Medusa's Kitchen

Hole in the Sky

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING
—William Wordsworth, 1770-1850

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ‘tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played:
Their thoughts I cannot measure,
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

___________________________

—Medusa

Blink

—Photo by Taylor Graham

MARKS OF SPRING

—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Some creature left those marks—symmetrical
slashes of micro-sabers, talons or claws—

on Blink, my cat, whose instincts
bid him sneak out the door on a spring jaunt.

Every bird in tantalizing song, and sun
painting shadows that flicker and tease

like feathers about to fly.
After three nights and days, he came back.

Beneath each yellow-gold globe of eye,
a neat slice through fur and skin

as if he had a second, under-pair of eyes,
slits to spy the privy blossoming

and roots of things. Mysterious and mythic,
unknown. As if he’s looking through the secrets

of blood. After the spring, the pounce,
the prance, he purrs.

_________________________

PICKING PUPPIES

—Taylor Graham

Open the gate, you’re in a swarming
that moves too quick to count.
There’s a crazy pup chasing a shadow,
and a runabout from post to corner and back.
Will they ever subside and yield a path?
But look, that one, sitting
eminent on the top step as if a statue.
He lets you patronize him as far as patting
his head. In fact, he’s looking
beyond you, as if to twilight groves
and visionary vales; as if wondering if
it’s his lot to lead you there, to show you
things you’d never find for yourself.

________________________

DISCOVERIES

—Taylor Graham

Getting ready for tomorrow’s trip—
halfway down the state, to deliver one
puppy of eight to her new master. Which pup
will be chosen, and not make the trip
back home with me? At dawn, the truck
growling low over gravel, in its bed
a mass of fuzzy squirming,
whining with want and wonder.
Concentrated pep. Each pup grows lighter,
heavier by the moment. Underfoot,
they’re a constantly changing map of sable,
black & tan or red. I have to watch
my step. Every one’s a distant country
beckoning to discover. I love each by name.
Scrapper, Scooter, Sailor, Sweetie-Jo….
I want them gone—all but one—
to new hands and homes. I haven’t
energy to train and nurture so many;
to know them for my own.
Just one puppy at a time, my time.

Spud Discovers Lamb

—Photo by Taylor Graham

FERTILE SOIL
—Caschwa, Sacramento

(inspired by Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring”)

Public school provided me
What the minds of the
Best educators they could hire
Conjured up to be a
“well-rounded education”

After I graduated high school
It was clear that my schooling
Had missed a few key areas
Like an unguided missile
With no warhead

At some point there is the
Popular expectation that
A student will embark on
An upward mobile career of
Working to earn their own keep

To get a better view of that
Whole different world
Outside of academia
I enrolled in a junior college
Class about starting a business

Business borrowed real estate’s
Adage which said the 3 most
Important factors are location,
Location, location and preached
Growth, growth, growth

What I saw was our entire nation
Overtaken by oleanders
Hell bent on growth, all parts toxic
Those plants do make good barriers
But what if barriers are all you have?

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

SAILING THE BOAT OF SILVER LIGHT
—Sri Chinmoy

Sailing the boat of silver light,
The moon-beauty is fast approaching me.
The sky is vibrating with sweet and melodious songs.
The birds are flying beyond the horizon
To an unknown land.
All my hopes are flying without any destination.
Slowly my life’s evening sets in.

______________________

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

—Photo by Caschwa

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

THE CHILD ARTIST AT AN EASEL OF LIGHT

This maelstrom of self—this painting on mirror—
this discovery. Will the child come true—continue

to be—primitive—child of the fierce, proud look?
How much discovery can glass hold? How much distance

can extend behind the positioned, reflective self?
What does the child know beyond color and smear—

what does he grasp of perspective’s first freedom?
How much will the child retain of the old connection

between hand and mind and eye—and this canvas of
light—this pigment of the sun’s dispersive glare?

To what far self does the child begin to compare
with his rapt intensity? See how he is private,

lost in his art; how he holds his brush, his body
braced, sure of himself? See how his eyes insist on

his just-discovered right to perfection, how he fills
the glass surface and beyond, how he paints on through

the dimension of mirror: paints the ground beneath,
paints the frame’s restrictive, bordering air;

how he paints the blue and dazzling sky behind him;
how he paints the lowering sun, how he paints himself?


(first pub. inTule Review, 1999)

________________________

IN YOUR GARDEN

In your garden, I am lost soil.
I am unplanted flower.
I am pressed stone.

     .     .     .

I am in the side shadow of light
waiting for you to turn and say, “Oh”.
But you are bending and looking
into the discovery that is everywhere.

     .     .     .

The grapes that you hold are beautiful.
The tiny tomatoes are sweet.
The lemons are full of sunlight.

     .     .     .

I move through the spaces after you
but they close around me even as I speak.

     .     .     .

You move toward the dogs,
laughing and calling their names.
Each of them in turn runs up to you
for the rough touch of your affection.


(first pub. in Chaminade Literary Review, 1990)

ALTITUDE

It was not for lack of place,
there was enough of it,
posing all around us in the lack of air.

It was so thin here
for our breathlessness,
our excitement with each other—

the delirium of discovery—
love in its momentous power,
and we its brave young fools.

How shy we were
in the dissolving and blending
when we changed and were changed.

And this we took with us—
the memory that stayed faithful
though we regressed,

grew cynical
and careful,
and never climbed that high again.

_______________________

THE MAZE HOUSE

She cannot find her way through the shifting rooms,
the lock of windows, the felt presence of another—
the way her shoulders touch darkness, and darkness

yields. Year after year she can hear a nightingale
in the center,
and year after year she seems to get closer to

the brilliant singing: She imagines a golden cage,
its small door open to the solving light, and no bird
there, though she can still hear the singing.

(first pub. in Seattle Review, 2001)

LETTING THE WORLD FIND HER

She takes shape in the light, lets wind find
substance—alter her—move away—return.
She is still there, under every influence.

Sounds repeat her. Silence listens. She is all to
all. Her lover receives her—moves through her,
textureless—comes back, and she is different.

She goes through the walls of sad wings; her
own lift and assist in this small migration. She
assumes the distance—retains the white mask

and borrows the voice of shadow. Only the
horizon knows when she will arrive and what
will be there. She will keep the expression she

has worn for her life—the white mask of her.
Under that, her face will be calm. Her eyes will
be one with her thoughts. She wants to bring back

the experience: the way the light held her into being
—the way the dark contained her—the way love
remembered her—the way the wall of wings
let her through to their holding.

_______________________

DISCOVERY

The words flew into each other—love
and love—on their white identical wings;

as image into startled glass.
Amour, said one;

Amour, said the other
in the transparency of

glass / water / air

through which they met—
possessing each other

in a terrible collision—
the beautiful birds of language,

becoming one,
even as they broke through each other.

TO FIND EACH OTHER

Your theme is not entirely relevant
to my reality. How do I fit

your expectation—
fill in the numbered spaces,

like a jigsaw puzzle:
white on white,

the cuts identical and small
in a huge white box?

What kind of clue is this—
this map to your theme,

as vague as a white road
in fog, paved swirlingly,

and a white sound that cries
forever in patient melancholy?

What can I say to you
that would not get lost here?

The cry is my own, and the cry
is your own, so eerily blended.

_______________________

FINDING THE WAY OUT

A white cat in the alley
on top of a black car
guided our way out
through the narrowness
where imagined whores
invited us
into their real arms.
Three houses down,
the volleyball net
someone had stretched
across the alley
laid claim
to this summer night
and blocked our way.
Your tiny house
pulled back to let us
turn our car around.
We tried three times
before we got it right.
Your blue car
disappeared
when we looked back.
Your alley shadows
quickly covered
where we were.
A laugh or two
spoke out,
then all turned black
just as we found
the left turn
that we took,
a pitted path
that slowed us
even more. Behind us
we could feel
the white cat
close its eyes
and start to purr.

IT MUST BE LOVE
After "The Prisoner of Light, 1943" by Roberto Matta

, reaching for itself in futile effort, the way
light slips away from time
toward the other

: Metallic light.
Reflective time.
Love as the searcher.

Why else the fuse and warp of all this energy
combined and separate
—as love will ever be

—as time must be.
Merge and lose. Merge and gain.
Why question?

It must be that discovery is not complete
without the yearn to change what is discovered
: time as a path toward a circle’s end.

Let’s gild this thought—create transparency
so pure it will become a depth
within a depth.

Let’s silver it with blue so fragile it will tremble endlessly.
Let’s give it tiny fish and birds that swim and fly together
toward a mutual horizon.

This is where the light and truth
will reunite
: all question, and all answer.

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

I make a discovery in a poem as I write it.

—Rita Dove

_______________________

Our thanks to today's Master Chef Joyce Odam for her contributions to the Kitchen. Her white cat in the alley is intriguing, so our new Seed of the Week shall be White Cat in the Alley. Send your poetic or other artistic thoughts about that cat (or any other subject!) to kathykieth@hotmail.com; no deadline on SOWS.

By the way, congratulations to Joyce and to Katy Brown and other area poets who won prizes at the Berkeley Poets' Contest last Saturday. Watch for next year's details about this long-running contest.

—Medusa

Venus

—Poems and Photos by Katy Brown, Davis

(RHYMES WITH BLUE MOON) NOT PASHTUN

Not Urdu. No. Not Turkish, Persian, or Hindu. Not Pashtun.
I’ll try this form in English for something fun to do — not Pashtun.

All the French-forms dazzle and inspire: while
nasally French sparks sultry fire; sadly, not Pashtun.

The Germans growl and swallow parts of odes;
Spaniards count feet with tango-toes. But not Pashtun.

Italians have the sonnet. The Welsh are counting — something;
every culture has a gimmick, and they’re on it. Not Pashtun.

I’ll share a little secret about the cast-in-bronze ghazal:
no one’s really sure how it’s pronounced. Not even the Pashtun.

(won 1st in Humor category at Berkeley Poets' Contest, 2015)

_____________________

QUESTIONS:

Under the shadow of which mountain were you born?

In what water did you first swim?

What is the color of your spirit?

Which season of the dogwood do you prefer?

Where were you when the Wolf Moon rose?

Can you name the song of the mourning dove?

Read the map of your hand?

Where do your bees sleep in winter?

When was the last time you ground corn?

How many heartbeats have you wasted?

Have you traveled the high ghostwind?

Whose tears wash the ocean’s shore?

Which stars remember your enigmatic name?

Freckles and lamb

DREAMING THIS COMMON LANGUAGE

this proto-syntax; this primary lexicon
with its apparent roots: mama, nay,
the shy smile; scream of terror—

come to think of it, you may not want
to understand everything
you can put into words, after all

— imagine the simple iamb
of your mother’s heartbeat
this rhythm that quickens

with desire or fear
the heartbeat that surrounded
when you had no words

you might be fooled into thinking this
— this is the common language
but look deeper into the human tree

toward the ocean and the waves
that crawl up from the sea
to the universal codex

in the tide of breath
the seawater of tears
the glowing phosphor of dreams

a low rumble of something large
calling across time to anything
that can understand and answer

_____________________

PRAY MERCY

(after a photo of storm waves
on the Cornish coast, February, 2014)

Those who saw the waves approach
believed the end of the world had come.
No strangers to heavy seas and perilous storms,
the Cornish fishermen of this coastal village

had ridden their share of giant seas —
had lost friends to waves that
scoured trawlers, then tossed them aside.

But they had never seen such a sea —
had never heard the roar of an angry god;
never prayed through the night

with the endlessly tolling church bells, blown wild
in the wind — prayed with the thunder
of wave after wave smashing over the seawall,
clawing up their shuttered, cobbled streets.

_______________________

MIRIAM

Maureen chose the name
when she chose the man from Nigeria:
her wedding ring,
the gold coin he begged
from a wealthy merchant
the year he completed the Hajj.

Any man who could make that journey
with nothing but the garments he wore
and a wooden bowl
could create love out of the hot wind
and restless starlight
— so she thought.

She wrapped her head
in a pale blue scarf and walked behind him
away from her London home.
She gave away her crucifix,
turned toward the East
and learned another name for god.

SHE IS WHAT SHE EATS.

(Based on a line from "On the way to
the swimming hole", a poem by Sins Queyras:
“she cannot eat anything that sings.”)

