Speaking of Sporks

Be Davison Herrera, down for a visit from Oregon, 
read at Sac Poetry Center

Monday, Oct. 21.

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

 

IN MY TACKLE BOX I
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

Just a couple of turns
From failed sonnets,
Some spare (What other
Kind?) lines for haiku,
And an epic I’ll never
Finish. Just as well.

_____________________

IN MY TACKLE BOX II
—Kevin Jones

I open it and there’s
Just one in there.
As usual, he’s defensive—
Do these Spandex
Football pants
Make my butt
Look small? For
Some reason
They always ask that.

_____________________

IN MY FATHER'S TACKLE BOX
—Kevin Jones

After helping clean the garage
On Saturdays, there was
A special treat. He’d
Open the lid and let
Me look at his pickled
Minnow lure, there in
Its own sealed plastic tube.
It never caught a fish
And there was no word
For the smell.
 

____________________

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE
—Caschwa, Sacramento

My folks never spoke of a spork
But faced many elections
Between a clown and a dork

Homes were displaced by new freeways
Where one could easily get caught
Between a clown and a dork

The cold war evolved into a
Contest where a hot potato is tossed
Between a clown and a dork

There used to be some reliable
Newscasters, now the choice is
Between a clown and a dork

Avotcja dedicated her Sac Poetry Center reading 

to José Montoya last Monday night

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

TO UGLINA: AT WORK
—Michael Cluff, Corona

The drone of honey-headed intellectuals
appeases nothing but falling leaves
making them decline faster
without the pain of impact
whenever it does
come.

Gray aura cremates
organs and yerba buenas
dry stems of chapped flagstones
still resound over the stark plateau
with chattered, scattered,
shattered waves
of fallacious fallacies.

_______________________

TACKLE BOX
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

The trail led from your eyes
to a secret place, where we could
fish the river for salmon. But so many
other people walked your trail.
The banks lined with fishermen checking
their gear, crazy to catch the tide
that waits for no man. When the water
turned red, they cast their lines
to the current. Their lures caught on rocks
on the other side. Nothing is
as one hopes. They kept on casting lures—
Mepps spinners, Kwikfish, wigglers.
With one careful lure apiece we reeled in
more than enough for supper.
The fishing-party left grumbling
over how little they caught. And then
you waded out across the stream to pluck
lures from their tangle in the rocks.
Red blue lime dots of light, fire
in your hands, golden green flickers.
Enough to fill your tackle-box. Lures
pinned to your vest like a general
returning to his tent.
We slept under silver-wiggler stars.
I dreamed aquamarine, amber—
all the flame-colors of the river.

_______________________

SPIRIT-FISHING
—Taylor Graham

You keep this box of lures to catch
the most elusive: wind chimes to call birds
of a song now disappeared; one
red marble for the volunteer hollyberry
growing on an old dog’s grave;
transit-tokens for the boys who chained
themselves to subway dreams;
a crystal to catch the hopeful look
of a maiden aunt who left on a ray of sunset.
In your tackle box, artifacts—you
won’t call them metaphorical—to cast
into the flow, and reel them in like fish,
silver-violet mist of mornings,
back to your bank of time. This box
to tackle loss.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

RHINOCEROS HAIKU
—Michael Cluff

Inviolate moon
lets the pine cones tickle soft
no change under eyes

______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's contributors who are talking about our current Seed of the Week, My Tackle Box, and reminding you that Kevin Jones will be reading at Shine tonight at 14th & E Sts., Sac. (note new starting time of 8pm), along with Concepcion Tadeo.

Sonoma County Poet Laureate Bill Vartnaw 

read at Sac Poetry Center last Monday night

—Photo by Michelle Kunert