Fire Truck
Katy Brown, Davis
Katy Brown, Davis
HOW CLOSE
—Taylor Graham, Somerset
We see the sun through smoke
and watch the evening news —
our not-quite neighbors a few miles
away as the wind blows
are stuffing laundry-baskets
full of baby-shoes and family
photos for the one-
way road out of lives
so much like ours:
the same dry woods of pine, oak,
cedar. We share this weather.
Only the haphazard tinder-spark
has touched their shingle-
flaming roofs, while ours
is safe.
Among so many brilliant trees
a hundred-year-old ponderosa
crowns, blazing the blank-
faced TV screen.
Turn it off. Look out
our own front window. See
how close we live
to fire.
_____________________
—Taylor Graham, Somerset
We see the sun through smoke
and watch the evening news —
our not-quite neighbors a few miles
away as the wind blows
are stuffing laundry-baskets
full of baby-shoes and family
photos for the one-
way road out of lives
so much like ours:
the same dry woods of pine, oak,
cedar. We share this weather.
Only the haphazard tinder-spark
has touched their shingle-
flaming roofs, while ours
is safe.
Among so many brilliant trees
a hundred-year-old ponderosa
crowns, blazing the blank-
faced TV screen.
Turn it off. Look out
our own front window. See
how close we live
to fire.
_____________________
Thanks, TG, for this beautiful tribute to our northern neighbors and what they've just been through. Fire is horrifying, capricious, passionate, humbling, cleansing. Taylor Graham sent me this poem and I started noticing all the fire images in poems around me. Let's kick off this Friday the 13th (another one?? We just had one in April!) with a give-away: send me your poems about fire—whichever side of her you choose—and I'll send you a free copy of Tom Miner's new rattlechap, North of Everything. Email your poems or snail them to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (yes, up here in Fire Country) by midnight next Weds., July 25. Below are some more beautiful examples of fire poems:
trial of fire
—dawn dibartolo, sacramento
dance with the devil, she said,
to know your limits, like each
time testing the rope that holds you
suspended; only then will you know depth.
the fibers are frayed, i say,
will snap and leave you lost
to the falling…falling…
but i’ve been falling, she believes,
for so long now, bottom may
quiet the monsters…
and there is no escaping
any hell you willingly choose.
i’ll say that
at her eulogy.
_____________________
Thanks, Dawn! Watch for a littlesnake broadside from Sacramento's Dawn DiBartolo, coming in September. Or see yesterday's post. Or the current Rattlesnake Review. Or most of the past issues... Dawn is a frequent contributor.
Coming Monday at SPC:
•••Monday (7/16), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents the Cache Creek Nature Preserve Writers, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Open mic after. Info: http://www.cachecreekconservancy.org or
http://www.sacramentopoetrycenter.org/. Featured readers will include:
Sibilla Hershey was born in Riga, Latvia and came to the United States at the age of 16 as a WW II Displaced Person. Her poetry reflects this experience. Her poems have appeared in regional literary publications such as Poetry Now, Rattlesnake Review, The Yolo Crow, A Woman’s Place: An Anthology of Davis Women Writers, and on the Web in Writers Against the War. She lives in Davis, CA.
Jennifer Pickering was born in California and grew up in the rural communities of Tierra Buena and Yuba City. She studied writing at University of New York at Buffalo and Sacramento City College and has an MA in Studio Art from California State University, Sacramento. "River Poem" was selected for the site specific, Open Circle, in Sacramento in 2006. In 2007 her art was selected for the cover of 13th Moon Literary Magazine (SUNY, Albany). Her writing is published across the United States.
Fred Staal lives on the Sacramento Delta and writes that he is a diplomat, brain surgeon, soldier of fortune, race car driver, Nobel prize-winning author, ...those are the other guys; I just hear words in my head and try to get them onto paper. Later I try to massage them a little, but I'm never sure if its helped or hindered.
Kimberly White's work has received awards from the Bay Area Poets Coalition and has been published in Rattlesnake Review, Comstock Review, Drumvoices Revue and other journals and anthologies. She is the author of two chapbooks, A Reachable Tibet and Penelope, as well as two unpublished novels. She was recently involved in an ekphrasic project with visual artist Victoria Corona, which was produced by the Rice University Print Shop. She has lived in Sacramento since 1983.
Jeanine Stevens says: The grammar school I attended for eight years was named after the Indiana state poet, James Whitcomb Riley, so every holiday, and new season, we had “poetry assemblies.” I lived in the city, but many of the hardwood forest were still standing. I walked to the woods near Butler University watching for cardinals, jack-in-the-pulpits and violets. I purchased my first books of poetry when I was in my teens—a double volume of collected sonnets and lyrics by Edna St. Vincent Millay. She writes beautiful and striking images of the Maine coast and the gardens at her farm in upstate New York. Being in nature has always been inspiring and even though I now live just a few minutes from the American River, with hiking trails, deer, and wild turkeys, I find Cache Creek to be special. I’ve attended a number of writing workshops and enjoy the “free time” quietly watching the pond, waterfall, rocks, trees, or sitting on the ground with my back against the old barn waiting for an interesting leaf or bug to appear. Jeanine has a rattlechap from Rattlesnake Press entitled The Keeping Room.