Others say they can’t eat anything with eyes.
They can’t participate in the painful death
of innocent animals. Just for food.

But she eats everything:
tender baby carrots pulled from dark earth;
unfertilized eggs, collected from free-range hens;
organic chickens and beef.

She thanks the spirits of the food she eats,
even the green things,
for sharing their essence.
She is mindful of the river and the rapids
that every determined salmon runs
before it swims into the net.

Occasionally she is given venison and quail.
She thinks of the grace of deer
and the fussiness of the bird.
She does her best to internalize and honor
the grace, the discrimination, the resilience
the determination that brought life to her food.

For her, food is not merely calories
and amino acids; not just fats and pre-packaged parts.
Her spirit metabolizes the spirits of others.
She honors every sacrifice
because she, too, is part of the sacrifice.
All life sings.
She would devour singing life;
amplify her own song with the spirit of others.

A NURSERY RHYME FOR OUR TIME

Judy has some little lambs, some bluebirds, and some pups,
some geese and sheep and tracking dogs that keep each other up.

They break the fence and run amok in country roads outside
where they can flee in wild delight — to run and skip and hide.

She’ll chase them to and fro the verge and shoo them back again
where they’ll return with grim resolve to slip the hated pen.

She used to have but one stout gate to keep them all inside.
Now double-gates keep guard for her, but critters won’t abide

with plans to keep them safely home where they are loved and fed.
She’s all worn out and often thinks she’ll let them roam instead;

but Judy loves these little lambs, the bluebirds and the pups,
the geese, the sheep, the tracking dogs — it’s hard to give them up!

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

SHORT ANSWER TO
A VERY LARGE QUESTION

Why did life develop on earth?
Because there was Light.

_________________________

Our thanks to culinary wizard Katy Brown for today's delicious poems and photos, some of which were taken of Hatch and Taylor Graham's sheep and (below) one of their puppies with Hatch. Be sure to check Medusa's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pages/Medusas-KitchenRattlesnake-Press/212180022137248?sk=wall for more of Katy's photos of Loki's brood—and thanks to the Grahams, as well!

—Medusa

Hatch and friend

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

TWELVE NOON

April visits me
in the shade of noon
a gull on my porch's gate
is doing stretching exercises
sprawled out for a rest
watching me paint
a watercolor
as warblers sing
in a wordless address to nature
amid a repast of lemony fruit,
here in that restful time of day
seasoned by a trance
of bartering for warmth
along the shadowy willows
by the shore
a dancing light moves by
the soft winds off the Bay,
there is a brief showery rain
and suddenly a melody
in a minor key for lute
floats in my private landscape
with a clear harmonious sound,
swallows sway by me
and sweep the dust on the road
as if saints are at their prayers
coming from quietus to life,
now the sky is full of sparrows
and a host of other song birds
who drift along cirrus clouds
chirping to their own tune
in a upturned spring rapture
from a transparent light
at noon from a daydream
sustaining unison and vision
a poet leans out his window
to restore a vase of geraniums
put away for a season,
the air off the ocean floor
recalls a daily rumbling seaweed
you would wade through
where he in the triangle mist
of hedges, flowers,
and woodland trees,
would run a half-mile
even take a quick dip at the shore,
now his words
are curved in silence
remembering those hours
in chimes of the abbey
where Merton silently passes us
rejoicing in the intimacy
as grace is a refrain in our ear
knowing even at this noon
we cannot go back
to embrace the self-assured
morning shining like rubies
in the effervescence of light
or at a kaleidoscope of diamonds
we would emerge from the sunshine
feeling the watchful eye
of the white cat
whom we shelter in our arms
under the once-shivering Elms
it is the stroke of Thursday noon
draped in our grey eiderdown
napping over a hammock
in a downcast chill of memory
knowing we survived
the boxed-in winter
and longing to watch
from the beach house
a merciful sky of Monet.

______________________

CHANGES

You ask for change
from strangers
outside the bank
but have no interest
except for words
without thanks
it's still April Fools for me
and like any southpaw
you try to change
your melancholy expression
from behind your bearded jaw
to play kickball
with a new life at a wall
after doing a confession,
you find a lucky ten
from a lottery ticket
and find yourself
doing a cool tango
with Juanita in a jazz club
she calls Daniel's den,
we drink and eat tacos
before the place closes
after a chance for love
a poem emerges
from that time spent
feeling like Dostoyevsky
in California's nineteen-sixties
with his Crime and Punishment
gambling for rubles on his knees,
we're not a member of the law
or clergy
more like Pushkin or Whitman
writing his elegies
or a blackbird
in a stage of flight
here on the sands of Ocean Beach
like a San Francisco Beat.

Light on Glass

A MOZART MINIATURE

A Mozart miniature
stands on my piano
after long cold winters
of an obscure slumber,
he cannot turn my way
to lift his musical gaze
or argue any gifted formula
in our modernist culture
with my interpretations of days,
if he could hear my chanting
mouthfuls of prayers
to high praise
or my playing
rhythmical jazz tunes
while watching the snow
with me on the island shadows
of my memory's ways,
as he listens
to new lyrical cool
sax exercises and exposes
in metaphors of my confidence
he may make sense
or be moved by my tempo,
yet we are both alone
staring at the new moon
with my clicking of a scale
in a merciful shade of my solo
with schooled instructions
composing riffs and numbers
on those evenings of ours
we have a dance of the hours
when music cannot fail
our reed and powers.

_____________________

VALERY'S MEMORY

We follow your eyelids
of words under winds and hill
watching the snapping
of trees along the boulevard
as any Parisian
of the avant-garde
attenuating the good nature
of a Rousseau
capturing love's rendezvous
in the April breeze
by the Seine's flow.

____________________

REMEMBERING APRIL

Hands of acting
in a Beckett play
too deep for words,
you rubbed out
my initials
on the Elm tree
on opening night
consenting to live
for another day
like Godot
recollecting my lines
in the studio basement
still on this April dawn
trying to feel enlightened
for a voyeur and voyager
here estranged from family
and frightened
by breakdowns from friends
praised by the directors
then slapped down
by my punitive understudy
the dressing room awash
in so much nervous energy
we decked out
in satin or black gowns
feeling like being
one of the actor's clowns
and living like tiny birds
in nests trying to survive
yet wanting to flee
from so much hurt
with tiny cups of goat yogurt
packed away in my suitcase
near a book of psalms
in Latin and French
found at the bus stop bench
as if a sign were sent
when I got this part
at the positive audition
and could pay my rent.

STUDENTS

Students making a movie
on Emily Dickinson
here on the Common
on an April dawn
by sweeping swan boats
near Puritan statues
where Ann Hibbins
was hanged as a witch
and Crispus Attucks
gave his life
in a revolutionary act
and I'm asked
for commentary
and facts
on this documentary
across a hundred memories
where we swam as children
in Frog Pond
running the Boston Marathon
by rose vines
and memorial stones
over enriched cemeteries
of famous gentlemen's bones
hearing bells at Advent
after barely paying
the Beacon St.Chambers
monthly rent
with my long-hair appearance
always quoting Whitman
and Baudelaire
in the dark hallways,
a professor and former editor
near a tall Elm
asks for a camera shot
for public exposure
and we remember
Robert Lowell
eating out with us
at Dante's on the hill
knowing in still-life mood
hobnailed in my profession
by so much intensity
poets like me
need a day of solitude,
yet am thrilled
I'm still recognized here
amazed at the sunshine
and fresh air
after the grey winter's
voiceless breath of snows
gave us solitary shadows
where the cool winds
near drifts of white beds
helplessly recover from
its death blows
to trace the night.

Candles

SEAMUS HEANEY
(1939-2013)
APRIL 13 BIRTHDAY

Birds are on long Elms
here in Cambridge
my face pressed
against the glass
of the auditorium
early on a twilight spring hour
amid resonance and recital
to hear you read Beowulf
now you too are translated
from a visionary's words
still hearing your awareness
of our natural lyrical world
your suggestive voice stills us
in a life affirming read.

________________________

ANNE PORTER'S DAY
(1911-2011)

A mystical glow
on a warm island wind
as the noon sun
drips icicles
in the loving glen,
friend to O'Hara,
Schuyler, Ashbery,
your artist husband
Fairfield,
my unsealed eulogy to you
who loved St. Francis
of Assisi
when a greater love
is revealed in this elegy.

AN EXILED POET

When snowdrifts
fall asleep
and a poet is exhausted
under the portico
with wounding dreams
and sorry sightings
of dark walls peeling
not knowing when reality
from diary or dowry
of our brief journey
will inherit us for
another day
on this planet earth
between images of light
in visionary desire
from deep mirrored nights
feeling awkward
on the track
of the marathon
with old sneakers and socks
left by a go-go dancer
from Boston
with a broken back
who fell
the morning before
on the newly painted
bottom stair floor
near the motionless clock
with me reciting to him
from Homer's Odyssey
he also returned lonely
from the navy
injured by former lover
over the laughing swells
of the China Sea
reading my last collection
asking me to autograph it
under the cover of my poetry
not standing on ceremony
by telling of a desperate flight
and of his comradely feeling
like any exile.

_________________________

Today's LittleNip:

CINDERELLA OR A FELLA

You thought
some day
your princess or prince
would fit in
like the right shoe
but then you realized
as a young adult
that she or he loved you
not in the singles' ads
or in movies, cartoons
or fairy tales
which were unreal
almost without reason
that when the secret language
of love poetry emerges
everything will line up
in its silent place
intently gazing at you.

________________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's contributors for their tasty poems and photos! See www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/anne-porter for more about Ann Porter.

Katy's photos today were taken at Boa Vista Orchards

in Camino, CA.

Ellen Bass, Keynote Speaker at Berkeley Poets' Dinner

April, 2015

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

WHITE CAT IN THE ALLEY

—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

I was relieved to find a white cat
whose eyes have shown yellow, and lit
the way I should walk home at night
to my cold, cold cottage in town.

Whose eyes have shown yellow and lit
as much as the white cat in the alley?
To my cold, cold cottage in town
I depend on every sign and token of luck

as much as the white cat in the alley:
the coin in my boot, my cloak and swagger.
I depend on every sign and token of luck.
All these, plus a green moon, fool-proof as

the coin in my boot, my cloak and swagger.
One never knows what lurks in the shadows—
all these—plus a green moon, fool-proof as
a fool with DT’s, now a limp not a swagger.

One never knows what lurks in the shadows,
the way I should walk home at night.
A fool with DT’s now, a limp not a swagger,
I was relieved to find a white cat.

Connie Post reading at the MIND Institute Benefit

held by Sac. Poetry Center

April, 2015

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

NEWS FLASH: ALL ALLEY CATS WHITE IN GLEAMS OF MIDNIGHT

—Tom Goff, Carmichael

At night all cats are grey.
So proclaims a chapter heading
in Dumas’ Three Musketeers.
I distinctly remember reading
the words, thoughts glancing awry, astray.
Deep in the night, deep into fears,
do not all cats register black?
Black and soft and secret gears
mesh inside the arching back
as the slinking catly footpads
conjure visibly shaped silence
foaming a noiseless surf 'round islands
velveteen in pitch-black plaids.
This silence curvets into valleys,
caresses omens into alleys.

Or so I thought.

As many years past musketeer
as go to making iron masks,
I see the supple cats at night,
one of them marked black and white
who sweeping with plangent mews and swiftest whisks
brushes these alleys:
sweet but uncaught.
I see her most in plenilune moonlight

painful as mating

cat to cat, all silver plating.
May we say, lead light?
In such dread light, aren’t all cats painfully,
utterly white and utterly lonely,
coats steeped in ghost-milk, in glistening midnight,
souls bathed in loss rubbed to a high gloss?

Max Rivera at the MIND Institute Benefit Reading

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

WHITE CAT
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

Hannah would never
Deign to hang
In the alley, that
Was for her dirt-colored
Brothers, noisy, fractious
Band of barbarians
That they were.

She could never
Believe they
Were from the same
Litter. Surely
There was some
Mistake. No, she
Was regal. They
Were peasants.

She watched them
Quarrel from her
Perch on the book
Case, licked an
Imaginary spot
Of dust from
An immaculate
Paw, noticed her
Pillow needed
Fluffing. Someone
Would be by soon
To take care
Of that, she knew.

