Blue Clouds & White Rain

Rich Russell

SCREAMING
—Rich Russell, Carmichael

I am trying to
read and write
and drink my beer
and not think about
everything
and the dirt children
next door pass
the time by
screaming
screaming
and more screaming
while their mother
screams at them to
stop the screaming
then she goes back to
her life
and her hell
and her beer
and so do I.

___________________

Thanks, Rich, for today's poems! Rich Russell says: I was born in Roseville in 1967. I have lived in Sacramento most of my life. I have been married and divorced twice. I suffer from kidney failure and go to dialysis 3 days a week. I started writing poetry at 22. I am a big fan of [rattlechapper] Phil Weidman. I enjoy reading histories and biographies, eating in diners and trips to the Northern California and Southern Oregon coasts.

___________________

Seed of the Week: Argument poems (debate poems? dueling poems?):

Today's Seed of the Week comes from another Carmichaelite, our Historian-in-Residence, Tom Goff. He writes: Helen Vendler describes somewhere how a poem can present an miniaturized argument, more or less be an essay with all the rhetorical parts compressed, that the proposed poem be a sort of argument.

Then I thought of Arthur Hugh Clough's famous pairing of poems, "Christ is dead; He is not risen," versus "Christ is not dead; he is risen," plus all those poems writ back and forth between the Passionate Shepherd and His Love, etc.

So the task is to write a couple of poems, one of which takes a side in an argument, the other to oppose that side. Here are mine, the first being that almost-villanelle you kindly ran before, expanded here to all six cylinders.


WHAT SCENT
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

The mind dies with the body down below
the god-cloud spindrift. What do we intend?
We practice all our lives to rise, to know,

then hunker in bogs and tundraholds of bone,
so fiercely do we feel we must not end.
The mind dies with the body down below,

just one more organ come apart. What sows
this ardent muck with urges to transcend?
We practiced all our lives to rise, to know,

to ride great updrafts to an afterglow,
our swirls our selves, but beaten into blend.
The mind dies with the body. Down below,

beneath the binding crust, both undergo
grueling dissolve. Who speaks of brain pretends
(we practiced, all our lives, to rise!) to know

what gods extract from nerveweave—call it soul.
Torn from the raw flower, what blossom scent it sends.
The mind dies with the body down below.
We practiced all our lives to rise, to know.

___________________

And here's Tom's reply to his own poem:

NOT WITH THE BODY DOWN
—Tom Goff

The mind does not lie with the body down
in death, or liquefy in the last reversal.
From what the mind is spun, the soul is wound,

these interwoven as flesh and bone are bound,
conjoined without a break, both integral.
The mind does not lie with the body down,

and isn’t to be shrugged out of like a gown,
crumpled atop the closet floor’s dispersal.
From what the mind is spun, the soul is wound,

our thoughts the silent spinners in a town
made up of outskirts, swirling with mute rehearsals.
The mind does not lie with the body down;

no, high, high up at last it can be found,
still gathering particles into universals.
From what the mind is spun, the soul is wound:

mind owns no winding sheet in which to drown
or disintegrate. Forever is its arousal.
The mind does not lie with the body down;
soul of the soul, it cannot be unwound.

___________________

Thanks, Tom, for the idea/challenge. Send your dueling poems to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No giveaway this week, and no deadline either. Just send 'em when you send 'em.

__________________

ALLEY BY THE TRACKS IN MEDFORD
—Rich Russell

I sit in my car
sipping a tepid Bud
in the tepid air
on a drizzly tepid April afternoon
And between my belches
the traffic
and other noises of madness
I hear a train
clicking across the tracks
And I think how I’d like
to hop it
hoping it was going
all the way

__________________

RAY MANZAREK
—Rich Russell

My singer died
My career got fried
And I got the blues, man.

__________________

EMPEROR OF THE DEATH HOUSE
—Rich Russell

Morning, morning
like a night of whoring
I feel dirty and sick
but without the strength
to leave
and I think of her
that she spoke no words
And those empty promises
made me emperor
of the death house

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

AFTER YESTERDAY
—A.R. Ammons

After yesterday
afternoon's blue
clouds and white rain
the mockingbird
in the backyard
untied the drops from
leaves and twigs
with a long singing.

__________________


—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

Now available at The Book Collector in Sacramento and also from rattlesnakepress.com/: Thirteen Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings2: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); a free littlesnake broadside (Wind Physics) from Jordan Reynolds; plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review (also free!). If you can't get to The Book Collector for your free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one. Next deadline for submissions, by the way, is November 15.

Coming in October: October’s release at The Book Collector on Weds., Oct. 8, will feature a new rattlechap from Moira Magneson (He Drank Because) and a littlesnake broadside from Hatch Graham (Circling of the Pack). That's at the Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.

Then, on Thursday, Oct. 30, 8 PM, Rattlesnake Press will release two SpiralChaps to honor and celebrate Luna’s Café, including a new collection of art and poetry from B.L. Kennedy (Luna’s House of Words) and an anthology of Luna’s poets, artists and photographs (La Luna: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café) edited by Frank Andrick. Come travel with our Away Team as we leave the Home of the Snake for a brief road trip/time travel to Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento to celebrate Art Luna and the 13 years of Luna's long-running poetry series. Who knows what auspicious adventures await us there??


