The Third Solitude

THE SEA
—Pablo Neruda

One single being, but there's no blood.
One single caress, death or rose.
The sea comes and reunites our lives
and alone attacks and divides and sings
in night and day and man and creature.
The essence: fire and cold: movement.


(translated by Mark Eisner)

___________________

Congrats to the intrepid Taylor Graham; her poetic response was one of five published today in The Sacramento Bee's Scene section in the article, "Hands Free", about the new cell phone law that goes into effect tomorrow. (Alas, I couldn't find the poems in the same article on-line; what kind of discrimination is this??) Anyway, check it out.


This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Monday (6/30), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Stephen Kessler and Jeff Knorr at Time-Tested Books [NOTE location change], 1114 21st St., Sacramento. Open mic after. [See last Friday's post for bios.] Next Monday (7/7) will feature an Asian Poetry Reading with Frances Kakugawa at SPC, 25th & R Sts. Air-conditioning!

•••Wednesday (7/2), 9 PM: Poetry Night at Bistro 33 presents Brad Buchanan. Brad is an Assistant Professor of English at CSU Sacramento, where he teaches Modern British Literature and Creative Writing. He holds a BA in English from McGill University, an MA from the University of Toronto, and a PhD from Stanford University. His scholarly and creative writings have appeared in journals such as Canadian Literature, Wisconsin Review, Journal of Modern Literature and Twentieth Century Literature. His first book of poems, The Miracle Shirker, was published in 2005. His latest book of poems, Swimming the Mirror, has just appeared. Director of a small literary publishing operation called Roan Press, Brad is also a member of the Sacramento Poetry Center's Executive board, where he co-edits The Tule Review and runs an annual High School poetry writing contest. He also works as a visiting poet and judge for Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation contest for high school students.

Poetry Night at Bistro 33 takes place on the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 226 F Street in Davis. The featured reader begins at 9pm, and an open mic follows the feature. All Poetry Night events are free and open to the public. The hosts of Poetry Night are Brad Henderson and Andy Jones.

•••Tuesday (7/1), 7 PM (and every Tuesday): "Life Sentence" poetry reading and open mic. The Coffee Garden, 2904 Franklin Blvd., Sacramento. Info: myspace.com/lifesentenceshow

•••Wednesday (7/2), 8 PM: Mahogany Poetry Series takes place every Weds. night at Queen Sheba restaurant, 1704 Broadway, Sacramento. Host is Khiry Malik Moore. Slam, open mic.

•••Thursday (7/3), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Open mic before and after.

•••Saturday (7/5), and every first Saturday: Rhythm N Rhymes: open mic, webcast & filmed-for-public-TV, Butch N Nellie's, near corner of 19th & I Sts., Sacramento. Time and info: myspace.com/RNRshow/.

___________________

IT IS BORN
—Pablo Neruda

Here I came to the very edge
where nothing at all needs saying,
everything is absorbed through weather and the sea,
and the moon swam back,
its rays all silvered,
and time and again the darkness would be broken
by the crash of a wave,
and every day on the balcony of the sea,
wings open, fire is born,
and everything is blue again like morning.


(translated by Alastair Reed)

___________________

PLANET
—Pablo Neruda

Are there stones of water on the moon?
Are there waters of gold?
What color is autumn?
Do the days run into one another
until like a shock of hair
they all unravel? How much falls
—paper, wine, hands, dead bodies—
from the earth on that far place?

Is it there that the drowned live?


(translated by Alastair Reed)

___________________

SERENADE
—Pablo Neruda

With my hand I gather in this emptiness,
the bewildering night, the starry families,
a chorus still more silent than the silence,
a moon sound, something secret, a triangle,
a chalked geometry.

It is the night of the ocean, the third solitude,
a quivering which opens doors and wings.
The mysterious and intangible population
trembles and washes over the names of the estuary.

Night, the sea's name, homeland, roots, rose!


(translated by Alastair Reed)

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

OCEAN
—Pablo Neruda

Body more perfect than a wave,
salt washing the sea line,
and the shining bird
flying without ground roots.


(translated by Alastair Reed)

___________________


—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's Up With Rattlesnake Press

New in June: Day Moon, a new chapbook by James DenBoer, and Mindfully Moon, a littlesnake broadside by Carol Louise Moon, as well as Volume Three of Conversations, our third book of interviews by B.L. Kennedy, featuring Art Beck, Olivia Costellano, Quinton Duval, William S. Gainer, Mario Ellis Hill, Kathryn Hohlwein, James Jee Jobe, Andy Jones, Rebecca Morrison, Viola Weinberg and Phillip T. Nails. All this PLUS a brand-new edition (#18) of Rattlesnake Review! Now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or (soon) from rattlesnakepress.com/. (Snake contributors and subscribers will be receiving their copies in the mail this week and next. If you're not among either of these, and can't get down to The Book Collector to get your free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one: P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.)

The Snake will be snoozing through July and August, leaving Medusa to carry on alone. Then on September 10, we shall burst back onto the scene with Ten Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings Two: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review (deadline is August 15). Meanwhile, look in on Medusa every day, and, for heaven's sake, keep sending stuff! The snakes of Medusa are always hungry...


Medusa's Weekly Menu:

(Contributors are welcome to cook up something for any and all of these!)

Monday: Weekly NorCal poetry calendar

Tuesday: Seed of the Week: Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—whatever might tickle somebody's muse. Pick up the gauntlet and send in your poetic results; and don't be shy about sending in your own triggers, too! All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. Send your work to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOW; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. (Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell?) When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.

Wednesday: HandyStuff Quickies: Resources for the poet, including whatever helps ease the pain of writing and/or publishing: favorite journals to read and/or submit to; books, etc., about writing; organizational tools—you know—HandyStuff! Tell us about your favorite tools.

Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy. Send books, CDs, DVDs, etc. to him for possible review (either as a Drive-By or in future issues of Rattlesnake Review) at P.O. Box 160664, Sacramento, CA 95816.

Friday: NorCal weekend poetry calendar

Daily (except Sunday): LittleNips: SnakeFood for the Poetic Soul: Daily munchables for poetic thought, including short paragraphs, quotes, wonky words, silliness, little-known poetry/poet facts, and other inspiration—yet another way to feed our ravenous poetic souls.

And poetry! Every day, poetry from writers near and far! The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry.......!

_________________


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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. 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). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

The Mists of Chaos

HIS TOWN
—Stephen Dunn

The town was in the mists of chaos.
—A student's typo

He wasn't surprised. What town wasn't?
Everywhere the mists of property, the mists
of language. Every Main Street he'd known
shrouded in itself. The mist-filled churches
and the mist-filled stores in strange collusion.

Nevertheless, this was where he chose to live.
Clarities, after all, were supposed to be hidden;
otherwise, no fun in the classroom or in the field.
Life? His neighbors preferred the movie versions,
loose ends tied up, mists of romance and thrill.
And sometimes he did, too.

Now and again he'd get underneath, see
snakes in among the flowers, hearts askew.
And friends from cities would report
they'd been places where the mists had risen.
You needed to look aslant, they said,
so dangerous would the real appear at first.

No safety in the universe. He'd stay put.
Besides, he liked to be in the mists of tall trees
and in the mists of what made him hungry for more.
He liked the mistiness of familiar boundaries
so he could let in, secretly, what he loved.

And the chaos? It favored no geography,
a perpetual rumbling beneath and above him
wherever he was. He had lived with it so long
it was simply the music he worked to, slept to
and woke with, in the mists of all.

___________________

—Medusa

To Another Light

SANDALS
—Yehuda Amichai

Sandals are the skeleton of a whole shoe,
the skeleton, and its only true spirit.
Sandals are the reins of my galloping feet
and the tefillin straps
of a tired foot, praying.

Sandals are the patch of private land I walk on
everywhere I go, ambassadors of my homeland,
my true country, the sky
to small swarming creatures of the earth
and their day of destruction that's sure to come.

Sandals are the youth of the shoe
and a memory of walking in the wilderness.

I don't know when they'll lose me
or when I'll lose them, but they will
be lost, each in a different place:
one not far from my house
among rocks and shrubs, the other
sinking into the dunes near the Great Sea
like a setting sun,
facing a setting sun.

__________________

NORTH OF SAN FRANCISCO
—Yehuda Amichai

Here the soft hills touch the ocean
like one eternity touching another
and the cows grazing on them
ignore us, like angels.
Even the scent of ripe melon in the cellar
is a prophecy of peace.

The darkness doesn't war against the light,
it carries us forward
to another light, and the only pain
is the pain of not staying.

In my land, called holy,
they won't let eternity be:
they've divided it into little religions,
zoned it for God-zones,
broken it into fragments of history,
sharp and wounding unto death.
And they've turned its tranquil distances
into a closeness convulsing with the pain of the present.

On the beach at Bolinas, at the foot of the wooden steps,
I saw some girls lying in the sand bare-bottomed,
their heads bowed, drunk
on the kingdom everlasting,
their souls like doors
closing and opening,
closing and opening inside them
to the rhythm of the surf.

__________________

THE SEA AND THE SHORE
—Yehuda Amichai

The sea and the shore are always next to each other.
Both want to learn to speak, to learn to say
one word only. The sea wants to say "shore"
and the shore "sea." They draw closer,
millions of years, to speech, to saying
that single word. When the sea says "shore"
and the shore "sea,"
redemption will come to the world,
the world will return to chaos.

_________________

FALL IN CONNECTICUT
—Yehuda Amichai

Leaves fall from the trees
but words multiply on people.
Small red fruits prepare
to stay under the snow and stay red.
The wild games of children
have been domesticated.
On the wall, pictures of winners and losers,
you can't tell them apart.
The rhythmical strokes of the swimmers
have gone back into the stopwatches.
On the deserted shore, folded beach chairs
chained to each other, the slaves of summer.
The suntanned lifeguard will grow pale inside his house
like a prophet of wrath in peacetime.

I shift mental states
like the gears of a car,
from animal to vegetable
and then to stone.


(Today's poetry was edited and translated from the Hebrew by Chana Bloch.)

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

I think we're part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The Big Electron... It doesn't punish, it doesn't reward, it doesn't judge at all. It just IS. And so are we.

For a little while.

—George Carlin, 1937-2008


(Medusa says: Thanks, George, for making us look closer at the words we use and the ideas we get so lazy about. Agree or not, like the king's fool you made us think, and we'll miss you.)

___________________

—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's Up With Rattlesnake Press

New in June: Day Moon, a new chapbook by James DenBoer, and Mindfully Moon, a littlesnake broadside by Carol Louise Moon, as well as Volume Three of Conversations, our third book of interviews by B.L. Kennedy, featuring Art Beck, Olivia Costellano, Quinton Duval, William S. Gainer, Mario Ellis Hill, Kathryn Hohlwein, James Jee Jobe, Andy Jones, Rebecca Morrison, Viola Weinberg and Phillip T. Nails. All this PLUS a brand-new edition (#18) of Rattlesnake Review! Now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or (soon) from rattlesnakepress.com/. (Snake contributors and subscribers will be receiving their copies in the mail this week and next. If you're not among either of these, and can't get down to The Book Collector to get your free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one: P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.)

The Snake will be snoozing through July and August, leaving Medusa to carry on alone. Then on September 10, we shall burst back onto the scene with Ten Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings Two: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review (deadline is August 15). Meanwhile, look in on Medusa every day, and, for heaven's sake, keep sending stuff! The snakes of Medusa are always hungry...


