Friends and No Butlers

O THOU WHOSE FACE HATH FELT THE WINTER'S WIND
—John Keats

O Thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind,
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,
And the black elm tops, 'mong the freezing stars,
To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.
O thou, whose only book has been the light
Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on
Night after night when Phoebus was away,
To thee the spring shall be a triple morn.
O fret not after knowledge—I have none,
And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge—I have none,
And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens
At thought of idleness cannot be idle,
And he's awake who thinks himself asleep.

On Oct. 31, John Keats would've been 211 years old. He shares a birthday with BL Kennedy; Happy Birthday, Bari! Also celebrating birthdays coming up (Oct. 30) would've been Ezra Pound, born in 1885, and Paul Valery, born in 1871.


Next week:

•••Monday (10/30), there will be no reading at the Sacramento Poetry Center.

•••Wednesday (11/1), 6:30 PM, The Literature, Arts, and Medicine Program of the Sutter Cancer Center (LAMP) presents author Pat Schneider & the art of Marlene Kidd. 6:30 PM: Art Walk and Reception; 7:30 p.m.: Presentation by Pat Schneider; 8:30 p.m.: Book Signing. Sutter Cancer Center, 2800 L Street, Sacramento, 1st Floor.

•••Thursday (11/2), 7:30 PM: Robinson Jeffers Night in Chico features Jim Dwyer, James Karman, George Keithley and Beth Spencer. It's at the 1078 Gallery, 820 Broadway, Chico. $2 donation.

•••Sat/Sun (11/4-5): "The Beat Generation and Beyond" at the John Natsoulas Art Gallery in Davis and the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. Performances by Peter Selz, Michael McClure, Diane di Prima and George Herms. Guided Crocker Art Museum tour of photos by Allen Ginsberg. Optional $50 lunch on Friday. Co-sponsored by UC Davis Technocultural Studies. More details:
http://www.natsoulas.com/html/beatweb/beat.html.

•••Sunday (11/5), 6 PM. Fatherhood and maleness themes recur in the latest poetry collection by award-winning Sac State Professor and martial arts aficionado Joshua McKinney. The clear narratives in The Novice Mourner use guns, animals, and landscapes as symbols of mortality and the roles of fathers and sons. PoemSpirits has invited him to read this Sunday and to bring his published chapbooks to sell. Series co-facilitator Tom Goff will also present a brief overview of the work of Marie Ponsot, who refers to poetry as “passionate speech; language on a rampage.” Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Blvd., 2 blocks north of Fair Oaks Blvd, between Howe and Fulton Avenues. UUSS Foyer/Lounge. Free; Snacks available. info: Tom Goff or Nora Staklis, 916-481-3312, or JoAnn Anglin, 916-451-1372. Open mic: All are invited to bring a poem of your own or another’s to read.

_______________________

THE GARRETT
—Ezra Pound

Come, let us pity those who are better off than we are.
Come, my friend, and remember

that the rich have butlers and no friends,

And we have friends and no butlers.
Come, let us pity the married and the unmarried.

Dawn enters with little feet

like a gilded Pavlova

And I am near my desire.
Nor has life in it aught better
Than this hour of clear coolness,

the hour of waking together.

________________________

THE FOOTSTEPS
—Paul Valery

Your steps, born of my silence here,
Process with slow, religious tread,
Dumbly and icily, to where
I lie awake, on watch, in bed.

Pure person, shade of deity,
Your steps, held back are doubly sweet.
God!—all the gifts I could foresee
Are coming now on those bare feet!

If you advance your lips to make
A peace with hunger, and to press
The inhabitant of my thoughts to take
The thoughtful nourishment of a kiss,

Don't hurry with their tender dew,
Sweetness complete and incomplete;
For I have lived to wait for you:
My heart was your approaching feet.

(Translated from the French by Alistair Elliot)

_______________________

—Medusa

Oh, and Medusa will be off riding her broom from tomorrow (Sunday) through next Wednesday, November 1. Happy Halloween!

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.)

It Rains... (Well, Soon...)

WHISPERING HILLS MANOR
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

The old folks in their wheelchairs all complain
that lunch is late, and cold, the day is drear,
the weatherman predicts eternal rain.

There's surely some among them who are sane,
but they've been deaf an age in either ear.
The old folks in their wheelchairs all complain.

They're not past noticing the pricks and pain,
but that can't make their boredom disappear.
The weatherman predicts eternal rain

that falls like tedium, a dead refrain
repeating with a casual stab of fear.
The old folks in their wheelchairs all complain

while looking out the window, past the stain
of fingerprints the cleaning ladies smear.
The weatherman predicts eternal rain,

but not a one of them would still maintain
a storm could ever wash their prospects clear.
The old folks in their wheelchairs all complain,
the weatherman predicts eternal rain.

_______________________

Thanks, TG! Taylor Graham writes that [this villanelle] first appeared way-way-back in Tucumcari Literary Review, now alas defunct. (I hope there isn't actually a Whispering Hills Manor...)


Departed Women Heroes Honored

•••Tonight (Friday, 10/27), 7:30-10:30 PM: Tonight’s annual Poetry Reading of the Writers of the New Sun / Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol is dedicated to the memories and works of Jennie Baca and Gloria Rangel. This annual fundraising event is tied in to the Day of the Dead / El Día de los Muertos. It is always about celebrating those who have departed their earthly lives, and all of their spirit that remains—a tribute by the living to those who have gone before, and to the reality of death. This traditional time takes place over many days with a series of activities focused with humor and beauty on the joy of lives fully lived, not only on regret or mourning of those who are missed. The holiday is increasingly meaningful to people from all cultures. The reading will be set among the mini-altares, los nichos, created by local artists. Featured readers: Felicia Martinez and Luz Maria Gama and others; music by Franco. Open mic for those who have a commemorative poem to read.

Note New Location: La Raza Galería Posada [LRGP] is located at 1024-22nd St., on 22nd St. between K & J Streets in midtown Sacramento. Cost: $5 or as you can afford for the general public; $3 for students and members.


Also this weekend:

•••Saturday (10/28), 7-9 PM: "The Show" Poetry Series features Neo-Soul Vocalist Kevin Sandbloom from LA, plus extended open mic time. Also Born 2B Poets with special guest Bloom Beloved. Wo'se Community Center (Off 35th & Broadway), 2863 35th St., Sac. $5. 916-455-POET.

•••This Saturday, Poetry Flash sponsors the eleventh annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival at the Berkeley City COllege Atrium and Auditorium. Featured will be poets and writers concerned about the environment, including Al Young, Lewis MacAdams, Susan Griffin, Maya Knosla, Chris Olander, Albert Flynn DeSilver, GP Skratz, and John Oliver Simon. Also featured will be young voices from River of Words, California Poets in the Schools, and Poetry Inside Out. A Pre-Festival Creek Walk and Poetry Workshop begins at 10 AM, starting on the UC Berkeley Campus (Oxford and Center Sts.). The day will also feature literary and environmental panels, workshops and exhibits; see www.poetryflash.org for more details. The event is free, but a $25 donation will get you a letterpress broadside of Al Young's poem, "Geography of the Near Past".

•••Monday (10/30), there will be no reading at the Sacramento Poetry Center.


Deadlines coming up:

The first of November is just around the corner; here are a few deadlines that fall on or near same:

•••THE GIFT OF WORDS: Poetry for the Iraqi People: Cynthia Bryant, Pleasanton Poet Laureate, challenges poets everywhere to write a poem for the Iraqi people, something that you want to express to their citizens. Send it to Pleasanton Poet Laureate, P. O. Box 520, Pleasanton, CA 94566 or e-mail it to PoetsLane@comcast.net. Please include your full name, area code and phone number, along with your e-mail address, if you have one. Anyone of any age can write a poem and submit it to be included in The Gift of Words: Poetry for the Iraqi People. Deadline: November 1, 2006. Poems will be translated in Arabic, put into a booklet and sent to Iraq. In addition, a celebration will be held December 3, 2006 at the Century House, Pleasanton, CA from 1pm-5pm, at which poems will be read, followed by a festive pot luck.

