Jordan Reynolds
THE CRICKET AND INDIAN POETRY
—Jordan Reynolds, Carmichael
Reading Indian poetry,
a cricket chirps non-stop
in the garage. I think it
must be hidden between
the shovels and the garden
rakes, or perhaps has found
the niche between the cans of
Arizona Iced Tea, and bottles
of geyser-fresh drinking water.
Tamil is the old language,
and I think this cricket knows
the sound of the sand, and what
the night writes across a cool
Indian stream. I think this cricket
has been carried in the delicate
folds of a sari, or dripped out
from the secret creases in a veil,
lifted gently by the moon
and tossed, shamelessly, to the dust.
I sit and listen at the garage door,
my ear pressed to the cool metal,
and I wonder about the cricket
in there, about the poetry that he’s
sending to the walls, and to the
tiny laundry room where I’ve
curled up. I think he knows he has
an audience, I think when he stops
chirping he expects me to filter
slowly out so he can rest, I think
he hopes for a new ear, somebody
across the street trying to sleep.
I know this cricket so much better
then the criticism on the printed
page discarded between the cushions
of the couch. I know this shiny, black
pundit. I know, as I stand up,
knees crackling, that I dare not open
the door, for fear of disturbing
the meditations of those first sounds,
the grooved-over syllables graded
and pressed for worth, the trailing
off of the voice like the veils
and veils rushing gently to the floor,
cricket-sounding the soft skin
of a woman somewhere across
the waters of the earth, stepping
lightly into bed, yielding to her husband,
and all the crickets within her
chiming softly, leaving her clothes
for better warmth, swelling,
ever so lightly, inside her mouth.
__________________
Thanks, Jordan! Jordan Reynolds' work has appeared most recently in Louis Liard Magazine, Suisun Valley Review, Poetry Now, Poetry Midwest, hardpan, The Tule Review, The League of Laboring Poets, Prairie Margins, and Sacramento News & Review; in addition, his criticism can be found on The Great American Pinup. Watch for a littlesnake broadside of Jordan's poetry to be released by Rattlesnake Press on September 10 at The Book Collector.
WHEN IT RAINS IN MAY
—Jordan Reynolds
If there is rain at all,
I think you might realize an inherent damp,
and it’s true that rain falls in oblique angles
if it falls in geometries.
From the cloud to the sky
is certainly a line of sorts,
something so vast, its breadth is altogether
immeasurable. Angels, I think, climb
in the shadows
of things like rain
and things, too, like we often see before it.
__________________
This week's Sacramento Bee contest:
Sacramento Bee poet-in-residence Carlos Alcala exhorts us to send our poems about overproduction in home gardens to calcala@sacbee.com by this Tuesday—that's tomorrow—(include your name and city); they'll print a few of the ones they receive in the upcoming Home & Garden section.
Also this week in NorCal poetry:
•••Tonight (Monday, 8/4), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Mary Mackey and Brad Henderson at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. [See last Friday's post for bios.]
Coming to SPC next Monday (8/11): Brad Buchanan and Wendy Carlisle.
•••Tuesday (8/5), 9 PM (and again on Thursday, Aug. 7 at 5 AM): The Moore Time for Poetry Television Show features Los Angeles Poet Judah 1, comedian Corey Crenshaw and R & B vocalist Remy. The show airs on Comcast Cable Ch. 17, or view it at www.accesssacramento.org (click on the BIG "Watch Channel 17" button).
•••Wednesday (8/6), 9 PM: Poetry Night at Bistro 33 welcomes Rattlechapper James Lee Jobe, the local poet, poetry activist, and radio personality. Jobe will be the featured reader in Bistro 33's Banquet Room at 226 F St. in Davis. An open mic will follow Jobe's performance. A dynamic and engaging performer of his work, James Lee Jobe is a widely published and deeply respected poet who has long promoted budding poets in the Sacramento Valley. Jobe's work has appeared in Manzanita, Tule Review, Pearl, Rattlesnake Review, and many other periodicals. His poems are also chosen to be included in the Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems; Jewel Of The Valley: A California Anthology; and How To Be This Man: The Walter Pavlich Memorial Anthology. From 1994-1999 Jobe was the editor and publisher of One Dog Press, a poetry monthly. He also edited the quarterly, Clan Of The Dog. Jobe has four chapbooks published; the most recent is What God Said When She Finally Answered Me, from Rattlesnake Press. He lives in Davis with his wife and children, and produces radio commercials in Sacramento.