Medusa's Weekly Menu:

(Contributors are welcome to cook up something for any and all of these!)

Monday: Weekly NorCal poetry calendar

Tuesday: Seed of the Week: Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—whatever might tickle somebody's muse. Pick up the gauntlet and send in your poetic results; and don't be shy about sending in your own triggers, too! All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. Send your work to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOW; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. (Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell?) When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.

Wednesday: HandyStuff Quickies: Resources for the poet, including whatever helps ease the pain of writing and/or publishing: favorite journals to read and/or submit to; books, etc., about writing; organizational tools—you know—HandyStuff! Tell us about your favorite tools.

Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy. Send books, CDs, DVDs, etc. to him for possible review (either as a Drive-By or in future issues of Rattlesnake Review) at P.O. Box 160664, Sacramento, CA 95816.

Friday: NorCal weekend poetry calendar

Daily (except Sunday): LittleNips: SnakeFood for the Poetic Soul: Daily munchables for poetic thought, including short paragraphs, quotes, wonky words, silliness, little-known poetry/poet facts, and other inspiration—yet another way to feed our ravenous poetic souls.

And poetry! Every day, poetry from writers near and far! The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry.......!

_________________


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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. 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). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Of Deserts, Necrophilia & Other Vacations

Photo by Frank Graham, Sacramento

MOJAVE SUNSET
—Virginia Hamilton Adair

When the afternoon wind arrives from the sea
the blue tent of the sky flaps open in welcome,
the sands dance in long cotillions
and the jackrabbit leaps from its hiding place
under the flowering creosote.
At the eastern end of Wonder Valley
the long pale hill of sand turns to rose
in the final rays of the sun.
To the north, the Sheephole Mountain
begins its preparations for the cool evening,
long purple robes trailing down the arroyos.
As the sky dims into dusk, the vast garden of the valley
blooms with stars, and our hands with gratitude
touch the quiet stones, the cooling sand.

___________________

LOVING STONES
—Virginia Hamilton Adair

In the Mojave, east of here,
the wind talks to the stones
and they whisper back.

We say "Stone cold," "stone dead,"
yet the sun embraces them,
the moon finds them beautiful,
clouds drape their shadows over these stones.

Every wind-honed rock tells the story of the earth,
its hot cores, its cold seas,
recites the sagas of riverbeds
where they once lay or tumbled.
Learning patience. Achieving grace.

__________________

VACATION LOOKOUT, MOUNTAINS AROUND
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Rip-tooth of the sky’s acetylene, said Hart Crane,
who sought some height to climb
even when stealing to fling himself erased
in the ship’s phosphorescent slipcase.

Made it, Ma! Top of the World! yells Cagney,
pouring bullets into the gasoline storage tank
he’s ascended in “White Heat,” rip-tooth
of the gangster movie. What’s all this

riptooth and acetylene, anyhow, to these jags
of snow-pocked mountain holdfast, Sierra
Bavaria, where the eagles that dare are only
the winds’ bodiless traverses, bluster and gust?

Where the frame-frail vacation lookout, haggard
with clarity, broods over the day-late horizon
spectrum, complete in its “Richard
Of York Gave Battle In Vain” array?

The longboard storm shutters could be freed,
struts dismantled, and battened, but none of that now.
So why the terror for us inside? Is it the deck floor
canting down? Then again, we’ve thought we might

tumble breakneck from our Elizabethan balcony.
We witness “The Tempest” at Ashland, storm-play
in a play of real storm, Miranda clad in her
island-drenched slip, Prospero bellowing for Ariel

to the mechanized lightning, the actual thunder,
supernatural and the terrene touching, wet
finger to glass harmonica, extorting soft
squeals from the open-to-sky groundlings

in raingear. Above, I grip the thick balcony wall
fending off all temptation overboard,
knowing for once exactly why mountain
stormholds and Shakespeare petrify

the too-deep seer into their ravines, their
shared fathomless language. Here we are, side
by side with the Secret, we’re peering, abyss-gazing,
steeping our eyes. Made it, Ma! Top of the World!

_________________

Thanks, Tom! Our new Historian-in-Residence, Tom Goff, was responding to our Seed of the Week [see last Tuesday's post]. The last of contributors/subscriber copies of Rattlesnake Review's current issue, #18, has gone into the mail; let me know if you don't get yours by the end of next week. Check out Tom's new California-poets-from-the-past column in it, which he has begun by profiling our first Poet Laureate, Ina Coolbrith.


This weekend in (smokin'!—cough, cough) NorCal poetry:

•••Saturday (6/28), 7-9 PM: The Show celebrates 8 years of poetry and music with poets RheaSunshine and Ebony Bones, plus jazz vocalist Lady Kitty Griffin. Wo'se Community Center, 2863 35th St., Sacramento. $5; free for first 15 people. Info: 916-208-7638.

•••Saturday (6/28), 4-6 PM: Open mic in Coffee Town, 134 S. Auburn St., Grass Valley.

•••Monday (6/30), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Stephen Kessler and Jeff Knorr at Time-Tested Books, [NOTE location change], 1114 21st St., Sacramento. Open mic after. Stephen Kessler is a poet, translator, essayist, editor and novelist whose work has appeared in hundreds of publications across the United States since the late 1960s. He is the author of eight books and chapbooks of original poetry and a dozen books of poetry and fiction in translation, including the works of the likes of Cesar Vallejo, Luis Cernuda, Julio Cortázar, Fernando Alegria, Ariel Dorfman, Juan Felipe Herrera, and 1977 Nobel Laureate Vicente Aleixandre as well as hundreds of essays, articles, columns, reviews and interviews in dozens of periodicals, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the former editor of Alcatraz, an international journal, and The Sun, a Santa Cruz weekly, among other magazines and newspapers; the current editor of the quarterly literary newspaper, The Redwood Coast Review; and the author of the yet-to-be-published novel, The Mental Traveler.

