A Solace of Ripe Plums

Here's a tough one from Phil Weidman. Brace yourself:


WRONG TURN
—Phil Weidman, Pollock Pines

After a cease-fire
three of us ambled down range
to check our targets.
Approaching the 50-yard line
we saw a rattlesnake
thrashing its muscular length,
struggling to defy gravity
as it slipped sideways down
the steep rocky bank bordering
the west side of the rifle range.
As it reached our level
it made a frantic effort
to climb the bank.
Knowing what would follow,
I walked to the 100-yard line
and heard the shot.
The head and six inches of its body
slithered under a large rock.
The rest of it, rattles whispering futilely,
twitched until a summer sun
put it to rest.

______________________________

*sigh*

I'm not sure how I feel about poetry contests—how can you compare two poems, they're not like bowling scores, for Heaven's sake—but some people seem to thrive on them. I do enter one or two a year, the latest being the Ina Coolbrith bake-off and jamboree this last weekend, where a number of locals did darn good—not the least of which was Joyce Odam taking the well-deserved Grand Prize. Also bringing home the bacon in our area were Allegra Silberstein, Anatole Lubovich, Don Feliz, Elsie Feliz, Carol Frith, Laverne Frith, Pat Nichol, Norma Kohout, Katy Brown, and, yes, Medusa. Sacramentans took home one-third of the prizes from this mostly-Bay Area event, a tribute to the poetry muscle of inlanders.

In this area, the Towe Auto Museum poetry contest deadline is coming up (November 15). Check out the guidelines on www.toweautomuseum.org, or call 916-442-6802, or see Katy Brown's "Snake Charmer's Bazaar" column in the last Rattlesnake Review (p. 25). And there's a Bay Area Poets Coalition contest deadline on Nov. 15, too. E-mail Poetalk@aol.com for guidelines.

If you can't hang with any of the multiferous goings-on in Sacramento this weekend [see "Hang on to Your Wigs" post yesterday], head up to Rush Ranch in Suisun for the Plein Air Painting and Poetry Workshop on Saturday (10/29), 10-4 pm, with Robert Chapla and Sherry Sheehan. $75, pre-registration required. Call 707-429-3529 or email aleta@lmi.net.

And register by Friday, Oct. 28, for the November 5 Friends of the Library's Focus on Writers Conference, which will feature nine workshops conducted by writers including Kim Stanley Robinson, Robin Burcell, and Blair Anthony Robertson. Info: 916-264-2880 or www.saclibrary.org/about_lib/friends_flyer.html.

Finally, congrats to soon-to-be Rattlechapper Jeanine Stevens (January, 2006), whose chapbook, Boundary Waters (published by the Indian Heritage Council of McCall, Idaho) is displayed in Tower Books on Watt Avenue. This is a dandy coup, indeed!—drift on over there and check it out (local authors' table by the front door).


TO A POOR OLD WOMAN
—William Carlos Williams

munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand

They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her

You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand

Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her


THE DEFECTIVE RECORD
—William Carlos Williams

Cut the bank for the fill.
Dump sand
pumped out of the river
into the old swale

killing whatever was
there before—including
even the muskrats. Who did it?
There's the guy.

Him in the blue shirt and
turquoise skullcap.
Level it down
for him to build a house

on to build a
house on to build a house on
to build a house
on to build a house on to...

_____________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.