[Insert squirrel/nuts joke here...]
AUTUMN’S FATAL STING
(A Tri-Fall Poem)
—Salvatore Buttaci, Princeton, WV
When the summer takes flight,
Autumn bleeds
Rich green life from all seeded things.
Garden flowers once bright,
Even weeds,
Succumb to autumn’s fatal sting.
It’s sad to watch the leaves
Tumble down
From the wood of shedding branches,
Their slow descent we grieve—
A meltdown
Of fluttering farewell dances.
Hot beach days disappear.
Cool breezes
Usher in September’s chill song
And when fall’s gone, appears
What freezes
Things white to take us through the year.
__________________AUTUMN’S FATAL STING
(A Tri-Fall Poem)
—Salvatore Buttaci, Princeton, WV
When the summer takes flight,
Autumn bleeds
Rich green life from all seeded things.
Garden flowers once bright,
Even weeds,
Succumb to autumn’s fatal sting.
It’s sad to watch the leaves
Tumble down
From the wood of shedding branches,
Their slow descent we grieve—
A meltdown
Of fluttering farewell dances.
Hot beach days disappear.
Cool breezes
Usher in September’s chill song
And when fall’s gone, appears
What freezes
Things white to take us through the year.
Thanks, Sal! SnakePal Salvatore Buttaci writes: I wanted to share the good news that I won second place in the annual Poetry Super Highway Contest! There were nearly 600 poets entering from all over the world. Check it out at http://poetrysuperhighway.com/pshco.html/. And see more of Sal's work in the current Rattlesnake Review. I think, in fact, that he has been in every one of our 19 issues.
Speaking of SnakePals, join rattlechappers James DenBoer and Allegra Silberstein this Friday (10/10), 7-9 PM, for the Second Friday Poetry Reading at The Vox (gallery & cafe), 19th & X Sts., Sacramento. Readers will include James DenBoer, Andy Jones, Allegra Silberstein, Susan Wolbarst, Scott Weiss and—oh yes—that scatter-brained rascal, Kathy Kieth. Free. Coffee bar open 6-10 PM. Info: voxsac.com/. Hosted by Cynthia Linville.
And while we're chatting: check out last week's Senior Spectrum, page 22, for an article from Arthur Knight about his recent visit to Sacramento and hanging out with Annie Menebroker and the gang. Senior Spectrum is free around town.
More from Sal Buttaci. Are you up for a couple of sonnets?
I’D LEARN TO BE CLEVER
—Salvatore Buttaci
The day I tried to live I gagged and gasped
On first breath, newly delivered from womb
To fresh air, slapped alive, then a piercing rasp
That should have been a scream filled the white room.
I missed the comfort of the dark. Cocooned
Like a butterfly I thought forever,
I floated in a kind of dreamy swoon,
So certain it was my life’s endeavor.
Once pulled free, I tried to live, to sever
Old ties, go with the flow, have a good day
From that day on. I’d learn to be clever,
Juggle a life half work and half play.
When crises come and scare me half to death,
I think of how I once survived first breath.
__________________
NO STAR AT ALL
—Salvatore Buttaci
No need to hide my face when I walk by.
No fear I’ll be accosted by a crowd
Of fans who want my autograph, their loud
Demands, their jostling. I don’t have to try
Pretending I’m just a look-alike guy,
No star at all who shines beyond the clouds.
I’m a nobody. Unknown. I’m allowed
My anonymity. I don’t deny
I’m a nobody. I relish the fact
I have no medals, garnered no fame.
Still, I feel like a king. Freedom’s my throne.
I’m a nobody who’s on the right track
Because in this world so few know my name.
Wherever I go, they leave me alone.
__________________
Seed of the Week: Questions
QUESTIONS YOU MUST LEARN TO LIVE PAST
—Robert Penn Warren
Have you ever clung to the cliffside while,
Past star-death at midnight and clouds, the darkness
Curdles and coils, and wind off the sea, caterwauling, swings in
To bulge your shirt belt-free, while claws
Scratch at eyeballs, and snag at loosening stone—
In Hell's own conspiracy with
The five-fathom, lethal, up-lunges of sea-foam fanged white,
That howls in its hunger for blood?
Have you stood by a bed whereon
Your father, unspeakable anguish past, at length
To the syringe succumbs, and your sister's
Nails clench in your biceps? Then, crazed, she cries:
"But it's worse—oh, it's driving pain deeper,
Deeper to hide from praying, or dying, or God—
"Oh, worse!" Or have you remembered the face
Of an old, loved friend, now drowned and glimmering under
Time's windless wash? Then cannot summon the name?
Have you dreamed that you are a child again
And calling in darkness, but nobody comes?
Have you ever seen your own child, that first morning, wait
For the school bus? Have you stood in your garden in autumn,
At some last chore, and in the junipers found
Where a three-foot snake—a big garter, no doubt—
Has combed its old integument off in the convenient prickles?
Would you hold that frayed translucence up,
Beautiful, meaningless, blessed in the mellow light,
And feel your heart stop? And not know why?
Or think that this bright emptiness
Is all your own life may be—or will be—when,
After the fable of summer, a lithe sinuosity
Slips down to curl in some dark, wintry hole, with no dream?
___________________
Aside from being an exquisite list poem, all the sentences in Penn's poem are in the form of a question. Try doing that for today's Seed of the Week: write a poem that poses questions, not declaratives. No deadline; just go with the muse. I'll start:
Do You Remember When You Were a Bird?
…when red was not just a theory, or blue just
some abstract light-play in the sky: when you
drank the yellow of daffodils, pulled it into
your feathers, turned it orange and green and
brown: twisted it around and around into that
rich rainbow of who you were, where you’d been,
where you were going… Do you remember
feathers? The feel of your beak smoothing them,
how you locked in each of their tiny teeth,
emptied them of dust, burrowed into them on
snowy nights? And do you remember
flight? Lifting your colors and leaving
the trees? Where did you sleep at night?
How high did you fly? What did you learn
about that light-play in
the cerulean sky…?
—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines
__________________
Today's LittleNip:
Critics scoff
at my work
and declare their contempt—
no doubt they've got
their own little wisdom.
I write nothing for them.
But because time is
endless and our planet
vast, I write these
poems for a person
who will one day be born
with my sort of heart.
—Bhavabbhuti
—Medusa
SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:
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??
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.