Jeff Knorr is the author of the three books of poetry: The Third Body (Cherry Grove Collections, 2007), Keeper (Mammoth Books), and Standing Up to the Day (Pecan Grove Press). His other works include the co-authored Mooring Against the Tide: Writing Poetry and Fiction (Prentice Hall); the anthology, A Writer's Country (Prentice Hall); and The River Sings: An Introduction to Poetry (Prentice Hall). His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies including Chelsea, Connecticut Review, The Journal, Red Rock Review, Barrow Street, and Like Thunder: Poets Respond to Violence in America ( University of Iowa, 2002). Jeff Knorr lives in California 's Central Valley and is Professor of literature and creative writing at Sacramento City College.

On the Monday after that (July 7), SPC will feature an Asian Poetry Reading with Frances Kakugawa.

_________________

EVENSONGS
—Virginia Hamilton Adair

In the days before RV's
the sound of tent pegs being driven in was music,
and the whisper, then crackle, of a wood fire
getting underway.

After the steak smells and the cleanup,
it was bliss to lie back against a log
and just listen:
an owl, announcing the evening hunt,
an unseen mother calling, Juny, Juny.
At a distance, a chord on a guitar,
a few bars on a mouth organ.

With my head on his shoulder,
my husband began to sing "St. James Infirmary"
mellow, seductive, and slightly off-key.
A song for necrophiliacs. Poe would have loved it.

Downwind we heard the harmonica and guitar
joined by a flute, feeling their way into a trio.
The owl called close by
and the darkening fire gave a long sigh,
as if falling asleep.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

TIME SPANS
—A.R. Ammons

What lightning
strikes

in an
instant the

boulder hums
all year.

___________________


—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's Up With Rattlesnake Press

New in June: Day Moon, a new chapbook by James DenBoer, and Mindfully Moon, a littlesnake broadside by Carol Louise Moon, as well as Volume Three of Conversations, our third book of interviews by B.L. Kennedy, featuring Art Beck, Olivia Costellano, Quinton Duval, William S. Gainer, Mario Ellis Hill, Kathryn Hohlwein, James Jee Jobe, Andy Jones, Rebecca Morrison, Viola Weinberg and Phillip T. Nails. All this PLUS a brand-new edition (#18) of Rattlesnake Review! Now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or (soon) from rattlesnakepress.com/. (Snake contributors and subscribers will be receiving their copies in the mail this week and next. If you're not among either of these, and can't get down to The Book Collector to get your free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one: P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.)

The Snake will be snoozing through July and August, leaving Medusa to carry on alone. Then on September 10, we shall burst back onto the scene with Ten Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings Two: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review (deadline is August 15). Meanwhile, look in on Medusa every day, and, for heaven's sake, keep sending stuff! The snakes of Medusa are always hungry...


Medusa's Weekly Menu:

(Contributors are welcome to cook up something for any and all of these!)

Monday: Weekly NorCal poetry calendar

Tuesday: Seed of the Week: Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—whatever might tickle somebody's muse. Pick up the gauntlet and send in your poetic results; and don't be shy about sending in your own triggers, too! All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. Send your work to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOW; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. (Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell?) When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.

Wednesday: HandyStuff Quickies: Resources for the poet, including whatever helps ease the pain of writing and/or publishing: favorite journals to read and/or submit to; books, etc., about writing; organizational tools—you know—HandyStuff! Tell us about your favorite tools.

Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy. Send books, CDs, DVDs, etc. to him for possible review (either as a Drive-By or in future issues of Rattlesnake Review) at P.O. Box 160664, Sacramento, CA 95816.

Friday: NorCal weekend poetry calendar

Daily (except Sunday): LittleNips: SnakeFood for the Poetic Soul: Daily munchables for poetic thought, including short paragraphs, quotes, wonky words, silliness, little-known poetry/poet facts, and other inspiration—yet another way to feed our ravenous poetic souls.

And poetry! Every day, poetry from writers near and far! The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry.......!

_________________


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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. 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). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Today

SEPTEMBER 8
—Pablo Neruda

Today, the day was a full glass,
Today, the day was an immense wave,
Today, it was all the earth.

Today the tempestuous sea
lifted us in a kiss
so high that we trembled
in the flash of lightning
and, tied together, descended
and submerged without unraveling.

Today our bodies became immense,
they grew up to the edge of the world
and rolled melting themselves
into one single drop
of wax or meteor.

A new door opened between you and me
and someone, still without a face,
was waiting for us there.


(translated by Mark Eisner)

___________________

I didn't know The Sacramento Bee even had a "resident poet", but apparently it's Carlos Alcalá, who has started a poem on the new law, which takes effect July 1, restricting cell phone use while driving. The Bee challenges you to add a stanza and send it to scene@sacbee.com by noon this Friday. The "best" stanzas will be published on Monday's Scene cover. Here's what Alcalá wrote:

Whether chatting on Verizon,
Nextel, Sprint or AT&T,
Remember it's the talking,
Not the driving, that's hands-free.

Good luck!

__________________

Deadline For CSPS Annual Contest Extended to July 15, 2008:

California State Poetry Society's annual contest is open to all poets in the United States, whether they are members or not. Prizes: 1st: $100; 2nd: $50; 3rd: $25, plus ten Honorable Mentions. Judging by one or more independent professional poet(s). Any form any theme, 50-line limit per poem. Single space, one page only, 8 1/2x11 inch, white paper only, one side of paper only. No paper clips, folding of poems individually, or staples. Two copies of each poem; one with name and address in upper left corner, and one without for judge's copy. Poems must be original and unpublished, in English, not awarded a monetary prize, and not illustrated. Decisions of judges are final. For a winner's list send SASE; you will not otherwise hear from the contest judge unless you include an SASE. In addition to prizes, copy of CQ will be included upon publication.

