks, to praise, to be fully present in this body and on this earth, all while still wet and dripping.

         now to close your eyes and let your soul rise up from your body, up through the sky, up through the clouds, out into space and through the milky way, to let your soul move on other dimensions where you are the light and the light is you, free, true.

______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to James Lee for today's poem, and wishing you an Easter season where "you are the light and the light is you, free, true."

Free at Last

—Photo by Taylor Graham

FINDING THE SIXPENCE
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

Eggs of many colors are now hidden
in flowered greens along a picket fence.
Easter time, and all the children bidden
in formal dress. Among carnation scents—
one plastic egg contains the many sixpence.

______________________

SWALLOWS
—Carol Louise Moon

Out from the gray
of a hazy sea
a swoop of swallows
glides a colorless sky.

In silence they fly
following the tip
of a conductor’s baton.
Golden harps are their souls.

______________________

MYSTERY OF BEES
—Carol Louise Moon

a gray wall of packed dirt
scraggle trees—dusty
rusty branches with mistletoe
geometric chalk rock
at the base of any
skinny tree trunk

dead leaves and bark
both dark and light
a poison oak bed
red tiny berries
zigzag light and shadow

five red bricks stacked on
a patio; a white-breasted
sparrow flitting about
trees without bees

Guidepups

—Photo by Taylor Graham

SPEAKING OF THE NIGHT
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

This morning the puppies are a heaving

 crying mass, wild with longing.

 I open the gate, let them out in springtime

 green, past untidy lawn, down the cast- 

off garden where they walk on stone—

 as if they could pull creation back together, 

make it flow. What do they know

 of elemental forces? The quicksilver moon 

breathing in full midnight over a slatted

 roof. Owl winging soundless, taloned.

 Clasp my hands in wonder that I can’t hold.

_____________________

SPRING MYSTERIES 

—Taylor Graham

 No more pie-tins of gruel

 for our pups to wade through like swamp

 at the edge of life’s currents—

  they’ve gulped their bowls clean 

of kibble, first meal as night dims to dawn

 above the slatted roof.  

Now they’re crashed like small dead cars

 but not motionless—breathing

 in sighs and whimpers that lift the fine

  fox-hairs of their cheeks. They sleep

 heaped, or scattered as in rabbit-chase, 

open-air to weather; sheltered

  from winged shadows. It’s spring—time 

when dark’s owl and day’s hawk 

are out hunting to feed their own young

  famished as our puppies for their

 lives. We circle like mothers

 who can’t get close to their dreams.

_____________________

AN HOUR BEHIND
—Taylor Graham  

The fleeting breath of dawn’s a bell-ringer

 calling me outside to such bird commotion,

 I thought the leafing oaks were full of griffins,

 song too bold for a native nesting species;

 gathering force in the filigree of vetch twining

 the stockwire fence, and penetrating hidden

 passages of ground squirrel, their safe alleys 

from rocky hillside to the tenderness of garden. 

And I knew I was too late to catch this spring,

 though barely beginning on its mystery ways. 

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

Nothing is too small. Nothing is too "ordinary" or insignificant. Those are the things that make up the measure of our days, and they're the things that sustain us. And they're the things that certainly can become worthy of poetry.

—Rita Dove

___________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Taylor Graham

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

PEACE BE TO THE MORNING

Peace be to the morning
with its cool announcement of arrival,
pale and thin, on wings of nothing . . .

And peace be to the fading of night
that takes away its dreaming and its sleep
or its long wakefulness . . .

Peace be to the mystery
of whatever is there— or not there—
that turns such pages . . .

Peace be to the memory
and the forgetting of all that needs to be
forgotten and remembered . . .

And peace be to the moment
trembling on the brink of the next one,
and to that mystery, peace, too . . .

(first pub. in Say Yes, 1999, andA Sense of Melancholy Chapbook,
Rattlesnake Press, 2004)

REMEMBERING SPRING

We are all
seasonal
even where the dark
is finished
and the paisley
begins
some in white stockings
some in gray
with the stray sunshine
heavy upon the year
for the fashionable dressing
of poetic demands
even as we try
to gauge
the seasonal
changings
nothing so clear
as memory in its revision

______________________

AFTER THE POETRY READING

The night we lay in pairs on the small slope
of hill, in the rain-mist, the whole sky above
and around us, full of its stars and mystery,
and we under its distance, happy to be

a quatrain of poets, lending our voices
to each other, intimate strangers for
this little while out of the night
that gave part of its self to us . . .

and we lingered, oh as long as we could,
we lingered, beyond language and
bearable thoughts that seemed
to let us agree . . .

the light rain was a happiness—
four strangers who knew each other . . .
unless one of us broke the circle . . .
unless it rained . . .

