MY FAVORITE SIN
—Kevin Jones, Fair Oaks
Guilty pleasures are the most fun.
—Donald Bartheleme
I.
“That which is
Closest,” I could
Imagine Thoreau
Responding, eying
Emerson’s roast.
II.
Personally, have always
Preferred sins of
Commission to
Those of omission.
You have something
To show, though
The Evidence
Might be (ahem)
Damning.
III.
(Favorite excuse for
Sins and pretty much
Anything else)
I didn’t do it.
I wasn’t even there.
And besides,
Nobody saw me.
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CATECHISM
—Tom Goff, Carmichael
Would you like first-class or coach?
Smoking or non-smoking?
A window seat or on the aisle?
Restricted section or free speech?*
*No talking politics on airlines:
five carry-on jokes per passenger,
no tee shirt Palestinian slogans;
we ask you, please, no Arabic…
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THE EIGHTH DEADLY
—Tom Goff, Carmichael
—Tom Goff, Carmichael
I should think the eighth deadly sin is neglect, or call it denial, or perhaps enabling, which allows all the other sins to have sway…this neglect may not be Pandora herself, but rather the box lid that let itself be lifted, maybe even the lock that gave in to the key’s wheedling. A dream came last night to tell me of some neglect: since my vigilance had failed, a man was set to come with a gun and assassinate a religious official.
Somehow I knew this man was an imam, a holy man and teacher though not of a doctrine I’d ever learned. I knew exactly who, I knew exactly when, I knew exactly why (motive, opportunity, means all duck-row perfect). My last chance to get it right. I had to push through the devoutly pressing throng, the women processing with sere faces and tapers like those in The Wild Bunch, and amend my fault, my silence when I should have warned. And just at the last second, there—I spotted him. A man carving a path to the holy one with the bladed circles of a wheelchair. Nothing infirm about how he reached into his coat and extracted a silvery revolver…an instant late, I grasped the wristed glove as the gun fired. At point-blank range…and he missed, the bullet pocking the wall. Another divide, a rip in the present tense: I wrenched the gun free, yet it stayed in the man’s hand.
Even here, I’d failed: the idiot gunman had spent his lone chance and misfired, yet I congratulated myself….surely now I would get credit for averting murder. Yet, instantly healing cut on a superhero skin, the catastrophe closed over; the man, pointed of gun, vanished. Oddly, the imam, capped and bearded, didn’t even look up from where he sat, attending to parchments at a sort of desk in front of the narthex-like room alight with candles all down the sides. Nor did the throng scatter, nor even take note. I withdrew from the gloom of the church, into daylight, and found my bungalow.
Outside it, a woman seated on the porch step. Middle-aged, a skirt, a blouse, a badge she drew in its tiny leather case: “FBI.” She spoke again, in a dull voice: “Why didn’t you stop him sooner?” Wasn’t the point that I had stopped him? Would my initial neglect be the lone fact adorning some file or other? She stood up and turned to go, shoulders drooping, tired. As she walked slowly away, her legs and feet disclosed that she was my third-grade teacher, now among the heavenly messengers…sent expressly to signify what? Rebuke of the neglect that reveals unerringly where the prints are to be pressed into the mud by more successful feet?
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Thanks to Tom Goff, Kevin Jones, Taylor Graham and Shawn Aveningo for today's poems! As you may have guessed, this week we're talking about the Seven Deadly Sins—specifically, My Favorite Sin, and apparently this topic is on everyone's mind during the post-holiday pile of new year's resolutions. Let your muse wander around in sin and send poems! No deadline for Seeds of the Week.
HandyStuff Quickies: Resources for the busy poet:
•••Deena Heath, head of the Stockton Arts Commission, seems to be making a real effort to publicize Stockton arts events. Now she has an e-newsletter for that purpose. Call 209-937-7488 or email deena.heath@ci.stockton.ca.us. to sign up. The website is www.stocktongov.com/arts. One of the calendar listings on Deena's newsletter happens this Friday:
•••Friday (1/9), 3:30-4:30 PM (open mic) and 4:30-5:30 PM (workshop) in Stockton: Poetry as a Life, an open mic and workshop that is held every second Friday at the 2nd Floor Administration Conference Room, North-east wall, Cesar Chavez Central Library, downtown Stockton (between El Dorado and Center St., between Park and Oak St.). Kenya Mitchell will be the usual host for the Open Mic and Donald R. Anderson will be the usual host for the Workshop. FREE! (Click on the Poet's Espresso link at the right for more info.)
•••JoAnn Anglin sends us info about the Passager Contest for writers over 50. They want poems, and their deadline is Feb. 15 (postmarked). Check it out at www.passagerpress.com or http://raven.ubalt.edu/features/passager/guidelines.htm. Winner receives $300 and publication.