Dr. Andy Jones at the MIND Institute Benefit Reading

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

Today's LittleNip:

Having slept, the cat gets up,

 yawns, goes out 

to make love.

—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827)

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's fine contributors, and a note to check out the diverse Tweetspeak Poetry at www.tweetspeakpoetry.com (cat poems at www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/category/cat-poems).

Davis Poet Laureate Emerita Allegra Silberstein (right)

hugs outgoing Song of the San Joaquin Editor Cleo Griffith

at the Berkeley Poets' Dinner recently. Cleo has served SSJ

long and well, and she deserves her up-coming rest!

—Photo by Katy Brown

D.R. Wagner at Shine, April 2015

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

—Poems by D.R. Wagner, Sacramento

I AM NOT HERE TO TELL YOU
SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

No one will let us pass.
I hate to tell you this, chaps,
But I don’t really have
Any idea what is going on.

The sky is looking around
For something to throw at us.

We have no weapons
That can help you now.

Our steps become quieter
And quieter until only the tiger
Can hear us walking through
This creation.
Listen to that breathing.

I’m not here to tell you
Something beautiful, but
I recall that, years ago,
Tiresias showed us a flaming bird.

Sit here for awhile again.
A flame. Look! A flame.

Some joy right under your chair,
I am beginning to feel all golden.

Geese

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

I PUT MY MOUTH ON YOURS

I put my mouth on yours.
There must be cities like this
Somewhere, with all the lights on,
People dancing in their rooms,
Music flowing from their pores.

Rain reflects a million rainbows.
Streets glistening like your lips.
I can feel your breath move over
My face. It is like coming through
The clouds over a gentle country,
A landscape like your cheek brushing
Mine. I understand this is a way
Of communicating. What are we
Saying? How do we know where
All these doors lead? Here, come
Quickly, look...it is a heart,
Full beyond belief, unable to give
Itself away fast enough, so full it has
Become.

I put my mouth on yours.
There should be feasts like this
On every table, homes like this
For all the homeless, stars like this
For the night sky. I open my eyes.
It is impossible to believe that
It is ourselves only. When I say
Your name, you answer. I put my
Mouth on yours again and again.

(first pub. in Medusa's Kitchen)

Ducks and Doll Leg

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

BEFORE FORGETTING

I have followed you around the world.
Homer told me to do so. Homer
Is dead. I heard this in Far Niente.

Let it grow like fungus beneath
My song dreams. Nothing came of it.
The wail of words through tale
After tale. The surprise that
Characters could come into the
Words, take control and help
Me believe the music actually
Stopped after the last notes
A sonata could explain so perfectly.

Watching fireworks talking among
Themselves on the shore of a river
Near the end of Spring, just as
The sun had made up its mind
To set a bit later that night,

I ran my hand up your back
Caressing your shoulder blades,
Fell asleep before I could forget
That language gunpowder had exploded.

______________________

A HURRAH

These words hate me tonight.
They see me sitting before midnight
Unnerved and disturbed that I am unable
To say anything to my friend whose wife
Is so ill she must write words on paper
To say what is her life.

I am destroyed upon dark rocks
On a darker sea. They cast my
Bones against the foam and moan
Oh moan to me like sinners in
Their discontent. I am unable
To say anything at all. Sometimes
It gets like that. Weeping up
The back stairs. I sit reading
About men drawing closer
Across the plain. Eventually
They will come together.
Words will be unable to harm them there.

Wheelbarrows

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

BROKEN HEART

My heart is broken now, so
I’ll take it in my hands,
Carry it outside and throw
It in the light brown garbage
Can, the one that goes to the landfill,

Not the recycle bin with its blue
Serenity and white logo, RECYCLE
ONLY, or the gray of the lawn waste bin,
A brilliant concept in itself
That I am never going to understand.

No, the brown one will do.
Tiende basura, por favor.

-*-

Among the coffee grounds, wrappers
From lunch and wadded paper
Towels, a good place for a heart
Like this, then go back into the house

Alone, consider the quality of light
In the kitchen, sweep the floor
So there isn’t anything to indicate
That anything is very different.

A broken heart, oh dear, says the clock.
Now just relax. I have another
Minute here for you or an hour
Or a month, or the mystery
Of the noise made by some flying machine
High above the house.

I open the door again
To better hear it, it and
The music-moving that wind attempts.

I think of it as song.

Iris

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

I WON’T SAY YOUR NAME

Chorus:

And I won’t say your name
When I talk about you,
I’ll say there’s a mountain
And skies that were blue.
Descriptions of places
That will always seem true
And are just now and then quite forgotten.

I can remember a time
When your eyes were pure sparkle,
When kisses were breathing
And heaven was near.
When I told you I love you.
It seemed like a love song.
When I’d look in my heart
All the landscape was clear.

(Chorus)

We never noticed
That everything changes
Though we all have been told that
Since time first began.
And I guess we were always
Part of those changes.
Though we tried to deny it
They were always at hand.

(Chorus)

There’s a place where I keep you.
It’s near where my heart is.
Has views of the past
And the future is there.
Sometimes I can see you
And at other times nothing.
Now I can taste your lips.
Now there’s only the air.

(Chorus)

Pansies

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

HEAVEN DARE NOT LOOK

Heaven dare not look too long
When soft, my darling, says the moon,
The stars, the whirling balls of stone
That are the planets, to their sleep.
For soft is the song that rises, clouding
Those towers that are praising in those
Fell halls full of angel wings and dawn.

Heaven dare not keep the night long
From around her shoulders where she
Wears it like the cloak it is and
Brings it to our bed, still full of stars
And singing, such shining is herself.
I gaze upon that which angels fear
May tear them from the face of God,
Even for a moment, such is my darling
In her sweet good-nights before we sleep.

(first pub. in Medusa's Kitchen)

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

FOR JOHN DORSEY

I always think
This pain
Can’t be that bad
Until I see the point
Of the knife sticking
Out of the palm
Of your hand.

______________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to D.R. Wagner for the fine poems and pix, and to Michelle Kunert for the fine photos of D.R. Wagner!

D.R.'s shoes

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

Sleeping Cat

—Painting by Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831-1889)

THE CATS WILL KNOW
—Cesare Pavese (1908-1950)

Again the rain will fall

 on the sweet pavements, 

a light rain like a breath or a footstep. 

Again the breeze and the dawn

 will blossom lightly

 beneath your footstep

 as you reenter. 

Among flowers and sills

 the cats will know it.  

There will be other days.

 There will be other voices. 

You will smile alone. 

The cats will know it. 

You will hear antique words,

 tired and empty words

 like the disused costumes

 from yesterday's festivals.  

You too will make gestures. 

You will respond with words—

 face of Spring, 

you too will make gestures.  

The cats will know it, 

face of Spring; 

and the light rain,

the hyacinth-color dawn,

 that tears the heart of one

 who no longer longs for you, 

they are the sad smile

 you smile alone. 

There will be other days, 

other voices and awakenings. 

We will suffer at dawn, 

face of Spring.

_____________________

—Medusa, noting that more cat poems may be found at www.poemhunter.com/poems/cat

The White Cat

—Painting by Pierre Bonnard

AFTER BEING FEATURED POET
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole

Dear harvest moon, I'm back
listening to your melody
over village hills.
You greet me with a sublime chorus,
separate notes emerge
into a nocturne.

Unlike you
on your lofty throne,
I was pinned to a podium
by a small glaring light—
room dingy, audience blurry,
darkened, distant.
I wished listeners were moons
in all phases, or that
I could tell beyond silence
or delayed applause
that my poems moved "someone"
in some little way.

Windowed companion,
my words and I are home,
grounded, looking up,
enrapt by your pizazz,
your expansive poetry
lavished over earth and sky.

____________________

OFTEN
—Claire J. Baker

When I "stop
to smell the flowers,"
they stop swaying
to smell of me.

_____________________

POPPY
—Claire J. Baker

We lie
on a hillside.
Native grass frames the sun.
The giant poppy stretches, then
opens.

Tailgating

—Photo by Taylor Graham

IT’S SPRING AGAIN
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

  Dogwood’s in bloom, 

this year’s puppies on the loose

  discovering the sky has thrown down

 cedar-cones, a utility trailer

  with no idea what’s going on or how

 it landed, tailgate’s extruded steel  

rooting into soil, wind-music through its

 metal pores as invitation for a pup

  to climb, explore & how do you danc

e on a landscape of woven mesh?

  She dreams of what she knows

 not, a boy whose hand becomes a moth,  

wing-eyes like sockets of a

 skull with fluted horns, music telling

  its tale, a wail of perfectly wordless

 song. It’s spring again.

_______________________

PARSING
—Taylor Graham

You walk the back alley at odd hours,
beyond a neighbor’s over-leaning orange tree
dispensing fruit that no one plucks but you.
Your pockets sag with puckered gold,
wind-fall plunder. You find letters
among leaves blown into corners—
S for the sound wind makes, L for sun lazy
on spring air. In that alley far from streetlights,
once a white cat called down to you
with a quill-sharp PHZZT. Not quite a hiss;
a summons? syllable unknown to your
alphabet, repeated until you wished to form
that song with your own mouth. It tasted
of letters mulching to leaf-fall, citrus-zest tang
past sundown; a question, like hunger.

_______________________

WHITE CAT OF THE ALLEY
—Taylor Graham

Moon makes a chessboard of lattice behind
the old seaman’s snug cabin with nets
hung from the siding, and jasmine twining
like the arms of the tattooed lady. Oh tonight
the moon is cast and crew, just now aiming
its light on ovine droppings like chocolate
chips scattered by the lamb who follows its
Mary through a boarded gate, pastoral
creature contrary to city ordinance,
but this alley somehow evades the sophistry
of what’s allowed by writ and what is not.
The white cat sees it all with moonglow eyes,
withholds judgment, or keeps it to himself,
as the spirit of such a place must do.

_______________________

PARTS OF A MILLION RAINBOWS
—Taylor Graham

Green-collar girl’s our old dog’s shadow
wiggle-shifting under-foot
no matter sun-angle, no matter how carefully
he steps. He lifts the corner of his lip
but never bites.

         Blue-collar boy will leave today

with a new master. How does he know he’s
chosen? A flaming bird—fine, soft sable
puppy-feathers in the low but lifting sun.

       Red-collar feisty girl sets her

mother off again, gets mother-scruffed
back down—again. Yesterday she climbed
the rocks. Who could love her? she nips
the sky to catch its light, she feels all golden.

              Yellow-collar boy

is ours. Red-sable tiger of the puppy-
yard—annual grasses ripening their seeds,
the grist of creation. He sleeps beside our bed
at night, breathing silent as tomorrow.

Puppy Dreams

—Photo by Taylor Graham

Today's LittleNip:

For he will do

As he do do

And there's no doing anything about it!

—T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

______________________

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

Why Me?
—Painting by Vicky Mount

Spirit Reclining

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

CONTENTED

The old fat couple lived in a tiny house
with their fat white cat who caught no mouse
but ate and slept throughout its years.

The old fat couple smiled and sat.
She cooked. He read.
The old white cat stretched and purred.

The breezes stirred. The tiny house
breathed out its ribs and settled back.
Each covered chair and polished top

rejected dust. The shining appliances
clicked and whirred.
The wiring and pipes traveled and rattled.

The fairy tale was not complete.
The cat and the couple had more to eat.
They ate all spring. They ate all winter.

They watched for mail and they
watched for hunger. The shiny eye
of the shiny cat would slit and glitter;

it shone with dark till dark was stronger
and the old fat couple rocked and talked
and clapped and laughed. And that was that.

IN THAT LIGHT

she broods
in afternoon’s half light
on a long soft couch
the cat beneath her hand
the day untold
the long soft hours
filtering her inattention
to the way
all things compose
and rearrange
beyond her care;
she will not long
for anyone,
for anyone not there;
she is removed;
the last light
lowers,
takes her in,
her white dress
glows a moment longer
in that light

____________________

THE GATHERING ROOM
(Rimas Dissolutas)

She stares toward soft window light
—shadowings adrift in the room;
the way the bare walls seem to glow;
the way silence clings like a sound;
a hypnotic feel to the air,

a white bowl becoming more white
deflecting the texture of gloom;
the way time can falter and slow;
a feeling that breaks all around—
a white cat asleep on a chair.