THE FOREST MUSEUM
(After "We come to the Forest Museum" by Taylor Graham)

How easily I recall the dark and pungent
smell of green, the instant coolness,
the shadowy depth, the mystery
that overcomes the known,
the little sounds, heard and imagined.

Here is calmness, mixed with a slight fear :
Where is where in all of this—
pathless and deep,
the sun streaming down
the trees—

the patience—the intense listening—
the humble reverence, realized—
the nostalgic way
the forest claims a part of you
every time you leave it.

(first pub. in Poets' Forum Magazine)
_______________________

SARAH AND JOHN
(After The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees,
1947-1954)

Who was Sarah—who was John,
that they were dedicated
in a book of poems,
the poet dead now—
missing from his life,
a mystery to solve—
and leaving us to wonder:
Who was Sarah? Who was John?

A RAGE OF LOVE
(After “The Spring and the Fall”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay)

Love with its fever, love with its praise,
love with the stubborn way it stays,
not to remember—not to forget—
or grieve—and yet, how it betrays,
like a stone in the heart that feels no pain
where all the deepest scars remain.

Love with its fever, love with its praise,
love with the stubborn way it stays,
never remembers what went wrong—
even the songs—each tender phrase.
Whoever suffers thus must know
when to let go, when to let go—

go where it will in the scheme of things.
Love is not meant for sufferings.
Every heartbeat still obeys
love with its fever—love with its praise.
This is the hardest thing to know:
to lick the wounds, and just let go.

It was a time before known time,

call it the past, or long ago,
to suffice—
call it ‘humor the imagination’
so poorly nurtured . . .

how else become the bearer
of words, with their story,
brought from
memory’s own shadow,

to be talked about and shown
with great elaboration and desire,
tears mourned
when it was gone, or broken,

or otherwise vanished
from the place of shining—
the story becoming
mystery now.

__________________________

Today's LittleNip:

THE LUMINOUS BLUE
(after "The Mediterranean" by Dufy)

For the sake of blue
Dufy would draw
beyond the true

with
simple mystery
and need

to see
poetically—
let go the rules.

_________________________

—Medusa, thanking Joyce for today's tasty fare, and noting that our new Seed of the Week is Discoveries. Send your poems, photos and artwork to kathykieth@hotmail.com; no deadline on SOWs.

—Poems by Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

A SONG IN HER VALLEY

When he saw her in heels
he said she’s the one so
he said his “I do,” never to
climb a different mountain.

That night he began
at her ankles, climbed
seams in her stockings,
moved over her hips

and circled her waist,
strolled up her spine and
stood on her shoulders,
took a deep breath and

rappelled to the smile
he saw on her breasts.
Many years later his life
is a song in her valley.

_____________________

SIR REAL

Brett and Amanda were
in the same wedding party.
He was best man,
bronze and handsome.
She was maid of honor,
porcelain and beautiful.
They had a wonderful day

and danced all night
at the reception, met
after work every night
for the next two weeks,
finally told her parents
they were going to elope,
obtained a marriage license,

arranged a honeymoon
in Paris and London,
bought plane tickets,
packed their bags
and were on their way to
the justice of the peace
for a fast wedding

when Amanda asked
if there was anything
she could do for Brett
once they were wed
and Brett said there was:
She could applaud when
he walked into a room,

smile and curtsy, speak
only when spoken to.
His first two wives
had failed to do that
and those marriages
had ended quickly.
He hoped she understood.

ANOTHER SPRING

I heard from Harold
this morning, someone
older than I am, the two of us
in winter staring at another spring

someone I haven’t seen in 50 years,
side by side in cubicles again
making plans for lives
that might have been

waiting for the quitting bell
to say it’s 5 o’clock, time
to dunk our time cards,
hop the trolley and go home.

