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Transformations
ApolloARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)We never knew his lost though famous headwhere the eye-fruits kept ripening. Strange,how his torso keeps glowing like candelabra dialedto dim...
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One Small Length of Sea
COMPREHENDINGSHow many beginnings are allowed . . .how do we sculpt air into recognition . . .like Picasso’s wide, fast sweep of signaturecaught by camera . . . ?Air is the substance for...
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Cups of Dark
—Photo by Taylor GrahamPATENT—Taylor Graham, PlacervilleBarb-wire was born under the sign of Aquarius; no, Pisces. Wrong, it was Sagittarius with his patented, twisted-metal arrows. The question...
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Oh Black Chalice
—Photo by Katy Brown, DavisTHE BLACK CUP—César VallejoThe night is a cup of evil. A watchman's stingingwhistle pierces through it like a vibrating pin.Listen, you little slut, how come, if you're...
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Three Prom Queens and the New Moon
—Photo of Croatian Street by Eva West, Rancho MurietaTHIS CUP OF NIGHT—Cynthia Linville, SacramentoI wake up in the back of a fire engine. There doesn’t seem to be any emergency. No one is around, so I...
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Beyond All Midnight
CamelliaMY GRANDMOTHER WAS A GIANT BIRDMy grandmother was a giant birdWho lived in the South. SometimesIn the evening she would look through The mirrors in our house, which wasThe world between...
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Art is Art
Francis Barraud's original painting of Nipper looking into an Edison Bell cylinder phonographTHE VICTOR DOG—James Merrill(for Elizabeth Bishop)Bix to Buxtehude to Boulez, The little white dog on the...
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Muddy Beginnings/Pools of Clarity
Wild Iris —Art by Jennifer O'Neill Pickering, SacramentoI AM THE CREEKslow and easyin this fall of Han Lu mother of minnowswimming in nursery schoolssleeping in cradlesof algae and sedgedance floor to...
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Stone Light
THE FACE IN THE LINOLEUMWhere went that face—fixed, evil face—intent with direction, finding my face—that starebetween us—long and studious. I could step on it—hold it there—grind it underfoot. To...
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On Waves of Sky
Vetch—Photo by Taylor GrahamGUARDIAN—Taylor Graham, PlacervilleHer dog peers from the dark—gate-post holding a fence upright.So dark you can't see living space beyond.Just this gate-guard, each amber...
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Is That a Poem In Your Pocket...?
Keyboard—Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk GroveTHE FIRST ANIMALS(after the painting by Franz Marc)—Neil Ellman, Livingston, NJ in the beginningbefore men made handprintson the wallsbefore they struck flint...
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Life & Poetry
—Photo by Richard HansenSO EASY—Richard Hansen, SacramentoWhere she’zat? I have no ideabut here I stand atthis intimate little gatheringmunching on a snack glass in hand asthe conversation progressesto...
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Like a Lost Prince
Retreating StormBRINGING THE DOGSThe air is filled with dustAnd still these angels will not abandonUs. They dress us in jeweled and embroideredCoronets and speak to us as you haveHeard them speak when...
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Life: Wild, Precious...
THE SUMMER DAY—Mary OliverWho made the world?Who made the swan, and the black bear?Who made the grasshopper?This grasshopper, I mean—the one who has flung herself out of the grass,the one who is eating...
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Pocket Dreams of Future Poets
California Poppies—Photo by Taylor GrahamThe earth is no more fragilethan a baby, or an old winter leafor no more fragilethan a thin spun web.But babies survivetheir newness andthe cracked brownleaf...
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Mary's Bears and Charles's Bloody Knuckles
Arthur Gonzalez, UCD Library, Davis—Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk GroveNOT MY OWN(In the style of Mary Oliver)—Jordan Costello, DavisI discovered todaywhile walking alone that the pathI was taking was not...
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Fire-Fangled Feathers
—Photo by Katy Brown, DavisTEA AT THE PALAZ OF HOON—Wallace StevensNot less because in purple I descendedThe western day through what you calledThe loneliest air, not less was I myself.What was the...
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Take My Words
B.Z. Niditch and his kayakMassachusettsHUMAN ERRORS—B.Z. NiditchLife suddenly seizes ussurprising our intellectson a great spring dawnwhen a demonstrationof peaceful inquirysuddenly causesdad's labto...
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Bad Machines and Good Baseball
—Photo by Taylor GrahamTHEY OFFER THE WIDOW TWO MORE SECOND CHANCES—Mary Zeppa, SacramentoThe widow’s white skin snags like parchment. Still, the widow’s impetuous armsfind the shriveled old man in the...
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What Do You Hold On To This Morning?
Elk Grove Blvd., Elk GroveTHE DELTA PRAYERThe great white heron, its body a knifeIn the delta air, above the marshy flats,Above the rice fields and the dreamingThe trees protect in the Summer of the...
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