Send entries to: Maura Harvey, CSPS Annual Chair, P.O. Box 2672, Del Mar, CA 92014. Fee: $3.00 per poem entered. Check or money order in US funds only, made payable to CSPS. NO LIMIT on number of entries. Note: If a poem does not meet qualifications as listed below, fee(s) will not be returned but the poem will be considered for publication in California Quarterly (CQ); the first through third place winners are guaranteed publication in CQ. (Give us a chance with your poems until October 15, 2008; after that, feel free to submit to other contests, or for publication elsewhere unless your poem was accepted by us.)


CSPS Monthly Contests are open to all poets:

TOPICS:
June: Any Subject
July: Haiku, Tanka
August: Humor, Satire, Joy of Life
September: Any Subject
October: Experimental Poem (get creative!)
November: Family, Friendship, Human Condition
December: Best of Your Best (winning or published poem;
indicate name of publication and issue date/year)

Contact Kate Ozbirn for information on monthly rules, deadlines, eligibility, entry fee, prizes, judging, notification, at CSPS Monthly Contest, P.O. Box 7126, Orange, CA 92863. Include SASE.

Are you a member of CSPS (not to be confused with CFCP, Inc.)? Be sure to submit to California Quarterly, their beautiful quarterly journal, whether you're a member or not. (Kate Ozbirn can give you information on joining, too.) Also among the CSPS publications:


Private Poetry Line:

Private Poetry Line is an e-mail "magazine" for previously-published poems, presented by the California State Poetry Society (CSPS), P.O. Box 7126, Orange, CA 92863. Editor Russell Salamon (thesalamons@earthlink.net) writes: Please send one or two published poems in the body of your email (no attachments, please). Send to Russell salamon for possible use. No special layouts and typefaces or art. When I get 8-12 people submitting, I prepare an email issue of Private Poetry Line. This is an email, not a website or a blog, and I send it to about 600 poets. Send one or two published poems, with name of magazine where originally printed, along with your name and city you live in. You retain all rights. THIS IS AN ELECTRONIC MOMENT; no hard copy unless you print it. As opposed to:

Poetry Letter and Literary Review, another CSPS publication which is also a “second-reading” opportunity. It’s a sheaf-type publication on ivory paper which uses formerly published short poems displayed in two columns per page, size 8 1/2 x 11, six or eight such pages. It also publishes short book reviews (250-500 words). (Contact the editor, C. Bryce, for book review assignments.) PL&LR accompanies CQ and goes to subscribers, and to you, separately if you are not yet a subscriber (include SASE). This is also a "second chance" publication, different from Private Poetry Line because it is printed on paper, unlike Private Poetry Line, which is an email. Send your previously published poems to PL&LR, P.O. Box 7126, Orange, CA 92863.

___________________

Addition to this week's calendar:

•••Saturday (6/28), 4-6 PM: Open mic in Coffee Town, 134 S. Auburn St., Grass Valley.

___________________

B.L.'s Drive-By: A Micro-Review by B.L. Kennedy:

The Keeper
By Sarah Langan
382pp
Harper Collins
$6.99

As with her Bram-Stoker-Award-winning book, The Missing, Sarah Langan sets the course with this, her first novel. The Keeper is a ghost story: it is the story of a small town and its residents, it is about secrets and horror, it will invade your body like a virus and it is worth the read. That said, get off your ass and check out this very talented author.

___________________

AND THE CITY NOW HAS GONE
—Pablo Neruda

How the clock moves on, relentlessly,
with such assurance that it eats the years.
The days are small and transitory grapes,
the months grow faded, taken out of time.

It fades, it falls away, the moment, fired
by that implacable artillery—
and suddenly, only a year is left to us,
a month, a day, and death turns up in the diary.

No one could ever stop the water's flowing;
nor thought nor love has ever held it back.
It has run on through suns and other beings,
its passing rhythm signifying our death.

Until, in the end, we fall in time, exhausted,
and it takes us, and that's it. Then we are dead,
dragged off with no being left, no life, no darkness,
no dust, no words. That is what it comes to;
and in the city where we'll live no more,
all is left empty, our clothing and our pride.


(translated by Alastair Reed)

___________________

XCI (from NIGHT)
—Pablo Neruda

Age covers us like drizzle;
time is interminable and sad;
a salt feather touches your face;
a trickle ate through my shirt.

Time does not distinguish between my hands
and a flock of oranges in yours:
with snow and picks life chips away
at your life, which is my life.

My life, which I gave you, fills
with years like a swelling cluster of fruit.
The grapes will return to the earth.

And even down there time
continues, waiting, raining
on the dust, eager to erase even absence.


(translated by Stephen Tapscott)

___________________

FEAR
—Pablo Neruda

Everyone is after me to exercise,
get in shape, play football,
rush about, even go swimming and flying.
Fair enough.

Everyone is after me to take it easy.
They all make doctor's appointments for me,
eyeing me in that quizzical way.
What is it?

Everyone is after me to take a trip,
to come in, to leave, not to travel,
to die and, alternatively, not to die.
It doesn't matter.

Everyone is spotting oddnesses
in my innards, suddenly shocked
by radio-awful diagrams.
I don't agree with them.

Everyone is picking at my poetry
with their relentless knives and forks,
trying, no doubt, to find a fly.
I am afraid.

I am afraid of the whole world,
afraid of cold water, afraid of death.
I am as all mortals are,
unable to be patient.

And so, in these brief, passing days,
I shall put them out of my mind.
I shall open up and imprison myself
with my most treacherous enemy,
Pablo Neruda.