•••Nov. 1 is also the deadline for submissions to the Kalliope 2006 Sue Saniel Elkind Poetry Contest: 1st Prize is $1000 and publication in Kalliope, to be awarded to a woman poet. Runners-up will receive consideration for publication. Maximum length is 50 lines. Entry fee $5 per poem or 3 for $12. Send two copies, one with name, address, & phone number on upper right corner and one without identification. For more details on both contests please visit www.fccj.org/kalliope, or kalliope@fccj.edu or send SASE to Kalliope, Florida Community College at Jacksonville, 11901 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32246.

•••Third Annual Contest deadline for the Towe Auto Museum Poetry Contest is November 10. Rules are available in their anthologies (buy one at the Museum) and on their website: www.toweautomuseum.org.

•••And I didn't check when their deadline is, but the Passager Contest for writers over 50 years of age is happening, and they want poems, too. Check it out at
www.passagerpress.com or go to: http://raven.ubalt.edu/features/passager/guidelines.htm. Surely one or two of you out there qualify, age-wise...


Or chuck it all...

...And sign up for WRITING ABOUT OUR LIVES (And Everything Else), taught by ELLEN BASS on January 26-28, 2007 at Esalen Institute in Big Sur. Ellen writes:

"For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness." —James Baldwin

If you have been to Esalen, you know it is one of the most beautiful—and inspirational—places on the planet. If not, perhaps it's time to visit. This workshop will be an opportunity to delve deeply into your writing without distractions or interruptions. If you find that you're not getting enough time for writing in your daily life, if you have pieces you can't seem to get started on, or if you just want to keep on keeping on, this is a spectacularly beautiful and nourishing place to do it.

"There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open." —Martha Graham

This workshop will help keep the channels open. There will be time for writing and time for sharing and feedback. From beginners to experienced, all writers are welcome. Whether you are interested in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or journal writing, this workshop will provide an opportunity to explore your truth and expand your craft.

Esalen fees cover tuition, food and lodging and vary according to accommodations—ranging from $320 to $605. Some work-scholarship assistance is available, as well as small prepayment discounts and senior discounts. All arrangements and registration must be made directly with Esalen (831-667-3005 or www.esalen.org), but if you have questions about the content of the workshop, feel free to email Ellen or call 831-426-8006.

_______________________

MADRIGAL TO THE CITY OF SANTIAGO
—Federico Garcia Lorca

It rains in Santiago,
my sweet love.
White camellia of the air,
shadowy shines the sun.

It rains in Santiago
in the dark night.
Grasses of silver and of sleep
cover the empty moon.

See the rain in the street,
lament of stone and crystal.
See in the vanishing wind
shadow and ash of your sea.

Shadow and ash of your sea,
Santiago, far from the sun.
Water of ancient morning
trembles in my heart.

(Translated from the Spanish by Norman di Giovanni)

_______________________

SHEEP IN FOG
—Sylvia Plath

The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.

The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the color of rust,

Hooves, dolorous bells—
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,

A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.

They threaten
to let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.

________________________

Today Sylvia Plath would've been 76 years old. Dylan Thomas would've been 92.

BEING BUT MEN
—Dylan Thomas

Being but men, we walked into the trees
Afraid, letting our syllables be soft
For fear of waking the rooks,
For fear of coming
Noiselessly into a world of wings and cries.

If we were children we might climb,
Catch the rooks sleeping, and break no twig,
And, after the soft ascent,
Thrust our heads above the branches
To wonder at the unfailing stars.

Out of confusion, as the way is,
And the wonder that man knows,
Out of the chaos would come bliss.

That, then, is loveliness, we said,
Children in wonder watching the stars,
Is the aim and the end.

Being but men, we walked into the trees.

______________________

—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.)

Look Out Where Yr Going!

WHAT'S WITH THE DANCE GUYS?
—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

Any man with a trade brings along his tools
whether maintenance or professional
or protective gear if they are police or firemen
But these guys who strut into local dances
they act like this is a 1950's cowtown
with nothing else but tight T-shirts, boots, and jeans
Maybe it's too manly for them to carry supplies,
if you know what I mean.
They come prospecting, but not for romances
Flirting with and flattering for
drinks or their supper
and not just to service the girls
An Octoberfest polka party surprise
is "Dr Fritz", a history professor with a Ph.D.
He brags he knows about waltzing
as well as all about Germany and Russia
But making his rounds with no kit bag
he must've flunked science and biology
acting unaware of the dangerous world out there
if he continues unprepared
(my kiss on his cheek meant I really cared!)
I pray to God he does not take house calls
or end up as a tragic emergency

________________________

Thanks, Michelle! Another NorCal Poet, David Humphreys, has tackled a villanelle. He says he was inspired to tackle a poem in this form by Taylor Graham's recent radio interview, in which she talks about and reads same:

TRILLIONAIRE
—David Humphreys, Stockton

Who will be first to cross this line,
entering a country that has never been seen
passing from billions to something divine,

place where mere mortals might not shine
as glowing or radiant glitter and sheen,
who will be first to cross this line?

Who will drink the champagne wine
and celebrate that which has never been seen
passing from billions to something divine?

Will they consider society’s line
a bequest to share with hungry and lean,
who will be first to cross this line?

Will responsibility be reward as fine
a treasure to him whose crown so clean
passes from billions to something divine?

Will he contribute his good golden mine
to honor and accolades and special bright glean,
who will be first to cross this line
passing from billions to almost divine?

________________________

Thanks, David! It's always good to stretch your poetic muscles a bit...


Correx!

I've been saying that the Ted Kooser reading tonight at UC Davis (Wyatt Pavillion Theater, 6:30 PM, free) was to be on Thursday, Oct. 25. This is clearly the wrong date; sorry for any confusion. Today is Oct. 26.


Also tonight:

Thursday (10/26), 7-9:30 PM: Colored Horse Studio, 780 Waugh Lane, Ukiah features Theresa Whitehill in its Writers Read series. An open mic session will follow the featured reading. Refreshments available. Donation requested. For more info: 707-275-9010 or 707-463-6989. This event is sponsored by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant from the James Irvine Foundation, and by Tenacity Press and Colored Horse Studio.

•••Or from 8-11 PM: Vibe Sessions presents Kevin Sandbloom at Cobbler Inn, 3520 Stockton Blvd. (next to Colonial Theater), Sac. $5, hosted by Flo-Real. Open Mic for comedians, singers, poets.

•••Or at 8 PM, featured Poets Art Beck and Mary Mackey plus open mic. Hosted by B.L. Kennedy. Luna’s, 1414 16th St., Sacramento.


Speaking of B.L. Kennedy, he writes:

You can now put the word out that as of Friday, October 27, The Crest Theatre will be selling advance tickets for the movie, I Began To Speak. They are priced at $10 and can be reserved by calling the office at the Crest (916) 442-5189 or emailing sid at sid@thecrest.com or just going down to the theatre. The seating is limited to 180, so pass the word.


Cranky Literary Journal is accepting submissions for Issue 8:

They tell us: Utne Magazine called it "replete with refreshing verbal imagery and thoughtful purpose." We are currently reading submissions for Issue 8, scheduled to debut in January 2007, and we urge you to send us your previously unpublished poetry or short fiction. You know, the stuff that happens to be witty, experimental, shrewd, rigorous, startling, stunning, slick, or at the very least, gorgeous. If you make the grade, you'll be sharing the pages with an interview by Cat Jones with the poet Sabrina Orah Mark, as well as a conversation between John Olson and the novelist Norman Lock. As usual, all topics and lengths are welcomed, but shorter tends to be sweeter, and while we promise to read your guilelessly romantic, explicitly sexual, or alarmingly rhyming holiday-themed pieces, we're not likely to publish them. Visit our spanking-new website at www.crankymag.org/submissions.html for submission guidelines and to get acquainted by browsing back issues. Or subscribe at http://www.crankymag.org/subscribe.html. (And watch for news of our chapbook contest; we' ll be announcing it in the next few weeks.)

