Cynthia Linville
BILL GAINER WRESTLES AN
ALLIGATOR
—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento
—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento
Everyone knows how to
wrestle an alligator, Kid.
Bill’s been telling me
that for years.
Well I finally got a
chance to see him in action
down in Florida last May.
Hey Look, Bill! I said. There’s an alligator.
Now you can show me.
Nothing to it, Kid, he said,
and jumped right into the
swamp.
First, he rolled onto the
alligator’s back.
Then, he gripped shut that
big toothy maw.
He was careful not to
cover up the gator’s ears, though,
because Bill had some
stories to tell.
He talked and he talked
and he talked.
He talked until that gator
cried crocodile tears.
Now they say that once
you’ve subdued a gator
the hard part is getting
away.
But for Bill?
That was the easy part!
(True story!)
__________________
I want to be Red
Riding Hood, he said.
So I helped him into the
too-short cape,
rubbed Hollywood Red on his thin lips,
and admired his size 13
heeled ankle boots.
Now come show me what’s
in your basket,
I said. Closer, I said.
I looked at him with my
big brown eyes,
smiled at him with my big
white teeth—
and then I ate him up.
—Cynthia Linville
__________________
SIREN SONG (REVISITED)
—Cynthia Linville
There have to be
mom-mermaids, she said
as she wriggled into her
spandex
safe-for-water pencil
skirt.
I mean, they can’t all
be girls.
Mermaids with a bit of
heft to the hips
with a knowing quirk to
the lips
with a raised eyebrow.
Mermaids with breasts so
full
they can’t be covered up
with a seashell.
MILF Mermaids! he said.
I think it’s time for
adult swim.
Are the kids in bed?
—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
AETHER
—Jeanine Stevens, Sacramento
Writing is labor. But, I remember
other work: sweet ether-dulled childbirth,
it’s rubber hose, gauze mask,
cold crystalline droplets—the odor, tannic,
like old wine in glazed bottles.
Above the Aegean, pitch pine
lands on grassy banks. I’m sipping retsina
in a sunny café. A milkweed explodes
this brown seeded dream,
kernels scatter like miniature hooves.
I grab
the nearest, twist my hands
in
moth-spun fibers,
slip
through seven bright planets
hovering
near the horizon—
silverfish
wounds ordered… to open… a slit
in the
velvet sky. Accelerating
into an
inconceivable orbit, cracking
past a
white star, I hear singing.
It’s the
Perseus galaxies moaning in B-flat!
(the
lowest measurable note)
Like an
aerolite
in the
void, I’m drugged
in song,
dread to disappear.
Then a
thought—Chicago! Ella Fitzgerald!
__________________
ATMOSPHERE, SPOKANE
—Jeanine Stevens
Evening TV
reports a low—
a dense
pressure hovers,
steel
doors blast hinges
sashes
bulge, water breaks
atmospheric
equations.
In chintz
birth chambers
a quick
kick, rosy smile,
the first
one drifts
down,
dazzling emeralds
in golden
honeycombs
gossamer
spirits
in
full-length mirrors.
Glass
beads crack
shed eggs
green as frogs
trees
sprout timber—
cedar and
balsam.
The
monitor flashes:
Six
baby girls born early.
________________
ONE SQUARE INCH OF SILENCE
ONE SQUARE INCH OF SILENCE
—Jeanine Stevens
The study of bioacoustics: monkey,
sea lion
and gull voices against distant,
haunting
Moog synthesizers.
Waiting for nature, the first light
shatters,
a lone sparrow
chirps
distilled splendor, a biophany—
each
animal strumming its own sonic bower.
The rush is on to record soundscapes masked
by Arctic drilling. Where are the quiet places?
A
congressional team listened to a 95-decibel
recording
of snowmobiles racing in Yellowstone,
then
another, wolves, ravens, and winter wrens.
(A
bandwidth—nature’s own tone poem)
Some
personal stereos play at 120 decibels
20
hours without recharging.
Aircraft,
traffic, action films, jackhammers,
car alarms
drowned out the wild.
Yet, few
still wince when cell phones amplify
graveside
services for old folks.
10
Million Americans suffer hearing loss, high blood
pressure
and heart disease from excessive noise.
What
races past our frequency range?
Hearing
is blur, bruised ears and souls, a state
of
disease, missing ancient breathwaves, the lost pulse—
the
sighing in prehistoric caves.
Some have
placed small red stones
to mark
one square inch of silence—a silence
redefined:
the elk’s bugle, the wolf’s wail, the pronghorn’s
charge,
the wind’s whip and whistle.
Maybe silence
is just song-held codes
of
canaries, or simply a lull in birdsong after first light,
a silence
that just hovers, then moves on.
(Found
poem: “Stop, Look Listen.” AAA Magazine, Bill Donohue, 2007)
______________________
HONDA
—Ann Menebroker, Sacramento
Suddenly we're on a steep San Francisco hill
in a stick-shift car, hitting a red light; me, promising you
we weren't heading for one.
But it's here. Clutch. Gas pedal. Brake.
Fog. Car ahead of us seemingly not worried.
The perfect day together just started and we're already
in trouble. We're going up, honey. Up the rest
of the hill, up to go down. Up to the Cliff House.
Down to the ocean. There could be a murder
happening on the sidewalk next to us. Someone could be running
naked, not even breathing hard. All we know is the fear
inside of the car, your feet
working the car's pedals. Clutch burning.
Our phones useless. The GPS useless.
You want me to trade places. The car behind
us honks. The light has changed. I look sideways
at you and say, "No way!"
______________________
Our thanks to today's cooks! Cynthia Linville will be reading with Tim Bellows at Sac. Poetry Center this coming Monday; then she'll be at the Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis (Natsoulas Gallery) with Christopher Lu on Thursday, Sept. 6. Details for both of these are on the blue board at the right of this. Cynthia is one of the editors of convergence, and she reminds us that the Fall issue is now online at convergence-journal.com/fall12
Another poet/editor is Jeanine Stevens, who has helped put together Squaw Valley Review 2010, featuring Lucille Clifton. Ordering information is at squawvalleywriters.org/SV_Review_2010.html
Carl Schwartz (Caschwa) is sending out signals to planets far and wide. About the Seed of the Week, he writes:
I first read the SOW "On a planet like ours"
as meaning not ours, but another one like ours. Then when expressed as "On this planet of ours"
that takes it much closer to home.
How about open up the Kitchen and serve "On this planet hors d'
oeuvres"? Any way you cut it,
there's always room for poems. Isn't that interesting—I never saw the alternate meaning! I kind of like the idea of talking about another planet like ours.
Katy Brown's calla lily was taken at Darling House, the bed and breakfast in Santa Cruz that faces the sea. Katy returns from Michigan today, hopefully with many photos and poems in hand.
And Annie Menebroker? I've always liked Katy's photo of her, taken at a Book Collector rattle-read back in the day. Annie's poem, written about her and her daughter, Sue McElligott, reminds me of why I no longer have stick-shifts.
_____________________
Today's LittleNip:
REACHING OUT
—Caschwa, Sacramento
—Caschwa, Sacramento
Calling CQ, calling CQ
Paul, Ocean, Edward,
Tom,
CQ, CQ, CQ, CQ
Calling MC, calling MC
Alfred, George, Edward,
Nora, Tom
MC, MC, MC, MC
Calling QT, calling QT
Harold, Uncle, Sam, Sam,
Uncle, Harold
QT, QT, QT, QT
____________________
—Medusa
Annie Menebroker
—Photo by Katy Brown