Poetry Night at Bistro 33 takes place every first and third Wednesday of the month at 226 F Street in Davis. The featured readers begin at 9 PM and are followed by an open mic where local poets, musicians and performance artists share their work. All Poetry Night events are free of charge, and those who are new to performed poetry are especially encouraged to attend. UC Davis faculty Brad Henderson and Andy Jones are the hosts. To find out more about this reading series, visit the "Poetry in Davis" group on Facebook.com.
•••Thursday (8/7), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Open mic before/after. Info: 441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com. Free.
•••Saturday (8/9), 2-4 PM: Culture Collection Poetry Series features Nicole Dominque and Yolanda Stevenson at 6391 Riverside Blvd. in Greenhaven (Sacramento). Free!
•••Sunday (8/10), 3-5 PM: Please join us as we show our appreciation for your support of Wild Mountain Books on Main Street in Placerville, and welcome, with a toast, the new owners of Raven's Tale Books: Vicky & John. Live music & refreshments!
___________________
FIGURING HOW THEY FLY
—Jordan Reynolds
Bees flit in the bell jar
sucked tight to the table.
They sing the glass
with their line-thin wings,
holding their whole heft
aloft.
No one questions the hermit
hiking to the cliff,
the horse in tow,
butcher paper flaps
and wooden dowels
framed for flight,
sketched a hundred times
into chalk and real numbers.
The ratio of the whinny
to the fall,
the man’s wildly unnatural flapping,
the hard curse
of dust and bone.
There is grace
in the suffocation
of the bee on its dew,
its suicidal strike—
a tiny martyrdom.
But this man and horse,
a sign of failed logic
and human pomp,
with their bodies still
in their natural forms,
looking thirsty, and having nothing
to show for their history
of flight,
for what was a sweetness
more automatic
than free.
___________________
The sex poems continue to roll in to the Kitchen; this is clearly a topic that inspires our local poets. Here are two from Jordan (speaking of bees):
CLOYED
—Jordan Reynolds
A tight beige, the spot
in bed
Your whole heft cradled
against me, a pit of suffocate dew
at fulcrum on my lips
Stealing Honey
*
boy on his knees
head-deep in the hive
bees' jackets jiggling against his tongue
globs of golden sweet honey
bombard the grass
crystallize in the corners of his mouth
on the wet loaves of his tongue
I think I'm in heaven!
I think I'm in heaven!
**
he left the hive pulsing
gaping combs exposed
with ages of bees dribbling
passed out in the red dirt
twitching with candied wings
wiping his hand with the back of his arm
his hair sticky and thick
he let the blood flow through him
back to his legs
away from him
as he watched the hive collapse
exhale
burrow itself slowly into dew
a tongue folded gently into earth
___________________
DAEDELUS TO HIS WIFE
—Jordan Reynolds
Friendship is love without wings.
—French proverb
The wings are sex.
The downward facing dog.
Like flying into the earth.
Each thrust sending her.
Up to the ceiling.
Through it.
The wings are the embrace.
Of lovers feathered together.
Wings wrapped around nakedness.
To cover.
To warm.
Bodies shivered.
The wings are wax.
Improved and infused.
Some sort of metal.
Super-heated.
And forged.
The wings are bone.
Showing what will come.
With time flying.
Wrapped tarp tatters.
Hung on that thinned frame.
For now.
Unearthed.
__________________
And it's a good thing that our poets are inspired, seeing as how the next Rattlesnake Review deadline looms (August 15). Submitting is a b****, though, yes? Always the risk of rejection...
Today's LittleNips:
Be persistent. Editors change; tastes change; editorial markets change. Too many beginnings writers give up too easily. —John Jakes
Manuscript: something submitted at haste and returned at leisure. —Oliver Herford
A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation for the editor. —Ring Lardner
I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, "To hell with you." —Saul Bellow
__________________
—Medusa
SnakeWatch: What's Up With Rattlesnake Press
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 Thirteen Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings2: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); a littlesnake broadside from Jordan Reynolds; 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 (sometimes): 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.