_______________________

I KNOW A MAN
—Robert Creeley

As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking,—John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going.

_______________________

—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.)

Instructed by the Years

THE TRAVELLER
—John Berryman

They pointed me out on the highway, and they said
"That man has a curious way of holding his head."

They pointed me out on the beach; they said "That man
will never become as we are, try as he can."

They pointed me out at the station, and the guard
Looked at me twice, thrice, thoughtfully & hard.

I took the same train that the others took,
To the same place. Were it not for that look
And those words, we were all of us the same.
I studied merely maps. I tried to name
The effects of motion on the travellers,
I watched the couple I could see, the curse
And blessings of that couple, their destination,
The deception practised on them at the station,
Their courage. When the train stopped and they knew
The end of their journey, I descended too.

______________________

PARTING AS DESCENT
—John Berryman

They sun rushed up the sky; the taxi flew;
There was a kind of fever on the clock
That morning. We arrived at Waterloo
With time to spare and couldn't find my track.

The bitter coffee in a small cafe
Gave us our conversation. When the train
Began to move, I saw you turn away
And vanish, and the vessels in my brain

Burst, the train roared, the other travellers
In flames leapt, burning on the tilted air
Che si cruccia, I heard the devils curse
And shriek with joy in the place beyond prayer.

________________________

Get there early!

Word on the street has it that the Ted Kooser reading tomorrow night (Thursday, 10/25) at UC Davis may be packed; Wyatt Pavillion isn't all that big. The reading is at 6:30 PM. Be there. Early. FREE! and plenty of parking.

Tonight, head up the hill to Placerville from 6-7 PM for the Hidden Passage Poetry Reading, 352 Main St. It's an open-mic read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen.

Today would've been John Berryman's 92nd birthday:

HE RESIGNS
—John Berryman

Age, and the deaths, and the ghosts.
Her having gone away
in spirit from me. Hosts
of regrets come & find me empty.

I don't feel this will change.
I don't want any thing
or person, familiar or strange.
I don't think I will sing

any more just now;
ever. I must start
to sit with a blind brow
above an empty heart.

_______________________

SANCTUARY
—John Berryman

An evening faultless interval when
Blood ran crescendo in the brain
And time lay as a poem clear
Falls from me now; a friend is gone
Who taught my anger opaque air,
Is all but lost in time; few things remain.

The insolent look a woman gave
Casually from a door one day
Leaves me not, on the other hand;
Strange stigmata to our grave,
Indiscriminate as the wind,
We carry, with our bones they will decay.

The sky and sea are one in the night,
No eye can make distinction where
Eye is contained, eye subject is
To eyelid, even the pawn of light:
But panthers explain parenthesis
Upon their prey and sate all hunger there.

Certainty shall not touch my tongue.
And yet I hold, I have in mind
That this our love will stay for us:
Instructed by the years, belong
Obdurate and anonymous
A sanctuary eye among the blind.

_______________________

—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.)

Oops I Forgot to Title This

LOVE SONG
—Denise Levertov

Your beauty, which I lost sight of once
for a long time, is long,
not symmetrical, and wears
the earth colors that make me see it.

A long beauty, what is that?
A song
that can be sung over and over,
long notes or long bones.

Love is a landscape the long mountains
define but don't
shut off from the
unseeable distance.

In fall, in fall,
your trees stretch
their long arms in sleeves
of earth-red and

sky-yellow. I take
long walks among them.
The grapes
that need frost to ripen them

are amber and grow deep in the
hedge, half-concealed,
the way your beauty grows in long tendrils
half in darkness.

________________________

Keeping Ted a Secret:

Thanks to James Lee Jobe for the following heads-up: I read in the Davis Enterprise that Poet Laureate of the United States, Ted Kooser, reads on campus at U.C. Davis Thursday, at the Wyatt Pavilion Theater, at 6:30 PM.

Medusa says: Last week it was David St. John; this week it's Ted Kooser who is not advertised in Sacramento environs. What's up with that? Did I miss an announcement or three somewhere? You'd think the University would want to sell tickets...


Thursday in Ukiah:

This Thursday (10/26), 7-9:30 PM: Colored Horse Studio, 780 Waugh Lane, Ukiah features Theresa Whitehill in its Writers Read series. A California poet, designer, and letterpress printer, Whitehill's literary work includes commissioned poetry, culinary poetry, letterpress poetry broadsides, and poetic essays. A resident of Mendocino County for over 20 years, she is well known to local audiences as an expressive performer. Appellation Magazine has published her poetic prose, and her poetry has appeared in regional California magazines and anthologies. Her literary letterpress broadsides, many produced with her husband, artist Paulo Ferreira, are in major national collections including the Getty Center for the Arts, Brown University's John Hay Library, Stanford University's Special Collections Department, the New York Public Library, the Special Collections Department of UCLA, the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, the San Francisco Public Library, Mills College Special Collections, and City College of San Francisco, as well as many private collections. An open mic session will follow the featured reading. Refreshments available. Donation requested. For more info: (707)275-9010 or (707)463-6989. This event is sponsored by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant from the James Irvine Foundation, and by Tenacity Press and Colored Horse Studio.


Watershed this Saturday:

This Saturday, Poetry Flash sponsors the eleventh annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival at the Berkeley City COllege Atrium and Auditorium. Featured will be poets and writers concerned about the environment, including Al Young, Lewis MacAdams, Susan Griffin, Maya Knosla, Chris Olander, Albert Flynn DeSilver, GP Skratz, and John Oliver Simon. Also featured will be young voices from River of Words, California Poets in the Schools, and Poetry Inside Out.

A Pre-Festival Creek Walk and Poetry Workshop begins at 10 AM, starting on the UC Berkeley Campus (Oxford and Center Sts.). The day will also feature literary and environmental panels, workshops and exhibits; see www.poetryflash.org for more details. The event is free, but a $25 donation will get you a letterpress broadside of Al Young's poem, "Geography of the Near Past".

_______________________

OVERHEARD
—Denise Levertov

A deep wooden note
when the wind blows,
the west wind.
The rock maple is it,
close to the house?
Or a beam, voice
of the house itself?
A groan, but not
gloomy, rather
an escaped note of
almost unbearable
satisfaction, a great
bough or beam
unaware it had
spoken.

_______________________

A CURE OF SOULS
—Denise Levertov

The pastor
of grief and dreams

guides his flock towards
the next field

with all his care.
He has heard

the bell tolling
but the sheep

are hungry and need
the grass, today and

every day. Beautiful
his patience, his long

shadow, the rippling
sound of the flock moving

along the valley.

_______________________

THE SECRET
—Denise Levertov

Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

I who don't know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me

(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was
not even

what line it was. No doubt
by now, more than a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,

the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can't find,

and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all.

_______________________

Today Denise Levertov would've been 83 years old.

—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.)

Hidden Rooms

SINCE NINE O'CLOCK—
—C.P. Cavafy

Half past twelve. The time has passed quickly
since nine o'clock when I lit the lamp,
and sat down here. I sat without reading,
and without speaking. With whom could I speak
all alone in this house.

Since nine o'clock when I lit the lamp,
the vision of my youthful body
has appeared and found me and reminded me
of closed heavily scented rooms,
and pleasure long past—what audacious pleasure!
And it also brought before my eyes
streets that have now become unrecognizable,
centers full of movement that are ended,
and theaters and cafes that once used to be.

The vision of my youthful body
appeared and brought me also the sad memories;
family mournings, separations,
feelings of my dear ones, feelings
of the dead so little esteemed.

Half past twelve. How the time has passed.
Half past twelve. How the years have passed.

_______________________

This week in Nor Cal poetry:

•••Tonight (Monday, 10/23), 7:30 PM: the Sacramento Poetry Center presents Joshua Clover, author of The Totality For Kids (2006) and Madonna anno domini (1997), winner of the Walt Whitman Award from The Academy of American Poets. Clover teaches at UC-Davis, and contributes to Village Voice and The New York Times. Host Tim Kahl. SPC/HQ for the Arts, 1719-25th St., Sac. (25th and R Sts.), 916-451-5569.