Submission Guidelines:
They publish two issues a year: an Open Issue and a Poetry Contest issue. Guidelines for both appear below. Also, they urge you to become familiar with Passager before submitting work. Browse some past published work on this site, and visit the Subscribe page to order sample copies. Results will be announced for 2009 contest during (projected date) July, 2009. Honorable mentions will also be published.
*Reading fee: $20, check or money order payable to Passager
Reading fee includes a one-year, two-issue subscription to Passager.
* Submit 3-5 poems, 50 lines max. per poem
* Introduce yourself with a cover letter and brief bio.
* Include name and address on every page.
* Include a Self-Addressed, Stamped Envelope (SASE) for notification of winners.
* Poems will not be returned.
* No previously published work.
* Simultaneous submissions to other journals are okay, but please notify us if the work is accepted elsewhere.
* No email submissions, please!
If you need more information, email passager@saysomethingloudly.com, or call 410.837.6047.
Send all submissions to:
Passager
1420 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21201-5779
•••Feb. 28 is the deadline for the Tiger's Eye Annual Poetry Contest! Send 3 of your finest with a short bio, SASE, and $10 to Tiger's Eye 2009 Contest, P.O. Box 2935, Eugene, OR 97402. Judge will be Thomas D. Patterson. First prize is $500, 2nd is $100, 3rd is $50. (Click to the Tiger's Eye link to the right for more info.)
•••Georgia Jones writes: I publish a monthly magazine online, www.LadybugFlights.com, and our resident poet recently passed away, so I am looking for people with poetry connections who might want to cooperate with us. We do not pay but we do promote our writers and we have an excellent and long-lived (11 years) publication that our writers are proud to be associated with.
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MÜSSIGGANG IST ALLER LASTER ANFANG
(Kurt Weill’s Die sieben Todsünden)
—Taylor Graham, Placerville
“Sloth is the mother of all vices.”
Is that how it goes? Listen to poor sisters Anna
slip into all the other sins, tempted
by an apple so musical, so easy on the tongue;
a lassitude that lies like silk
on idle fingers.
And where does it go from there?
envy, anger....But who could allow
such nastiness
to trouble a mind seduced by Weill’s
sweet-tart music, dreaming the warm breezes
of Müssiggang’s hypnotic sea?
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THE ULTIMATE SINS WE COMMIT
—Shawn Aveningo, Rescue
Precious, perfect orb spun out of control,
gluttonous globe of greed. Polar tips
dissolve through fingertips, a sieve we’ve
weaved to catch our sins along the way,
no resolve. Vanity seeking beauty of bronze, now
cancerous from atmosphere’s vanishing cloak.
We lust over power, stripping our earth,
the very fuel to we need to feed body
and soul. Angry at the establishment,
searching for purpose, we have no one to blame
but ourselves, our sloth and our shortcuts to
Eden. Oft we envy those who’ve escaped
a scorched hell.
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CONSEQUENCE OF LUST
—Shawn Aveningo
She gave no apology.
Why would she?
Why should she?
He was the one
whose unruly acts
singed her heart.
Her pulse racing
from the internal inferno,
ablaze from anger,
his prized Lamborghini
lay crumpled beneath rock,
wedding ring in the glove box,
a mere fossil, memento
of a marriage, homely joys.
Her destiny now obscure.
__________________
Today's LittleNip:
When he wanted to learn about the light, he went to one who had studied the darkness, not to one who knew only the light.
—Stephen Dobyns
__________________
—Medusa
SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:
Rattlesnake Review: The latest issue (#20) is currently available at The Book Collector, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one. The last of contributors' copies has gone into the mail. Deadline for RR21 is February 15: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to include all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of Medusa are always hungry!
Coming in January: Other than the ever-restless Medusa, the Snake will be snoozing during January; no releases or readings. But our October road trips inspired a new Rattlesnake publication, WTF, to be edited by frank andrick. This 30-page, chapbook-style (free) quarterly will primarily showcase the talents of readers at Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café, but anyone over 18 is welcome to submit. Deadline is Jan. 15 for a Feb. 19 premiere at Luna’s. Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but please send three poems (each one page or less in length), photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing, to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. And be forewarned: this publication will be for adults only! so you must be over 18 years of age to submit.
Also available now (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Pick up a copy at TBC or write to me and I'll send you one. Free!
Coming February 11: A new rattlechap from Sacramento's Poet Laureate, Julia Connor (Oar); a littlesnake broadside from Josh Fernandez (In The End, It’s A Worthless Machine); and the premiere of our new Rattlesnake Reprints, featuring The Dimensions of the Morning by D.R. Wagner, which was first published by Black Rabbit Press in 1969. That’s February 11 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.
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.
