A little something for a gray day...
—Anonymous Artwork
NASCAR BARBARIANS
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA
Bad enough, being shaved,
almost, of back bumper
by some doofus who’s making his
Jeff Gordon avatar slipstream
ahead in the standings in some
NASCAR fantasy-racing video-game setup.
Raises my nape hairs and spine ridges just sensing
what blazes right up my metal-and-plastic ass.
I’m sunk in the chair at Sport Clips.
A pretty hairista is asking, “Do you like
your neckline straight or rounded?” while
she keeps on buzzing. Worse yet, this is night,
and I’ve just missed an in-the-dark sideswipe
from a dimly seen steampunk nighttruck
with tubes and pipes sticking out of it,
body of an Imperial Walker.
A sign slung to its side reads
only, “HOT.” I don’t have to think
to jerk away. Now, does anyone still believe
these GoDaddy wannabees are some sort of solution?
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA
Bad enough, being shaved,
almost, of back bumper
by some doofus who’s making his
Jeff Gordon avatar slipstream
ahead in the standings in some
NASCAR fantasy-racing video-game setup.
Raises my nape hairs and spine ridges just sensing
what blazes right up my metal-and-plastic ass.
I’m sunk in the chair at Sport Clips.
A pretty hairista is asking, “Do you like
your neckline straight or rounded?” while
she keeps on buzzing. Worse yet, this is night,
and I’ve just missed an in-the-dark sideswipe
from a dimly seen steampunk nighttruck
with tubes and pipes sticking out of it,
body of an Imperial Walker.
A sign slung to its side reads
only, “HOT.” I don’t have to think
to jerk away. Now, does anyone still believe
these GoDaddy wannabees are some sort of solution?
_____________________
THE BAXIAN SONNET
(Symphonic, with Epilogue)
—Tom Goff
Oh, I hear it argued the sonnet is a sonata,
a two-part affair, sliced apples, brusque Scarlatti.
Idea one, then contrast, then, in remote key,
first thought, contrast again: repeat the regatta.
Octave, two stanzas, one lone conceit worked out;
then the sestet adds voltage to the plot,
alters the mood, lofts thought or scowls its doubt.
Now comes the couplet, Shakespeare, to close as ought,
a one-trick poem epiphany to explore.
But sonnets, I hold, are three-movement symphonies,
in consummate miniature. Yet Minotaurs
await outside labyrinth lines, sharp similes.
For there be dragons to lengthen the voyage on,
Janeways of helmsmanship, star-date, captain’s log,
and that’s why the Bax symphony, luminous dawn,
noon, sundown, enacts in full, with epilogue,
slow wanderings in constellations, gleams of bright ends:
star-sonnet drawn out for as long as the lender lends.
____________________
(Symphonic, with Epilogue)
—Tom Goff
Oh, I hear it argued the sonnet is a sonata,
a two-part affair, sliced apples, brusque Scarlatti.
Idea one, then contrast, then, in remote key,
first thought, contrast again: repeat the regatta.
Octave, two stanzas, one lone conceit worked out;
then the sestet adds voltage to the plot,
alters the mood, lofts thought or scowls its doubt.
Now comes the couplet, Shakespeare, to close as ought,
a one-trick poem epiphany to explore.
But sonnets, I hold, are three-movement symphonies,
in consummate miniature. Yet Minotaurs
await outside labyrinth lines, sharp similes.
For there be dragons to lengthen the voyage on,
Janeways of helmsmanship, star-date, captain’s log,
and that’s why the Bax symphony, luminous dawn,
noon, sundown, enacts in full, with epilogue,
slow wanderings in constellations, gleams of bright ends:
star-sonnet drawn out for as long as the lender lends.
____________________
MURDOCH IN BURDOCK
—Tom Goff
I’m reading The Bell, an early Iris Murdoch,
marveling at the speed with which it moves,
how its people stumble in abruptest burdock,
and how it reproduces the lovely grooves
(mind-groves?) in which they meander. Take naïve Dora,
a fragment of adorable; Dorabella,
which is to say, belladonna, prescribed for an
aspirant whose eyes, dilating, aquarelle a
young novelist, limning herself-not-herself.
Behold the uncanny glimmer: Dora’s hands
release a live butterfly cupped, as if part elf,
who in present elfin-tense self-understands
but a smidge: may we aver young, still-widening Iris
crowds out her eye-hues, dark-pupiled—black papyrus?