•••Also tonight: The Moody Blues Poetry Series, 8 PM, presents Ms. Ashleigh with music by DJ Barney B. $5 at A Taste of Laguna, 9080 Laguna Main in Elk Grove. Hosted by Ms. La-Rue. 916-284-7831. The Moody Blue Poetry Series happens every Monday.

•••Tuesday (10/24): Bistro 33 in the Historic City Hall, 226 “F” Street, at 3rd and “F” Streets in Davis. Open-mic signup begins at 8 PM, the warm-up readers (Jones and Henderson) begin at about 8:30, and the feature (Terry Moore) begins around 8:50 for half an hour or so, maybe longer. Open mic afterward, with perhaps a musical interlude. http://www.bistro33.com/bistro33_davis/home.html or Andy Jones: aojones@ucdavis.edu or 530-756-4556.

•••Weds. (10/25), 6-7 PM: Hidden Passage Poetry Reading, 352 Main St. in Placerville. It's an open-mic read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen.

•••Thursday (10/26), 8 PM, featured Poets Art Beck and Mary Mackey plus open mic. Hosted by B.L. Kennedy. Luna’s, 1414 16th St., Sacramento.

•••Also Thursday, 8-11 PM: Vibe Sessions presents Kevin Sandbloom at Cobbler Inn, 3520 Stockton Blvd. (next to Colonial Theater), Sac. $5, hosted by Flo-Real. Open Mic for comedians, singers, poets.

•••Saturday (10/28), 7-9 PM: "The Show" Poetry Series features Neo-Soul Vocalist Kevin Sandbloom from LA, plus extended open mic time. Also Born 2B Poets with special guest Bloom Beloved. Wo'se Community Center (Off 35th & Broadway), 2863 35th St., Sac. $5. 916-455-POET.



Wanda Coleman writes of Things Falling Apart:

I am guest-editing next issue of L.A. Review. I've got to make my editorial decisions by November 15th. (Theme: Things Fall Apart—But I'll look at anything.) Anyone interested, and not afraid of rejection slips, can send poems the old-fashioned away: 3-5 poems regular mail with SASE (63 cents) for acceptance or return to me at: Wanda Coleman, Guest Poetry Editor, Los Angeles Review, P.O. Box 3537, Grenada, Hills 91394.

_______________________

AND I RECLINED AND LAY DOWN ON THEIR BEDS
—C.P. Cavafy

When I entered the house of pleasure,
I did not remain in the room where they celebrate
recognized loves with some semblance of order.

I went into the hidden rooms
and I reclined and lay down on their beds.

I went into the hidden rooms
that they are even ashamed to name.
But not shameful to me—for then
what kind of poet or craftsman would I be?
I'd rather lead a hermit's life. It would be more consonant,
much more consonant with my poetry;
than for me to enjoy myself in the commonplace room.

_______________________

HALF AN HOUR
—C.P. Cavafy

I neither had you, nor will I ever have you,
I guess. A few words, a coming close
as in the bar the other day, and nothing more.
It is a pity, I do not deny. But we of the world of Art
sometimes create pleasure with intensity of mind,
and of course only for a short while,
which almost gives the effect of the real.
So in the bar the other day—the merciful
alcohol also helping much—
I had a perfect erotic half-hour.
And it seems to me you understood,
and you purposely stayed somewhat longer.
That was very necessary. Because
for all of imagination and the magic alcohol,
I needed to see your lips too,
I needed to have your body close to me.

________________________

THE BANDAGED SHOULDER
—C.P. Cavafy

He said that he had hurt himself on a wall or that he had fallen.
But there was probably another reason
for the wounded, bandaged shoulder.

With a somewhat forceful movement,
to bring down from a shelf some
photographs that he wanted to see at close range,
the bandage was loosened and a little blood ran.

I bandaged the shoulder again, and tying it
I was somewhat slow; because it did not hurt,
and I liked to look at the blood.
That blood was part of my love.

After he left I found a blood-drenched rag
in front of the chair, from the bandages,
a rag headed for the garbage;
which I brought up to my lips,
and which I held there for a long time—
the blood of love on my lips.

________________________

—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.)

Nice

NICE
—Russell Edson

Of the night...

Climbing the mountain I kept slipping. So that I was not so much climbing as trying to.

I was not able to get out of the valley at all.

I said, what's wrong with the valley? It's every bit as nice as the mountain.

When I use the word nice I begin to feel cuddly. I go nice this and nice that, until I'm quite sick to my stomach as if having eaten too many sweets.

But let's be honest, is the valley really as nice as the mountain? The mountain is higher than the valley, so that it has a height that the valley could never own to without itself becoming a mountain. However, the valley retains a depth that the mountain does not own to.

But, in a way, both seeming to belong to the same system; each describing the other in reverse description.

One begins to see the mountain range as a solidified valley turned upside down, and equally as nice.



So if I cannot climb the mountain, I can still climb the stairs to my bed.

But, no matter, for I am anywhere I am without my having to do anything.
And so it doesn't really matter where one is, as long as one is. And sometimes even that doesn't matter...

_______________________

Don't forget: Today, 4 PM: The Book Collector and Rattlesnake Press present Taylor Graham reading from her latest book, The Downstairs Dance Floor, winner of the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize from Texas Review Press. That's at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac. Be there. Wine! Hors-d'oeuvres!!

—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.)

For Whom Ye May

LIVING
—Denise Levertov

The fire in leaf and grass
so green it seems
each summer the last summer.

The wind blowing, the leaves
shivering in the sun,
each day the last day.

A red salamander
so cold and so
easy to catch, dreamily

moves his delicate feet
and long tail. I hold
my hand open for him to go.

Each minute the last minute.

______________________

'CE BRUIT DE LA MER...'
—Denise Levertov

(after Jules Supervielle)

That sound, everywhere about us, of the sea—
the tree among its tresses has always heard it,
and the horse dips his black body in the sound
stretching his neck as if towards drinking water,
as if he were longing to leave the dunes and become
a mythic horse in the remotest distance,
joining the flock of foam-sheep—
fleeces made for vision alone—
to be indeed the son of these salt waters
and browse on algae in the deep fields.
But he must learn to wait, wait on the shore,
promising himself someday to the waves of the open sea,
putting his hope in certain death, lowering
his head again to the grass.

________________________

THE DEPTHS
—Denise Levertov

When the white fog burns off,
the abyss of everlasting light
is revealed. The last cobwebs
of fog in the
black firtrees are flakes
of white ash in the world's hearth.

Cold of the sea is counterpart
to this great fire. Plunging
out of the burning cold of ocean
we enter an ocean of intense
noon. Sacred salt
sparkles on our bodies.

After mist has wrapped us again
in fine wool, may the taste of salt
recall to us the great depths about us.

______________________

Today only!

Molly Fisk writes: The upcoming October Boot Camp, which begins on Sunday, is very small, and I'm having a lean autumn. So here's the deal: Anyone who wants to join us for this camp before Saturday, 10/21 (that's TODAY!), at 5 PM Pacific time may take $50 off the tuition, reducing it to $125 (that's about 34% off). Write or call if you have any questions (530-470-0188). If you're on this list but don't know what Poetry Boot Camp actually is, here's the info: http://www.poetrybootcamp.com. Happy Halloween, in any case!

______________________

WORK WITHOUT HOPE
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—
And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, not sing.

Yet well I ken the banks were amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.

________________________

Today Samuel Taylor Coleridge would've been 334 years old.

—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.)