_____________________

THE GIRLS IN STENO, 1970

When it’s break time
the girls all walk together,
cigarette-protector cases
clasped between their index

tapers and their thumbs.
On each girl’s fingers glow
iridescent lacquers.
When break time nears,

they peek at each other,
twinkle, giggle, nod.
When break time comes,
a bell rings and the girls rise

like Lazarus. High on heels
they click in couples down the hall
to fill an elevator.
They get off at One. There

they float across the cafeteria,
men everywhere,
eyes everywhere.
(Is he the one?)

When a new girl’s hired
the old girls
put her to the test:
Will she join them

for the coffee break?
If she does, she joins them forever,
even after she marries,
retires or expires.

WHEN CARBON PAPER WAS KING

All the rest are dead
except for Joe and Ed,
both ill and long retired.

They linger miles apart,
keep in touch by email,
a tool colleagues didn’t have

when they and Joe and Ed
used telephones and typewriters
to get a magazine out on time,

their hands always in a dither
with carbon paper, paste pots,
pica sticks and galleys.

Every month the magazine
came out on time, glistening.
Now many years retired,

Joe and Ed wonder by email,
Gosh and Golly Gee, how
did they do it without computers.

Colleagues have no answer.
Except for Joe and Ed
all the rest are dead.

_____________________

THE CANYON DWELLERS

There’s this canyon
between two cliffs
and Tim Boyd has a foot
planted on each cliff.
He’s spread-eagled
but very steady.

He's been stretched
over the canyon since
he got back from Iraq.
After he took his position,
he thought someone
would eventually look up.

There are others
spread over the canyon
in front of Tim.
They’ve been there
since Viet Nam and
getting a bit wobbly.

In back of Tim
are the new arrivals
spread-eagled as well.
They’re fresh from
Afghanistan and they're
getting their feet set.

The rest of us below
have jobs and are busy
with families and lives.
When a canyon dweller falls
and makes a terrible mess,
we find the time to look up.

I-Beams

AN EASTER RISING

Poetry by priests?
Who gives it more than mock attention?
We read their poems, yes,
author first, then the title,
finally the verse itself.
Not much, except for Hopkins.
We wait for Rome, you see,
to give us in addition to its saints
one more decent poet.
A sot once said
“When things get bad enough,
you will see a Celt,
armed with a quiver of poems,
ride flaming out of the hills,
soaring over the lakes,
wearing a rainbow for a Roman collar.”
Things are bad enough right now by half.
We need to hear his gallop soon.

_____________________

ANSWER NOW

I was just a boy
but I remember Hitler
at the start

and how too few
understood his plan to
do away with Jews.

I’m a codger now
certain that too few
understand ISIS

so let the word go forth
for all with eyes to see
and ears to hear:

We have another genocide,
this one more inclusive.
We must answer now

or else Christians, Jews
and Muslims too will keep
dying in the sand.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

DAYDREAM

Down the patio walk,
white stones, through the garden,
under the trellis toward me
yellow frock, yellow hair
rising and falling

I lie in my lawn chair,
spoon honeydew sherbet, sip
pink ade from a tall glass,
cubes circling

She is almost upon me
I look up and I tell her
I have sand, sea, skies, laughs,
all paid for and nothing
nothing at all to do.

____________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to today's contributors!

Don't Slip

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

—Photos of Yosemite by Stacie Sherman, Orangevale, CA

APRIL FOOLS US

April fools us
by a Muse's amazing ways
who spells it out
under her nature's breath
with a hundred excuses
from our winter's guest
since being in our nest
offering a feathered high five
yet hands us birthdays
of a survivor's success
making us feel alive
from under the weather
wanting to sea dive.

Now we play chess or bocce
on grounds once covered
with snow-white memory,
waiting for a fairy tale spring
contained in nature's secrets
whispering our earth-wise regrets
for being four months indoors
with cabin fever
now we rest with Jason
our golden retriever,
soon to recover the shock
by the changing of our clock,
being wall flowers
now going wild
near the river bed
from newly planted saplings
arranged in the countryside
by gardeners on the dock.

Hummingbirds are freely
flying by the seaweed basin
on a deserted Bayside beach,
here a lone jazz poet
plays an alto sax
in his own paced awkwardness
breathing out on the sand
reaching for his solitary exercises
at his arm's length
from troubled sharps and B flat
augmented in solo sounds
as any cool cat.

