Sleeping After the Whore (& Po-Events 7/31-8/6)

DAYLIGHT
—Dawn DiBartolo, sacramento

between the shutters
sunrise beckons,
sways bright upon my belly;
daylight silently slithering playful
like a serpent
~ and slides thru,
reposing morn in delicious hues;
my eyes, hypnotized, as I
~ desire ~
fall captive to the sunshine.

_______________________

Thanks, Dawn!

This week:

•••The Marathon ends at noon today; join BL Kennedy and friends for closing ceremonies at 11 AM at Java City, 18th & Capitol, Sac.

•••There will be no Sacramento Poetry Center reading tonight (Monday, 7/31).

•••Wednesday (8/2), 7:30 PM: Lake Tahoe Writing Club open mic at the Grand Hall at Valhalla Estates on the water. Bring poems and a bathing suit! Take Hwy. 50 to the Y; take 89 north about 5 miles to Valhalla Estates, which are on the right, just past Camp Richardson.

•••Also Wednesday (8/2), 10 PM-Midnight: Mahogany Poets presents Mics and Moods at Capitol Garage, 1500 K St., Sac. Features & Open Mic hosted by Khiry Malik. Info: www.malikspeaks.com or 916-492-9336. Ages 21 and over; $5 cover.

•••Thursday (8/3), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged, Nick Pai. Open mic before/after. Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sac. Info: 441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com. Free.

•••Also Thurs. (8/3), 8-11 PM: Open Mic for comedians, singers, poets at Cobbler Inn, 3520 Stockton Blvd. (next to Colonial Theater), Sac. Hosted by Flo Real and Malikspeaks. All ages, $5. Info: www.malikspeaks.com.

•••Saturday (8/5), 7 PM: First Saturday Poetry Series returns! Sojourner Truth Art Center, 2251 Florin Rd. (corner of Tamoshanter & Florin), Sac. Hosted by Noah Hayes & Felicia McGee. All ages, $5. Come early for workshop. Info: www.malikspeaks.com.

•••Also Saturday (8/5), 4 PM: Quinton Duval will be reading at ArtsBenicia, a community gallery in Benicia. The gallery is located at 991 Tyler Street #114 in Benicia's Historical Arsenal district. Admission is free. Info: call 707-747-0131 or e-mail info@artsbenicia.org.

Deadlines!

•••There is the still time to enter Bright Hill Press's 12th Annual Poetry Chapbook Competition; the postmark deadline is—today! Complete guidelines for the competition may be found at www.brighthillpress.org/brighthillbooks/brighthillpoetrybookchapbooksubmissionguidelines.html. Info: BHP at 607-829-5055 or e-mail wordthur@stny.rr.com.

•••Quercus Review Poetry Series Annual Book Award, 2006 will get you $500.00 and 50 books! Deadline to submit your manuscript: Tuesday, August 1st, 2006—that’s tomorrow! Send submissions to Quercus Review Press, MJC English Dept., 435 College Ave, Modesto, CA 95350. For complete guidelines and/or to review past winners: http://www.quercusreview.com/index.html. The Quercus folks say: Open to all poets, with or without previous book publication. New and emerging writers are especially invited to submit. No restrictions on content, style or subject matter. We are simply looking for the best poetry we can find.

Use Your Net:

Interviewer-in-Residence JoAnn Anglin writes: I accidentally came upon this website, and encourage you to check it out. Many, many poets and poems, mostly contemporary I think, with some fine and interesting expressions: http://www.poetryporch.com/list.html. Enjoy!

_______________________

THE SIGN OF THE BITE
—Ronny Someck

In the morning after the great chaos concert the faces emptied
like beer bottles.
Who turned to look saw that between the women’s lips an apple
shuddered
and in the apple—the sign of the bite.
And love? Love was threaded in elastic in underwear:
what holds it up is
what exerts the pressure.

_____________________

BLUES FOR ELLIOT SHARP
—Ronny Someck

His guitar has a severed neck.
He plays like someone sweeping plucked feathers
from the slaughterhouse floor. The feathers long for the body as
the flower in the pot licks, till it withers, the ground water
that flowed in its leaves.
Music is never the last wish
uttered through the victim’s clenched lips
anticipating the chords from the rifle barrels.
It is the escape route through the rusty heart
of barbed wire fences.

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TIL WHEN WILL WE SLEEP AFTER THE WHORE
—Ronny Someck

Till when will we sleep after the whore
and awaken before the milkman.
He who stays awake dreams the distance
between the baby and the victim,
and by the door lies the memory of the dead
like milk bottles brought by the milkman of death
from the battlefields.

(The Lebanese border, 1997)

Ronny Someck’s poetry was translated from the Hebrew by Vivian Eden; it appears in Iraqi Poetry Today, ed. by Daniel Weissbort.

_______________________

—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.)