(translated by Alastair Reed)

_________________

Today's LittleNip:

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what was seen during a moment.

—Carl Sandburg

___________________


—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's Up With Rattlesnake Press

New in June: Day Moon, a new chapbook by James DenBoer, and Mindfully Moon, a littlesnake broadside by Carol Louise Moon, as well as Volume Three of Conversations, our third book of interviews by B.L. Kennedy, featuring Art Beck, Olivia Costellano, Quinton Duval, William S. Gainer, Mario Ellis Hill, Kathryn Hohlwein, James Jee Jobe, Andy Jones, Rebecca Morrison, Viola Weinberg and Phillip T. Nails. All this PLUS a brand-new edition (#18) of Rattlesnake Review! Now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or (soon) from rattlesnakepress.com/. (Snake contributors and subscribers will be receiving their copies in the mail this week. If you're not among either of these, and can't get down to The Book Collector to get your free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one: P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.)

The Snake will be snoozing through July and August, leaving Medusa to carry on alone. Then on September 10, we shall burst back onto the scene with Ten Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell, plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review. (Deadline is August 15.) Meanwhile, look in on Medusa every day, and, for heaven's sake, keep sending stuff! The snakes of Medusa are always hungry...


Medusa's Weekly Menu:

(Contributors are welcome to cook up something for any and all of these!)

Monday: Weekly NorCal poetry calendar

Tuesday: Seed of the Week: Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—whatever might tickle somebody's muse. Pick up the gauntlet and send in your poetic results; and don't be shy about sending in your own triggers, too! All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. Send your work to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOW; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. (Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell?) When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.

Wednesday: HandyStuff Quickies: Resources for the poet, including whatever helps ease the pain of writing and/or publishing: favorite journals to read and/or submit to; books, etc., about writing; organizational tools—you know—HandyStuff! Tell us about your favorite tools.

Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy. Send books, CDs, DVDs, etc. to him for possible review (either as a Drive-By or in future issues of Rattlesnake Review) at P.O. Box 160664, Sacramento, CA 95816.

Friday: NorCal weekend poetry calendar

Daily (except Sunday): LittleNips: SnakeFood for the Poetic Soul: Daily munchables for poetic thought, including short paragraphs, quotes, wonky words, silliness, little-known poetry/poet facts, and other inspiration—yet another way to feed our ravenous poetic souls.

And poetry! Every day, poetry from writers near and far! The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry.......!

_________________


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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. 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). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

A Sprouting of Seeds

Photo by Stephani Schaefer, Los Molinos

THE SAME MOUNTAINS, YEARS LATER
—Taylor Graham

We still have pictures in the photo album,
evergreens climbing the lower ridges
up toward timberline; granite’s muscle
and the slick glacial folds below the summit.
Alpenglow dimming to hushed white peaks
before a rising moon. Views to inspire
a writer’s parchment,

not newsprint with its blazing
headlines, the whole front page engulfed
in flame. Global Warming Fuels
Western Wildfires. Before and after
shots. What shall we do
with these photos in the album,
withered as pressed blossoms?

___________________

Thanks, TG! Taylor Graham sent us that poem in response to yesterday's Seed of the Week, a photo of a look-out station. I posted it in honor of the one-year anniversary of the Angora fire.

Marie Ross sends a poem in response to last week's Seed, "Where do you hang your hat?" She apologizes for being "late" with it; I say there's no such thing when it comes to SOWs. Send 'em the next day or the next year. The important thing is to plant them and let them sprout.

WHITE WOVEN HAT
—Marie J. Ross, Stockton

I hang my woven hat on a hall tree,
waiting for an arrangement of grey
clouds to roam the sky,
and when drizzle turns to playful
rain drops, I reach for my hat and
dance into the rain like Gene Kelly.
I often wonder why rain intrigues me
so; then I think of how rain is the Water
Of Earth's Continuous Fuel, the magic
wand that lifts green splendors and plants
that supply our lifeline.
And every time I wander her fruitful prairies
after a rain,
I garner the fresh aroma that the grass lends,
of pine needles soaked in the moist sod, aroma
like a smoldering fire in the fireplace
as I conjure thought of restful evenings listening
to classical music, or just the reflection of tiny rain
drops on my windowpane.
So, when I'm aware that rain is in the air, I reach
for my woven hat, and dance like a nymph under
a fading sun.

__________________

This just in:

I didn't know The Sacramento Bee even had a "resident poet", but apparently it's Carlos Alcalá, who has started a poem on the new law, which takes effect July 1, restricting cell phone use while driving. The Bee challenges you to add a stanza and send it to scene@sacbee.com by noon this Friday. The "best" stanzas will be published on Monday's Scene cover. Here's what Alcalá wrote:

Whether chatting on Verizon,
Nextel, Sprint or AT&T,
Remember it's the talking,
Not the driving, that's hands-free.

Good luck!

__________________

HandyStuff Quickie:

This is great weather to STAY INDOORS (*hack* *cough*) with a good book, and during my vacation I've been going through what's on my shelf, re-acquainting and new-acquainting. I spent yesterday with How Does a Poem Mean? in honor of John Ciardi's birthday this week. This is a warhorse of a "Learn About Poetry in College English 1A" text that was written in the late '50's. It's thorough and surprisingly lively, if you don't mind the analyses of almost-exclusively Dead White Guy Poets. Which I don't; apparently that's what I was in the mood for yesterday. I especially enjoyed the first chapter, which talks about the title and uses Frost's "Stopping by Woods" as an illustration. Frankly, I never get tired of watching good minds analyze poems; it seems to trigger my muse. So check it out, if you never have before. (I don't know if this book is even in print anymore; I got mine used on Amazon. But there are plenty of them around. Or maybe you went through it in college....?)