Whatever you wonder is right—
whatever you want to presume.
There’s nothing of this you must know;
whatever you think you’ve discerned
of forces that might define her.

It’s how she can hold back the night,
a lost look that she seems to own,
a trance that will not let her go,
the way time will not be returned
to the fathomless blank of her stare.

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
their detour by turning the corner.

NIGHT SPOTS

Down a long wet alley on a night of
shadows, following the blues of music
and elusive love, following the dim

path of light from late-night windows
where someone always stares down
through shifty curtains, wanting their

own love mended; down a wet alley
toward the other end of its depth and
darkness, wanting a shortcut through

expectancy—whoever follows you
following like a ghost; a furtive wind
cuts through, stirring a few stray

leaves and ripples in the alley-puddles
where rain has ended; and now you
come out on the other side where a

lingering street turns in both directions,
and what you hurry to is restless for you
in all the late-night taverns.

(first pub. in Poetry Depth Quarterly, 2006)

_______________________

FERAL

the night cat slinks
through the yellow moonlight
trailing its enormous shadow

night smudges its dark,
rustles its leaves,
muffles the sounds that follow

the white fence gleams
where the lane curves
the stars inspect the gravel

the late night warns
the sounds crunch
the slow moon loses its yellow

the hushed leaves listen
the cat returns
dragging its ragged shadow

THIS MILD PERSPECTIVE

(After "The Cat That Walked by Himself",
an illustration by Rudyard Kipling)

this mild
perspective
made of winter
this focal cat
beginning the dream
of its ninth and final life
this moseying forth
this going toward
a tall white distance
with all space narrowed
between
a leaning dance of trees
no shadow
but that of light
all color drained of it
such a delusion
this focal cat
so nonchalant
its final path pulled thin
in simple black and white

THE WORLD IS MUCH TOO SLOW WITH WAKING

and there is the white moon hanging
and a dark cat passing under,
prissy-footed in a stubble-field,
and a slow-motioned dog is barking,
far away it seems,
and the moon is sharp and full
and the cat is slowly stepping
through the shadows
and has almost reached the end now
and is just an abstract motion
in the field’s absorption
and the dog has hushed
and the moon has not quite paled
and the soft blue tone of morning
is just beginning
and a slight cold breeze
gets through as a crow takes
its dark silhouette across the window
and a long block away, across the field,
a jogger runs, tiny as a toy, and the cars
flow by him with their headlights on
and the spell is breaking.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

THE ALLEY

Each night the car pulls up and stops
just ahead of her—blocking her way

—the man sneers
then revs past her with a dark laugh . . .

_______________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for today's sumptuous fare! Our new Seed of the Week is Great Escape; send your poems, photos, and artwork on this (or any other subject!) to kathykieth@hotmail.com (no deadline on SOWs).

Also note that, like most weeks in NorCal poetry, this is a busy one, with readings and with two workshops of note: Thursday's Cal. Lawyers for the Arts workshop on copyrights, and Saturday's annual Sac. Poetry Center Conference. Scroll down to the blue box (under the green box at the right) for details.

_______________________

—Medusa

Joyce Odam (left) with Allegra Silberstein

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

—Poems by Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO

—Poems by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

UNDOCUMENTED ZOMBIES

The nice thing about being dead
is you no longer care if the doctor
mucked up your diagnosis and the

pharmacist gave you the wrong pills.
You're cozy now in a comfy casket
six feet below all the carnage

in the world, without a worry, when
a mastodon tsunami rolls over your
peaceful cemetery and uproots

thousands of caskets, tossing them
high in the sky and forcing you
and all the other zombies to float.

You discover no port will take
undocumented zombies.
You have no papers, after all;

you can't prove who you were or are
so you and the other zombies float
for God knows how long since

God may not believe in zombies.
This is a rupture not a rapture.
And while you float, your lawyer

meets with your relatives who
no longer weep about your passing.
They smile as he reads your will.

They plan on taking a family cruise
with the proceeds from your estate.
They'll dine on lobster and steak,

lay waste continuous buffets while
you and the other zombies float
farther out, unable to find a port

where citizens will bury the likes of you.
Property values will drop, they shout.
They can't drop their signs and let you in.

CHICKEN BONE STUCK

We’ve been married 40 years
and we eat dinner together
every night, Maisie,

except when I'm out
of town on business.
That can’t be helped

with bills and a mortgage.
But never in 40 years till
the other night did I ever

hear you say something
that stuck in my throat
like a chicken bone.

That bone is still there
and I feel it whenever we
eat dinner but never

at lunch eating alone.
So after dinner tonight
I’m packing my bags

and going to a hotel.
We can have dinner at
the diner sometime

and if the bone's not
stuck in my throat we
can kiss and make up,

provided you admit
the hairs in my nose
aren't crabgrass.

THERE'S A CLIFF AHEAD

Sixty years ago,
the two of us rode tricycles
up a little hill
behind our school.
Nothing stopped us till
mothers called us home.

Sixty years later,
we ride mountain bikes
in this wilderness.
We'll keep pedaling till
someone takes our bikes.
We know that someone will.

Your wife told me
you haven't been
to church in years.
She's worried
about your heart.
Skips a beat?

Let's stop for coffee
and you can fill me in.
There's not much time.
Maybe we should stop
for a beer instead.
There's a cliff ahead.

THE SPIDER AND THE SPRAY CAN MAN

He's my buddy, this tiny spider
sitting in his web, not moving,
waiting for a fly that never comes.

The problem is, he spun his web
in a bathroom on the 30th floor
of an office building

where in 20 years I've never
seen a fly or other insect,
never mind a spider.

The man from pest control
comes after hours
and sprays in silence.

We call him Spray Can Man,
He has "Butch" on his shirt
and creases in his pants

pressed by a wife who packs
hearty lunches, I suspect.
I've watched Spray Can Man

twenty years and never heard
him speak to anyone working
overtime in a little cubicle.

Years ago we'd say hello to him
just like Trash Can Man and Mop Lady.
I said "Merry Christmas" to him once

and Spray Can Man never looked up.
He kept looking down, like an anteater,
spraying one baseboard after another.

When it comes to insects,
Spray Can Man is a serial killer.
Yet the spider in the bathroom

has escaped his gaze and lives on
despite the lack of any flies to eat.
The spider doesn't know death's

his destination even though
I know some day soon
his life will be swept away,

perhaps by execution if
one of my fellow workers
sees him waiting for a fly

or if Spray Can Man spots him.
This spider will discover
life is just a belch in time

as I'll find out too some day.
If I'm wrong about what's to come,
I'll have missed a lot of fun.

Green Heron

WAITING IN HOSPICE

This time, why
doesn’t matter
all that matters is

what and when
it’s finally over
he'll know

who was right
the last time
he saw them

at the wake
20 years ago
his big sister

the atheist
his little brother
the monk

YOWLING

Ed's wife found a sinkhole
in the yard a year ago
a foot wide, several feet deep

and she wanted it filled.
No problem, said Ed.
The sinkhole is hidden

behind a big bush
next to their garage.
Sometimes a feral cat,

good as its eyes may be,
falls into the hole at night,
never to come out.

The yowling can go on
longer than a week.
Neighbors around

Ed’s stockade fence
ask where the yowling
is coming from and Ed

asks them if they
have a cat in heat.
They always say no

and the questions stop.
Meanwhile, feral cats,
once a plague in Ed's yard,

no longer crouch
in the foliage and leap
to pluck robins and

cardinals out of the air.
Birds can worship now
at Ed’s suet and feeders,

wipe their beaks in peace,
serenaded at times
by the yowling.

SEASONS OF THE YEAR

Let’s not worry about it, Dearie,
life gets better, life gets worse.
We’re no different than

the seasons of the year except
we’re luckier than most having
lived our lives in summer.

We're falling now among
the leaves of autumn
and we have winter yet

to face with ice and snow.
Let’s put the kettle on for tea,
grab a blanket and stay warm.

We'll light a fire and discover
if we’re evergreen or tropical
when spring arrives next year.

Today's LittleNip(s):

A CRITIC COMES TO DINNER

I told my guest
it’s just a poem
doesn't mean a thing

a salad tossed
with colors bright
while listening to

piccolos of
wrens and robins
overcome by spring

* * * * *

FIRST TULIP

Sometimes you sit for days
sucking yourself in
praying the right words
will fall in your ear
toboggan over the whorls
pierce the canal
and settle in your brain,
an embryonic delight.
Sometimes you sit for days
and finally the words come
and they're always a surprise
like the first tulip in April
or a sudden
orgasm for your wife.

_______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's Master Chefs in the Kitchen!

Shy Bluebird

Raccoon Print in Mud

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
—Photos by Stacey Sherman, Orangevale, CA

BY THOREAU

Rain is indifferent
at first light
wrinkles the wind
from a four-day
Northeaster
a few strong squalls
snap and snatch
the bark whirring
on oak trees,
at the sealed window
a poet in a red scarf
and dark jacket
waits for calm
to explore thick woods
along the bridge
sunshine gleams
on a lonely road
and grackles
search for bread
in the faded dawn
of an unruly coast
a collapsed kayak
from the home harbor
drifts in constant light
of a ditchwater shore
as a sax player
by the oldest swaying oak
prepares his oars
where a loon pipes
his song over the sea
resonates in the network
of an unsettled heart
wishing Thoreau
would visit here
and explore the woods
with me in Concord.

____________________

UNSURE APRIL

Dawn
is no longer dawn
the still breeze
no longer the breeze
a memory off-shore
no longer
in an unsure April.

____________________

JOINED

Joined in a nascent spring
a crocus in my hand
by the dark country road
the wind whispers
by blocking first light
on my sunglasses
echoes of mourning doves
awaken me on my knapsack.

Driftwood Serpent

HOLDING ON

A fragile flower
you hold on
here in the zen garden
so why fear
the early morning
when you dream
on the ineffable earth
of the last icy winter
at the early hour
love glances at your guest
changing the first light
on your face
there is a limpid smile
you had in sleep.

____________________

JOHN WHEELWRIGHT'S DAY
(1897-1940)

Aware of the power
of water, sand, tree
in the honeysuckle
by the Charles River
on revolutionary fields
at Boston Common
near lovers, grackles, graves
a poet's hushed light
of feathered warmth
from muddy streams
green moss, lichen, stone
to open the springs
by fountains
pruning lilacs
no song birds are missing.

1970s 2-Button Can

AT PLYMOUTH ROCK

There are few Puritans
here of any sort
under the flaring sun
round-heads need not apply
or hidden royalty
of Cavaliers
in their collars
only tourist dollars
are their loyalty
at any last resort
yet there is a boy by the rocks
with his sports gear
by his backpack side
reading the Pensées of Pascal
in solitude, out of sight
and a bride of a few years
with long blond locks
stretched out
on the white sand
with a seared copy
of the Magna Carta
and the Bill of Rights
in her strong hand.

_______________________

NABOKOV'S BIRTHDAY
(April 22, 1999)

You talk about poems
and stories
from the chamber music
of your heart
when my Aunt Manya
read to me
your ironic words
when she was seventy
trying to teach me Russian
on her daybed
telling me about
her childhood along
the Neva River
and her love for Ahkmatova
as a widow
mourning the war
and for my part
nibbling like the birds
on your pastry
from the old country
we always celebrated
on April twenty-third
with some tea
and vodka
my appetite for writing
was always stirred.

Squirrel-Made Pineapple Out of Pinecone

WOLFGANG BORCHERT'S LIFE
(1921-1947)

"The Dandelion,"
your short story
we read in school
and unlike an April fool
we won't forget it
nor your work as a poet
you finally paid your dues
after hating the military
and refusing to go back
to the contrary beliefs
for peace
in the early sun
of your days and night
dying from a dirty fever
not reaching thirty
unwilling to put on
a German uniform
or serve the war machine
you finally received
your release.

_____________________

YOU ARE CONVINCED

You are convinced
that war hunted
and haunted
those who survive.

________________________

CHAR'S GREAT ESCAPE

Poet of Resistance
escaping from the enemies
of Parisian spring and love
clutching like Apollo
Daphne's hip as she flees,
after the war
you were supposed
to be in a car with Camus
but there was no room
for you and you escaped
a tragic accident
allowing you to be timeless
taking the long Orphic view.

