Did Someone Mention Peacocks?

MARCH IN CALIFORNIA, 2001
—Jane Blue, Sacramento

The space station Mir dropped from the sky
like a meteor shower
over the Pacific, falling into the depths.

There was a crater in the landscape of our lives
that hadn't been there before;
whatever had happened was over,

burning up utterly on impact, leaving
a slight residue of ash behind, a lingering
metallic smell.

Swallows limped back to Capistrano
one by one. Pelicans flapped over the spillway
where in summer rice would grow.

In the hills above the dam turkey buzzards circled.
A bush full of white flowers that we stopped to smell
smelled like nothing, just bitter pollen.

Pollen is very quiet. It gets into your bloodstream
like propaganda. Poppies and lupine opened
gold and blue on the hillsides.

Bees buzzed, the sound of industry,
similar to a freeway's roar.
Everything happened more than once.

_______________________

Thanks, Jane! Rattlesnake Press is very proud to announce that Jane Blue will be doing a chapbook for us next fall.

Leapin' Lizards! (or Leapin' Snakes, I guess)—The new issue of Rattlesnake Review is 60 pages long! I guess that's a good thing, what with this being its second birthday and all. But now it's official—the issue will not be available this week; we'll have to wait 'til next week. This is simply 'way too much Snake to wrangle before then. Here's a wee sample, though, from Katy Brown:

WALKING SISTER
—Katy Brown, Davis

Green shoes, purple tights and off-white
mini skirt: this walking sister
smiles at the cars on Broadway—smiles
at the men who whistle at her—
swings her red purse in rhythm
with her swaying hips—swaying
in time to an inner song—
an anthem to her freedom.

_________________________

Thanks, Katy! Katy Brown also serves as our "Marketeer-in-Residence", talking each issue about the mechanics of writing and publishing, and her beautiful photographs feed the Snake, as well. Her spiralchap of poetry and photography, The Quality of Light, is available at The Book Collector.

Confidential to CACarson, who left the comment on yesterday's post (you can see it by going there and clicking on "comments" at the bottom): Yes, we are also guilty of poetrywithfangs.com, though it currently is on hiatus. E-wise, you'll have to stick with Medusa, for now.

Addition to yesterday's calendar: Saturday (3/11), a Special Edition of the Second Saturday Poems-for-All Series presents Douglas Blazek, Icon of the 60s mimeo revolution, Poet, Publisher of OLE and Open Skull, and one of the inspirations for the creation of the PFA Series. This reading will be at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.) at 8 pm (instead of at The Book Collector); go on down and see the display of Poems-For-All chapbooks from the last five years. Info: 916-442-9295, or click on the PFA link ("Richard Hansen") to the right of this.

Did someone mention peacocks? For many years I had the company of one who lived in our neighborhood and consented to eat the food I put out for him; finally he disappeared—probably from old age. Over the years, we've had other peacock "tourists", off and on—including yesterday, when a young cock showed up, tailfeathers not quite finished yet, and ate the chicken scratch on the patio while fending off the wild turkeys (who, I'm sure, found him very strange). Whether or not he'll be back, though, is anyone's guess.

So here's a peacock poem from me, written back in the day when we had our own resident. This poem was published in Red Owl in 2002:

NOCTURNE FOR A PEACOCK
—Kathy Kieth, Fair Oaks

Wailing from a tall tree into apricot skies, his cries
slide along the dusky blade that slices day from dark

while a thousand eyes in his huge fan of a tail shiver
in the damp cool of the morning, or sag into the dust

of hot August nights. He gives us aubades
and nocturnes: ululations in salute of the sun: free

news of her travels: cheap tabloid titillation for sly
purposes of his own. And he, too, is lined in gold—

precious metal that shades gracefully into indigo.
He is the sun's royal centurion: music master

of the apricot sky . . .

________________________

It's freebie time! Send me a poem about peacocks by midnight on Friday (kathykieth@hotmail.com) and I'll send you a free rattlechap—either Frank Taber's new one, due to be released tomorrow (Northwind on I-5), or some other one that you've been pining for. What, you say—you don't have a poem about peacocks? Well then, get to work! Deadline is this Friday! And remember—Medusa does accept previously-published poems. Just let me know who and when, so I can give credit.

—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.)