More Stephen Dunn, in honor of his birthday this week:

JOHN & MARY
—Stephen Dunn

John & Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds
who also had never met.
—from a freshman's short story

They were like gazelles who occupied different
grassy plains, running in opposite directions
from different lions. They were like postal clerks
in different zip codes, with different vacation time,
their bosses adamant and clock-driven.
How could they get together?
They were like two people who couldn't get together.
John was a Sufi with a love of the dervish,
Mary of course a Christian with a curfew.
They were like two dolphins in the immensity
of the Atlantic, one playful,
the other stuck in a tuna net—
two absolutely different childhoods!
There was simply no hope for them.
They would never speak in person.
When they ran across that windswept field
toward each other, they were like two freight trains,
one having left Seattle at 6:36 P.M.
at an unknown speed, the other delayed
in Topeka for repairs.
The math indicated that they'd embrace
in another world, if at all, like parallel lines.
Or merely appear kindred and close, like stars.

___________________

ART
—Stephen Dunn

"Vissi d'arte," sang Callas on my boombox
and, alone in early evening, swept up annd stilled,
I saw myself as husband, poet, slackard,
undriven drifter through house and world.
I knew I could be distracted by weather,
lured by box scores and décolletage.
Puccini, though, must have lived for art,
as Callas certainly did, which is no doubt why
a small tear formed in the corner
of my left eye, a kind of applause.
At which the mood-insensitive clock gestured
my wife's plane would soon touch down.
I didn't want to move. Was Puccini
ever taken from such a fine moment?
Was Callas? They must have been, of course.
And couldn't bear it. Or ranted anyway
because they were brilliantly selfish,
or what involved them just then
was magical, in a sense their lives,
a virtuosity that shouldn't be disturbed.
Outside, the wind chime began to chime.
I was sure the promised storm would flirt,
then veer north. I had to stop
for gas. I had to make the bed I hadn't made
since she left. Was the indoor cat in?
Were the windows down? All the way
to the airport I tried to time amber,
beat red. I parked in short term. I ran.
Man of urgency. Man of what later,
with feeling, might be sung.


(Stephen Dunn's poems are from his Different Hours, W.W. Norton & Company.)

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

I always wanted to write a book that ended with the word, "mayonnaise".

—Richard Brautigan

___________________

Our thoughts are with Sacramento Poet Luke Breit, who is in UCD Medical Center recovering from a serious illness.

—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's Up With Rattlesnake Press

New in June: Day Moon, a new chapbook by James DenBoer, and Mindfully Moon, a littlesnake broadside by Carol Louise Moon, as well as Volume Three of Conversations, our third book of interviews by B.L. Kennedy, featuring Art Beck, Olivia Costellano, Quinton Duval, William S. Gainer, Mario Ellis Hill, Kathryn Hohlwein, James Jee Jobe, Andy Jones, Rebecca Morrison, Viola Weinberg and Phillip T. Nails. All this PLUS a brand-new edition (#18) of Rattlesnake Review! Now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or (soon) from rattlesnakepress.com/. (Snake contributors and subscribers will be receiving their copies in the mail this week. If you're not among either of these, and can't get down to The Book Collector to get your free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one: P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.)

The Snake will be snoozing through July and August, leaving Medusa to carry on alone. Then on September 10, we shall burst back onto the scene with Ten Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell, plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review. (Deadline is August 15.) Meanwhile, look in on Medusa every day, and, for heaven's sake, keep sending stuff! The snakes of Medusa are always hungry...


Medusa's Weekly Menu:

(Contributors are welcome to cook up something for any and all of these!)

Monday: Weekly NorCal poetry calendar

Tuesday: Seed of the Week: Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—whatever might tickle somebody's muse. Pick up the gauntlet and send in your poetic results; and don't be shy about sending in your own triggers, too! All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. Send your work to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOW; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. (Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell?) When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.

Wednesday: HandyStuff Quickies: Resources for the poet, including whatever helps ease the pain of writing and/or publishing: favorite journals to read and/or submit to; books, etc., about writing; organizational tools—you know—HandyStuff! Tell us about your favorite tools.

Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy. Send books, CDs, DVDs, etc. to him for possible review (either as a Drive-By or in future issues of Rattlesnake Review) at P.O. Box 160664, Sacramento, CA 95816.

Friday: NorCal weekend poetry calendar

Daily (except Sunday): LittleNips: SnakeFood for the Poetic Soul: Daily munchables for poetic thought, including short paragraphs, quotes, wonky words, silliness, little-known poetry/poet facts, and other inspiration—yet another way to feed our ravenous poetic souls.

And poetry! Every day, poetry from writers near and far! The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry.......!

_________________


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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. 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). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Reverse of the Reverse

EXPECT NOTHING
—Alice Walker

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

_________________

CFCP, Inc. Monthly Contests Need YOU:

The California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc.'s monthly poetry contest (prizes $25, $15, $10) could use some more submissions for June; here's your chance! SnakePal and Rattlechapper Colette Jonopulos, Co-Editor of Tiger's Eye, is this month's judge, and the topic sounds like fun: "Plastic Pleasure, Tacky Treasures". Here are the guidelines:

There is no limit to the number of poems submitted each month with the appropriate fees. ($2/poem OR 3 poems/$5. Make checks out to CFCP, Inc.) Except where otherwise indicated, poems are limited to 28 lines of text not including the title or space following the title. Poems for the monthly contests must be postmarked by the last day of the month for that category. (For those entrants who use a post office that does not date-stamp mail, a written date beneath the return address will suffice.) All forms accepted for all categories, within line limits. Send TWO copies of each poem with author's name and address front upper right corner on ONE copy only. Put no identification on the second copy. Poems must not have previously been awarded a money prize. If previously published, please state where. Print contest month on outside of mailing envelope, at the front right top corner of both copies of each poem. If you wish to receive a winners’ list, please send SASE with proper postage and note the contest month on the envelope.