4WD Party Spot

ANTONIO MACHADO'S EARTH

You return miles from home
still in darkness
quenched from thirst
dazzled by landscapes
traveling on unveiled roads
with your rucksack
on your hardened shoulders
loaded with fruit
in a low village
of bird call and swallows
fearing the next hour
pale from an embrace
not showered
in the wilderness
wanting to hold back
at first to a secret love
yet you say "Yes."

______________________

TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER'S LIGHT
(1931-2015)

Your sackful of light
raised in a thousand suns
will not diminish
over mountains or deep seas
we will wish to hear your voice
flowing through centuries,
we who read you
when you suddenly
disappeared from us,
hardy, lyrical, marvelously
in a body of poems
from rivulet passages
of a lovely elegy.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

THIS DAY TO REMEMBER

We do not forget
one soul or skeleton
from Adam's rib,
who needed
a prayer even in their crib.

_______________________

Our thanks to Stacie Sherman for her photos, and to B.Z. Niditch for his poetry today and for his poem and note about the passing of Nobel-Prize-Winning (2011) Swedish Poet Tomas Tranströmer on March 26 of this year at the age of 83. For more about Tranströmer, see tomastranstromer.net

Another link B.Z. sent us has more about Tranströmer, including B.Z.'s poem "Expectations", which appeared in Randomly Accessed Poetics in 2012, and which is read on youtube by William James Lindberg. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_wDsP886KE

_______________________

—Medusa

Tomas Tranströmer, 1931-2015

Jeanine Stevens, one of the featured readers at

Sac. Poetry Center's "April in Paris" reading

Monday, April 20

—Photos by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

GREAT ESCAPE, ILLINOIS, 1959
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

On Sundays after mass,
We’d travel, usually with Ock
And Jeannie Anderson, the fifty
Miles to Rock Island, Illinois.
There, high atop
(Well six floors, actually)
The Fort Armstrong Hotel,
Was The Sunday Buffet.

Ock was a meat cutter,
My father a boilermaker. And
They made straight for
The prime rib stand.
“Blue, please” would say Ock.
“Bruised a little,” my father
Would grin. The chef had
Heard it all before,
Was not amused.

Jeannie and my mother
Would go for lighter fare,
Usually Chicken Kiev,
Which they pronounced
Like my name, giving
My self-esteem no
Help whatsoever.

As for me, I was just taken
By the view from the
Wrap-around windows.
Big river over there,
Moving slow, color of mud.
Other buildings, almost
As tall. One proudly
Proclaiming itself
“The Rock Island Argus.”
Turns out it was just
The local newspaper.
Was always disappointed
No giants or spare eyeballs
Ever appeared on their logo
Or the masthead.

Eventually I’d calm, pocket
My clip-on bowtie and be
Persuaded to have maybe
A grilled cheese sandwich,
Some macaroni, wisely
Saving room for desserts.
The things that could be done
With chocolate, with custard,
With cream even back then.

Best of all, though, were the
Exquisite parting gifts
For the kiddies—a treasure
Chest (Rock Island was
A river town with a reputation,
After all) of flashy gewgaws
By the cash register:
Squirting flowers, handshake
Buzzers, mini whoopee cushions,
Plastic ice cubes with colorful
Insects embedded. Everything,
Everything I’d need
To continue my unpopularity
Back in fifth grade on Monday.

Ann Privateer, featured reader at SPC

Monday, April 20

GREAT ESCAPE
—Trina Drotar, Sacramento

She hadn’t planned it. Not really. Just pointed
to a spot on the much-folded, out-of-date, map.

She wanted to go. Get out of the big city with
its small mindedness, its noise, its anger, its joy.

She looked at the spot, ran her finger over the
letters that were too small for her weak eyes.

She pulled the spot closer, squinted, fingered
the letters, spelled the town’s name out loud.

Like the couple in the song, she was surprised,
but not really, to find her escape was her home.

frank andrick, featured reader

Monday, April 20

SPRING OVERTURES
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Having annoyed us early with its warmth,
premature summer masquerades as spring,
or rather, back to winter it feigns to bring
us who aren’t fooled: behind those clouds the balm
and calm of preternatural vibrant green,
ripe solar plumes, no humans harmed in making
arthritis-quieting sun come early, taking
its ease behind this decoy bay-fog screen.
Yet eerie disquiet lurks behind fake murk,
and, behind that, false notes of mirth too soon unurned.
From Bax’s First, movement two, have I not learned?
That elegy for the Irish dead, which torques
discord almost to savagery, tears me apart:
those clouds, if they could, would cry out their heart.

Some years, long repressed, a season wants early escape:
still it hides in robes of dense cloud its rock-black cape.

_______________________

LES FLEURS DU MAL
XCIX. Quite Far from Here (Bien loin d’ici)

(after Charles Baudelaire and Clark Ashton Smith)

It’s here, the sacred space of spaces,
here where this young girl frilled with laces,
tranquilly pampered into stasis,

with one hand fans at her breasts,
while on cushions her elbow rests;
she hears far fountains brim distress.

It is the chamber of Dorothée.
—The breezes, fountains, both intone
their songs that sob caressingly
to lull the girl sprawled languidly.

From top to toe, with great devotion,
her dainty skin is chafed with fragrance,
with oil and benzoin’s spicy resin.
In a corner, some flowers, a swooning motion.

______________________

LES FLEURS DO MAL
CI. On “Tasso in Prison” by Eugène Delacroix

(after Charles Baudelaire and Clark Ashton Smith)

The poet in the dungeon, ragged in sickness,
beneath whose convulsive foot a manuscript rolls,
with gaping eyes inflamed by terror unscrolls
a staircase to dizzy the spirit toward the abyss.

The drunken laughs that flicker in this prison
tempt reason toward the strange, the absurd misprision;
Doubt surrounds him, then Fear, horrid with ridicule
and multiform, traps him in its dancing circle.

This genius doomed to a malodorous slimy cell,
these grimaces, cries, specters swarming, dodging
in mephitic turbulence next to his ear,

this dreamer aroused by the horror of his lodgings:
voilà! Your emblem, deluded soul, is here,
dream-mumbles snuffed out by the Real, in these four walls!

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

‪‪GONE IN 7 DAYS‬ 
—Olga Blu Browne, Sacramento ‪ ‬ ‪

Monday's moon, and the‬ ‪
grind of every wind.‬ ‪

‬ ‪Tuesday lost, and yes kindness
‬ ‪gone.‬ ‪ ‬ ‪

Wednesday sharing in sin, dreams
‬ ‪unfulfilled.‬ ‪ ‬ ‪

Thursday brokenness and sleepless‬, ‪
sleepless nights.‬ ‪ ‬ ‪

Friday, the heart forewarned.‬

Saturday, GOD is quiet.

Sunday, others don't forgive.

_____________________

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

SPC Host Rebecca Morrison

Monday, April 20

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

—Poems by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA

A WEEPING

There was crying coming from under
The rug, or so it seemed like it
Was coming from under the rug,
Or someplace that had that muffled
Quality something that’s under
A rug would have if one had
To weep from such a place.

It was a forlorn sound that
Carried memories in it like pine
Trees carry their pine cones.

Every once in awhile some of it
Would break off and roll toward
The door. After awhile there
Was quite a pile of these sounds
And they began to disturb our
Conversation. When we opened
The door these sounds escaped
But we could still hear the crying.

Now it wasn’t coming from under
The rug any longer. Now it
Was us crying, confused that we
Were unable to understand
How this room had become
This way when we were in it
For such a short period of time.

—Art by Flor Barillas

THE CHILD VANISHING

The languages were very ancient.
Those who spoke them carried
Small cloth bags filled with teeth
Which they scattered before they spoke.

They had heard the last bird.
They had somehow misunderstood
What it had sung, and came into our cities
Upon black bulls, the color of night.

At the time, we lived in houses
Without roofs, as we were responsible
For the stars. Few knew us.
It was better that way. We
Traded in crystals which we fused
Together, brought into the darkness,
Delighting in the coolness there,
The inability of those who sleep
To know more than quick glimpses.
The arrow piercing the cloud,
Let alone the expanse of space
And time. We made fires.

On the most colorful of evenings
The child would appear in our midst,
Touching our languages, shattering
Our bodies, scattering the
Approaching ships we had gathered
To place in the rooms as talismans
Against the masks of their dreams.

The child would careen this way and that,
Messing up all our work, mixing it with destiny.

"Not trustworthy," we were told.
He was pursued through the concentric
Heavens as if he were a nightingale
Possessed of magic song.

The last thing we heard
Was that the Lion had come to the plains.
People had gone out to see him.
He had given them bread and wine
And a kind of courage that allowed
Them to question us.
We left as soon as possible.
We did not want to know any more.

—Enhanced Photo by D.R. Wagner

BOXES OF DREAMS

He used to get his dreams in packages.
They came in the mail, tightly taped,
Wound round with yellow twine,
The color of which would come off
On his hands when he carried the packages.

“It is the easiest way to get them,” he said.
“You still don’t get a choice, but they are guaranteed.”

Apparently they were very well packed.
He said it sometimes took him hours
To prepare the brown boxes with the red labels.
“They will get away if you don’t wrap ‘em good,” he said.

Some nights the upper rooms in his house would glow.
We would stand on the sidewalk looking up
At his windows. Often there were quick shadows and flashes
Of many colors, and then sometimes just a dull gray
That hung around the neighborhood for days.

When he died, we were asked to clear out those rooms.
There were hundreds of those boxes. Not one of them
Had ever been opened. We burned them all, sight
Unseen.

—Enhanced Photo by D.R. Wagner

THE CENTURION

I appeared before a Centurion
In the second century A.D.
And I asked him if he knew me
And he fell down upon one knee.

He drew his sword before him
And placed it down upon the ground.
He gasped but spoke no sound
But bowed his head. He doffed his cloak.
He cleared his throat and frowned.

"Why have you to visit me? he said
Are you a ghost of someone drowned?
Your face is white. You don’t look dead—
Or has my mind unwound?"

I waited till he’d found his wits.
"Are you some kind of joke, pray tell,
Come from heaven or from hell
To spin this world to bits?"
"I’m just a man like you," I said.
"I’ve come to you to tell
That magic lives within us all
Within each bone and cell.

"You stand before one hundred men.
You lead them off to battle."
"Close your mouth and stop your prattle."
"I’ve only come to bring you glee.
That’s something you can ken.

"You’ve found your way into a poem
Made two thousand years from now;
You may tell your men you've seen a vision.
You’ve seen something that you can’t explain
Except to say a man today appeared
Before your eyes who has said that magic
Still abounds, that it roves far and wide.
That they should keep their mind clear
And let it take them for a ride."
He sheathed his sword. I disappeared.
I’ll not try that again. I didn’t think it could
Be done. And yes it can… but you know
Something? Stuff like this can really mess
With your mind. So don’t waste time doing it.
Okay?

—Art by Dieu Hien Vo

THE BACK SIDE OF DEATH

I put my fingers on it.
It was cool to the touch.

I had been speaking
With a painter when I saw
Death. I was tired.
I raised my hand to greet him,
But he did not notice me.
The air between us
Began to break up.

I could hear the crows.
He was still far across the fields.
For awhile he disappeared
In the smoke from the rice stubble fires.
Then he was beside me.

He knew my name.

“Strange that you should be here,” he said.
“And you,” I answered, touching his back.
I recall he had a red shadow.

“Do not use any of the doors
Into the night tonight.
Proceed by the plain.
I have to work at the doors.”

He pressed his back against
My hand as if asking for me
To continue to touch him.
“Your hand feels good,” he said.

“I came for the painter. He has
A bad heart. Nice man too.
I was surprised that you would
Be visiting him on this day.”

I moved my hands to his shoulders.
He shrugged and let me work my thumbs
Into the bony structure there.

“Go home and get some work done,” he said.
“I’ll be with your friend for awhile. He has
To get used to me. Thank you for touching me,"
He added. "So few know me that well, and you
Were kind to notice me.”
“You are welcome,” I said
I walked back toward town.
I could hear the whippoorwill calling.
I thought to myself that this had been
A close call, but then again, perhaps not.
Who knows anything at all anyway?

