Earth-Shuddering Poems!

Dear Kathy,

It's been a tough month, no wonder nobody's sending Medusa any poems. We've had 14 inches of rain [in Somerset] in April, as of the 16th. But now the sun's shining, so I've dug up a little something (very little!) for Medusa. Don't ask me what it means, but I suspect our dogs and cats know.

EQUATIONS

If the cat is algebra,
the dog is barbershop quartet.
Does the cat’s pharaoh eye
equal the dog’s tumbleweed moon?

—Taylor Graham, Somerset

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Thanks, TG! Medusa received an earthquake of poems yesterday—three!—all from NorCal poets who were inspired by yesterday's Sylvia Plath poems. Jane Blue writes:

Here is a poem that copies the syntax of a Sylvia Plath poem for an exercise we did in my class a few years ago. You can see how distinctive her syntax is! "The Munich Mannequins" is in Ariel. The way everybody now uses nouns for verbs—that came from Plath. [Ed. Note: See below for "The Munich Mannequins".]

AT THE WOODLAND PARK ZOO
After Sylvia Plath’s “The Munich Mannequins”
(“Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.”)

As Sylvia Plath might say:
Captivity is absolute; it cannot be reversed.
Hard as windows, it boxes the heart.

Where rain forests hum like the blind
the skulls of bats, folded in false night
waiting for what? The electric day

the perfect sleep.
It stands for: the perfection of care.
All of us, in Seattle, a family.

So, in their silver beauty
the cobras hang today
in the night house of the Woodland Park Zoo

clothed and hooded in their lamé suits
diamonds on lorgnettes
insufferable, without thoughts.

The rain lets go its particles of light.
Ghosts pass by. In the stalls
arms poke in hay and spray elephants.

The ordinariness of the doors
the steel handles, the beige plastic veneers
and polyester bottoms hibernating in chilled élan.

Outside, the closed concession stands.
Winking.
Winking and waiting.

—Jane Blue, Sacramento

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Thanks, Jane! And from David Humphreys:

Just worked up an April thing here inspired by that sharp lovely thing you posted by S. Plath:

PENIS IDIOT APRIL
—David Humphreys, Stockton

Stamens are all erect out in the green jungle playground
for a wobbly fool tumbling after his hungry lusty Jill
down the flower thick sausage swelled and swooning hill
bringing giddy drooling angels to full gestation January

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Thanks, David! All three of these primo poets have events this week: Taylor Graham is hosting a reading at Our House Defines Art Gallery in El Dorado Hills, plus her work is on display through April at the Appel Gallery on 10th & T in Sacramento; Jane Blue will be reading on Sunday at The Book Collector (4 pm); and David Humphreys hosts a reading of the Calliope editors at Stockton Barnes & Noble on Sunday. See Medusa's Monday post ["Snakes & Taxes"] for details.

Tonight (4/19), Urban Voices presents An Evening with Victoria Dalkey: a poetry reading and conversation from 6:30 to 8 pm, South Natomas Library, 2901 Truxel Road, Sac. Info: 916-566-2133. Rattlesnake Review Reviewer-in-Residence B.L. Kennedy hosts. Victoria is the author of In the Absence of Silver, which was published by Rattlesnake Press in 2005. Her poems have appeared in Abraxas, bakunin, Birmingham Review, Cimarron Review, Napa Review, and other small press publications. Her chapbook, Twenty-Nine Poems, was published in 1999 by Red Wing Press. Since 1976, she has written reviews, interviews and feature articles about art for The Sacramento Bee.

Here is the "Mannequins" poem that Jane was talking about:

THE MUNICH MANNEQUINS
—Sylvia Plath

Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.
Cold as snow breath, it tamps the womb

Where the yew trees blow like hydras,
The tree of life and the tree of life

Unloosing their moons, month after month, to no purpose.
The blood flood is the flood of love,

The absolute sacrifice.
It means: no more idols but me,

Me and you.
So, in their sulphur loveliness, in their smiles

These mannequins lean tonight
In Munich, morgue between Paris and Rome,

Naked and bald in their furs,
Orange lollies on silver sticks,

Intolerable, without mind.
The snow drops its pieces of darkness,

Nobody's about. In the hotels
Hands will be opening doors and setting

Down shoes for a polish of carbon
Into which broad toes will go tomorrow.

O the domesticity of these windows,
The baby lace, the green-leaved confectionary,

The thick Germans slumbering in their bottomless Stolz.
And the black phones on hooks

Glittering
Glittering and digesting

Voicelessness. The snow has no voice.

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—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.)