Wellies
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
FISH COVE
—Blaise Cendrars
The water is so clear and so calm
Deep at the bottom you can see the white bushes of coral
The prismatic sway of hanging jellyfish
The yellow pink lilac fish taking flight
And at the foot of the wavy seaweeds the azure
—Blaise Cendrars
The water is so clear and so calm
Deep at the bottom you can see the white bushes of coral
The prismatic sway of hanging jellyfish
The yellow pink lilac fish taking flight
And at the foot of the wavy seaweeds the azure
sea cucumbers and the urchins green and purple
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Bonjour! Happy Bastille Day! As Richard Hansen writes: This month is French-themed [in Sacramento]. The 6th annual Sacramento French Film Festival begins Friday, July 20th. Presenting French films over two weekends at the Crest theatre, the SFFF gets bigger and better each year. Tapping into the French Spirit, the Sacramento Poetry Center will host a French Poetry Reading on Monday, July 23rd. Read your favorite French poet during the Open Mic. And Gilberto Rodriguez has announced that his monthly poetry series, Unheimlich!, will feature an evening dedicated to Baudelaire on Saturday, July 21st at The Book Collector, 7:30 PM. [More about all of these events on next Monday's post.]
I know—wellies are British. Still, it rains in France, too, oui?
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ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
—Blaise Cendrars
1
High Cliffs lashed by icy polar winds
In the center of lush meadows
Reindeer elks musk-oxen
The Arctic foxes the beavers
Brooks swarming with fish
A low beach has been prepared to breed fur seals
On top of the cliff are collected the eider's nests
Its feathers are worth a real fortune
2
Large and sturdy buildings which shelter a
considerable number of traders
All around a small garden where all vegetation
able to withstand the severe climate has
been brought together
mountain ash pine tree Arctic willows
bed of heather and Alpine plants
3
Bay spiked with rocky islets
In groups of five or six the seals bask in the sun
Or stretching out on the sand
They play together howling in that kind of hoarse tone
that sounds like a dog's bark
Next to the Eskimos' hut is a shed where
the skins are treated
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FRISCO-CITY
—Blaise Cendrars
It is an antique carcass eaten up by rust
The engine repaired twenty times does not make
more than 7 to 8 knots
Besides to save expenses cinders and coal waste are its only fuel
Makeshift sails are hoisted whenever there is a fair wind
With his ruddy face his bushy eyebrows his pimply nose
Master Hopkins is a true sailor
Small silver rings hang from his pierced ears
The ship's cargo is exclusively coffins of Chinese
who died in America and wished to be buried
in their homeland
Oblong boxes painted red or light blue or covered
with golden characters
Just the type of merchandise it is illegal to ship
(Candrars' poems were translated from the French by Monique Chefdor)
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Don't forget Medusa is having a give-away! Send in your poems about fire, whichever side of her you choose—horrifying, capricious, passionate, humbling, cleansing—and I'll send you a free copy of Tom Miner's new rattlechap, North of Everything. Email your poems to kathykieth@hotmail.com or snail them to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 by midnight next Weds., July 25.
THE FOREST BURNS HOT
this year: a woman tries to torch old love
letters that turn on her: turn into
tiny sparks like fireflies that light
on dry needles, pause for a flicker, then
crawl to the forest underbelly, heating it
to crimson. Now larger flames lick
the undergrowth, begin to bound up trees
like angry bears: roaring, clawing up
crumbling bark to swing from the trapeze
of branches, then hand-to-hand themselves
along, leap through choking smoke until
all the green is gone: all the forest green
has been eaten alive and turned
to embers, turned into a smouldering black
shroud of soot and ash. . . The forest burns
hot this year: old love letters
are scorching the earth: letters that turn
on us, turn into tiny sparks looking for
dry needles: flicker on our under-
belly, just like fireflies. . .
—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines
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—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)
SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news: Journals (free publications): Rattlesnake Review14 is now available at The Book Collector; contributors and subscribers should have received theirs by now. If you're none of those, and can't get down to The Book Collector, send two bux (for postage) to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 and I'll mail you a copy. If you want more than one, please send $2 for the first one and $1 for copies after that. Next deadline, for RR15, is August 15. VYPER6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets10 (for kids 0-12) is also at The Book Collector; next deadline is Oct. 1.
Books/broadsides: June's releases include Tom Miner's chapbook, North of Everything; David Humphreys' littlesnake broadside, Cominciare Adagio; and #3 in B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, this one featuring Jane Blue.
ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is sleeping! There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August. Then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. Also coming in the Fall: new issues of the Review, Snakelets and VYPER [see the above deadlines], plus more littlesnake broadsides from NorCal poets near and far, and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October).
