The Fallen Roses of Outlived Minutes...

A LADY
—Amy Lowell

You are beautiful and faded,
Like an old opera tune
Played upon a harpsichord;
Or like the sun-flooded silks
Of an eighteenth-century boudoir.

In your eyes
Smoulder the fallen roses of outlived minutes,
And the perfume of your soul
Is vague and suffusing,
With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.
Your half-tones delight me,
And I grow mad with gazing
At your blent colors.

My vigor is a new-minted penny,
Which I cast at your feet.
Gather it up from the dust
That its sparkle may amuse you.

____________________

A little morning poetry clears the head, like good, strong coffee.

Blogs! Check out tigerseyepoet.blogspot.com for the inside scoop on Tiger's Eye: A Journal of Poetry. putahcreek.blogspot.com is James Lee Jobe's lively contribution—including a very graphic photo of a rattler that, for once, didn't come out of Medusa's head. And the elegant Ben Hiatt's site: digitaldawg.blogspot.com, posting local friends such as Taylor Graham and Annie Menebroker. Bookmark all these for a daily/weekly/wheneverly browse of the local poetry scene.

Sacramento hosts the 8th Annual Battle of the Bay poetry slam tonight at Wo'se Community Center, 2863 35th St., Sac. Seven teams from seven No. Cal. cities will compete in a warm-up & fundraiser for regionals, then nationals in August. $10, 9pm. slam@malikspeaks.com for info. Best of luck to the Sacramento team (which won this competition last year)!

And fireworks! Pyrotechnical fantasmagoria! So far I have 8 wonderful fireworks poems from readers. I whipped out my Roget's (Chapman edition, of COURSE—or the latest, ed. by Ann Kipfer) and found all these wonderful names of fireworks: ladyfinger, girandole, Vesuvius fountain, tourbillion, mandarin cracker, peeoy, petard, flowerpot, fizzer, Catherine wheel, Bengali-light, tantrum... Not to mention serpent, snake, and six-inch salute [insert joke here]. So, if those don't inspire your muse, I don't know what-the-heck will. (In case you've just joined us, there's a fireworks fest going on here: send in a poem about fireworks and it will be posted 7/4, plus you'll get a copy of Mary Zeppa's new chap, The Battered Bride Overture.)

Stay sane and out of the heat...

—Medusa (saluting with all six inches)