His wounded double life
emerges as a musical poet
and jagged Beat
he still turns up the heat
in lyrical volume to sing out
his speech of floating blues
on fresh blankets to recover
his love for language,
as we follow him by the Cape
known for his long black locks
of unfolding hair
and a one-day Whitman beard,
whose life is on loan
composing his daring verse
from a thousand notes
draped in soft tones.

Perhaps a few beachcombers
may often remember him
as that nonconformist
who quoted Baudelaire
and outlived his daydreams
by drinking in his good words
and refusing a rocking chair,
he is still heard in rare echoes
reciting from a book of Thoreau
by the woods and shore
of early-morning songbirds
in voice-overs
from his jazz piano.

READING VILLON

Reading Villon
in the open streets
amid the chattering classes
reading their news online,
an orange kayak resurfaces
from its tightly knotted anchor
protected from the winds
by the sea's home harbor
and an unusually friendly jay
even brushes off from us
on the last spongecake of snow
over the salty water docks.

It is the last day
of crazy March
with four harsh months
of a freezing troubled repast
as a red cardinal
addresses me in blank verse
my second-hand bicycle
passes by the welcome wagon
by river beds
near the first tourist ship.

We begin to realize
time and images are only
for this last March day
with my gloomy sunglasses
at a bygone season
with our rapid astonishment
at a foursome playing bocce
on the white beach sand.

Watching the ice fishing
on a breathing barge
of a shining eternity
in the weathered thoughts
of every third-rate philosopher
drinking in the local pub
as a smooth jazz guy
hunts for some sun
all winter
who still falls for the love
of a once soap opera star
clenching her hand
now out of luck for the lottery
he wanders alone
like Villon
raising his riverbed eyelids
into a celestial spot at first light
when oysters appear again
on the blue plate special
of the fish shack bar
every Thursday.

EXPECTATIONS

You cannot expect
the awkwardness
of your adolescence
to make any sense
of your sudden victory
at the finish line
of the school marathon
on these reproachable fields
of Central Park
a red apple in my mouth
and a sunflower
in one-time dreadlocks
of hair done by Maria Jane,
now the soap opera star
who jogs by me
is also in the breakdown lane,
preparing my lesson in Latin
with Virgil and Dante
having my back
from the underworld,
writing school odes
for bearded Whitman
once walking
in his cool shadows
after attending an urban read,
it is not our fault
we are wrapped
in an April Fool's Day dream
from your progeny and breed,
Walt, my life
has now weighed heavily
as our memory fades,
I'm under a bandstand
playing solo sax
from these tall passages
feeding songbirds on the grass,
as a Manhattan wakes
my uncle already
at seven in the morning
to work on his film
about a New York rocker
now hands me
his Spanish shirt
from the laundry
having called my mother
to check up on me,
we hear a familiar cry
of a soccer match
outside our high windows,
an Armenian poet
outside our door
plays the accordion
recites to me
about his own boyhood
in Yerevan.

CITY POET

When a city poet
needs the right word
in his own tense time
sentence him
to long life
with a language to express
like Whitman or Verlaine
to every quatrain's punctured line,
believe me,
he's punch drunk
from the Big Apple sunshine
perched as a songbird
by the clothesline
running from
the Chelsea hotel
wishing he was back
in the Sixties
playing sax again
in a fresh white collar
downtown
by the midnight subway train
with a new brass ring
his fingers rattling out
from a subterranean brain
near a cup full of dollars
at his sandals and feet
he's again chanting
like an aspiring Beat.

____________________

CALLAS

With my opera glasses
of indelible memory
lent to me in adolescence
by my uncle and aunt
Maria Callas appears
as Lucia in the mad scene
with laughter and tears
on the beautiful Met stage
here in a dramatic set
sings her bel canto aria
amid a choral palace
of raucous applause
from drama queens
she in her taffeta gown
with a glamorous gold tiara
in di Lammermoor
a poet still remembers it all
as the surging crowds
make it to the door
there is more clapping
on the balcony and floor.

ULYSSES

Ulysses of war and sea
of exile and Penelope
we still hear
your war memory
as in Homer's diary
now housed next to mine
I'm playing a jazz solo
in the spring-cleaned attic
waiting up for our journey
to have a mile run by the sea,
hearing a poet's staying echo
of unconnected fragments
marking in outlines
and texts from my repertory,
still feeling a bout of cold air
from my old balcony
wishing to catch blue fish
in the deep ocean
far from ditch waters of the Bay
along the low tide's sea
in this mysterious spring day.

