SOIREE
—B.Z. Niditz
Off Tremont Street
in Jamesian fashion
you hid Remy de Gourmont
in the yellow book
over the veiled portico
as twin cremonas
played Bach's
'Double Concerto'
gents and ladies
eyed Boston
on the card table
Mrs. Gardner shined
with the Berenson boy
passionate for Uccello, Vermeer
a Venetian ring
hands in her newest sable
and parodying Edward Lear.
You carried a bundle
of expatriate letters
wine by your elbow
of cold connoisseurs
enjoying the Japanese china
along the bric-a-brac wall
admiring the past Whistler
and a script of Wilde,
you remember the soirees
and last November's teas
where you read 'Child Harold'
in Byronic company,
now it's another Fall to Rome
by way of Greece and then home.
__________________
GOOD MORNING
—B.Z. Niditch
You are tired
by the weeds
demanding an hour
the brie omelette
is out of reach.
The minor bird
doesn't answer
all the tires
are uneven
your notebook
has lost its rings
and the nosebleed news
is delivered
by a crow's voice.
__________________
B.L.'s Drive-bys: A micro-review by B.L. Kennedy
For A Few Demons More
By Kim Harrison
Harper Collins
456 pp, Hardcover, $21.95
ISBN 978-0-o6-078838-4
It seems like time travel or something, for here I am again in some bookstore with Charlene Ungstad and Malgwyn. This time it’s Barnes & Noble and we had just eaten a rather large dinner and Char is looking for some anti-Republican tome and Malgwyn is looking for whatever he looks for in these Big Box stores. And me, well I am fucking bored! However, from the side of my eye I spy the gleam of a cover that catches my attention. It’s a book by an author that I have never encountered, named Kim Harrison. I look at the backside and she’s dressed in an all-black outfit with a hip sailor hat and the book, shit, where can you go wrong with a title like For A Few Demons More? This just screams to me, so I buy it. Get home read it and—nothing. Okay, so you’re asking “Kennedy, what’d you expect?” Well, for one thing, I had expected a good read. I mean I did pay hard cash for the book, so the author should at least entertain me with a good story… right? Wrong. Don’t bother with this one. kids, for it’ll just be cash in the trash.
________________
EXILED DAYS
—B.Z. Niditch
On picnic grounds
three-fourths
of your mouth
fills with pomegranates
eaten between
mountains
and a crow's nest
you dust up
by a cave's shade
faithful to your nature
You initial
postcards of silence
with your sunglass vision
by sky painted birches
over unmade beds
of muddy blue stars
of Bethlehem.
Hearing sharp piano notes
to mimic crows off shore
at zero hour leave
marooned with sea shells
tattooed by curved roses
and butterflies
with a sailor's brush stroke
Another year
snowflakes on your sleeve
walking by dogwood
harried on exiled days
wanting to dance like dolphins
winds tarry in a sandstorm drapery.
__________________
ON THE CHARLES, CAMBRIDGE, 1990
—B.Z. Niditch
In my solid brick dormitory
when the Charles River
interlocks its snow flakes
from a mosaic of light
I wish for candles
on my murdered ice cake
at the end-of-season studies.
With European standards
through a mesh
of provincial goodbyes
I crab my orange
translating parables on my dinner tray
watching from a school
of safe-conduct neons
pool-bed black mollies
and kissing fish.
I took my leave
from a Roman life
of a sabbatical
with irony's favor
carrying a cherry sheet
of a poet's taxing exhaustion
knowing the astonishment
of any person's mystery
invited to my generation's timetable.
__________________
HURRICANE ANDREW
—B.Z. Niditch
With water on the windows
Chopin stops his etudes
in eagerness
of short-lived hours
cats lose sisters
in the soft muzzle
of the first palm's wrinkle,
you hardly spoke,
only infinite thickets
have fallen in branches
closing your bullet-holed eyes
from astonished casements
a wreckage of cars
crumbed limpid leaves
in its cold caresses
in unfriendly common places
Andrew turns the head
of skinny cupboard angels
as books and suitcases fall
like killer bees and locusts
dank waters flood
finding yourself
on a plywood mattress
looking for chalk
for your own obituary.
____________________
Today's LittleNip:
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
~Anton Chekhov
__________________
—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 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.......!
_________________
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.
