Flood Watch

FLOOD WATCH
—Steve Williams, Portland

The Willamette is mud puddle brown,
logs meander under steel bridges,
their branches swim and stroke;
crooked fingers on black sax.

The evening news gives updates
on how many feet over the banks.

I steal some caution tape from an orange
cone to take home and frame.
We’ll hang it over the bed.

My daughter finds a penny, tosses it
over the wall, into the flood
of ragtime, never asks where
stray wood that dunks and dips will go,

never asks how trees become logs
the way people become homeless,

never asks about the blankets,
cardboard, or castaways
under the bridge.

____________________

UNTITLED
—Ryan Davis, Elk Grove

The sky is overcast today,
meaning rain is going to fall.
but water won't be the
only thing falling.
Along with it
will be the drama
that'll fall like hail,
maybe roar like thunder,
or even strike like lighting.
Every hour that the rain fall,
will probably resemble
some kind of injury,
and it's going to feel like a cut,
or perhaps a bruise,
or more like a scar,
or maybe even like a burn.
It probably won't be long,
before the bleeding starts
from the kick in the ass,
from the flash flood
that couldn't be stopped
by mere sandbags,
or by leeves,
or even by a dam.
In fact,
it'll probably be feel like
a natural disaster,
since there are days
where there's a feeling
that everything is going
to fall apart,
and today seems to
be no exception.

____________________

Thanks to local poets Steve Williams and Ryan Davis for weather poems. Well, okay, Steve has moved to Portland, but he was in Sacramento... And weather we have had, which brings wild critters closer to my semi-suburban retreat: the birds and the squirrels hang around the feeders all day, waiting for the weather to clear, and this morning I woke up to (1) the smell of skunk—! and (2) garbage strewn all over the porch—apparently the raccoons have been by again. Gadzooks... I guess I better turn it all into some poems.

Tomorrow is the deadline for VYPER, the Snake journal of poetry from people ages 13-19. Send 3-5 poems to kathykieth@hotmail.com, or 4708 Tree Shadow Place, Fair Oaks, CA 95628. This issue will appear later in March, and will feature many poems from young poets in New Jersey, thanks to Snake-pal and poetry teacher Sal Buttaci, who regularly appears (every issue since the beginning, I believe) in Rattlesnake Review. Here's a poem from Sal; see Snake 9 (due out March 8) for more:

HELP WANTED
—Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci, Lodi, New Jersey

Cleaning woman,
come visit my lungs
on Wednesday afternoons;
make a new man of me!

Two floors up in the west wing
Harriet, who's been here before,
shoos away flies from a heart
sulking after another of love's delusions.

Cleaning woman,
come with your humming vacuum,
past my ribs,
into the dusty vaults of lungs,
and let me hear you
whistle while you work!

_______________________

A closer now from Bill Williams:

THE STORM
—William Carlos Williams

A perfect rainbow! a wide
arc low in the northern sky
spans the black lake

troubled by little waves
over which the sun
south of the city shines in

coldly from the bare hill
supine to the wind which
cannot waken anything

but drives the smoke from
a few lean chimneys streaming
violently southward

___________________

—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.)