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

A MOMENT ON THE LAKE

I hold a burnt gold in my hands.
My heart excuses me from from sleep.
It says “Go be with your poems. Tend
Your birds and demons and those bright
Smiles of the weather you seem to love
So much. Sleep is no longer the paradise
It was to you as a child. You have other
Blood in your body now. Tell us how hands
Touch you in the private places of your eyes.
Tell us what we so long to see as we step
To the edge of the world, not dreaming at all,
But wandering in twilight woods, immaculate
With bird song and a filtered light through trellises,
Through the branches of the lilac opening
Upon a Spring so fortunate to have splayed across
Your life with its handfuls of color and frenzies
Of splendor, calling to all who love words.”

My heart, grant me grace that I may
Speak in this way and not fear the tiger,
The sudden movement of a hand fumbling
The tops of the wheat, the strange and curious
Song that rises from me now.

I look at myself sleeping far below
Or walking through the garden labyrinth,
Aware only that I am shadow wherever
I may go, both the ending and the beginning.

_______________________

Our thanks to D.R. Wagner and today's other culinary wizards!

If you're going to be up Georgetown way today, stop in at the Arts in Nature Festival from 9am-4pm at the Georgetown Nature Area, with music, art, poetry and dance for all ages: poetry with Craig Steiger at 11:50am and with Michael Paul at 1:30pm; the Youth Art Gallery, the Jam and Slam at 10am; Native American music, storytelling and dancing all day; workshops on nature journaling with Jo Chandler; yoga; crafts and food booths and lots more! Check out the schedule (and the new location, due to rain) at georgetownnaturearea.org

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality. We create it to be able to stay.

—Lynda Barry

_______________________

—Medusa

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

Ted Finn at Mt. Shasta

Today's poems are from Ted Finn's book, Damn the Eternal War, which was published by Rattlesnake Press in 2008 (SpiralChap #10). Ted, who passed away from cancer in March of this year, was active in the Sacramento poetry community in the past. A tribute reading will be held for him this coming Thursday, April 30, at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento, 8pm (hosted by frank andrick), at which time poets are welcome to come read and talk about Ted.

* * * * *

THE NIGHTMARE
       (after Kirby Congdon)

finally wakes up
on Elm Street
and walks off shivering
into unforgiving Monday morning,

late for work again.

what are the slasher’s
blood-splattered knives
against the unending flesh
of fast-food chicken?

-what’s wrong Jason?
The manager is asking.
-you don’t seem to enjoy
-your work anymore.

Leatherface can’t help us either.

his chain-saw ran out of gas
and the AM-PM won’t break his $20.

now the Martians have announced
they are calling off their invasion.
of course,
our lawyer is suing for breach of promise,
but the case won’t come up for months.

meanwhile,
everything goes on just like before;
there’s no escape.

______________________

INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH BLONDE

her dark-colored lips open wide
like the mouth of hell,
laughing at the stupidity of it all.
the cash register clangs open.
"would you like
to use your charge card, sir?”
the bartender asks.
dollar bills stack up
like bodies dead of plague,
ready to be burned.
she wears black
against light flesh tones,
tight on the curves,
skidding off the shoulder,
driving it fast,
hard through the night.
cigarette in one hand.
bottle of beer in the other.
the stink of smoke
and stale beer growing
as the crowd thickens.
everyone screaming
to be heard
above the jukebox blasting.
of course, one morning
the party is finally over,
and pretty scrapes off
with the make-up.

_____________________

you know there’s no escape from the wild vision,
nowhere to run,
nowhere to hide where it won’t find you,
screaming at you,
live, damn it. live.
you can’t escape the vision.
some night too exhausted to resist,
like surrendering to your lover in the dark.
you know some night you will surrender to the wild vision,
in the quiet,
in the few precious moments you’ve stolen
from too busy all the time,
you will let yourself go
into all the places
you want to live,
letting the vision penetrate deeper into you.
you know you don’t need this roaring through you,
a wild roller coaster ride,
all ups and downs.
you need safe and solid,
a coffin you can live in.
you don’t need this hold on tight the ride,
always somewhere between
I can’t wait for this to be over
and I never want this to end.
you know you don’t need this,
if it wasn’t every dream you woke up excited,
as if life could be that exciting,
when you know it’s dangerous to believe that,
dangerous to live like that,
as if there were any other way
you could live,
you would want to live,
like every exciting you’ve lived
you know you’ll never regret,
licking your lips
to get the last possible taste of it.

______________________

THE ATTACK OF THE LONG, BORING POEM

there is a clever and insidious criminal presently at large,
freely roaming the streets of San Francisco,
rampantly extorting money from helpless passersby
by reading long, boring poems.
carefully choosing his victims,
people who look like they will give anything
just to be left alone,
he rushes up to them,
soiled pages in hand.
—let me read you my poem,
he says.
he then begins his assault.
a victim, a friend, a local lawyer had been to poetry readings;
he had heard bad poetry before,
but nothing quite so relentlessly awful
that it could only have been created
to leave whoever heard it begging for mercy,
paying whatever was demanded.
—how much will it cost me to get you to stop?
he asks the man.
—five bucks, the man tells him.
my friend gives the man a five
and watches him rush off to find another victim.
who needs a gun to rob when you have a long, boring poem to read?

______________________

CUSTER’S LAST STAND

you get old enough.
the sky rains arrows

you lose slowly if you’re lucky.
the chips on the table dwindle
as the bets echo ancient fears.

the little deaths Neruda called them.
death of dream.
death of hope for love.
I know the fear.
I know how humbling the losses.

however fragile the dance,
however voodoo dirge the death song,
if dance slows only to sway,
if only the slow recessional,
the final blessing is the long way home.
if only slowly losing,
if no other mercy but that,
I am graced by the bare ruins of my life.

never often enough the exhilaration.
twisting and turning in the darkness,
we see only divine light,
God at last singing,
mad dancers to the music,
everywhere around us in the festival night.
because we have lost ourselves in
unholy visions,
we dance only to sacred music.
because work lies in wait a day away,
because we sell ourselves to the slow slaughter,
we dance at last the mad dance the music demands.

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

NOON MATINEE

no better show
than watching
young tight skirts
on their lunch hours.
their hopes
ride their hips
like six-guns.
blown-away lovers
are notched in their smiles.

* * *

"why can't you write a simple love poem?"
you ask me.
"how can i?" I ask you.
"i've known no simple love."

* * *

PROPHECY

when the barbarians arrive at the gates,
we’ll open them without a struggle,
mistakenly believing,
it’s the guy with the pizza.

_______________________

—Medusa

Poster for "Evening of the Word" Reading

featuring Art Mantecon, Charles Mariano

UC Berkeley, April 21, 2015

(Medusa with pencils for hair by Edel)

TREASURE HUNTING
—Caschwa, Sacramento

Don’t give me a diamond studded
Digital pocket watch with
Roman Numerals
I’d sooner take a slow walk in the forest

Don’t tease me with a new luxury car
Adorned with all the latest electronics
That drives itself
I’d sooner take a slow walk in the forest

Don’t offer me a large screen HD-TV
Complete with DVR, UFO, HIV, etc.
Remote control
I’d sooner take a slow walk in the forest

Don’t give me the royal tour of a loft
With a view of the smog-smothered city
Handily close to traffic noise, crime, pollution
Urban renewal
I’d sooner take a slow walk in the forest

Don’t invite me to look at time share properties
Teleconference, videoconference
Communal saunas
Wi-Fi
I’d sooner take a slow walk in the forest

Don’t roll out projections and statistics
Bar graphs, pie graphs
Actuarial data
Contracts
I’d sooner take a slow walk in the forest

______________________

REALITY CHECK
—Caschwa

I expect that if I win the Lottery
In that span of time between
Matching the numbers and
Collecting the money

I would feel like a patient
Who had just been told
He was first in line to get
An organ transplant

None of it would seem real
Until I could wake up one morning
And know that I had survived
A life-changing event

Scout on the Rocks

—Photo by Taylor Graham

MORNING’S GREAT ESCAPE
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

I got up early. You’re my alarm
in the crate beside the bed, always a breath
ahead of me, catching up in puppy-
time that never lasts.

I lift you out of whimper, out the door
to do your business.
You’re the weight of life exuberating,
mumble of leaf-fall underfoot,

rustle of brush-pile loved by the beautiful
spotted towhee. Twigs dry as vanilla
bean pods. Taste of coffee before it’s brewed.
Sometimes—this very morning—

I follow you into the woods
where you’re friend of the oak-stump
scored by years, each lichened boulder.
You show me what light

smells like as it moves through shadow;
you find every gap that leads
to discovery. You’re the first syllable
of a full sentence not yet written.

_________________________

DAWN*
—Taylor Graham

What could people make of morning
without that word? Its premonition—Ahnung,
almost a warning—wakes me
with my pup’s first whimper. Get up,
get moving, evacuate the night, its dreams.
The color of something not there
anymore, but weighing on the heart like waiting
for a knock at the door. A shimmer between
shadow and bright, infused with its own
light like moon-shine on hill pasture
that’s not quite ghost. A silken veil whose color
changes—char to mid-gray, pewter,
silver golding—as I watch. Did the ancients
have a word for this, before dawn?
Have we lost it like a child vanished?

*noun first used, they say, by Shakespeare

________________________

PUPPY WANDER
—Taylor Graham

Her eyes were new moons dark and blank
behind cloud; even blind, she crawled to edges,
the shores of an unknown world as if

she heard voices from under the rug—forlorn
or beckoning memories of what she didn’t know;
calling her from the whelping box, sniffing

her way to the sliding glass door
where voices escaped to drift on April wind.
Nine weeks old now, ready to follow

a stranger into her new life. But this morning
I followed her as she checked fresh
scents under the buckeye where deer slept;

paused, listened to traffic on the two-lane;
moved on, down rimrock to the swale,
wandering wondering. Stood for a moment,

a statue of what she’ll grow to be. I clicked
the picture in my mind. Pixels, dust
motes. An instant. Already she was vanishing

as children do, wandering farther away.

Wanderpup

—Photo by Taylor Graham

NO ONE, ANYONE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Young sweet light, if I may talk to you,
one human supposing for this instant you are human,
I could bathe forever in your odorless perfume,
that which we call warmth. Because you
are tender, and if you were human I would call
you blond, young light, I must not deceive you
about my feelings. Too much of your darling
fingertips’ pressure upon mortal skin, and I
will singe, burn, somewhat of myself
peeling eternally from myself. It isn’t self-involvement,
young sweet light, that holds me back from too
much of your bright life: oh no, I have a prior friend
who is dark, she is all swirl and can become
funnel cloud when she despairs, yet she wheels
her dark spare frame in joy. She comes in
at my window all California, yet when I scent
her atomic structure black as a girl’s hair, what comes
in a rush like smoke is all Aegean, the salt that cures
the “wine-dark sea” so I consider her preserved for me
since Homer’s own dark day. Oh, and she unveils
herself: stripped naked of her robes she too
is young light, a more silver morning, a being compounded
of the air she is and the window glass shutting me
away from her unbearably beautiful touch. Do not
despair, young light: perhaps you and she
are one, and so I will turn someday from her to you
finding no one taken from anyone forever…

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

‪GONE IN 7 DAYS‬ 

—Olga Blu Browne, Sacramento ‪ ‬ ‪

Monday's moon, and the

‬ ‪grind of every wind.‬ ‪ ‬ ‪

Tuesday lost, and yes kindness

‬ ‪gone.‬ ‪ ‬ ‪

Wednesday sharing in sin, dreams‬ ‪

unfulfilled.‬ ‪ ‬ ‪

Thursday brokenness and sleepless‬,

 ‪sleepless nights.‬ ‪ ‬ ‪

Friday, the heart forewarned.‬

Saturday, GOD is quiet.

Sunday, others don't forgive.

_______________________

Our thanks to today's chefs (thanks to Charles Mariano for the Medusa pic from his recent reading in Berkeley!), with apologies to Olga Blu Browne for last Friday's rude truncation of her LittleNip. It was a cute-and-paste thing....