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 and in-between! 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.

Writing & Other Flagellations

Photo by Stephani Schaefer, Los Molinos

A WARM OCTOBER EVENING
—Bobbi Sinha-Morey, Colusa

Silver tears drop from
the heavens when star-
light appears casting
their shine on the green
laurels the pale mist
waning a low wind
stirring in the leaves on
a warm October evening.
At the edge of a lawn is
a red maple tree its still
limbs above the forsythia
in the first hours of dark-
ness. Unseen larks cry
at the moon, the hushed
motion of their wings
soft as black pearls.
Farther away the voice
of an owl quietly speaks
saying its name before
it sleeps and the thread
of a moonbow arcs
over the river glittering
under the sky till shadows
come with the beginning
of dawn.

___________________

Thanks, Bobbi, for the Fall poem and for two more, just for good measure. Refreshing to hear from two poets up north: Bobbi Sinha-Morey and Stephani Schaefer, as well as Sacramento's Cynthia Linville, who is hosting the new reading series at The Vox Gallery and Cafe (19th & X Sts., Sacramento). More about that next week.


This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Monday (9/29), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Alan Williamson and Andrena Zawinski at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Alan Williamson has been a professor at the University of California, Davis since 1983, where he has taught British and American literature, creative writing, poetry, and literature of the American West. He has received a Guggenheim fellowship, a Massachusetts Arts Council Individual Grant, and an National Endowment for the Arts grant. He is also the author of three poetry collections from the Phoenix Poets series from the University of Chicago, and has also authored several volumes of criticism.

Andrena Zawinski lives and teaches writing in Oakland, CA and was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. Her work has appeared in Quarterly West, Gulf Coast, Slipstream, Rattle, Many Mountains Moving, The Progressive Magazine and many other publications. Her full collection of poems, Traveling in Reflected Light, was released in 1995 by Pig Iron Press as a Kenneth Patchen competition winner. Her chapbook, Greatest Hits 1991-2001, is part of Pudding House's archival and invitational series. An online chapbook, Elegies for My Mother, is at The Pittsburgh Quarterly. She has a chapbook and DVD of poems, music, and photographs forthcoming. Zawinski has been Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com since 2000.

Next week (Monday, 10/6), SPC will feature Susan Kelly-DeWitt reading from her new book, The Fortunate Islands.

•••Weds. (10/1), 9 PM: The third season of Poetry Night at Bistro 33 begins by featuring Terry Moore. The author of 15 books of poetry and eight spoken word CDs, Terry Moore has earned a significant base of fans in California and beyond. The “Sounds of Soul” Black Music Awards named him Poet of the Year in 2001 and Best Male Spoken Word Performer in 2005. He was recognized as the “Best Poet in Sacramento” at the 2007 Hub Choice Awards. A twelve-time poetry slam champion, Moore has opened for the Temptations, Maya Angelou, and Dr. Cornel West. Called a slam poet by some and a love poet by others (Moore recently won the 2008 Sacramento Super Love Poem Slam Competition), Terry Moore offers listeners an intense and stirring performance. For more on Moore, see http://www.terrymoore.info/ Info: Bistro 33 at (530) 756-4556 or Andy Jones at aojones@ucdavis.edu/. No cover; open mic afterward.

•••Thursday (10/2), 5:30-6:30 PM: Cosumnes River College presents Albert Garcia reading poetry at the CRC Bookstore. This event is free and open to the public. Albert Garcia is the author of two books of poems, Rainshadow (Copper Beech Press) and Skunk Talk (Bear Star Press), and of Digging In: Literature for Developing Writers (Prentice Hall). His poems have appeared in numerous national literary journals and have been featured in Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac and Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry. A former Sacramento City College English Instructor, Albert is now Dean of the Language and Literature Division at SCC.

•••Thursday (10/2), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured readers with open mic before and after.

•••Sun. (10/5), 6 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents a special event: A Memorial Reading For Mahmoud Darwish. Mahmoud Darwish was one of the pre-eminent Arab poets and was recognized and revered by cab drivers and college professors from Cairo to Damascus. Readings anywhere in the Arab world would find thousands in attendance. Upon Darwish’s death last month, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of Palestine, declared three days of mourning, and Darwish was granted a state funeral in the West Bank, the first since Yasir Arafat’s in 2004—and more attended Darwish’s funeral. Much of Darwish’s work has the theme of Palestinian exile at its heart. Early in his life, he and his family were forced to flee to Lebanon to escape the Israeli Army as it occupied Palestine. Upon returning to his homeland, he was given the status of “present-absent alien,” which plagued his sense of identity and his relationship to his homeland. He was the winner of countless international awards, and his work has been translated into more than twenty languages, more than any other contemporary Arab poet.

