The Way to Achieve Inner Peace

I am passing this on to you because it definitely worked for me and we could all use more calm in our lives. By following the simple advice I heard on a Dr. Phil show, I have finally found inner peace. Dr. Phil proclaimed the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started.

So I looked around my house to see things I started and hadn't finished; and before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Baileys, a bottle of Kahlua, a package of Oreos, the remainder of both Prozac and Valium prescriptions, the rest of the Cheesecake, some saltines and a box of Chocolates. You have no idea how freaking good I feel.

Please pass this on to those you feel are in need of inner peace.

This was sent to me a while ago by Rattlechapper debee loyd of Modesto, and somehow it seems timely as we deal with after-Christmas/after-storm(s) blues. Thanks, debee! debee also reminds us that Friday is the deadline for submitting to Hardpan: A Journal of Poetry, a new biannual journal coming from Modesto poets debee loyd, Karen Baker, and Gordon Preston. Premiere issue will appear in March, 2006. Send poems to PO Box 1065, Modesto, CA 95353 (hardpanpoetry@sbcglobal.net). Include name, address, e-mail, phone, and SASE. The editors promise to respond within 42 days! Send $15 for one year’s subscription. No previously-published work, please.

Asst. Wrangler Robbie Grossklaus has the next issue of VYPER, our journal of poetry from youngsters 13-19, almost ready to go; it'll premiere at Jeanine Stevens' reading at The Book Collector on January 11.

Speaking of poetry for youngsters, check out the article in The Bee today (Metro section) about the up-coming spoken word contest for young people to be held in April-May for kids in Sacramento County (they are hoping to expand to other counties in future years). This is a national contest, sponsored by NEA and Poetry Foundation of Chicago (remember all that moola they got last year?). Poets choose poems from an online selection to memorize and recite, then they are judged on their presentations. Ultimate winners from all states go to Washington, D.C. to compete. Further info: www.poetryfoundation.org.

Meanwhile, I'm still stuck on the weather and the vicissitudes of January:


NO POSSUM, NO SOP, NO TATERS
—Wallace Stevens

He is not here, the old sun,
As absent as if we were asleep.

The field is frozen. The leaves are dry.
Bad is final in this light.

In this bleak air the broken stalks
Have arms without hands. They have trunks

Without legs or, for that, without heads.
They have heads in which a captive cry

Is merely the moving of a tongue.
Snow sparkles like eyesight falling to earth,

Like seeing fallen brightly away.
The leaves hop, scraping on the ground.

It is deep January. The sky is hard.
The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.

It is in this solitude, a syllable,
Out of these gawky flitterings,

Intones its single emptiness,
The savagest hollow of winter-sound.

It is here, in this bad, that we reach
The last purity of the knowledge of good.

The crow looks rusty as he rises up.
Bright is the malice in his eye...

One joins him there for company,
But at a distance, in another tree.

____________________

—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. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)