Salute to Elvis

Charles Bukowski, 1920-1994

TRAPPED
—Charles Bukowski

don't undress my love
you might find a mannequin;
don't undress the mannequin
you might find
my love.

she's long ago
forgotten me.

she's trying on a new
hat
and looks more the
coquette
than ever.

she is a
child
and a mannequin
and
death.

I can't hate
that.

she didn't do
anything
unusual.

I only wanted her
to.

_____________________

THE ESCAPE
—Charles Bukowski

escape from the black widow spider
is a miracle as great as art.
what a web she can weave
slowly drawing you to her
she'll embrace you
then when she's satisfied
she'll kill you
still in her embrace
and suck the blood from you.

I escaped my black widow
because she had too many males
in her web
and while she was embracing one
and then the other and then
another
I worked free
got out
to where I was before.

she'll miss me—
not my love
but the taste of my blood,
but she's good, she'll find other
blood;
she's so good that I almost miss my death,
but not quite;
I've escaped. I view the other
webs.

____________________

Today Charles Bukowski (that Hound Dog) would've been 87 years old. I think Elvis would've liked Bukowski's poetry, don't you?


Sacramento's loss (Don't Be Cruel):

Sad news for Sacramento: Our first Co-Poet Laureate, Dennis Schmitz, has purchased a condo in Half Moon Bay and will be moving there with his wife, Loretta, in a matter of days! They put their Sacramento house on the market, it sold in a very short time, the condo deal went through, and shazam! The Schmitzes are outta here, on to a new life by the sea.

Dennis was my teacher at CSUS for a year; without him, there would be no Snake empire and no Medusa. Many other poets in these environs and beyond will attest to Dennis's generosity of spirit and gentle teaching skills that shaped our confusion into coherence and our random words into poems. Good luck to you and Loretta, Dennis. Enjoy your well-won retirement, but don't forget to come back and see us!


Hoax or not; whadaya think? Cheatin' Heart?

There's an article on page A10 in The Sacramento Bee today about one Sam Porpora, now 92 years old, who re-furbed Edgar Allan Poe's grave at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. Porpora now claims that the midnight visitor—the mysterious figure who left cognac and three roses at Poe's grave every year (since 1949) at midnight on his Jan. 19 birthday—was a promotional gimmick thought up by Porpora and some tour guides. Porpora says he never expected the hoax to be bought into world-wide. Opinions are mixed as to whether the visitor was merely a publicity stunt or not; what do you think?


Tonight at Luna's: Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

•••Thursday (8/16), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured Poets: LOB Instagon and Murray, a double-feature pairing of Nor-Cal and So-Cal Poets—respectively, Sacramento’s Poet-band leader LOB Instagon and So-Cal’s Poet, Publisher and Next Mag. Empire maven Murray. Hosted by frank andrick; thanks also to Poets & Writers, Inc. Andrick adds: While many people celebrate August 16th as the day Elvis died, we at Luna's are celebrating LOB Instagon and G. Murray Thomas! Elvis may be dead—or not—but LOB and Murray will prove that Poetry and Rock are alive and kicking. Murray has come all the way from So-Cal to team up with former bandmate LOB, who now makes Sac. his home. You can of course expect the unexpected, but no one—not even them—knows what's gonna happen as they set their literary word jewels, steeped in the sound-and-noise-improv tradition. Soooo, be there be there be there please to catch a unique evening at Poetry Unplugged @ Luna's. Have a cool drink or two of your choice, bring a poem or two if you want to take part in the much-awarded Luna's open mic. See you there, and please come early for assured prime seating. We go SRO sometimes! ;-)

____________________

And what better way to commemorate the death of Elvis than with a Pantoum? Did you know Maurice Ravel wrote a piano trio called "Pantoum"? Tom Goff sends us this:

PANTOUM ON RAVEL'S "PANTOUM"
Piano Trio in A Minor, second movement
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

You only need a piano, violin, cello
and the musicians able to play them
in a style dashed with passion, vigor, speed,
with a page turner for the pianist.

And the musicians able to play them
will make song like a crossbow’s angry bolt;
With the page turner for the pianist
we see four sides to this contrapuntal quarrel.

We’ll make song like a crossbow’s angry bolt,
says the woman with the fiddle.
We see four sides to this contrapuntal quarrel:
In plucks of aggressive pizzicato,

says the woman with the fiddle,
in rapport with the suave cellist grounded by an end-pin:
more plucks of aggressive pizzicato.
Then the bowed beautiful octaves, pentatonic,

in rapport with the suave cellist grounded by an end-pin.
Polytonal waves of chromatic piano lash at the pilings,
then the bowed beautiful octaves, pentatonic,
long-limbed mahogany, but in places turned curt splinters.

Polytonal waves of chromatic piano lash at the pilings,
as the ankle-deep page turner scrambles to time the turn.
Long-limbed mahogany in places turns curt splinters;
the violinist’s sharp elbows, the cellist’s simian armlengths.

As the ankle-deep page turner scrambles to time the turn,
the keyboard plummets from vociferous bouncing bass to a deep gong.
The violinist’s sharp elbows, the cellist’s simian armlengths,
must sway and soften to the minor key’s dark black.

The keyboard’s plunge from vociferous bouncing bass to a deep gong
relies on the subtle power of the gently wristed hammer,
must sway and soften to the minor key’s dark black
night as a flower needs the light-free hours to close and recover,

relies on the subtle power of the gently wristed hammer
inside its petals, readying for the dawn,
night leading the light-free flower to close and recover,
and then the two-fisted power again: day’s first sunbolt.

Inside the music, readying for the dawn,
the keyboard, the fiddle, the cello between the legs,
and then the two-fisted power again: day’s first sunbolt
infuses the trio’s blood with reddened flame.

The keyboard, the fiddle, the cello between the legs
limn a style dashed with passion, vigor, speed,
infusing their trio’s blood with reddened flame.
You only need a piano, violin, cello

—and a page turner for the pianist.

Elvis Presley, 1935-1977

_____________________

—Medusa (Love Me Tender)

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.