Please help us commemorate the life and work of Mahmoud Darwish by bringing a piece or two of his (or any other suitably appropriate work) to read for the reading, which is being organized in coordination with Ulrich Schreiber of Berlin and Sam Hamill (Director of Poets-Against-War) as part of an international effort to pay tribute to the spirit of Darwish on October 5, 2008. Some food and refreshments will be served and you are welcome to bring other consumables, as well. HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento.

___________________

LEANING SHADOWS
—Bobbi Sinha-Morey

In the leaning shadows
of my small bedroom
you are like dust on
the mirror always there
to remind me of you
knowing that your
silent wish is like a
prayer you can't
disguise. I can see it
in your face every
day and when daylight
begins your energy
shines, a glimpse of
the red sunrise in
your eyes. Yet you
grow so distant like
a tiny star slowly
losing its brightness
in the sky. Whisper
to me of the love
you once gave and
I'll be dazzled with
the breath of life
just like you.

___________________

THE JANUARY WIND
—Bobbi Sinha-Morey

You were like
the January wind
brushing the sweet grass
before the edge of dawn
came rushing in and
you caressed the earth
with your soft hand
nestling your gentle
touch in a bed of
yellow musk hoping
its petals will scent
your skin and you
will sleep like a
young maiden, but
inside you are woken
by the smoke in your
mirror and you see only
an empty space where
your face should've
appeared. The tips
of your fingers draw
in the eyes, yet they
see a grey sky and
black pines below
rising but not touching
the stars in the heavens.

___________________

SATURDAY AFTERNOON LULLABY
—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

The dryer hums
The wind rocks the house
The surf sings to me
The golf commentators whisper on TV
and I slip into sleep on the sofa

__________________

GRANDMOTHER'S SHOES
—Cynthia Linville

Your feet purple and swollen
poke out from under the hospital blanket

reminding me how much you loved to wear dainty shoes:
shoes with square heels, wedges, or buckles

shoes in white vinyl, black patent or red polka dots
but always shoes with heels.

You even wore heels with polyester pedal pushers
as in this 1974 Mother’s Day photo.

When I show you this picture you tell me
high heels always make you feel pretty.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

I don't enjoy writing, and I certainly would not do it for a living. Some people do, but some people enjoy flagellation.

—Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

__________________


—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

Now available at The Book Collector in Sacramento and also from rattlesnakepress.com/: Thirteen Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings2: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); a free littlesnake broadside (Wind Physics) from Jordan Reynolds; plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review (also free!). If you can't get to The Book Collector for your free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one. Next deadline for submissions, by the way, is November 15.

Coming in October: October’s release at The Book Collector on Weds., Oct. 8, will feature a new rattlechap from Moira Magneson (He Drank Because) and a littlesnake broadside from Hatch Graham (Circling of the Pack). That's at the Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.

Then, on Thursday, Oct. 30, 8 PM, Rattlesnake Press will release two SpiralChaps to honor and celebrate Luna’s Café, including a new collection of art and poetry from B.L. Kennedy (Luna’s House of Words) and an anthology of Luna’s poets, artists and photographs (La Luna: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café) edited by Frank Andrick. Come travel with our Away Team as we leave the Home of the Snake for a brief road trip/time travel to Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento to celebrate Art Luna and the 13 years of Luna's long-running poetry series. Who knows what auspicious adventures await us there??


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 and in-between! 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.

What Should We Do About...

Bubbles
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT THAT MOON?
—Hafiz

A wine bottle fell from a wagon
And broke open in a field.

That night one hundred beetles and all their cousins
Gathered

And did some serious binge drinking.

They even found some seed husks nearby
And began to play them like drums and whirl.
This made God very happy.

Then the "night candle" rose into the sky
And one drunk creature, laying down his instrument,
Said to his friend—for no apparent
Reason,

"What should we do about that moon?"

Seems to Hafiz
Most everyone has laid aside the music

Tackling such profoundly useless
Questions.


(translated from the Farsi by Daniel Ladinsky)

_______________


—Medusa

Hold On, Let Go

AUTUMN VIEW
—Allegra Jostad Silberstein, Davis

Red in the west
bleeds through the branches
of the valley oak

lights the scattering
of russet and gold
from the Chinese Pistache.

Gray wooly clouds
glow with inner
illumination

angle of departure
sending light upward
from the setting sun.

Shadows crowd
the house where a woman
sits pencil in hand.

Darkness covers quietly
like valley dust
on bookshelves.

Each year her sight
diminishes but the heat of
autumn color still holds.

_________________

Thanks to Allegra Silberstein for today's poems celebrating autumn. Also thanks to Marie Ross, who slipped in right under last night's deadline.

The last of the latest Rattlesnake Review contributor and/or subscription copies went into the mail yesterday. Let me know if you don't receive one in the next week or so.