Joanne Schoefer lives along the American River in Carmichael, and it provides the inspiration for much of her work.
Ann Privateer has published poems in Manzanita, Poetry of the Motherload; Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems; Rattlesnake Review; Sacramento News & Review; and several other journals and newspapers. She is retired from teaching and has attended several Cache Creek Poetry sessions. Watch for her rattlechap coming from Rattlesnake Press in November, 2007.
John Chendo is a poet raised in the Garden State of New Jersey, cultivated hydroponically in Manhattan, sowed to the winds of Vermont and Colorado, rehabilitated in California. Editor of Union Seminary Quarterly Review, 1966-1969. Retired undefeated from some cases; still actively working to appeal decisions in the rest. Favorite T-shirt slogan: "My other shirt is clean."
Rebecca Morrison is the author of 3 chapbooks including Raining All Over, The Cook Inlet Poems, and Border Crossing. She is co-founder of the Third Sunday Writing Group and was one of the founding editors of Poetry Now. She has published in many local anthologies and is the editor of www.eskimopie.net. She graduated summa cum laude from UC Davis with a major in Modernism and a minor in Primate Evolution. She has performed her work many times on local radio and television stations and is one of the featured readers on the 2006 CD, I Began to Speak: An Anthology of Sacramento Poets.
_____________________
OF BERLIOZ AND HUMMINGBIRDS
—Katy Brown, Davis
If liking were enough, then hummingbirds
and jasmine vines would twine in emerald bliss;
the never-moving lap would always hold
the comfort of a purring cat:
if only attraction and affection were enough
to seal a changeless union.
Berlioz went mad, they say, from passionate attraction.
His music and his artful words won her for a while.
But like a match that brightly flares,
the ardent lover seldom lasts. And when the flame
consumes its fuel, all that’s left is ash:
if only attraction and affection were enough . . .
The strong magnetic pull of couples in their prime
can bend the air and crease the night and call
the ghostly moon to shine in the middle of the day.
They hear the feathered song of arias in the leaves
and feel the breath of Odin whispering on the wind:
if only attraction and affection were enough.
Then the sound of someone’s voice
makes the sober pulse run quicker; his chuckle
and his hearty laugh; the pace and music
of her words; the fire of comets in their eyes;
and all the barriers vaporize, leaving hearts exposed.
Attraction and affection fully instigate beginnings.
____________________
Thanks, Katy! Medusa is forever indebted to Katy Brown, not only for her continuing column in Rattlesnake Review, but for her generosity in sending us a steady stream of photos to post, both in the Kitchen and the Review.
Today Katy writes that her brother, who passed away many years ago, would've been 72 years old today, and she sends us this poem, plus a few haiku (just for the heck of it):
THE RAIN THAT NEVER REACHES GROUND
(for Garry)
—Katy Brown
on the eve of your birthday
virga slants from the north —
an ashen curtain in
the pale apricot sunset:
the evening star, a lone
apparition in the darkening sky
_____________________
HAIKU TRIO
—Katy Brown
cherry blossom drifts
lightly on the evening wind
the new moon rises
***
evening star hangs
in lavender jade sky over
mist green rice paddies
***
song of the grey dove
calling for her shadowed mate
under the archer
_____________________
Thanks again, Katy. Tom's chapbook will be wending its way to these three ladies for their gifts of fire. And hey—watch out for ladders and black cats today!
—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).
trial of fire
—dawn dibartolo, sacramento
dance with the devil, she said,
to know your limits, like each
time testing the rope that holds you
suspended; only then will you know depth.
the fibers are frayed, i say,
will snap and leave you lost
to the falling…falling…
but i’ve been falling, she believes,
for so long now, bottom may
quiet the monsters…
and there is no escaping
any hell you willingly choose.
i’ll say that
at her eulogy.
_____________________
Thanks, Dawn! Watch for a littlesnake broadside from Sacramento's Dawn DiBartolo, coming in September. Or see yesterday's post. Or the current Rattlesnake Review. Or most of the past issues... Dawn is a frequent contributor.
Coming Monday at SPC:
•••Monday (7/16), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents the Cache Creek Nature Preserve Writers, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Open mic after. Info: http://www.cachecreekconservancy.org or
http://www.sacramentopoetrycenter.org/. Featured readers will include:
Sibilla Hershey was born in Riga, Latvia and came to the United States at the age of 16 as a WW II Displaced Person. Her poetry reflects this experience. Her poems have appeared in regional literary publications such as Poetry Now, Rattlesnake Review, The Yolo Crow, A Woman’s Place: An Anthology of Davis Women Writers, and on the Web in Writers Against the War. She lives in Davis, CA.
Jennifer Pickering was born in California and grew up in the rural communities of Tierra Buena and Yuba City. She studied writing at University of New York at Buffalo and Sacramento City College and has an MA in Studio Art from California State University, Sacramento. "River Poem" was selected for the site specific, Open Circle, in Sacramento in 2006. In 2007 her art was selected for the cover of 13th Moon Literary Magazine (SUNY, Albany). Her writing is published across the United States.