Warming the Inkstone

THE AUTUMN MOON
—Ryokan

The moon appears in every season, it is true.
But surely it's best in fall.
In autumn, mountains loom and water runs close.
A brilliant disk floats across the infinite sky,
And there is no sense of light and darkness,
For everything is permeated with its presence.
The boundless sky above, the autumn chill on my face.
I take my precious staff and wander about the hills.
Not a speck of the world's dust anywhere,
Just the brilliant beams of moonlight.
I hope others, too, are gazing on this moon tonight.
And that it's illuminating all kinds of people.
Autumn after autumn, the moonlight comes and goes;
Human beings will gaze upon it for eternity.
The sermons of Buddha, the preaching of Eno,
Surely occurred under the same kind of moon.
I contemplate the moon through the night,
As the stream settles, and white dew descends.
Which wayfarer will bask in the moonlight longest?
Whose home will drink up the most moonbeams?

_______________________

•••Tonight (Friday, 10/20), 7 PM: Six Ft. Swells Press celebrates the newest chapbook in its Cheap Shots Poetry Series with the release of Julie Valin's Night Songs for Heavy Dreamers. The evening begins with cocktails and backslapping at 7 PM followed by a reading featuring Julie Valin and Matt Amott. The evening is hosted by the pirate of the Cheap Shots Poetry Series, Todd Cirillo. The event will be a combination of above-average garden party debauchery and truck stop revelries wrapped up in After-Hours Poetry at its finest. The event is free at Jason's Studio Cafe (in Booktown Books), 134 S. Auburn St., Grass Valley. For info. or to order Six Ft. Swells releases call 530-271-0662 or email sixfootswells@yahoo.com.

•••Also tonight, 7 PM: Our House Gallery and Framing presents Irene Lipshin and Phil Weidman. Both have new chapbooks out from Rattlesnake Press: Shadowlines (Irene) and Fictional Character: The Ernie Poems (Phil). Free; an open mic follows. Our House Gallery & Framing is located at 4510 Post St. in El Dorado Hills Town Center.

•••Saturday (10/21), 7:30 PM: Literature Alive! Presents Wordslingers 2006: An Evening With Amy Tan. The event, presented by Literature Alive!, a Nevada County non-profit, will take place at the Veteran’s Memorial Hall in Grass Valley. Tickets for the main auditorium are $25 in advance, $30 at the door, $22 for Literature Alive! members (must show membership card); bleacher seats are $15. For more information on tickets (which may be sold out?), call (530) 272-5812 or visit the website at www.litalive.org.

•••Also Saturday, 7-9 PM: Underground Poetry Series features Red Fox Underground poets Wendy Williams and Brigit Truex, plus Lori Jean Robinson and Random Abiladeze, plus open mic. $3. Underground Books, 2814 35th St., Sac. (35th and Broadway). If you would like to be a featured poet, contact Terry Moore at 916-455-POET.

•••Also Saturday, 4 PM: The Central California Art Association and the Mistlin Art Gallery announces a poetry writing workshop as this month’s featured poetry event. The facilitator, Karin Forno, is a well known local writer who practices medicine, has earned a Master's of Fine Arts in creative writing, and is an instructor at CSUS. A very modest $10.00 donation per writer is requested. Please email Gordon Preston at gordonbp@sbcglobal.net with your intent to participate. Space will be limited.

•••Also Saturday, 1-3 PM: The Third Saturday of the Month is The Stockton Poetry Workshop at The Acacia Cafe, corner of Acacia and Yosemite Avenues, Stockton. For info call Donald Anderson (209) 943-2449 or call the host, Shonda Renee (209) 603-1598.

•••Sunday (Oct. 22), 4 PM: The Book Collector and Rattlesnake Press present Taylor Graham reading from her latest book, The Downstairs Dance Floor, winner of the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize from Texas Review Press. That's at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac. Be there.

•••Monday (10/23), 7:30 PM: the Sacramento Poetry Center presents Joshua Clover, author of The Totality For Kids (2006) and Madonna anno domini (1997), winner of the Walt Whitman Award from The Academy of American Poets. Clover teaches at UC-Davis, and contributes to Village Voice and The New York Times. Host Tim Kahl. SPC/HQ for the Arts, 1719-25th St., Sac. (25th and R Sts.), 916-451-5569.

________________________

On a bitterly cold November night
The snow fell thick and fast—
First like hard grains of salt,
Then more like soft willow buds.
The flakes settled quietly on the bamboo
And piled up pleasingly on the pine branches.
Rather than turning to old texts, the darkness
Makes me feel like composing my own verse.

—Ryokan

________________________

Shut up among the solitary peaks,
I sadly contemplate the driving sleet outside.
A monkey's cry echoes through the dark hills,
A frigid stream murmurs below,
And the light by the window looks frozen solid.
My inkstone, too, is ice-cold.
No sleep tonight, I'll write poems,
Warming the brush with my breath.

—Ryokan

________________________

—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.)

Being Kind to Snails

TOAD
—Norman MacCaig

Stop looking like a purse. How could a purse
squeeze under the rickety door and sit,
full of satisfaction, in a man's house?

You clamber towards me on your four corners—
right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot.

I love you for being a toad,
for crawling like a Japanese wrestler,
and for not being frightened.

I put you in my purse hand, not shutting it,
and set you down outside directly under
every star.

A jewel in your head? Toad,
you've put one in mine,
a tiny radiance in a dark place.


Tonight!

•••Thursday (10/19), 7 PM: Poet David St. John will read from his work as part of the UC-Davis Creative Writing Program Reading Series. 126 Voorhies Hall, 1st
& A Streets, Davis. [I only received one notice about this; it's amazing to me that the event received so little publicity!]

•••Also tonight (Thursday, 10/19), 8 PM: Vibe Sessions Neo-Soul Lounge with Flo-Real and open mic. The Cobbler Soul Food Restaurant (next to Colonial Theater), 3520 Stockton, Blvd., Sac. $5. 916-613-0776.

•••Also Thursday, 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged presents Sacramento Poetry Center President and Poetry Now Editor Bob Stanley. Open mic before/after. Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sac. Info: 441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com. Free. Watch for a littlesnake broadside coming from Bob in December!


The Robert Greer Cohn Prose Poetry Award

California Institute of Arts and Letters is pleased to announce the Robert Greer Cohn Prose Poetry Award. The winning poet will receive $300, plus the editors at California Institute of Arts and letters will then work with the poet to select up to ten additional unpublished poems (prose poems or verse poems) from the winning poets body of work for publication in a limited edition chapbook. The winning poem will also be featured in a future edition of the journal, Black Zinnias. Submission Deadline: January 15, 2007. Reading fee: $10 (Payable by check to California Institute of Arts and Letters). The award winning poem, and poet, will be announced by March 31, 2007.

Submit two copies of the poem on separate pages. One page must have your contact information and one page the poem only. Appropriate length of poems: 500 words or less, or one page approximately 50 lines single-spaced or less. All poets are welcome to submit whether previously published or not. The poem submitted must not have been previously published. For more information: www.calartsandletters.org

Contact information needed: Name, mailing address, phone number, and email address. Please enclose a SASE for contest results and a SAS postcard for notification of receipt of poem. Mail submissions to:

California Institute of Arts and Letters
Robert G. Cohn Prose Poetry Award
P. O. Box 470746
San Francisco, CA 94147


_______________________

FOR A FIVE-YEAR-OLD
—Fleur Adcock

A snail is climbing up the window-sill
Into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
That it would be unkind to leave it there:
It might crawl to the floor; we must take care
That no one squashes it. You understand,
And carry it outside, with careful hand,
To eat a daffodil.

I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
Your gentleness is moulded still by words
From me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
From me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
Your closest relatives, and who purveyed
The harshest kind of truth to many another.
But that is how things are: I am your mother,
And we are kind to snails.

_______________________

—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.)

The Foxes Trot Down the Hill

I WILL MAKE YOU BROOCHES
—Robert Louis Stevenson

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
I will make a palace fit for you and me
Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom.
And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white
In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.

And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.