AUTUMN EVOLUTION
—Marie J. Ross, Stockton

Over logged fenced valleys
of the Mother Lode, autumn
injects her pale hues.
Color of beige blotches and mocha
lace through green grass decorating
the rolling hills.
She steps from her throne in rays of
soft sun and semi-warm nights, swirling
over earth like a barn dancer’s skirt.
She sashays up tree trunks in a pair of pointed
heels, perforates bark, and fuses vital color to
the subtle leaves.
Vermillion like shiny apples, yellow like bananas
hung on sun, and orange, the shy, passive face on
faded limbs.
Skeletal dances drop in her pail of breeze, she the
breather of sleep to oncoming frost.

___________________

AUTUMN FIRE
—Allegra Jostad Silberstein

When endless questions will not give me peace,
when failures haunt the rest of present place
and satisfactions of good service cease
as if my life had lost all sense of grace,
when I struggle for some better way
search with fading sight another road
and wait through restless dreams the light of day
to bring me fortitude to bear this load.
Even when good friends reach out to me
I feel unworthy of their gracious care
until a vision helps to set me free:
Balloons bind me, floating in autumn air:
like them in questing heat I’ll find new birth
through fire, loose stern tying to this earth.

___________________

SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON
—Allegra Silberstein

Blue gray slant
of afternoon light
dimples through the leaves.

Young jay dabbles
in a new pool
watering my walnut tree.

Days end too quickly.

___________________

TOO SOON
—Allegra Jostad Silberstein

At seven o’clock the sun
thrusts through the olive trees
into my bedroom window.

A dream half remembered
lures me back
to mirrored sleep.

The turning world
brings sun above the olive trees.
Light angles in

wrestling consciousness
on a reluctant riser
into upright resolve.

By two in the afternoon
the horizon is veiled
in pale purple mist.

Nearby buildings
and trees outlined
with edges soft as peach fuzz.

Before seven, darkness
undresses the day.
Too soon, the night—

I close my fist,
open my hand.
Hold on, let go.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

Good

Poetry

Makes the universe admit a

Secret:

"I am

Really just a tambourine,

Grab hold,

Play me

Against your warm

Thigh."

—Hafiz
(translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

__________________


—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

Now available at The Book Collector in Sacramento and also from rattlesnakepress.com/: Thirteen Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings2: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); a free littlesnake broadside (Wind Physics) from Jordan Reynolds; plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review (also free!). Contributor and subscription copies of RR19 will be going into the mail this week. If you're neither one and can't get to The Book Collector for your free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one. Next deadline for submissions, by the way, is November 15.

Coming in October: October’s release at The Book Collector on Weds., Oct. 8, will feature a new rattlechap from Moira Magneson (He Drank Because) and a littlesnake broadside from Hatch Graham (Circling of the Pack). That's at the Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.

Then, on Thursday, Oct. 30, 8 PM, Rattlesnake Press will release two SpiralChaps to honor and celebrate Luna’s Café, including a new collection of art and poetry from B.L. Kennedy (Luna’s House of Words) and an anthology of Luna’s poets, artists and photographs (La Luna: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café) edited by Frank Andrick. Come travel with our Away Team as we leave the Home of the Snake for a brief road trip/time travel to Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento to celebrate Art Luna and the 13 years of Luna's long-running poetry series. Who knows what auspicious adventures await us there??


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 and in-between! 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.

Fall, Five: Too Soon

Photo by Jim Halverson

HONOR
—Barbara March, Cedarville

Write a love note on
wasp nest paper
grey/white layer on layer
saliva, thrown to ground
for you who dream
words on nights
when fresh mown orchard grass
swirls sweet on air
blown through leaves of
lombardy poplar

Compose to the newborn horny
toad in your hand, round,
no larger than a quarter or small stone
to spotted triplet fawns grazing
with their mother in the east field
but before all these, first
honor the innocent horses of autumn
unwanted, unfed, discarded to wander
before snow fall

__________________

Thanks to Barbara March for responding to our Fall Giveaway/Seed of the Week: Autumn poems, and thanks for sending a photo to go with it. It's not too late: send me poems about Fall that you wrote yourself and I'll send you Pat Grizzell's new rattlechap, Thirteen Poems. That's kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. This SOW has a deadline, though: midnight Friday, Sept. 26—hey, that's tonight!


This weekend in NorCal poetry:

•••Sat. (9/27), 1:15 PM and Sun. (9/28), 12:15 PM: Brigit Truex, Rebecca Morrison, Charlene Ungstad, and Jeanine Stevens read at the KVMR Celtic Festival & Marketplace in Grass Valley at the Nevada County Fairgrounds, 11228 McCourtney Rd., Grass Valley. $15-$55. Their exact venue can be found on the program; see kvmr.org/. 530-265-9073. Entertainment also includes music, historic re-enactments, athletic demonstrations, animal exhibits and more.

•••Saturday (9/27), Noon-4 PM: 15th Annual Dancing Poetry Festival at San Francisco's Florence Gould Theater in the California Palace of the Legion of Honor Art Museum. Info: www.dancingpoetry.com/.

