LATE SEASON SUNFLOWER
—Barbara March, Cedarville
soft brown calix
flecked with gold
black seeds set by cold
nurture you who dare
close enough to
pluck hard with a whisper
float of wings to
harvest a
life gold
to brown to
gold again for
time is our
favorite season
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Thanks, Barbara, for the seasonal poem. And don't forget that we're in the middle of a cat poem giveaway; our Seed of the Week is cats: fluffy, evil, wild, domestic, lions and other Big Cats, the ones in your lap or the ones in your nightmares. Send 'em all to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 94726 by midnight on Friday, Oct. 17, and I'll send you a free copy of Moira Magneson's new chapbook, He Drank Because. Here are a few that have come in so far:
BUNNY WANTS TO PLAY
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Tehama
The bunny from next door
hops after the small gray cat,
chases him with surprising speed.
The cat runs just fast enough
to stay ahead of the flopping ears,
ducks into a niche
behind flowerpots.
Bunny pokes and pries,
gets a little too close,
receives a swat on her twitching nose.
After five minutes of tease and play
she gives up, heads home,
the gray cat low to the ground
behind her.
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NIGHT VISION
—Taylor Graham, Placerville
She pours the milk and sets the saucer down.
He rouses, stretches, glides from hiding,
where all afternoon, from the seclusion
of window-glare, he’s watched with a hard
yellow eye—watched birds sailing a sky
of ripstop blue, how they rise and tumble
almost within reach of his claws. Who needs
Mistress with her bribes and handouts?
Who needs milk, when the forest primeval
calls from a coming dark of the moon? Still,
the saucer’s empty when he steals out the door.
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OF CATS AND WAR
—Taylor Graham
The black cat curls into my crook of arm.
In Baghdad, all those bombs keep going off.
Some kind of disconnect in this old world.
You ask what we can hope in this bad world
of war that’s got us lock-jaw by the arm,
when mankind’s wish is just to wander off
to peaceful places. Safety’s on and off
at home, abroad in this wide lethal world.
The black cat, dozing, purrs. I take your arm.
Might we disarm and drift off to a saner world?
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Thanks, PWJ and TG! Seems like the current global events are on our minds:
the most beautiful day of the year
refused an interview
chose instead to just be—
the most beautiful day of the year
asked about the financial crisis
overdrawn bank accounts or shrinking credit lines
the day said, I am, that’s all that really matters,
opened its wallet into the still air and
finches carried away the few seeds
left at the bottom of its brown leather billfold
pressed about this squander
the day retorted, who cares?
the interviewer, sensing a story—
dug in, asked about party affiliation in this
fall time of election madness
the day
sneezed politely
I’m above all that,
so it went on
hour after hour
despite the threat of dusk,
terrorists, economic collapse,
media frenzy
or Sarah Palin
the most beautiful day of the year—was
—Barbara March
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Wow! A Sarah Palin poem; our first! :-)
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Today's LittleNip:
Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
—Carl Sandburg
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—Medusa
SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:
October is Sacramento Poetry Month! October’s releases from Rattlesnake Press include a new rattlechap from Moira Magneson (He Drank Because) and a free littlesnake broadside from Hatch Graham (Circling of the Pack). Both are available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or from me (kathykieth@hotmail.com), or—soon—from rattlesnakepress.com/. Rattlechaps are $6 by mail, $5 at The Book Collector.
Be sure to join us on Thursday, Oct. 30, 8 PM, when Rattlesnake Press will release not one, but 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??
And check out B.L. Kennedy’s interview with Art Luna in the latest Rattlesnake Review (#19)! Free copies are available at The Book Collector, or send me two bux and I’ll mail you one (address below). Next deadline, by the way, is November 15.
Coming in November: November will feature a new rattlechap from Red Fox Underground Poet Wendy Patrice Williams (Some New Forgetting); a littlesnake broadside from South Lake Tahoe Poet Ray Hadley; our 2009 calendar from Katy Brown (Beyond the Hill: A Poet’s Calendar) as well as Conversations, Vol. 4 of B.L. Kennedy’s Rattlesnake Interview Series. That’s Weds., November 12, 7:30 PM at The Book Collector.
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 SOWs; 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.......!
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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.