_____________________

EVEN IF

Even if no one reads us
this day
here or at the bookstore
my fans and friends
are only one step away,
for a unique reality to enjoy
my hemisphere of words
they are assured of a welcome
with the honor of my decor,
as a former stage
and art director,
that in my unique
metaphoric, once-historic world
there are at least four star actors
spending time by paging me
to suspend reality
if only for tonight.

It seems to be O.K.
even in this small softened
daydream
of a drama's verse,
we may still fall in love
with a Shakespearean star
in a critically traded universe
that our poetry will live on
despite it all we are
who we are,
you even may doubt
that the Romantic writer
is on an ageless search for love
as in the comic film
A Coffee in Berlin
with everyone our enemy
above all we cannot win
with Daddy, even a shrink
cannot censor or begin to think
of the irony of our words
from our body language.

BAUDELAIRE'S DAY
(April 9, 1821-1867)

Today the spring wakes
to a poet passer-by
disbanded by fortune
and four love letters
in his back pocket
who watches the crowds
by the Parisian arcades,
it starts to rain on the Avenue
Champs-Elysées
by a children's noonday parade,
when suddenly in need
of a notebook and pen
to scribble out words
returns to a waterhole den,
he quietly enters the door
at a café table and chair
wishing for a hot brioche
for his dining pleasure
and a cup of merciful wine
in no small measure,
his mind races again
immersed in the language
of a midnight quatrain
refusing to bet on life or horse
for a dubiously quoted dandy
has no money for the bourse,
who keeps alive
what only absolution will reap
from his fleeting curiosity
as a keepsake to survive
after nights without sleep,
not always forgiving himself
for being born a Baudelaire
on this wake of a cloudy day
yet thankful for a few francs
lodged in his suit jacket
on noon's absent-minded April
to fill up his small tray.

With fears and long suffering
along dark corridors and hallways
the spark will return to sing
and he will work again
and thrive at this rebirth
at this season of the year
for every Gentile or Jew
there is still time to renew,
whose God of space and time
has forgiven all sin
on this enduring face of earth,
as spring has embraced
trembling branches of yew trees
from the April winds
in the watery air,
reminding you it is your birthday
poor Baudelaire,
here at the end of solitude's hours,
and after all the smoking mirrors
from carnival masks appear
in this devil-may-care world
of playing Tarot cards and solitaire,
you will achieve your goal
by composing "Flowers of Evil"
in fervor for every lapsed soul,
as you rise to leave
Bette Louise, the lovely server
with ringlets of brown hair
and laughter's red lips
thanks you, Charles Pierre
for your generous quips
and past jokes
lacking much in tips,
yet it is after all Easter Vigil
an hour to forgive and let live
as you try to believe
your poetry will still be alive
after the last apocalypse.

______________________

Today's LittleNip(s):

LOST

Lost to the prince
of the air

in the Alps
where souls

suddenly disappear
by a convincing scream

with the collapse
of German wings

as a lonely bird
sings a poet's words.

_____________________

A MONDRIAN MOMENT

A hundred shades of sunlight
on your Manhattan studio wall
of green, sky blue, red
a poet expects flying gulls
from the phosphorescent waves
to reach the bronzed Pacific
in a glimmer of first light
animating a festival of play
as an aspen of spring enters
our radiant morning field
from a perfumed vision
at the level of green eyes.

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's wonderful contributors!

Cornerstone Gardens, Sonoma

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

A RAINY SPRING
—Jeanine Stevens, Sacramento

We miss smaller things blooming, hatching.
Mallards skim the pond at six a.m., usually a pair,
but today, a second green-necked male
flits around. They’re not complaining,
not like Sartre, in another spring, tossing
the rotted rabbit out the window—the meal
Simone planned for another lover.
It was all the same to her, a war was on,
and she was hungry as anyone else.
But, I’m stuck here, can’t even open the window
for a Paris view—Jean Reno, shirtless
and smoking, for instance. A male pounces
on dun-colored feathers. She sinks—then,
all three rise—hover like black hawks, disappear
over wet rooftops, not one damaged feather
left as evidence of a spring gone on too long.