•••Sat. (9/27), 7-9 PM: ‘The Show’ poetry series presents Myisha Cherry from Brooklyn, plus Sacramento's own Jock Smith, Jamarr Jones aka Young Mack, Yolanda Stevenson and Chadwick Jamison. Wo'se Community Center 2863 35th St. off 35th and Broadway, Sacramento. $5 general admission. All artists (poets, singers, musicians, comedians, etc.) are encouraged to sign up early for open mic. Info: 916-208-POET.

•••Sunday (9/28), 4:30 PM: Poems-For-All is pleased to welcome Donald Sidney-Fryer presenting The Atlantis Fragments, his omnibus edition of the trilogy, Songs and Sonnets Atlantean. The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Info: 916-442-9295.

•••Sunday (9/28), 2 PM: Jane Crown has a radio talk show that features poetry, and she has interviewed several of our local poets and other SnakePals, including B.L. Kennedy, W.S. Gainer, frank andrick and many others. She will be interviewing RD Armstrong this Sunday at 2 PM, PDT. Check it out at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/The-Jane-Crown-Show. And check out her past interviews on her archives at http://www.janecrown.com/.

•••Monday (9/29), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Alan Williamson and Andrena Zawinski at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Open mic after.

___________________

More Fall poems, these from Peggy Hill. Thanks, Peggy!

FALL MARDI GRAS
—Margaret Ellis Hill, Wilton

Autumn claims her place late in the year,
presents a paler sun, cloud quilts. Winds
clean scraps of summer, but from my window
I watch a Mardi Gras.

Usually, the stand of birch on the corner
looks like stately ladies graced with
green sequins covering white limbs.
Overnight, it seems, King Midas touched them.

Aided by breezes, the trees strip themselves
bare, little by little as they toss
handfuls of golden doubloons
to imaginary crowds waiting on the lawn.

___________________

SUMMER’S END
—Margaret Ellis Hill

The darkness crumbles away,
but allows the light to stumble
through building thunderheads.
Small pillows of clouds precede them
to mark the return of Autumn days.

Too soon the summer ends, my friend;
its greens will tumble into gold.
Relish fall’s fancy-leafed dresses before
the north winds blow the gowns away.

The stripteased trees are ready to be washed,
and dried with large and long white towels.
I know that they will fall asleep until
the sun’s spring slant awakens them
to blossoms and berries and new attire.

Ah winter, you must love
nakedness under snowy blankets.
I wonder what motive. Your gallantry—
simply protection or private perusal.

__________________

THIS FALL MOON, OCTOBER 2004
—Margaret Ellis Hill

Watch her blink
to reveal the sienna eye shadow—
an actress giving me
a slow-motion lesson in seduction.

She slices the sky on a set path,
returns to a stark stare that merely
brightens the night. I wrap
my sweater tighter and head home.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

It's not the most intellectual job in the world, but I do have to know the letters.

—Vanna White

__________________


—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

Now available at The Book Collector in Sacramento and also from rattlesnakepress.com/: Thirteen Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings2: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); a free littlesnake broadside (Wind Physics) from Jordan Reynolds; plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review (also free!). Contributor and subscription copies of RR19 will be going into the mail this week. If you're neither one and can't get to The Book Collector for your free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one. Next deadline for submissions, by the way, is November 15.

Coming in October: October’s release at The Book Collector on Weds., Oct. 8, will feature a new rattlechap from Moira Magneson (He Drank Because) and a littlesnake broadside from Hatch Graham (Circling of the Pack). That's at the Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.

Then, on Thursday, Oct. 30, 8 PM, Rattlesnake Press will release two SpiralChaps to honor and celebrate Luna’s Café, including a new collection of art and poetry from B.L. Kennedy (Luna’s House of Words) and an anthology of Luna’s poets, artists and photographs (La Luna: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café) edited by Frank Andrick. Come travel with our Away Team as we leave the Home of the Snake for a brief road trip/time travel to Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento to celebrate Art Luna and the 13 years of Luna's long-running poetry series. Who knows what auspicious adventures await us there??


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 and in-between! 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.

Fall, Four: Who Ever Knows?

END OF SUMMER
—Jane Blue, Sacramento

1

In July's long heat wave we felt
we were dead, or we were the living dead.
We had no hunger, no hungers.
We couldn't wail. We couldn't smell
or even taste. But now, the aroma of coffee,
the door open, traffic shushing by.
A phone ringing, jazz, blues, gospel in the air.
A fly examines my flesh
for rottenness—grease, dirt, any way in.
It's cold enough in the morning now
to change the trees quickly
like puberty.

I like the way the sky opens in winter—
another month or two; I expect to live
to see it. But who knows? Who ever knows?

2

The Rose of Sharon, the crape myrtle, opulent
fat and messy at the end of their season.
I love them. They are a part of my life.

We don't return in the same way, annually,
cyclical and cloned. After a dormancy of nine months,
we produce revised versions of ourselves
who come into the world gasping.

I have lived in this place longer than anywhere,
even childhood.

I am planted here, yet every day I think about moving.

___________________

Thanks, Jane Blue, for responding to Medusa's Fall Seed of the Week/giveaway! And our apologies to Jane for yesterday's snafu in the Kitchen: those turkey photos were from her, not from the intrepid Katy Brown as credited in Medusa's "early edition".

