Erect Pucker??

Natalie Diaz reading at Sac. Poetry Center

last Monday (June 10)

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

D.A.R.
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

My proper Methodist grandma church organist
organized spelling bees, sewing bees.
What she didn’t tell: how she doffed
her fine organdy, 100 degrees in Maysville,
Kentucky, 100 degrees of separation
from her corset, from her slip
and pantalettes. Oh, such abandon

demands a faction. If one’s to go
naked in the Ohio, skinny-dip
when girls are young yet no one’s
yet named the naughtiness, form
a society. Here’s backatcha, Walt Whitman:
A hand at a window parts soft curtains,
a hard masculine hand. Twenty-five women
bathing, and all so beautiful. Laborers
outdoors forget to whistle: this purdah of nudity
takes the breath from the erect pucker.
Have these toughs forgotten woman
the butterfly, man the well-hung net?

And what, what shall we call this corybantic
naked aggregation of lady antics?
To us, D.A.R. equals Daughters
of the American Revolution. To
the sweet cavorters of the summer wind
kissing water lightly south over
the cresting-at-Maysville current,
the sacred letters Delta, Alpha, and Rho
cast a more secret spell:

Derrière as in Oh my lily-fair, Ass daringly
bereft of bustle, Rump aloft and riotous;
all the delectable bucknaked cravings
women savor in throngs of women.
Or the secret delights each lass could enjoy
face to face with the long trouble
and pleasure a boy delivers her,
two little together nudes shuddering
in the shuddering bankside grass.

______________________

ON THE RIVERBANK
      (from an old painting)

—Taylor Graham, Placerville
 
Stormclouds drop their curtains over this private
ritual. At any moment these ladies could be
drenched. Still, they go about their bath as if they
had all the time in the world; as if nothing but
evening could catch them without their dresses.
Don't they know, beyond the edges history
gathers for another war? Not far from the world
they know, tattered flags wave in the streets,
mobs of people shout slogans; generals marshal
their troops and cannons. But for now, chores
done, three young ladies arrange themselves as
Graces for an artist's brush. There will be time
for another war, another cloudburst. The river
flows away beyond its banks, this timeless
moment of the bath.

_______________________

LADY GODIVA'S HORSE
—Taylor Graham

All those ladies throwing off
their dresses, wrapping themselves
in nothing but their undone
tresses, copy-cat heroines
pretending they're protesting taxes.
And here he stands stabled
waiting to be saddled up
for the next battle; wishing nothing
but unlatched latches,
unfenced pastures, to buck and rear
and pivot, running
naked as the wind, long white mane
lashing, hooves
to the free horizon flashing. 

 Patricia Killelea at SPC last Monday

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

HANDS, QUESTIONS
—Taylor Graham

The TV sounds are a foreign language
meant to sell him something. Nouns
from another planet without cardinal points.
Products without a clue—objects
a kid could wield with knowing fingers,
zombies emitting hectic flashes of light.

Through a door he hears music
he used to think joyful, until he learned
its story. Eternal clockwork of loss,
music as sad as anything in this old town.
He shuts the door, walks out into dark
where the Owl hunts in silence.

Tracks in sand—small open hands
with fingers. Their trail stops abruptly
as if lifted into sky. He can’t
recall what makes those prints. He spreads
his arms; might the Owl carry him
away? But the Owl’s forgotten his name.

___________________

THE OLD FARMSTEAD
—Taylor Graham

The pond that a year ago last spring
was her brightest poem—a pool
for skimming water as a depth of words,
for churning, splashing, leaving green-
blue ripples after she was gone –
    small waves of time collapsing
    one atop another—
and the shed, chinks of rotting wood
held together by spider-webs, line on line
singing soundless at the slightest
breeze, the shed leans more earthward
now to listen—
    a voice of light
    from the dry creekbank—
and the path to the grove of oaks
sheltering a gravestone, lasting sorrow
of loneliness, where someone
left a poem, a sprig of purple brodiaea
from grasses, already wilting—
as if only fields under sky know
the dimensions of evening.

____________________

Our thanks to today's contributors, including the TG's, Tom Goff and Taylor Graham, for their riffs on the naked ladies, our Seed of the Week (The Antebellum Ladies' Nudist Society). Interesting how many of this week's poems on the subject have brought up images of water, yes? Taylor Graham will be reading this Saturday at 10am at the Sylvan Community Center, 7521 Community Dr., Citrus Heights, sponsored by the Citrus Heights Area Poets (CHAP). Also reading will be Tim Kahl and Ruth-Marie Chambers of American River College who has a new book of poetry, Eight Forty-Five. Saturday will be a busy, busy poetry day, with CHAP, Crossroads, and Foam at the Mouth. Scroll down to the blue box at the right of this column for all the skinny!

And TONIGHT at Crocker Art Museum, join Sacramento area poets James Moose, Paco Marquez, Danyen Powell, Shawn Pittard, Allegra Silberstein, Marilynn Price and Katy Brown as they read poems created in response to the new exhibit featuring the work of Robert Duncan, Jess Collins and their circle of art friends. Poets will be reading between 6 and 7, so you'll have plenty of time to enjoy the exhibit and other goings-on as part of Sacramento Pride 2013 because the museum is open until 9 p.m. (Thanks to Trina Drotar for this announcement!)
 

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

EMPTY
—Taylor Graham

Birdbox with its swallow’s nest
of neat white feathers;
in one dark corner a spiderweb,
and in another,
catacombs of paper-wasp.
What secrets brooded here?
In June light
swallows swoop over the fresh-
mown field.

___________________

—Medusa

Robert Esperanza reading at SPC last Monday

—Photo by Michelle Kunert