Bats in the Belfry & Deer on the Lawn

Urban Deer
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

URBAN DEER
—Katy Brown

They measure territory by borders around
petunia beds and drip-lines for hillside roses.
They teach their fawns to look both ways
before crossing and never to trust
an unleashed dog. Urban deer love fresh peaches
and apricots. They prefer grapes to eggplant
and roses over any other flower.
They pause on the rim of garden parties
to eavesdrop on local gossip.
They will settle under a terraced tree
to rest in the shade — then shadow-like
vanish into clipped hedges.
Like antlered sonnets, these creatures
capture perfection in the placement of a foot.

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Thanks, Katy! Katy Brown's column in Rattlesnake Review has taken some ekphrastic turns in the last few months, so we've decided to go with that and re-name it "Snake Eyes". Her focus will be using the visual world to trigger and shape your poems. Watch for it in Rattlesnake Review 15, due out in mid-Sept.

Katy sent us her wonderful photo and poem for our "Wild Things in Suburbia" give-away; send me poems/photos/etc. about man's tendency to plop his houses down in the middle of the wilds and then complain that there are critters around. Every contribution will receive a rattlechap; let me know which ones you don't have. Get it all to me by midnight this Friday, August 24: email kathykieth@hotmail.com, or snail to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.


Calendar addition:

•••Thursday (8/23), 7-8:30 PM: “Telling Our Stories” First Anniversary Celebration at Enloe Cancer Center, Chico. Good food, good company, good stories, good time! We invite patients and their families, staff, volunteers and anyone interested in using writing to heal to join us for an evening of celebrating and sharing our stories. Cancer Center Conference Room, 251 Cohasset Road (In Fountain Plaza, across from Chico Sports Club). Info: Rebecca at 530-384-1341.


Tonight in Placerville:

•••Weds. (8/22), 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.
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Another critter poem:

A PLAGUE AT DUSK
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Tehama

Bats swoop and squeak in search of dinner.
The north wind stirs my friend’s hair.
She leaps, long strands invaded,
she’s sure, by winged mice
and the growing dangers of darkness. I show her
the moon rising over oaks, first star
in the indigo sky. She squirms
under my laughter at her city ways.
Not wanting my guest to twitch
herself into complete nervous breakdown,
I suggest brandy and music by the fire.
She hurries through the door, one last look
thrown over her shoulder, flutters fingers
against her chest in relief.
As she sinks into soft cushions
a bat, sonar-impaired, hurls toward
the window in a small smash of bone.
My friend shrieks, eyes wide, staring black.
Her shaking finger points at the perfect
circle left on the pane, the dust
from her personal abyss, presented by bat.

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Thanks, PWJ! Patricia Wellingham-Jones was one of the founding hands last year in the Telling Our Stories workshop listed above, and she will be a facilitator for future sessions, too. Congrats to her, by the way, for being one of the Grand Prize winners at the annual Dancing Poetry Contest to be held in San Francisco at the Palace of the Legion of Honor on Sept. 29 from 12-4 PM. (Type in "Dancing Poetry Contest" for more info.) Other NorCal winners included Carol Frith and Indigo Moor.

Finally, a ditty from Dorothy Parker, who would've been 114 years old today:

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SOCIAL NOTE
—Dorothy Parker

Lady, lady, should you meet
One whose ways are all discreet,
One who murmurs that his wife
Is the lodestar of his life,
One who keeps assuring you
That he never was untrue,
Never loved another one...
Lady, lady, better run!

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Dorothy Parker
1893-1967

—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in 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 mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadsides from dawn dibartolo ("Blush"), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review is November 15.