It's not too late: send me poems about Fall that you wrote yourself and I'll send you Pat Grizzell's new rattlechap, Thirteen Poems. That's kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. This SOW has a deadline, though: midnight Friday, Sept. 26—that's tomorrow!

__________________

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

Darkside
By Dennis Etchison
Airgedlamh Publications
130 Park View,
Wembly, Middx
England HA9 6JU
ISBN 0-9610352-1-8
206pp Hardcover, $35

Okay, here is the good news: Dennis Etchison is still out there writing and publishing. I cannot explain just how exciting it is to find a book by this wonderfully expressive author; I have been a captive fan of this guy since the early ‘80’s when I first discovered his work.

I think Darkside can be considered a modern classic because of its original approach to story, character and history. Darkside is classic Etchison, as well. That is to say, the book is something that Hitchcock would go bugfuck over—part mystery, part horror and all wonder. This book is part of the author’s Gothic California Series and, trust me, it does not disappoint.

—B.L. Kennedy, Reviewer-in-Residence

__________________

CAMBRIDGE FALL
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

An airy Jamesian noon day
suddenly recalling
a popular phrase
from Casablanca
at the Harvard Square theater.

By the Charles River
you pick up stones
near the Farmers Market
and gather wild roses
surviving the frost
in an abandoned soccer field.

A transient tourist
full of October Rothko
murders a blood orange
by a waterfall of sparrows
eyeing graffiti
on the Longfellow bridge
relocating your last hour
lost to sky and earth.

___________________

THE COOL DANCE WITH LEAVES AND BREEZE
—Donald R. Anderson, Stockton

The tree shakers, like yellowed lobsters preceding,
causing mini earthquakes and thunder.
Then they would come!

Mothers and fathers with what they had of families together,
migrant workers that had discovered we would hire them
on our piggy bank money for the five acres of walnuts,
to help us rake and bag them.

It's been years since I was with them as a child.
The house would be lively with them asking to come in
and use our restroom, or for brief questions about things,
or conversation, the ones that spoke English interpreting
for the rest. They wore clothes almost like peasants,
perhaps the better to work in, the color of burnt umber, or
copper red, ruddy faces sun-beaten with smiling lips ever
persistent. If they had anything besides being unadorned,
it might be pennies that looked like brass, or
a bright rose pin from the past generations still salvaged.

Burgundy scarf like a mink across the neck,
maybe cotton sweatshirts held close to the neck in biting
frost and wind as the harvest mornings watch the sunrise
and do as much as light of day allowed. Sacks
brimming over like hunched old men at
intervals across lines
of trees, buckets clunk
filling with walnuts,
some even clumped on broken twigs.

Ridges where sprinklers proliferated the weeds
down mid-aisles,
raking the nuts into piles then using either
hands and backs or devices like a few thick wires
set at just less than nut's width apart,
pressed down on the walnuts to catch them in the
hollow part, then dumped through the edge of the
device's own shell of sorts into buckets,
which were given full measure before dumped into
the lumpy burlap bags set against the trees
for the truck to later pick up and load
to the huge metal trailer made to carry tons,
to go to the huller,
then the sheller.

But some of the buckets were for the helping hands.
We couldn't have had harvest without them with heavy
prime-producing trees caught ablaze in riot of color.
I still see their flushed faces, not dallying yet still
a stimulus of lingering on the natural,
laughing at the children in a knowing way.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

Morning—cutting firewood, filling my jug
with pure water, gathering wild grasses
while a cool autumn rain gently falls.

—Ryokan (translated by John Stevens)

__________________


—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

Now available at The Book Collector in Sacramento or from rattlesnakepress.com/: Thirteen Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings2: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); a free littlesnake broadside (Wind Physics) from Jordan Reynolds; plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review (also free!). Contributor and subscription copies of RR19 will be going into the mail this week; if you're neither one but can't get down to The Book Collector to pick up a free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one. Next deadline for submissions is November 15.

Coming in October: October’s release at The Book Collector on Weds., Oct. 8, will feature a new rattlechap from Moira Magneson (He Drank Because) and a littlesnake broadside from Hatch Graham (Circling of the Pack). That's at the Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.

Then, on Thursday, Oct. 30, 8 PM, Rattlesnake Press will release two SpiralChaps to honor and celebrate Luna’s Café, including a new collection of art and poetry from B.L. Kennedy (Luna’s House of Words) and an anthology of Luna’s poets, artists and photographs (La Luna: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café) edited by frank andrick. Come travel with our Away Team as we leave the Home of the Snake (The Book Collector) for a brief road trip/time travel to Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento to celebrate Art Luna and the 13 years of Luna's long-running poetry series. Who knows what auspicious adventures await us there??


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 and in-between! 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.

Fall, Three: Turkeys, Etc.

Harem Master
Photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento

Crackling leaves under foot
Wood burning in the air
Goblins dancing with pillowcases full
and Turkeys dreading dinner

Fall comes and Fall goes
Red and yellow, orange and gold
Like the smoke from our breath in morning
and the hint of Winter chills our nose.