—Medusa

Wandersnake

(One of Medusa's snakes on the loose)
—Photo by Stacie Sherman, Orangevale

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

THE DREAM OF SURRENDER
(After "Portrait of a Dream, 1953" by Jackson Pollock)

A face that is caught in a garish mirror
where colors gnash and light stabs.

Your life
is a white room of sleep.

Your mind holds a candle.
The flame wavers.

You stare through yourself
as if to escape :

you are a smeared painting,
your dream has defined you

against a wall of canvas.
You echo this—repulse,

then admire—
held by your own stare,

by the anguish of the art,
rendered thus.

You have lost your power.
Such is the angry power of the dream.

_______________________

Every exit is a word—

followed by a long red hallway
muffled by a gray silence;
some escape by following

the blue map of their lives,
past all the numbered doors
down the one-way stairs—

ghost-mingled and musty
with trapped shadows.
My hand follows a wall

for balance—reaches an end,
then another end—to a lobby
where inhabitants

look out of windows to the
blurry rain—so beautiful under
the streetlights

in the rain-light
that pours down my face
in reflection on the inner side of

the window by the door where others
enter and leave and emphasize
my deepest loneliness.

TENEMENTS
(After "Juxtapositions—Front Doors/Back Doors",
by Grace Bentley-Scheck, 1991)

The escape-house is green. Its steps narrow.
Its white banister gleams in the moonlight.
Its windows are boarded. Who lives there?
Its yellow door appears locked. (A ruse?)

Behind the high windows of a higher house
with the shades up, a figure walks back and
forth in the light—a restless
silhouette —unmindful of voyeurs.

Only the dreams escape from the houses,
huddled so closely together, holding each
other up, locking their shadows in—even
the one with the light burning all night.

The night swallows all the houses,
bits of all night music stream from the walls.
The yellow escape-door stays locked.
The white railing gleams in the moonlight.

_____________________

ONLY CHILD
(After CD Jacket: girl with butterfly and two birds)

Your hands are too small
to hold all that you desire.
The live butterfly
caught in your hair
will not love you for long.
The tethered swallow
you keep on a string
will escape
back to the wallpaper.
The beautifully feathered bird
you hold on a stick
will lose its will to fly away.
You are too innocent for such power,
to keep all that life as yours,
to possess and try to tame—
standing there in all your defiance,
as if you dare not believe me.

REACTION
(From “The Cubist Poets In Paris” by L. C. Breunig)

“At the back of the room a Christ was taking off
Someone had a ferret
Another a hedgehog
People were playing cards
And you had forgotten me”
                     —Guillaume Apollinaire

. . . when she let the opportunity escape
she went into a rage
became obscene and unbeautiful
    smashed
        the small flowers
        on the glass
        end-table
        in their delicate vase
trembled in the sun-
light that traveled to them
from the far window
    light
        was never
        a consideration,
not even the soft evening tones
too soon gone
darkness was always close
as light is to darkness
or as any one thing is
to another
when one reaches for the specific
        or totally opposite
    meaning
becomes what quarrels love . . .

_____________________

THE SEQUENCE OF THE CURSE
(After "The Art of Poetry" by Yves Bonnefoy)

The curse is part of the mouth.
The mouth is innocent and led by the word.
The word is innocent of the mind,

The mind is contorted by the mouth

The word must be uttered to escape.
The mind must free the word through the mouth.

The mouth is obedient to the curse.

THE SISTERHOOD

I am in a room of many women
each alone from the other
each a container of stories
each a silence worth listening to…

our dresses touch when we pass each other
in soft, aversive movements
when we are waiting our turns,
when we are measuring our restlessness…

shall we escape…
shall we be here forever in our
alien kinship—who are uniquely alike—
who are divided by our difference…

(first pub. in Calliope, 1992-93)

_____________________

IN THE BLUE HEART OF DREAM

A bird winds slowly skyward
lifting a bronze shadow out of the murk.
It is heavy and lonely,
the last thought of a dying dreamer
who has heard the faint call outward.

What follows is grief, freed of weeping,
though it is heavy too
and folding like a weariness,
too much effort needed
to be free of truth and imagination.

A fan closes as if by itself, ending
the escape. The sky goes dark again.
Or stays bright. Who can say?
The delicate art is saved from eyes.
Nothing depicts.

Everything moves in relation
to everything else, even the stillness
which must breathe and wait.
A word is being offered to the silence.
A listener must make a choice.

Who am I to grieve over such things?
A dream cannot live without the sleep.
Let the bird go.
It is only your thought of it.
If it loved you, you will know.

Today's LittleNip:

SPACE ON EITHER SIDE

what if I write love poems now
in couplets

like us
in certain dark

room to escape
room to step aside

where we
can think it over

and decide if love is safe
or all that necessary

for two who won’t trust
enclosings

________________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for her delectables in the Kitchen today! Say—what's in your closet? Family secrets? or just a lot of junque? This week's Seed of the Week is In the Back of the Closet... Send your poems, photos and artwork about same (or any other subject) to kathykieth@hotmail.com/. No deadlines on SOWs.

—Medusa

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

—Poems and Photos by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Eliot, Ontario, Canada

BLISTER PACK NOSTADAMUS

The moths
with eyes on their wings
are not looking
at you.

Gas
from the pumps
into a waiting tank
of wanting.

There are caves
full of glow worms
acting out the mating cycle
in miniature.

Cannibals
boiling the heads of their offspring
over a fire older than
love.

________________________

THE HIP-HOP DANCER

is white
in his late teens
with a loud ghetto blaster
when it is no longer
the fashion.

In grey sweat pants
and sunglasses.

On a blue yoga mat
outside city hall.

Spinning
on his head
like a human
drill bit

Deep into the earth
for precious metals
no one else
can see.

400 MARKET

We are at the Flea Market
in Innisfil
going from kiosk
to kiosk.

I stop at the knife dealer.
She wants to visit the fortune teller.

If we go to the fortune teller first,
she argues,
and she tells us everything will be fine
then we don’t have to get the knives.

But if we just get the knives now,
I say,
there’s no need for the fortune teller
because we have peace of mind.

The knives are on sale.
The fortune teller will likely give us a break
as well.

We have come to an impasse.
There is not enough money for both
the fortune teller
and the knives.

Outside
we find a clothing vendor from Trinidad
and settle on his-and-her t-shirts
from the discount rack
that claim we both ate the worm
when we did
not.

_______________________

CHIQUITA

At the home for the elderly
and the newly demented
a man in a wheelchair
is given a banana
in the middle of the tv room
which he kisses many
times.

Even some tongue
which makes the other residents
a little uncomfortable.

The nurses try to peel it
for him
so he can eat his first meal
in over thirty-six
hours.

But he pushes them away.
A man who knows what he wants.

Never once forgetting
to kiss his precious
banana.

WHILE THE CASHIERS DEMAND MONEY,
AND NEVER PEACE

The battlefield spilled over into
Men’s outerwear
and someone blew their nose
behind me
at two hundred kilometres an hour
and there was artillery fire
overhead
and I thought of Napoleon, feeding
his prized white horse one stale carrot
with a leafy green
head,
of vodka tall Peter, his many dentistry mishaps
with the Russian court,
myself—a conscientious objector—
taking shelter in the second fitting room
on the left
trying on a pair of brown overalls
so I could look like an anthill
and not a man
as the kid from sporting goods
with a Louisville slugger
made the
rounds.

_____________________

YOU CAN'T WEAR WORK BOOTS
IF YOU DON'T HAVE LEGS

Loggers
chop down trees
and I think
of amputation.

Of what I would do
without my legs.

Laying in bed all day
watching free cable.

While other men slave
for a pittance.

Making helpless puppy dog eyes
at all the cute nurses.

Who take turns feeding me green Jello
before my sponge bath
because they feel bad
and I should
not.

______________________

JUDGEMENT DAY WILL BE AN
OVERDUE LIBRARY BOOK YOU
CAN NEVER RETURN

Peel the eyebrows off
a Chia pet
and call it deforestation.

Water beds
like riding the open seas
with pillows.

Judgement day
will be an overdue
library book
you can never
return.

Sitting in traffic
bumper to bumper
day after day
thinking of puppy mills
full of flea collars
you can wear to funerals
and still look as if
you were
mourning.

_______________________

SHE STEALS HEARTS, HE STEALS VCRS

She’s in her early twenties, brunette,
he’s somewhat older.

In both age
and circumstance.

She steals hearts, he steals VCRs.
Both clean up pretty well.

They live in my building
the same way the garbage chute
does.

I would hardly call them friends.
Neither drink coaster-dependable.

More
like a reason
to not pick up the phone
when it is ringing

at
3 am.

A BUNSEN BURNER

how nice of you
to think of the serial
arsonist
so forgotten
this time of year,
all we need
now
is an accelerant,
a speed freak from rural Iowa
perhaps,
pacing the room
with bad skin
and socks worn through
at the heel

as crop circles
are voted into congress
and space junk
loiters in
space

and balloons replace birds
(finally)
as the last inflatable
mammal.

_______________________

BONDABLE

My father said a man must work
and I was 12
so I needed to find
a job.

So I went down to this seafood place
that wanted dishwashers
and filled out a resume.

At the bottom of the page it asked:
Are you bondable?

I thought of Roger Moore.
I thought of being tied up
and those large classroom containers
of glue
with the orange tops.

The waitress came by
saw my young puzzlement
and took pity:

it means can you handle money, darling.

I answered Yes
and left the resume
by the cash.

Then I walked home
back up Little Avenue
kicking a stone.

And the flowers spilt all their sunlight
and no one picked it up.

________________________

POPULAR KID

An only child has to get inventive
so the clouds were his friends
playing tag in the sky above

and no one ever caught anyone
and it was all very exciting

long afternoons
of watching his many friends
change shape

propped up against his favourite tree
in the park
(another dear friend)

letting the ants crawl over his knees
because that’s what friends do
for one another.

TO A GIRL WHO LONGS TO BE
A WOMAN

Let us come together
travelling at different speeds
like the two trains of grade
eleven math.

You with a husband.
Me, under a pseudonym.

The Do Not Disturb sign
on the door.

No sex.
Just running our fingers through
each other’s hair
until the sun comes
up.

Front desk
glistening nametag smiling,
housekeeping
trying not to get
deported.

Double agents
in the lobby
sharing secrets we shall
never know.

_________________________

COLD CUTS AND WARM HANDS

There was a log in the fire
and I thought of witches
at the stake
their hands bound behind their backs
like playing keep away,
of my grandfather’s gas barbecue
each summer;
a shimmering battleship grey
with many black knobs
to turn
the hotdog or hamburger
conundrum
(as if the first world has problems
too)

and soon my ears were crackling
cold cuts and warm hands—
the ears of a reluctant guest
as our host pinged his glass
and made another toast
that was boxes in the attic
forgettable.

_________________________

Welcome to the Kitchen, Ryan, and thanks for the poems and the photos of the breathtaking country in which you live! Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a paper-trained romancer of the elderly. If it is not a milk bone or an early bird dinner, than it's just not worth it. He presently resides in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with an acute case of cabin fever after another long Canadian winter. He wants to see the sun again, like a dear old friend you've lost touch with. Don't be a stranger to the Kitchen table, Ryan!

_____________________

—Medusa

Ft. Bragg, CA
—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
—Photos by Stacie Sherman, Orangevale, CA

SPRING EXCURSION

You revisit your life
as a poet in April
keeping up the pace
with newfound courage
when time will not stop
for us to pass us over
our aging past history
on the way to Cambridge
to hear a lecture
at a reunion of friends,
my eyelids lower
at a roseate universe
by the Charles riverbank
filled with wildflowers
watching a rowboat pass by
filled with students
astonished by foliage
now filled with a mighty green
in a diffusion of sun
only to find my photos
of Bishop and Berryman
on my person
once in an album at home
I remembered to bring with me
now in this old denim suit jacket
of the Sixties
knowing exposure
will last only for so long
yet our imagination will hear us
like birdsong
going higher in an azure
waking sky
by the waters we are waving
to our companions
on the other shore,
we are aching for
something marvelous
to happen in the harbor
as we spy a whale
thinking of Melville's Pacific tale
which reveals
our ingenuous arboreal nature
we live in a miraculous way
where the loving are
as we toss a stone
in the waters as a prayer
from an outstretched hand
like Moses at the Red Sea
hoping for an untroubled day
full of images of mercy.