________________________

•••Tonight (Wednesday, 10/18), 7 PM: The Sac State Creative Writing Program in conjunction with the Sac State Visiting Scholars Program and Poets & Writers, Inc. presents a lecture & poetry reading by internationally-acclaimed poet, teacher and scholar Bin Ramke in the CSUS Library Gallery (1st floor). Professor Ramke will deliver a talk and then give a poetry reading. The subject for his talk is "Poetry and Proof: The Problem of the Practical."

•••Also tonight, 6:30-8 PM: Urban Voices present CSUS Professor Mary Mackay, South Natomas Library, 2901 Truxel Rd., Sac. Free.

•••Later tonight, 10-midnight: Mahogany Poets presents Mics and Moods at Capitol Garage, 1500 K St., Sac. Features and Open Mic; 21 and older. $5. Info: 916-492-9336 or www.malikspeaks.com.


Come hear the Foxes!

Lots of chances to hear our various Red Fox Underground friends from El Dorado County this week:

•••Friday, 7 PM: Our House Gallery and Framing presents Irene Lipshin and Phil Weidman. Both have new chapbooks out from Rattlesnake Press: Shadowlines (Irene) and Fictional Character: The Ernie Poems(Phil). Free; an open mic follows. Our House Gallery & Framing is located at 4510 Post St. in El Dorado Hills Town Center; from Sac., take the Latrobe exit south and cut over left into the shopping center.

•••Saturday, 7-9 PM: Underground Poetry Series features Red Fox Underground poets Wendy Williams and Brigit Truex, plus Lori Jean Robinson and Random Abiladeze, plus open mic. $3. Underground Books, 2814 35th St., Sac. (35th and Broadway). If you would like to be a featured poet, contact Terry Moore at 916-455-POET.

•••Sunday (Oct. 22), 4 PM: The Book Collector and Rattlesnake Press present Taylor Graham reading from her latest book, The Downstairs Dance Floor, winner of the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize from Texas Review Press. That's at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac. Be there. Here are some samples from TG:

HIS MOTHER’S GARLIC PRESS
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

The only thing of hers you ever wanted.
She could strike an argument
quick as a kitchen match. She could chop
and mince and slice your words
and serve them with sauce for dinner.
You’ve never had a press that worked
as well, squeezing each clove
to smithereens. Now you’ve got hers
over her dead body. Tonight,
this must be a mother-in-law head
of garlic that you’re crushing,
so pungent, your eyes sting
with old tears.

_______________________

EPITHALAMION
—Taylor Graham

Four teenagers fathered by a fool
escort you tripping laces down the aisle
as if to give you to this other. True,
he’s father twice, himself. So why
the white gardenias, chapel hushed?

Both families populous with offspring
of two humans grown at ease with flesh.
You’ve taught your kids what’s sin;
the lousiest marriage a sacred vow;
love is richer for what’s not allowed.

Desire of your life. Tonight the kids
will slumber-party chez your ex.
This husband bends for the first kiss.
Your fragrant house. A red sun sets.

_______________________

CONNECTIONS
—Taylor Graham

Outside my window, way beyond the phone,
the grass is growing, and a pair of quail
go foraging for seeds. This morning’s mail,
your husband’s letter – he’s at home alone

three thousand miles from here. What are the ties
that bind half-sister to half-sister, known
so little? Less, now that your mind has flown.
Your husband sees you fade before his eyes.

How shall I mourn someone I hardly knew?
A sister dying, now, in after-sight.
I put the phone down. Dying like the light
off pines, off feathers, quail that flew.

No voice could reach, no line extend so long.
The seeds, the quail, and now the evensong.

_______________________

Thanks, TG! Watch for Judy Taylor Graham's next "Making Fun of Poetry" column in Rattlesnake Review #12, due out in December, or check out her latest one in Snake 11, which is still at The Book Collector. Deadline for Snake 12 is Nov. 15, by the way—time to get crackin'! This issue will feature, among all the other jewels, an interview of Sacramento Poetry Writer/Entrepeneur Terry Moore by B.L. Kennedy.

—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.)

Tormenting the Mirror

SLEEP
—Russell Edson

There was a man who didn't know how to sleep, nodding off every night into a drab, unprofessional sleep. Sleep that he had grown so tired of sleeping.

He tried reading The Manual of Sleep, but it just put him to sleep. That same old sleep that he had grown so tired of sleeping...


He needed a sleeping master, who with a whip and a chair could discipline the night, and make him jump through hoops of gasolined fire. Someone who could make a tiger sit on a tiny pedestal and yawn...

_______________________

•••Tonight (Tuesday, 10/17), 6 PM: Sacramento Public Library's One Book Sacramento project presents Novelist and Poet Mary Mackey and Bee political columnist Daniel Weintraub reading from their works anthologized in My California. Bella Bru Cafe, 4680 Natomas Blvd., Sac. Free. 916-928-1770 or www.saclibrary.org. Mary will also read for Urban Voices at the South Natomas Library tomorrow night (Weds.), 6:30 PM. See today's Sacramento Bee Metro section for an article about Mary Mackey's life and work, complete with poem!


Maggie H. Meyer Memorial Poetry Contest, 2006:

The Bay Area Poets Coalition presents their 27th Annual contest, deadline Nov. 15. Poet's choice, any subject. Maximum eight poems, $2 each for non-members of BPAC. Three categories: mini-poems (15 lines), midi-poems (25 lines), maxi-poems (35 lines); all categories must have lines no longer than 64 characters wide. For further rules/info re: formatting, SASE BAPC Contest 27, Box 11435, Dept. 2, Berkeley, CA 94712 or e-mail poetalk@aol.com. Join BAPC if you want ($15/year) and receive four issues of POETALK and "other perks", plus members can submit 1-4 poems to the contest for free ($1.50 for each additional poem up to 8). Their website is www.bayareapoetscoalitiion.org.


Want to write a grant?

Learn the nuts and bolts of funding through grants. This seminar is designed for individuals who work with non-profits, government agencies, poets, artists, filmmakers, musicians, technology entrepreneurs, scientific researchers, students and anyone who would like to become more familiar with the world of grant funding!

"Successful Grant Writing Made Easy" is a program presented by Faith Sherry Lessen, J.D., a fund development consultant. She has over twenty 20 years' experience in fund development. Her expertise includes grant awards for HIV/AIDS programs, technology programs, medical clinics and hospitals, housing programs, child care programs, domestic violence programs, child abuse programs, substance abuse programs, food banks, education programs, and cultural and arts programs including video, television and films. She has been instrumental in linking up funding partnerships. These partnerships include collaboratives to secure grant funding with Stanford University, San Jose State University, University of California Santa Cruz, private and public foundations, private businesses, and non-profit organizations. The workshops will be on November 15 or December 15, 9 AM-noon at the Portola Plaza Hotel, Cottonwood 1 Room, Monterey. Call to register today at (831) 383-1668, or register online by e-mailing sherrylessen@sbcglobal.net. The seminar is tailored to small groups, no more than 25 participants, and is interactive and supports individual learning needs. A certification of completion award will be presented to each client upon completion of the seminar. Space is limited. Send check or money order of $125 to: Faith Sherry Lessen, J.D., 2835 David Ave., #16, Pacific Grove, California 93950. 25% discount to nonprofit organizations. $50.00 for students. Two free scholarships are offered.

________________________

THE TORMENTED MIRROR
—Russell Edson

Let me gaze into your lovely eyes, said a man to a mirror.

The mirror said nothing, but gazed back into the man's lovely eyes.

His mother said, stop tormenting the mirror.

I'm gazing into its lovely eyes, said the man.

Those are your lovely eyes, said the mother, which are not so lovely, as they are more like spyglasses than eyes.


His father said, what lovely thing are you doing to the mirror?

Tormenting it, said the man as he continued to gaze into the mirror's lovely eyes...

_______________________

A LETTER FROM HOME
—Russell Edson

One night a man's shadow died. Slumping, it groped its heart and dripped down the wall into a dark stain on the floor in the shape of a man who died in his bedroom alone...

The man writes home: Dear mom, my shadow is dead. I may have to be reborn, if you and dad are up to it, and have a new shadow attached...