—R.P. Blotzer, Broken Arrow, OK

___________________

Thanks, Ruby Blotzer, for responding to our Seed of the Week—all the way from Oklahoma! Thanks to Jane Blue, too, for the timely turkey photos.

The rest of you: don't be shy! Send me Fall poems that you wrote yourself and I'll send you—free—Pat Grizzell's new rattlechap, Thirteen Poems. This SOW has a deadline, though: midnight (emailed or postmarked) Friday, Sept. 26. Email to me at kathykieth@hotmail.com or snail 'em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

More Fall poems, including one from Tom Goff and a couple from Taylor Graham:


JUST YET FALL NOT QUITE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Shall we say it isn’t yet fall
yet, just yet? Maybe one twist
in the stem shy of fall? Maybe
we can agree only
that these leaves, still
green in their sockets (think
lightbulbs Uncle Fester’s breath
hasn’t quite wheezed out of glow),

have just a bruised, ooze-banana aspect;
blunted, the laurel’s edge-teeth,
a touch stodgy the aspen’s shiver,
a bit more morose the maple in its
Canadian quiver, not yet unbitter
the sap. Dog-eared, mothbitten,
heat-foxed, dust-stained leaves.

Conjure an image: the box you’ve just
raked, all of stray green ones, heaped up
at Goodwill or Salvation Army.
A bit picked-over, isn’t it? I’ve
seen just such fragments of summer
and spring, leaf-curl already set in,
even in Whitman and Dickinson,
in the bins, in the bins,
in the barrels and bins
at Beers.

___________________

LIVE-OAK LEAVINGS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

On the lawn
eight wild turkeys peck acorns,
leaving downdrift leaves—this fall
of pale brown moth wings.

__________________

LINES OF CHANGE
—Taylor Graham

Overnight the wind sharpened.
Dark grayed to dawn—thin-limned,
a piece of chalk
drawing the eastern hill.
Your cat, who cruised the half-
moon midnight, is quite
gone, like the birds
and late-summer flowers
whose nectar smacked of hemlock
on the lips of fall.
Your cat, Persephone.
Again and again the wind
learns new words for loss.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

POEM
—A.R. Ammons

In a high wind the
leaves don't
fall but fly
straight out of the
tree like birds

__________________

Turkeys on 8th Avenue
Photo by Jane Blue

—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

Now available at The Book Collector in Sacramento, and (soon) from rattlesnakepress.com/: Thirteen Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings2: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); a free littlesnake broadside (Wind Physics) from Jordan Reynolds; plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review (also free!). Contributor and subscription copies of RR19 will be going into the mail this week. Next deadline for submissions is November 15.

Coming in October: October’s release at The Book Collector on Weds., Oct. 8, will feature a new rattlechap from Moira Magneson (He Drank Because) and a littlesnake broadside from Hatch Graham (Circling of the Pack). That's at the Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.

Then, on Thursday, Oct. 30, 8 PM, Rattlesnake Press will release two SpiralChaps to honor and celebrate Luna’s Café, including a new collection of art and poetry from B.L. Kennedy (Luna’s House of Words) and an anthology of Luna’s poets, artists and photographs (La Luna: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café) edited by Frank Andrick. Come travel with our Away Team as we leave the Home of the Snake for a brief road trip/time travel to Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento to celebrate Art Luna and the 13 years of Luna's long-running poetry series. Who knows what auspicious adventures await us there?


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 and in-between! 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.

Fall, Two: Skimming The Air With Terra Cotta

TWO LIVES AND OTHERS
—Winfield Townley Scott

Beyond the field where crows cawed at a hawk
The road bent down between oaks, pines, and maples:
Maples skimming the air with terra cotta.
The oaks spat acorns over scurries of squirrels.
Moss crunched stiff underfoot, and overhead
The sky was gradually freezing, white across blue.
We hurried our walk through shadows, yet it was
A noticeable sort of afternoon:
We honored a faded robin and considered
The importance of the color gray on bluejays.
A woodchuck, all an urgent clumsiness,
Made his tumbling run, then he saw us,
Plunged, hid, and screamed his whistle of fear.
Round the next bend to twilight we went past
A solitary house, one room lamplighted,
An old man at supper alone facing the wall.
If he was aware of us he gave no sign.
We circled home, that last day before snow.

___________________

Welcome, Autumn! Time for a giveaway! Let's make this week's Seed of the Week an easy one; I've got books to give away! Send me a Fall poem that you wrote yourself and I'll send you—free—Pat Grizzell's new rattlechap, Thirteen Poems. This SOW has a deadline, though: midnight (emailed or postmarked) Friday, Sept. 26. Email to me at kathykieth@hotmail.com or snail 'em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

LEFT BEHIND
—Donald R. Anderson, Stockton

We leave behind the chips,
the half-drunk soda cups,
the cigarettes still smoking
their way into the amber summer sky.