Send to Cleo Griffith, Monthly Contest Editor, CFCP, Inc., 4409 Diamond Court, Salida, CA 95368. For information: cleor36@yahoo.com or (209) 543-1776.

Contest subjects for the rest of 2008 (Judge's name in parentheses):

JUNE: Plastic Pleasures, Tacky Treasures (Colette Jonopulos)
JULY: NO CONTEST
AUGUST: Pearls and Platinum (Cynthia Bryant)
SEPTEMBER: What I should have said (June Saraceno)
OCTOBER: Boredoms (12 lines or less) (Lora Zill)
NOVEMBER: Spangles and Tangles (TBA)
DECEMBER: NO CONTEST

__________________

Birthdays this week: Akhmatova, Ciardi, Dunn, for starters:

MUSE
—Anna Akhmatova

When, in the night, I wait for her, impatient,
Life seems to me, as hanging by a thread.
What just means liberty, or youth, or approbation,
When compared with the gentle piper's tread?

And she came in, threw out the mantle's edges,
Declined to me with a sincere heed.
I say to her, "Did you dictate the Pages
Of Hell to Dante?" She answers, "Yes, I did."


(Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, August, 2000
Edited by Orit Bonver, August, 2000)

__________________

EVERYTHING PROMISED HIM TO ME
—Anna Akhmatova

Everything promised him to me:
the fading amber edge of the sky,
and the sweet dreams of Christmas,
and the wind at Easter, loud with bells,

and the red shoots of the grapevine,
and waterfalls in the park,
and two large dragonflies
on the rusty iron fencepost.

And I could only believe
that he would be mine
as I walked along the high slopes,
the path of burning stones.

__________________

MEN MARRY WHAT THEY NEED
—John Ciardi

Men marry what they need. I marry you,
morning by morning, day by day, night by night,
and every marriage makes this marriage new.

In the broken name of heaven, in the light
that shatters granite, by the spitting shore,
in air that leaps and wobbles like a kite,

I marry you from time and a great door
is shut and stays shut against wind, sea, stone,
sunburst, and heavenfall. And home once more

inside our walls of skin and struts of bone,
man-woman, woman-man, and each the other,
I marry you by all dark and all dawn

and have my laugh at death.
Why should I bother the flies about me? Let them
buzz and do.
Men marry their queen, their daughter, or their mother

by hidden names, but that thin buzz whines through:
where reasons are no reason, cause is true.
Men marry what they need. I marry you.

___________________

THE REVERSE SIDE
—Stephen Dunn

The reverse side also has a reverse side.
—Japanese proverb

It's why when we speak a truth
some of us instantly feel foolish
as if a deck inside us has been shuffled
and there it is—the opposite
of what we said.

And perhaps why as we fall in love
we're already falling out of it.

It's why the terrified and the simple
latch onto one story,
just one version of the great mystery.

Image & afterimage, oh even
the open-minded yearn for a fiction
to rein things in—
the snapshot, the lie of a frame.

How do we not go crazy,
we who have found ourselves compelled
to live with the circle, the ellipsis, the word
not yet written.

__________________

Seed of the Week:




Today's LittleNip:

Mere comings, mere goings. Though now
there's somewhat less coming
in the comings and considerably more
going in the goings...

—from "The Past" by Galway Kinnell

___________________

—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's Up With Rattlesnake Press

New in June: Day Moon, a new chapbook by James DenBoer, and Mindfully Moon, a littlesnake broadside by Carol Louise Moon, as well as Volume Three of Conversations, our third book of interviews by B.L. Kennedy, featuring Art Beck, Olivia Costellano, Quinton Duval, William S. Gainer, Mario Ellis Hill, Kathryn Hohlwein, James Jee Jobe, Andy Jones, Rebecca Morrison, Viola Weinberg and Phillip T. Nails. All this PLUS a brand-new edition (#18) of Rattlesnake Review! Now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or (soon) from rattlesnakepress.com/. (Snake contributors and subscribers will be receiving their copies in the mail this week. If you're not among either of these, and can't get down to The Book Collector to get your free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one: P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.)

The Snake will be snoozing through July and August, leaving Medusa to carry on alone. Then on September 10, we shall burst back onto the scene with Ten Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell, plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review. (Deadline is August 15.) Meanwhile, look in on Medusa every day, and, for heaven's sake, keep sending stuff! The snakes of Medusa are always hungry...


Medusa's Weekly Menu:

(Contributors are welcome to cook up something for any and all of these!)

Monday: Weekly NorCal poetry calendar

Tuesday: Seed of the Week: Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—whatever might tickle somebody's muse. Pick up the gauntlet and send in your poetic results; and don't be shy about sending in your own triggers, too! All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. Send your work to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOW; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. (Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell?) When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.

Wednesday: HandyStuff Quickies: Resources for the poet, including whatever helps ease the pain of writing and/or publishing: favorite journals to read and/or submit to; books, etc., about writing; organizational tools—you know—HandyStuff! Tell us about your favorite tools.

Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy. Send books, CDs, DVDs, etc. to him for possible review (either as a Drive-By or in future issues of Rattlesnake Review) at P.O. Box 160664, Sacramento, CA 95816.

Friday: NorCal weekend poetry calendar

Daily (except Sunday): LittleNips: SnakeFood for the Poetic Soul: Daily munchables for poetic thought, including short paragraphs, quotes, wonky words, silliness, little-known poetry/poet facts, and other inspiration—yet another way to feed our ravenous poetic souls.

And poetry! Every day, poetry from writers near and far! The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry.......!

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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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. 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). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.