Fred Staal lives on the Sacramento Delta and writes that he is a diplomat, brain surgeon, soldier of fortune, race car driver, Nobel prize-winning author, ...those are the other guys; I just hear words in my head and try to get them onto paper. Later I try to massage them a little, but I'm never sure if its helped or hindered.
Kimberly White's work has received awards from the Bay Area Poets Coalition and has been published in Rattlesnake Review, Comstock Review, Drumvoices Revue and other journals and anthologies. She is the author of two chapbooks, A Reachable Tibet and Penelope, as well as two unpublished novels. She was recently involved in an ekphrasic project with visual artist Victoria Corona, which was produced by the Rice University Print Shop. She has lived in Sacramento since 1983.
Jeanine Stevens says: The grammar school I attended for eight years was named after the Indiana state poet, James Whitcomb Riley, so every holiday, and new season, we had “poetry assemblies.” I lived in the city, but many of the hardwood forest were still standing. I walked to the woods near Butler University watching for cardinals, jack-in-the-pulpits and violets. I purchased my first books of poetry when I was in my teens—a double volume of collected sonnets and lyrics by Edna St. Vincent Millay. She writes beautiful and striking images of the Maine coast and the gardens at her farm in upstate New York. Being in nature has always been inspiring and even though I now live just a few minutes from the American River, with hiking trails, deer, and wild turkeys, I find Cache Creek to be special. I’ve attended a number of writing workshops and enjoy the “free time” quietly watching the pond, waterfall, rocks, trees, or sitting on the ground with my back against the old barn waiting for an interesting leaf or bug to appear. Jeanine has a rattlechap from Rattlesnake Press entitled The Keeping Room.
Joanne Schoefer lives along the American River in Carmichael, and it provides the inspiration for much of her work.
Ann Privateer has published poems in Manzanita, Poetry of the Motherload; Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems; Rattlesnake Review; Sacramento News & Review; and several other journals and newspapers. She is retired from teaching and has attended several Cache Creek Poetry sessions. Watch for her rattlechap coming from Rattlesnake Press in November, 2007.
John Chendo is a poet raised in the Garden State of New Jersey, cultivated hydroponically in Manhattan, sowed to the winds of Vermont and Colorado, rehabilitated in California. Editor of Union Seminary Quarterly Review, 1966-1969. Retired undefeated from some cases; still actively working to appeal decisions in the rest. Favorite T-shirt slogan: "My other shirt is clean."
Rebecca Morrison is the author of 3 chapbooks including Raining All Over, The Cook Inlet Poems, and Border Crossing. She is co-founder of the Third Sunday Writing Group and was one of the founding editors of Poetry Now. She has published in many local anthologies and is the editor of www.eskimopie.net. She graduated summa cum laude from UC Davis with a major in Modernism and a minor in Primate Evolution. She has performed her work many times on local radio and television stations and is one of the featured readers on the 2006 CD, I Began to Speak: An Anthology of Sacramento Poets.
_____________________
OF BERLIOZ AND HUMMINGBIRDS
—Katy Brown, Davis
If liking were enough, then hummingbirds
and jasmine vines would twine in emerald bliss;
the never-moving lap would always hold
the comfort of a purring cat:
if only attraction and affection were enough
to seal a changeless union.
Berlioz went mad, they say, from passionate attraction.
His music and his artful words won her for a while.
But like a match that brightly flares,
the ardent lover seldom lasts. And when the flame
consumes its fuel, all that’s left is ash:
if only attraction and affection were enough . . .
The strong magnetic pull of couples in their prime
can bend the air and crease the night and call
the ghostly moon to shine in the middle of the day.
They hear the feathered song of arias in the leaves
and feel the breath of Odin whispering on the wind:
if only attraction and affection were enough.
Then the sound of someone’s voice
makes the sober pulse run quicker; his chuckle
and his hearty laugh; the pace and music
of her words; the fire of comets in their eyes;
and all the barriers vaporize, leaving hearts exposed.
Attraction and affection fully instigate beginnings.
____________________
Thanks, Katy! Medusa is forever indebted to Katy Brown, not only for her continuing column in Rattlesnake Review, but for her generosity in sending us a steady stream of photos to post, both in the Kitchen and the Review.
Today Katy writes that her brother, who passed away many years ago, would've been 72 years old today, and she sends us this poem, plus a few haiku (just for the heck of it):
THE RAIN THAT NEVER REACHES GROUND
(for Garry)
—Katy Brown
on the eve of your birthday
virga slants from the north —
an ashen curtain in
the pale apricot sunset:
the evening star, a lone
apparition in the darkening sky
_____________________
HAIKU TRIO
—Katy Brown
cherry blossom drifts
lightly on the evening wind
the new moon rises
***
evening star hangs
in lavender jade sky over
mist green rice paddies
***
song of the grey dove
calling for her shadowed mate
under the archer
_____________________
Thanks again, Katy. Tom's chapbook will be wending its way to these three ladies for their gifts of fire. And hey—watch out for ladders and black cats today!
—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).