A POET'S CONTINUUM

Whenever a bird song shades
the elm tree in the backyard
found in burnished groves
I'm no longer red-faced
or gloved in iced hands
by the cranberry fields
over a lost sunshine
keeping a vigil for this poet
until his voice responds
to another singular speech
of a younger soul
heard along the green hills
smudging my running shoes
near my footloose landscapes
I've colorfully drawn by the river
welcoming an unexpected guest
with a focused image
of me emerging up
from my hurting knees
in my rock garden
of blue phlox and a purple crocus
at noon's randomness
awakening my infinite nature
shadowing a visible comprehension
of a new companion
near a white cat by the fence
suddenly this student
with a baseball cap
worn backwards
shouts my name
circles my house
on his roller blades
and asks for my autograph
with my collection of verse
held close to him
on my hideout of a porch
and after a chat about
his thesis
on the late Mark Strand
tells me of his struggles
with writer's block
his runaway brother,
of romantic break-ups
in his family's burn-outs
as we greet one another
he sips a glass of bourbon
offered to him
as a neon butterfly
interests him
and we walk along
the chestnuts and leafy paths
on pine cone grounds
covering the sweet-scented roads
of birches and pine
overgrown with last year's vines
ensuring me
of his earth-wise expression
of his teeming memory
at being thirty
and already weighed down
by the world's climate changes
when spring's first footprint
is spurred by the sun
the wind picks up on us
by the first wildflowers
and he transfers my picture
he routinely takes
to his own diary
writing Thursday on a page.

A POET'S DREAM

To always have at least
one suit of Sunday clothes
inside the shutters
of my Turkish towel closet
near my own Wordsworth library
bound with verse selections,
to own at least one night light
for my alembic sanctuary
with the loving spiritual strength
like Thomas Merton
where we may praise the day
pressed by a row of flowers
handed to us
kneeling under canopies
of altars in ancient churches
from crystal Syriac synagogues
as children speak
in Aramaic tongues
at their first communion,
wishing for a Sabbath meal
or reserve a miracle wine
in purple bottles
at an Bethlehem restaurant
of our choice
to arrive on time
in a reunion among
Jerusalem neon or gold butterflies
and once lost snow birds
shine up royally from the sky
as white shadows of nature
visit us unannounced angels
in the Eden home harbor
at the first light house
along the open beach front
by the bluest Mediterranean Sea
expecting blueberry pancakes
after a jazz performance
when the pantry curtain opens
at 4 A.M.
as the trees laugh
at mourning doves
ascending by the aspens
to enfold their attentive wings,
to be a look-out as a young captain
along the sand castle
having discovered
the treasure of Marian dreams
by Candlemas all night,
to cuddle by the sea urchins
small-toothed whales or dolphins
under the deepest ocean floor,
to write the new poem
which heals the wounds
of a lost runaway,
to slide by the statue
of our revolutionary ancestors
over the Boston Common,
to travel incognito
in a swan boat
with my lone Spanish guitar
on James Dean's motorcycle
within the disco heartbeat
of San Francisco,
to wait blindly by my window
for a remembered friend
sharing a secret language
of love from adolescence,
to write my initials
with your ruby lipstick
on newly discovered mirrors
in a tiny dark room
before our performance
to play Hamlet in Denmark
where you will be Cordelia
and you will forgive me
after the last act is over
as the applause continues
hearing the anguish
of gamblers
from the casino next door
whose chips are cashed
for those without a ticket
at the arcade,
to expect to live forever
as a medusa jelly fish
on the ocean floor
in the next life story
of the poor ice fishermen
who speak to me in Portuguese
docked in my village shore
who will inherit a cache
of ten-pounder silver Ladyfish,
lobsters and red salmon
at St. Peter's pier.

WHY I'M A BEAT

Enjambment
in muse and beat
allowed my music
to write out
of my mother's lungs
into fathomless petals
falling at my feet
embracing love
out of the wildflowers' chaos
in notes and fragments
of jazz's edginess
from a thousand tongues
in entertainment,
looking for foreign bodies
stars and planets
when romance
spreads its light
out of a pool of sky
and captures us on an island
as an acrobatic bird
in an eyelid of God's night
reveals all to us love
from our out-of-sight verse
in a chirping chorus
covering a translucent universe
splitting blinding atoms
to offer a metamorphosis
for the gypsy moth's kiss
in our garden's leitmotifs,
as we sing out lines
by the sea reefs
from a lover's austerities,
planting the rose and lily
in the small grounds
by a memorial
of a brave experience
as a weary runaway hides
from himself in an eagle's cave
in a shy renewal of spring
next to my collection of shells
by the luminous lighthouse
early in the day
hearing the echo
of my alto sax
with snow dove
leaflets for peace
suddenly glide over the earth
from jet planes
skywriting to us
sending down greetings
in every language
asking us to unite,
as a child on the shore
drinks his alphabet soup,
my mother reads to him
from Dante's Paradise
to Milton's express
where we are all one
speaking words
as Whitman knew
a city poet collects sunbeams
in Malibu,
meets a country drifter
whistling a fiddler's tune
under the street lamps
of the last full moon,
who is no idler
though he sits
under a juniper tree
though the world may not agree,
as an orphaned jogger
from the Redwoods
he is set free,
now an artist of sorts
desperate to find
his ideal in drawing a beggar
now asks for coins
for his oil paintings
still with injured loins
when he was a logger
meets a nurse under a bridge
some distance from home
who puts on his bandages
and they marry in May
under the blanket verse
in the unreality of love.

MARIE PONSOT'S LOVES
(born April 6, 1921)

You loved being spontaneous
in your rocking chair
a birdwatcher
who became famous
for her marvelous words,
a feminist and religious
and pacifist
in the Church she was raised
adored John Donne,
knew the soul, mind and body
were in a poet one to be praised.

________________________

GALWAY KINNELL

You sought truth
in an absurd universe
time marked you out
in your strength of verse
writing of the Messiah
in the new world
as a letter from sunshine
just to leave us wisdom
is the depth of our nostalgia
in anthologies to divine.

ELIZABETH BISHOP'S APRIL

We saw you through
the window of the yard
one April morning
standing by the lectern
amid high columns
by rows of crocus
in the spring air
by fading shadow of trees
along Harvard Square
giving us pleasure to learn
of your wish to be
in a canvas painting
of a wandering sandpiper
along boats of churning seas,
taking off my shades
to see you in the sun
as the winter is fainting
in the forgiveness of the breeze
our minds are in suspension
and you love embracing
Sappho and Dickinson quotes
of our cross-examined notes
with burnished thoughts
in careful intervention
of past poets' lives
as if you are more than a seer
from Canada's far country
of Nova Scotia
or conduit who survives
a wondrous invention of words,
so carefully telling us
how to enhance your dreams
you eat Roquefort cheese
before going to a fearful sleep
under posthumous cover,
what a bountiful life you keep
as we court your signature
from your whistle stops
in travel, nature, love of birds
we are about to discover
Elizabeth Bishop
in these seminar lectures.

_________________________

Today's LittleNip:

Each poem we write or read is an image, event and expression which becomes a creative part of our body of work and soul.

—B.Z. Niditch

________________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to today's fine contributors! Don't forget the Ted Finn tribute at Luna's tonight, 8pm. Plus, today is National Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day, a fitting end for National Poetry Month. For details, see www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/poem-your-pocket-day?gclid=CL7c8M-Kj8UCFcZcfgodi60AbA

—Poems by Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

FIRST WARM DAY

Great joy today.
The sun and the breeze
have the mockingbird
flitting from branch
to branch, warning
the other birds.

My wife fills the feeder
with thistle and sits
on the bench with
the cat at her feet
making ablutions.
From the kitchen
I watch goldfinches
thrive on the thistle.

An old stewing hen
bubbles on the stove.
Tonight it will arrive
with a cast of dumplings
big as the clouds.

The radio bleats
the Cardinals have lost
to the Pirates.
On a day like today
who can possibly care.

DAZZLE AND WHIRR

Millie remained on the farm
in the valley after Ollie died.
Their children moved on,
getting jobs in town.

Nowhere for Millie to go but
that place in town where
they stack old folks to die.
She never let Ollie go there

and she won’t go there either.
Instead she’ll sit in her rocker,
work crossword puzzles,
sip tea on the porch and wait

for the dazzle and whirr
of hummingbirds coming
to the feeders she hung,
announcing spring.

Death’s on hold for Millie.
The hummingbirds will flame
in her garden all summer,
a bright heaven to live for.

GETTING ON

I no longer put things
back where they belong.
I can't remember where
they came from
never mind where
they belong

so if you see me out
walking dogs
you know
cannot be mine,
not to worry.
I still like dogs.

But if you see me out
walking women
you know
are not my wife,
ask them where
they came from

and if it's not too far
and they seem pleasant,
take them home.
I'll compensate you
for your kindness
and your time.

NORMA JEAN AT A BUS STOP, 1943

Her corded belt
python tight around

a tiny waist makes
her blooms bigger

brighter as they unfold
in the rising sun.

Gawkers stare
waiting for the tardy bus

Marilyn knows
will one day come.

FROM THE TRAIN GOING HOME

As we roar over and by
the oaks are as still
as the pond they surround

Only the swans
on the pond
are moving

Then from an oak
a buckshot of crow
cawing and leaving

THE MUDSLIDE

Oso, Washington 2014

Under the mud he can hear the men
digging and cursing but they
can't hear him scream.

The mud won't let him scream.
He was out for a walk when the mud
came down the hill like lava

covering him and the woman,
an arranged marriage of strangers
sinking and screaming.

He wonders how long he'll be there.
He can't recall the prayer
his grandmother taught him.

He wonders if the woman can hear
the men digging and cursing
and if she's able to scream.

MOTHER'S DAY

In the long run the boy will be worth
all the misery I’ve caused you,
all the grief.
If only for his smile,

yours, I know.
If only for his eyes,
mine, I know.
But his eyes,

they have your smile,
brighter than a rainbow,
streaming through them.

BELLS FROM THE CATHEDRAL

How do you tell
a wife you love
there are Spring days
in raw Chicago
bright with sun
and the boom
of bells
from the Cathedral
how do you tell
a wife like that
there are Spring days
you wish you had a girl

APPLE FRITTER AND A SINGLE ROSE

After 30 years together,
Carol tells me late one evening
in the manner of a quiet wife
that I have yet to write a poem

about her, something she
will never understand in light
of all those other poems
she says I wrote

about those other women
before she drove North.
And so I tell her once again
I wrote those other poems

about no women I ever knew
the way I now know her
even if I saw them once or twice
for dinner, maybe,

and a little vodka
over lime and ice.
Near midnight, though,
she says again

in the manner of a quiet wife
it's been thirty years
and still no poem.
When morning comes

I motor off to town to buy
a paper and a poem
for Carol
but find instead

undulating in a big glass case
an apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,
lying there just waiting.

So I buy the lovely fritter
and a single long-stem rose
orphaned near the register,
roaring red, and still

at full attention.
I bring them home but find
Carol still asleep
and so I put the fritter

on the breadboard
and the rose right next to it,
at the proper angle.
When she wakes I hope

the fritter and the rose
will buy me time until
somewhere in the attic
of my mind I find

a poem that says
more about us than
this apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,

lying there just waiting,
and a single long-stem rose,
roaring red, and still
at full attention.

Today's LittleNip:

MISSILES AND LAND MINES

After the poetry reading
the lights go on and a lady
under a big hat rises
behind dark sunglasses
and asks the poet why
he never writes about sex.

He says for the same reason
he never writes about war.
What more can be said
about missiles in flight
and land mines that need
the right touch to go off.

________________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Donal Mahoney and Katy Brown for this tasty breakfast in the Kitchen!

What Man Has Made of Man

Growth, Growth, Growth

All Question, and All Answer

Large Questions, Short Answers

Skies of Monet

With Plangent Mews

Only the Tiger...

Smiling Alone

Phzzt!

Shortcuts Through Expectancy

Zombies, Spiders & Chicken Bones

Sacks Full of Light

April in Paris

Calling Those Who Love Words

Custer's Last Stand

Evacuating the Night

White Room of Sleep

Cabin Fever

Metamorphosis

It's May Day!