__________________________

PEACH BLOSSOMS
—Jeanine Stevens

    —Villiers le Bel
       (Painting by Childe Hassam)

A parchment sky exposes more trunk
    than blooms, misshapen,

wind-pruned, beetles hunger and age.
    Pink fluff forms a face that breathes

easy at imperfection. Underneath, weeds
    tangle lime-scented geraniums,

a split at the base, multiple trunks
    twist frothy locks ending in a freefall,

peach-studded coiffure touching
    forehead to earth—a perfect

     model for the 1960’s book cover:

    Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

(first pub. in Ceremony)

________________________

POSSUM TRIOLET
—Jeanine Stevens

I saw a floating leaf today,
    so many shades of speckled gray
       a baby possum facing down

the head a tiny triangle
   so alone in the darkened pond.
       I saw a floating leaf today.

How long before its mother
   limped away, moonlight
      tracing her broken ankle?

I saw a floating leaf today,
   a baby possum facing down,
       the head a tiny triangle.

Middletown Cemetery

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

RAIN PANTS
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Come tread my threadbare carpet, rain pants rustling
soft frictions, tensions down your long legs vinyl.
When I die, let my best vision and final
be dark blue seams with dark blue creases whispering,

We’re serpents lapping strong young legs. Smooth milk.
Worm-spindle susurrus, a one-strand gut-thread hissing
incessant air kisses. Your lissome stride makes silk.

______________________

SNAILS REVEALED
—Tom Goff

If—after eight months’ drought while dirt and grit
cake, or blow from under the neighbors’ azaleas—
if now, from beneath firecracker flowers flit
small odd-shaped emissaries from a delayer’s
universe, tread carefully. Watch for the laborer
who carries much of herself upon her back, in
a neat if delicate, desperate wayfarer’s
spiral overnight bag, all labels lacking:
This End Up, or Fragile, Handle with Care.
Where do they come from, and whose eyes examine
ground-features sharp as grass, yet miss these ones?
I mean, miss them completely till they’re there,
gingerly testing the atmosphere for fine
gradations of gas with flicking eye-tubes for tongues?

How does one spring rain, with its next-door neighbor sun,
bring the crisp-shelled throngs who sluggish on one foot run?

_____________________

Today's LittleNip(s):

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in haven new eyes.

—Marcel Proust

* * *

I think a spiritual journey is not so much a journey of discovery. It's a journey of recovery. It's a journey of uncovering your own inner nature. It's already there.

—Billy Corgan

* * *

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

—James Joyce

____________________

—Medusa, thanking today's poetry chefs in the Kitchen for their gourmet fare!

Middletown Cemetery

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

Painting Shadows

—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA

TALKING TO THE POETS, BUT ANYONE
CAN LISTEN, SHOULD THEY CARE...

“This won’t leave marks,” he said,
“But it may affect your memory.”

Most of us have gathered here
From legend and myth. We are
The children of wonder, those who
Know what things are kept by the moon.

We are the unknown, mysterious troubadours
Who have walked through the bitter evening,
All beautiful with ice, the companion
Of mountaineers. We have taken the stairs
Away from the edge of the world to be here.

We are able to recall the malignancy of time.
We have tasted the bleak, metallic wind
The comes from the stars. Our love scorns
Death. Death chuckles.

We live under the spell of music
Yet go mostly unnoticed except
By those who use the language
To open their dreams with knives
Made of clouds and spill it across
The land. We are the true magic.

We reap all the quiet. We let history
Own us. It is in our core.
We can answer from dream with voices
Like rain, and the magic that makes us
Can call us by name.

We claim what is holy, water and flame.
We can reach up and touch planets.
We are a disguise water dons
That allows us to play with the vagaries
Of chance.

We are the secret source, the cosmogony
Everyone searches for every day.
Dragon, whirlpool, tree, panther,
The dressers of wounds, keepers
Of whirlpools, lords of metaphor.

All of this weaving, all of this trouble.
Come here, stand beside us.
We are here tonight
Only to listen to the song
Of the nightingale.

Edge of Garden

A COUNTRY

Most devoted is this wind,
Unhurried but persistent
In its naming of the land.

“What country is this?”

“The Wind’s.”

These soft animals of childhood walking
In the last of the twilight.

“Is this where the seasons come from?”

“Look—there is death." Even his horses
Are beautiful. He has such multitudes
Accompanying him, he barely notices.
To death it is all music.

We can see eternity getting dressed.
It is wearing purple this morning.
It washes its hands in blood
As if it were a secret.