His mother writes back: Dear Ken, please don't count on it. In truth, dear, given another chance I think I would ask for an abortion...

_______________________

—Medusa

P.S. Someone named "Homer" sent me some poems which my computer dumped into the junk file. I inadvertently lost his poems! Please re-send, Homer, if you're out there listening...

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.)

The Things of Today

SADNESS
—Shuntara Tanikawa

Sadness
A half-peeled apple
Not a metaphor
Not a poem
Merely there
A half-peeled apple
Sadness
Merely there
Yesterday's evening paper
Merely there
Merely there
A warm breast
Merely there
Nightfall
Sadness
Apart from words
Apart from the heart
Merely here
The things of today.

______________________

This week's poetry events (Wow!):

•••Tonight (Monday, 10/16), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Poets of Luther Burbank High School. HQ, 15th & R Sts., Sacramento.

•••Tuesday (10/17), 6 PM: Sacramento Public Library's One Book Sacramento project presents Novelist and Poet Mary Mackey and Bee political columnist Daniel Weintraub reading from their works anthologized in My California. Bella Bru Cafe, 4680 Natomas Blvd., Sac. Free. 916-928-1770 or www.saclibrary.org.

•••Wednesday (10/18), 7 PM: The Sac State Creative Writing Program in conjunction with the Sac State Visiting Scholars Program and Poets & Writers, Inc. presents a lecture & poetry reading by internationally-acclaimed poet, teacher and scholar Bin Ramke in the CSUS Library Gallery (1st floor). Professor Ramke will deliver a talk and then give a poetry reading. The subject for his talk is "Poetry and Proof: The Problem of the Practical."

•••Also Wed., 6:30-8 PM: Urban Voices present CSUS Professor Mary Mackay, South Natomas Library, 2901 Truxel Rd., Sac. Free.

•••Also Weds., 10-midnight: Mahogany Poets presents Mics and Moods at Capitol Garage, 1500 K St., Sac. Features and Open Mic; 21 and older. $5. Info: 916-492-9336 or www.malikspeaks.com.

•••Thursday (10/19), 8 PM: Vibe Sessions Neo-Soul Lounge with Flo-Real and open mic. The Cobbler Soul Food Restaurant (next to Colonial Theater), 3520 Stockton, Blvd., Sac. $5. 916-613-0776.

•••Also Thursday, 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged presents Sacramento Poetry Center President and Poetry Now Editor Bob Stanley. Open mic before/after. Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sac. Info: 441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com. Free. Congrats to Poetry Unplugged, by the way, for winning Sacramento News & Review's "Best of open mic: Poetry" Award!

•••Friday (10/20), 7 PM: Six Ft. Swells Press celebrates the newest chapbook in its Cheap Shots Poetry Series with the release of Julie Valin's Night Songs for Heavy Dreamers. The evening begins with cocktails and backslapping at 7 PM followed by a reading featuring Julie Valin and Matt Amott. The evening is hosted by the pirate of the Cheap Shots Poetry Series, Todd Cirillo. The event will be a combination of above-average garden party debauchery and truck stop revelries wrapped up in After-Hours Poetry at its finest. The event is free at Jason's Studio Cafe (in Booktown Books), 134 S. Auburn St., Grass Valley. For info. or to order Six Ft. Swells releases call 530-271-0662 or email sixfootswells@yahoo.com.

•••Also Friday, 7 PM: Our House Gallery and Framing presents Irene Lipshin and Phil Weidman. Both have new chapbooks out from Rattlesnake Press: Shadowlines (Irene) and Fictional Character: The Ernie Poems (Phil). An open mic follows. Our House Gallery & Framing is located at 4510 Post St. in El Dorado Hills Town Center. There is no charge.

•••Saturday (10/21), 7:30 PM: Literature Alive! Presents Wordslingers 2006: An Evening With Amy Tan. The event, presented by Literature Alive!, a Nevada County non-profit, will take place at the Veteran’s Memorial Hall in Grass Valley. Tickets for the main auditorium are $25 in advance, $30 at the door, $22 for Literature Alive! members (must show membership card); bleacher seats are $15. For more information on tickets (which may be sold out?), call (530) 272-5812 or visit the website at www.litalive.org.

•••Also Saturday, 7-9 PM: Underground Poetry Series features Red Fox Underground poets Wendy Williams and Brigit Truex, plus Lori Jean Robinson and Random Abiladeze, plus open mic. $3. Underground Books, 2814 35th St., Sac. (35th and Broadway). If you would like to be a featured poet, contact Terry Moore at 916-455-POET.

•••Also Saturday, 4 PM: The Central California Art Association and the Mistlin Art Gallery announces a poetry writing workshop as this month’s featured poetry event. The facilitator, Karin Forno, is a well known local writer who practicies medicine, has earned a Master's of Fine Arts in creative writing, and is an instructor at CSUS. A very modest $10.00 donation per writer is requested. Please email Gordon Preston at gordonbp@sbcglobal.net with your intent to participate. Space will be limited.

•••Also Saturday, 1-3 PM: The Third Saturday of the Month is The Stockton Poetry Workshop at The Acacia Cafe, corner of Acacia and Yosemite Avenues, Stockton. For info call Donald Anderson (209) 943-2449 or call the host, Shonda Renee (209) 603-1598.

•••Sunday (Oct. 22), 4 PM: The Book Collector and Rattlesnake Press present Taylor Graham reading from her latest book, The Downstairs Dance Floor, winner of the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize from Texas Review Press. That's at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac. Be there.

_______________________

STONE AND LIGHT
—Shuntaro Tanikawa

The stone doesn't repel the light,
The stone doesn't absorb the light.
On the stone sits a deerfly,
The light is radiant in its downy hair.

The light just now arrived on earth.

_______________________

CONCERNING A GIRL
—Shuntaro Tanikawa

from a little basket on the kitchen shelf I was about to
pick a star the girl insisted she didn't care about a
harvest I thought I had planted a seed but perhaps we too
had been planted seeds without realizing it we were raised
and ripened and will probably wither away later we're nothing
more than a tiny clod of earth in the middle of the world's
garden yet this time we are the ones that will raise someone
will stand on us and grope for a star with a huge hand perhaps
even check for ripeness however we are not fertilizer for
stars even at that time a girl wise beyond doubt will be there
to plant her naked feet within us then she herself will become
a flower and when ripe a star will naturally fall the
flower knows all about this and so will not be afraid of
dying when standing on my tiptoes about to pick a star I
was called by the girl

(Today's poetry was translated from the Japanese by Harold Wright.)

________________________

—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.)

Scraping Our Knees

BOUGAINVILLA LAZARUS BLOOM
—David Humphreys, Stockton

(Jesus saith: Didst not I say to thee that if
thou believe thou shalt see the glory of God?)

Spread out resurrected from its frozen solid year
of broken pipes and ants’ swarming infestation
above the front step entrance, now a Cardinal’s
brilliant red satin cassock flower administers genuflection
and a benediction of cathedral proportions, several
years perhaps having passed since Jacob’s lost innocence.
Imagine his desert filled with incidental radiance.
Everything here and now would certainly resolve
upon the issue. Take it upon yourself to find another
explanation but it has been done so many times before,
each time inexplicably filled with wonder. Do this
and celebrate and life may bloom voracious rimmed
with many serrated razor rows.

(Homage to Theodore Roethke’s “Root Cellar”)

________________________

NEAR THE WALL OF A HOUSE
—Yehuda Amichai

Near the wall of a house painted
to look like stone,
I saw visions of God.

A sleepless night that gives others a headache
gave me flowers
opening beautifully inside my brain.

And he who was lost like a dog
will be found like a human being
and brought back home again.

Love is not the last room: there are others
after it, the whole length of the corridor
that has no end.

