Friday, May 05, 2006

Moonkiss

MOONKISS
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

Press your butt against
rolled up car windows, singing:
kiss my shiny moon.

_______________________

lol, as the young'uns say! Rhony certainly does put things into perspective about all this mooning around. Still, the give-away continues: send Medusa (kathykieth@hotmail.com) one (or more) of your moon poems by midnight tonight and receive a free copy of Todd Cirillo's new rattlechap, Everybody Knows the Dice Are Loaded, to be released at The Book Collector on Weds., May 10 at 7:30 pm.

Coincidentally, Rattlesnake Press will be releasing a littlesnake broadside, Tulip Stem, from Rhony Bhopla that same night. Here is another of her poems, only slightly more refined.... :-)

ANEW
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

A break in a nerve
is like hot starving flesh

Mimics the beckoning sex addict
who walks in circle around hot repulsive women

Arms dive, sensually and misshapen
lacking continuity, floating in a hiss

Still managing a new start
out of blissful inconogruence.

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Thanks, Rhony! Rhony is a Sacramento Poetry Center Board Member and Editor of Bliss, Journal of Erotica.

If you go to poetrymagazine.org online, you log onto the website for Poetry. However, if you log onto poetrymagazine.com—that's dot-COM—and scroll down, down, down, watching the left side of the screen, you'll come upon a hidden treasure—five poems by our Taylor Graham in Poetry Magazine! Check it out!

Finally, two Mexican poets to help us celebrate Cinco de Mayo:

THE WASHERWOMAN
—Veronica Volkow, Mexico

She feels her hands, scabrous as fish,
blind fish striking against the rock,
incessantly against the rock for years and years;
she watches the night pierced with eyes,
humid, slippery glances,
the mute faces shifting, disappearing,
brilliant glances of girls,
the dazed look of exhausted mothers.
The day ends and people return to their houses
and water runs from the faucet monotonously as a song,
the water has lost the shape of pipes,
lost the memory of its mountain source
and has pounded out its course,
besieged by obstacles
like the feet, like the eyes, like the hands.
She looks at shadows people drag along,
shadows on the walls, corners, the streets,
fugitive ink that marks the beaten roads,
desperate roads, laborious,
looking for only, perhaps, a fidelity.

(Translated from the Spanish by Forrest Gander)

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THE KEY OF WATER
—Octovio Paz, Mexico

After Rishikesh
the Ganges is still green.
The glass horizon
breaks among the peaks.
We walk upon crystals.
Above and below
great gulfs of calm.
In the blue spaces
white rocks, black clouds.
You said:
Le pays est plein de sources.
That night I dipped my hands in your breasts.

(Translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bishop)

_______________________

—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.)