And yet I can't seem to leave them behind.
They seem needed to be cared for,
put in their proper places.
The papers need sorting,
filing, filtering,
put neatly on the shelf.
The recyclables need to be reused.
The cups I wait till the last second
to rinse and reuse,
but still,
everything fits into place.
They need me.
But I can't turn back time,
and no matter how much I care,
you are the one for which
I just... can't... find a place.

___________________

Thanks, Donald, for your response to last week's SOW: The Things We Keep, The Things We Leave Behind.

Donald sends us this notice: Come out this Sunday (9/28) to the SF MoMa's closing celebration of the great mexican artist, Frida Kahlo: "Pasión por Frida!" SF MoMa's Frida Kahlo Closing Exhibition, curated by Rene Yanez. There will be a FREE performance featuring Jennifer Barone, host of WordParty poetry & jazz dressed as Frida Kahlo and reading original poems about Frida, along with many talented Frida look-a-likes performing live music, painting, dancing and more at SF MoMa in the Schwab Room, 151 Third St., SF. Info: www.sfmoma.org/.

___________________

TREES STANDING BARE
—Marvin Bell

Those that do are not ashamed
to stand without leaves through the winter.
They know that loneliness
is not a clover pasture
or a stand of oak and hickory. They know
that the green of a pine
is all we will know of green,
and that all we will know of the dark
is sleep's forgetfulness.

__________________

THE NEST
—Marvin Bell

The day the birds were lifted from my shoulders,
the whole sky was blue, a long-imagined effect
had taken hold, and a small passenger plane
was beating the earth with its wings
as it swung over the bean fields toward home.
A fat car barely traveled a narrow road
while I waited at the bottom of a hill.
People around me were speaking loudly
but I heard only whispers, and stepped away.

You understand, I was given no choice.
For a long time, I was tired of whatever it was
that dug its way into my shoulders for balance
and whispered in my ears, and hung on for dear life
among tall narrow spaces in the woods
and in thickets and crowds, like those of success,
with whom one mingles at parties and in lecture halls.
In the beginning, there was this or that...
but always on my shoulders that which had landed.

That was life, and it went on in galleries
and shopping plazas, in museums and civic centers,
much like the life of any responsible man
schooled in the marriage of history and culture
and left to learn the rest at the legs of women.
In furtive rooms, in passing moments, the sea
reopened a door at its depth, trees spoke
from the wooden sides of houses, bodies became
again the nests in the naked tree.

___________________

THE SELF AND THE MULBERRY
—Marvin Bell

I wanted to see the self, so I looked at the mulberry.
It had no trouble accepting its limits,
yet defining and redefining a small area
so that any shape was possible, any movement.
It stayed put, but was part of all the air.
I wanted to learn to be there and not there
like the continually changing, slightly moving
mulberry, wild cherry and particularly the willow.
Like the willow, I tried to weep without tears.
Like the cherry tree, I tried to be sturdy and productive.
Like the mulberry, I tried to keep moving.
I couldn't cry right, couldn't stay or go.
I kept losing parts of myself like a soft maple.
I fell ill like the elm. That was the end
of looking in nature to find a natural self.
Let nature think itself not manly enough!
Let nature wonder at the mystery of laughter.
Let nature hypothesize man's indifference to it.
Let nature take a turn at saying what love is!

___________________

DEW AT THE EDGE OF A LEAF
—Marvin Bell

The broader leaves collect
enough to see early
by a wide spread of moonlight,
and they shine!, shine!—
who are used to turning
faces to the light.

Looking up is farthest.
From here or under any tree,
I know what will transpire:
leaves in their watery halos have
an overhead-to-underfoot career,
and thrive toward falling.

In a passage of time and water,
I am half-way—a leaf in July?
In August? I take no pity.
Everything green is turning brown,
it's true, but then too
everything turning brown is green.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

C. was amazed, she said, by how [John Berryman] could make poems out of so little—"bits of string and thread, and some dust from under the bed."

—Marvin Bell

__________________


—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

Now available at The Book Collector in Sacramento, and (soon) from rattlesnakepress.com/: Thirteen Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings2: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); a free littlesnake broadside (Wind Physics) from Jordan Reynolds; plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review (also free!). Contributor and subscription copies of RR19 will be going into the mail this week. Next deadline for submissions is November 15.

Coming in October: October’s release at The Book Collector on Weds., Oct. 8, will feature a new rattlechap from Moira Magneson (He Drank Because) and a littlesnake broadside from Hatch Graham (Circling of the Pack). That's at the Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.

Then, on Thursday, Oct. 30, 8 PM, Rattlesnake Press will release two SpiralChaps to honor and celebrate Luna’s Café, including a new collection of art and poetry from B.L. Kennedy (Luna’s House of Words) and an anthology of Luna’s poets, artists and photographs (La Luna: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café) edited by Frank Andrick. Come travel with our Away Team as we leave the Home of the Snake for a brief road trip/time travel to Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento to celebrate Art Luna and the 13 years of Luna's long-running poetry series. Who knows what auspicious adventures await us there?


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 and in-between! 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.