(translated by Chana Bloch)

________________________

INVOCATION TO DSILYI N'EYANI
—Navajo song

Reared Within the Mountains!
Lord of the Mountains!
Young Man!
Chieftain!
I have made your sacrifice.
I have prepared a smoke for you.
My feet restore thou for me.
My legs restore thou for me.
My body restore thou for me.
My mind restore thou for me.
My voice thou restore for me.
Restore all for me in beauty.
Make beautiful all that is before me.
Make beautiful all that is behind me.
It is done in beauty.
It is done in beauty.
It is done in beauty.
It is done in beauty.

_______________________

THE IMAGE OF YOUR BODY
—Rumi

You've made it out of the city,
that image of your body, trembling with traffic
and fear slips behind.
Your face arrives in the redbud trees, and the tulips.

You're still restless.
Climb up the ladder to the roof.
You're by yourself a lot,
become the one that when you walk in,
luck shifts to the one who needs it.
If you've not been fed, be bread.

(Trans. by Carl Barks)

_______________________

THE JACOB'S LADDER
—Denise Levertov

The stairway is not
a thing of gleaming strands
a radiant evanescence
for angels' feet that only glance in their tread, and need not
touch the stone.

It is of stone.
A rosy stone that takes
a glowing tone of softness
only because behind it the sky is a doubtful, a doubting
night gray.

A stairway of sharp
angles, solidly built.
One sees that the angels must spring
down from one step to the next, giving a little
lift of the wings:

and a man climbing
must scrape his knees, and bring
the grip of his hands into play. The cut stone
consoles his groping feet. Wings brush past hiim.
The poem ascends.

_______________________

—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.)

no parenthesis

i thank You God for most this amazing
—e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

_______________________

this is the garden:colours come and go
—e.e. cummings

this is the garden:colours come and go,
frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing
strong silent greens serenely lingering,
absolute lights like baths of golden snow.

This is the garden:pursed lips do blow
upon cool flutes within wide glooms,and sing
(of harps celestial to the quivering string)
invisible faces hauntingly and low.
This is the garden. Time shall surely reap
and on Death's blade lie many a flower curled,
in other lands where other songs be sung;
yet stand They here enraptured,as among
the slow deep trees perpetual of sleep
some silver-fingered fountain steals the world.

_______________________

since feeling is first
—e.e. cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
ladi i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other:then
laugh,leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

_______________________

Today would've been cummings' 112th birthday.

—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.)

What the Earth Devours

IN THE BLUE
—Antonio Machado

In the blue
a band of black birds
that shriek, flutter, and alight
on a stiff poplar tree.
...In the naked grove
the grave quiet jackdaws
write cold black notes
on February staffs.

_______________________

BESIDE THE SIERRA IN FLOWER
—Antonio Machado

Beside the sierra in flower
the broad sea bubbles.
In my honeycomb of bees
are small grains of salt.

_______________________

THE SUN IS A GLOBE OF FIRE
—Antonio Machado

The sun is a globe of fire,
the moon a purple disk.

A white dove perches
in a high centennial cypress.

The borders of myrtle
are like faded, dusty velvet.

Garden and quiet afternoon!...
Water drips in the marble fountain.

_______________________

Small Press Poetry Fair at The Book Collector:

This Saturday (10/14), 6:30-9:30 PM, Poems-For-All presents an opportunity for folks to check out a wide sampling of small press poetry publications from local and national presses. From 6:30-9:30 PM, the consignment usually paid to the bookstore will be passed on to the customer. This means that all small press publications will be anywhere from 20% to 50% off!

For example:
20% off all Rattlesnake Press publications.
30% off all Bottle of Smoke publications.
40% off all Asylum Press publications.
50% off all 24th street irregular press publications.

Poems-For-All chaplettes and other freebies will also be available.

This all takes part during the Second Saturday artwalk in Midtown—an opprtunity to explore the arts district after hours. That's at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento.


What else's doin' this weekend:

•••Saturday (10/14), 12 noon: For the first time in its 12-year history, the Window Art Project of Chico, CA incorporates poetry. Downtown businesses invite artists in all genres to display their work in windows available to the public for the full month of October. Skyway Poets, a critique group which also holds occasional readings, has mounted poems at the Chamber of Commerce, 300 Salem Street (opposite the parking garage); phone 530-891-5556. Participating poets are Ann Doro, Renee Goularte, Lara Gularte, Joy Harold Helsing, Sally Allen McNall, Sylvia Rosen, Audrey C. Small and Patricia Wellingham-Jones. Check out other artistic activities during the month-long Artoberfest celebration at http://www.artoberfest.org/ , including the Skyway Poets’ public reading to launch their new anthology, Skyways, (PWJ Publishing, www.wellinghamjones.com) at noon on Saturday, October 14, 2006 in Diamond Alley between 3rd and 4th Streets downtown. Everybody is welcome!

•••Saturday, 3-5 PM: Rob Anthony, Shadow, Yossarian Bowens plus open mic, 61 Yuence Smoked BBQ & GRill, 9657 Folsom Blvd., Sac. Free. 916-361-2014.

•••Sunday (10/15), 2-4 PM: The Pomo Literati is part of the KUSF Spotlight Series, a 2-hour literary program that interpolates poetry, soundscapes, and live spoken word performance. This chapter features in-studio readings by Poet/publisher William S. Gainer, Poet and spoken word impressario Chris Olander, and Poet/publisher Todd Cirillo and friends. Classic poetic rarities and contemporary spoken word. KUSF Spotlight 90.3FM San Francisco, or on the internet where we go global at www.live365.com/stations/kusf. The Pomo Literati is hosted by poet/producer frank andrick. Special guest host Jim ‘The Germ’ Smith. Info: frank andrick (209-727-5179) or fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com

•••Sunday (10/15), 7-9 PM: Get Lit @ CAV in San Francisco presents SexyFood, an evening of genre-bending fun for cunning linguists. Celebrate acclaimed wordsmiths as they unleash their vibrant sexy side, as they deftly seduce a room full of people with food as their weapon of choice. Mingle and sip exotic wines from Cav’s excellent, sophisticated cellar. Featuring: Christie Nelson, Kit Kennedy, Roxi Power Hamilton, Warren Longmire, Christine Rosakranse and surprise readings. No-host bar and light appetizer menu. CAV Wine Bar, 1666 Market St. (next to Zuni Café) at Franklin & Gough, San Francisco. Info: 415.437.1770 or www.cavwinebar.com. Email questions, ideas, writing submissions for future shows, etc: sexyfood@gmail.com

•••Monday (10/16), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Poets of Luther Burbank High School. HQ, 15th & R Sts., Sacramento.


Bin Ramke at CSUS next week:

•••Wednesday (10/18), 7 PM: The Sac State Creative Writing Program in conjunction with the Sac State Visiting Scholars Program and Poets & Writers, Inc. presents a lecture & poetry reading by internationally-acclaimed poet, teacher and scholar Bin Ramke in the CSUS Library Gallery (1st floor). Professor Ramke will deliver a talk and then give a poetry reading. The subject for his talk is "Poetry and Proof: The Problem of the Practical."

________________________

OVER COARSE ROCK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SQUARE
—Antonio Machado

Over coarse rock in the middle of the square,
water drips and drips. In the nearby grove a tall
cypress tree, behind an ivy-girded wall,
lifts a stain of rigid branches in the air.

The afternoon is falling into dreams, a lull
before the large houses in the plaza. Windows glare
with macabre echoes of the sun; forms stare
from balconies and fade like blurring skulls.

Across the barren plaza endless calm abounds
where the soul trails the outline of a tortured soul.
Water drips and drips in the marble bowl.
In all the air in shadow, only water sounds.

________________________

I DREAMED YOU LED ME
—Antonio Machado

I dreamed you led me
along a white footpath
through green fields,
toward the blue of the sierras,
toward the blue mountains,
one serene morning.

I felt your hand in mine,
your companion hand,
your child's voice in my ear
like a new bell,
the pristine bell
of a spring dawn.
It was your voice and hand
in dreams, so true!...
Live, hope, who knows
what the earth devours!

(Today's poetry was translated from the Spanish by Richard Lewis.)

________________________

—Medusa (who wishes you the best on this lucky Friday the 13th!)

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.)