The power of the wind never lessens.
It carves our faces even as we
Stand still, gazing at the battlefields.

________________________

THESE ARE DOORS

Tonight I could see them coming.
I could see their embroidered waistcoats,
Their high, polished boots that
Reached to the knee and their
Flashing helmets with strange
Designs attached to the top of them,
Designating something important
To them as they rode their
Memorable horses close against
The gates, a kind of vanity
Only discovered when one is driven
From the back rooms of the heart.

They didn’t like to be noticed.
They were without history,
Made of oblivion with no index.
We would always see them
Through another's eyes,
Like poems written by warriors,
Nourished by heroes whose deeds
Were limitless.

Still we could hear them moving
As if they were mysterious trains
Remembering dreams, but unwilling
To unleash the multi-colored ribbons
Borne by such as this music is made.

They would have us understand
For a moment only, so we imagined.
They used up years and they used us up
As we tried to unwind their riding,
Back to the realms from which they came.

An Alley

FOR THE CHILDREN GONE

These dreams that were our children,
We bury them in the silver of the seas.

I will ask you dance with me for awhile.
And the music will be a waltz.
We will see Christmas when we were small
And the music was all around us and the magic
Was even in our clothing as well as in our bodies.

I will ask you to stand on the top of the hill
On the North side of that copse of trees
We use for firewood in the Winter.
The wind will have at our coats and scarves,
Make them flutter about us as if they would leave
Our bodies as our souls do when we have lost
All of our dreams and our memories are distributed
To those who might find them in their own dreams.

And I will ask you to walk with me awhile
As Ebenezer Scrooge did in his night of troubled
Sleep that we too may gaze upon the children
One last time before the sea swallows them entire
And we are left in our little boat bouncing
Above the top of the waves, the sun glinting
Across their lips almost as if they could speak.

_______________________

HOUSE OF BONES

House of bones.
House of bones.
Look, they make the horses.
Look, they make the men.
Look, they make the ladies fair.
Look, then look again.

This sparkling darkness.
Silence beating its padded clubs
Upon the room. We stand
On the highest point.
It is blue. The night is blue
And the streets are filled
With blue snow.

Aren’t we forgetting something?
A lacework of lights
Said, the shape of the village
Below. It seemed so peaceful
There, but it was not where we were.

The engines of the planes gathered
On the sleeve of the night.
We could hear them coming.
There were many of them.
House of bones.
House of bones.
Silver is the sky with falling bombs.

On Campus

TOO CHICKEN TO DREAM:
TWO-CHICKEN DREAM

The Night is like deep, clear cuts
Into the body.

Skin of a frog.
Chicken in a log.
Playing on the garden wall,
Strutting like a cockerel,
Acting real tall.

Rope broke just this morning
Trying to run away. Chicken’s
In the pasture, now there’s no place
Left to play.

I’ll tell you what your name is
If you belong to time. If you don’t,
Then run away or they’ll blame
You for the rhyme.

Chicken’s in the poem now
Dancing for its life. If it don’t dance,
The cat will prance or pounce,
Announce its chance and chicken’s
Due to bow out.

Be careful what you wish or choose,
Be careful with your feathers,
The night will come, the rope will break,
The cat will prance, you’re bound
To find fowl weather.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

I’LL NEVER GET USED TO THE EVENING

To have feelings that are not your own.
To pick the scabs off of the night.

A broken triumph.
The sound of the land sliding
Away beneath your feet
Even while one is making love.
A song of sweat.

The nerves of the earth
Revealed with the plow.
Exclamations of sad birds
Follow, picking the insects
From its synapses.

The moon wrestling its way
Through the clouds,
Undaunted.

______________________

—Medusa, thanking D.R. Wagner for today's delicious morning treats!

Clouds

The World's Gone Green

This Most Perfect Place

The Precious Secret of Blooming

The Annotated Spring

Snake Charmers & One-Eyed Cats

Passion's Seat

O Pine-Trees!

The Cat's Game

Love is Too Sad For Keeping

Consider Eternity

Writing With Emily

Plastic Baskets & Cellophane Grass

Finding Other Words

Now to Love

Free At Last

Peace Be

Honeydew Sherbet & The Steno Pool

Blue Plate Special (Every Thursday)

Voyages of Discovery

The Malignancy of Time