The Smell of Print Establishment

DESIRE
—Marie Riepenhoff-Talty, Sacramento

I dream the shape of it
the black on white of it

a quick indraw of breath
a satisfying yes!

the goose bumps rising
in the heat

the smell of print
establishment

some feigned indifference
and sluggish languor lasts

then poof! they're past
with just the falsest torpor left

I'm published in
The New Yorker

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Thanks to Marie Riepenhoff-Talty for what she reminds us is still just a fantasy. Lots of poets want to be published in The New Yorker; I know a few who are a bit obsessed with the idea...

Thanks also to Marie for more of her favorite Ruth Stone poems:

_______________________

THE FIG TREE
—Ruth Stone

Old as the world,
lithe and smooth
her skin cool as a python's,
she offers fat tongues of syrup
embedded with her seeds.
Through lobed waxed leaves,
she gathers light for the tiny ones,
the sheen of stoma,
the enzymic chlorophyll,
drawing up with her powerful veins
exact minerals for each cell.
How calm, like a lover waiting in the garden,
her pale trunk curving, sinuous,
dripping her raw smell in the carnal air.
She sways while a thousand beating wings
deflower her.

_______________________

IN THE NEXT GALAXY
—Ruth Stone

Things will be different.
No one will lose their sight,
their hearing, their gallbladder.
It will be all Catskills with brand-
new wraparound verandas.
The idea of Hitler will not
have vibrated yet.
While back here,
they are still cleaning out
pockets of wrinkled
Nazis hiding in Argentina.
But in the next galaxy,
certain planets will have true
blue skies and drinking water.

______________________

ACCEPTING
—Ruth Stone

Half-blind, it is always twilight.
The dusk of my time and the nights
are so long, and the days of my tribe
flash by their many-colored cars
choking the air, and I lie like a shah
on my divan in this 21st century
mosque, indifferent to my folded
flesh that falls in on itself,
almost inert, remembering crossing
the fields, turning corners, coming
home to the lighted windows,
the pedestrian years of it, accepting
from each hand the gifts,
without knowing why they were
given or what to make of them.

________________________

MARGARET STREET
—Ruth Stone

In September Margaret Street
waits for the comet.
No one but the earth knows that it is coming.

And the earth with its extravagant garment
like Salome's veils
gyrates in the sensual clasp.

In September the deepest basins
gush up their silt.
On Margaret Street the neighbors take out their trash.

It is Sunday. Each delayed moment
is wrested out of the seething mass.

On Mitchell Ave, where vision was still brilliant,
I suffered small indignities.
Ignorance lies always in the past.

O language that follows like the comet's tail;
the rubble of senseless longing
for what was.

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry, photos and art, 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.)