(How beautiful: poet-philosopher-novelist
full floodtide, in her lithe and ardent youth:
less lovely, her late fade, elegiac, to wistful
falter, decline of bright powers, life stunningly ruthless…)
Watch Murdoch, still a sly girl, devise her Imber,
a religious retreat whose converts she turns “rebarbative,”
a word one young boy relishes, instincts limber
—soon to be brandished? How they act, sweet, not sedative.
—Tom Goff
I’m reading The Bell, an early Iris Murdoch,
marveling at the speed with which it moves,
how its people stumble in abruptest burdock,
and how it reproduces the lovely grooves
(mind-groves?) in which they meander. Take naïve Dora,
a fragment of adorable; Dorabella,
which is to say, belladonna, prescribed for an
aspirant whose eyes, dilating, aquarelle a
young novelist, limning herself-not-herself.
Behold the uncanny glimmer: Dora’s hands
release a live butterfly cupped, as if part elf,
who in present elfin-tense self-understands
but a smidge: may we aver young, still-widening Iris
crowds out her eye-hues, dark-pupiled—black papyrus?
(How beautiful: poet-philosopher-novelist
full floodtide, in her lithe and ardent youth:
less lovely, her late fade, elegiac, to wistful
falter, decline of bright powers, life stunningly ruthless…)
Watch Murdoch, still a sly girl, devise her Imber,
a religious retreat whose converts she turns “rebarbative,”
a word one young boy relishes, instincts limber
—soon to be brandished? How they act, sweet, not sedative.
Frog in Mop
—Photo by Taylor Graham
ST. FRANCIS AND THE FROG
—Taylor Graham, Placerville
All night I dreamed centerlines, grids and
circuits to make spaces for the frogs—red-
and yellow-legs, the endangered, threatened,
amphibians of every kind, salamanders and
lizards of a concrete world. A nightmare.
I got up in the dark to make coffee. There
sat Francis, saint in the flesh yet knowing
as if celestial answers. He said: That frog
in your wet-mop—don’t ask what species,
that’s an earthly box. Call him Friend. Have
you seen his eye? In drought he loves your
mop hung out to dry. See how he wraps
himself in mop-strings, quite at home.
Untangle yourself from grids and boxes.
The world’s creatures need space to breathe,
to unfurl legs or wings; keep dreaming.
_____________________
VISION AT WATER’S EDGE
—Taylor Graham
Maybe the embryonic stage of a creature
I’d never seen before, bald and limbless, dark
as conceived in a blackout; cobra-dance
of shadows across the mirror surface
as a malignancy in water, mutation of air.
And yet, overhead the oblivious
fleet-footed scurry of squirrels in noisy caucus.
But this creature—as if cloaked, about to
shed its disguise—as one man in his time plays
many parts. The sun lowering, twilight
of changes coming.
(first pub. in Phantom Frog)
November Crow
—Photo by Taylor Graham
[Click once to enlarge]
A MURDER OF CROWS
—Taylor Graham
for Katy Brown
Not as you describe, blinding the calf
before they beak its brain; nor burial under
stones they drop from heaven.
I read of a child who feeds crows,
and they gift her with corvid treasure:
trinkets an 8-yr-old might hoard:
a sea-green marble, buttons, micro wheels
& cogs, S-hook & a shard of bone.
Loving crows, I’d surely keep each token
they brought me; buried under a life’s
nesting clutter – books & spoons unlabeled
in the brain’s attic, bright as a crow’s eye.
In the leafless oak
a wing’s black calligraphy
on November sky.
_____________________
THE WIND’S NAME
—Taylor Graham
for Katy Brown
Not as you describe, blinding the calf
before they beak its brain; nor burial under
stones they drop from heaven.
I read of a child who feeds crows,
and they gift her with corvid treasure:
trinkets an 8-yr-old might hoard:
a sea-green marble, buttons, micro wheels
& cogs, S-hook & a shard of bone.
Loving crows, I’d surely keep each token
they brought me; buried under a life’s
nesting clutter – books & spoons unlabeled
in the brain’s attic, bright as a crow’s eye.
In the leafless oak
a wing’s black calligraphy
on November sky.
_____________________
THE WIND’S NAME
—Taylor Graham
for D.R. Wagner
The place was meant for desert, gray-
bark cottonwood, dry-wash canyons.
But between the eroded hills, they planted
alfalfa. On dirt lanes between fields
and irrigation ditches, the girl
grew up on her horse, reciting lines
of her lessons as if language
could make wind speak its name,
its litany of cold vacant sky.
Her horse carried her beyond,
into the canyons – sand and burned-dry
grasses and forbs. After a rain
everything gave up its scent—
not any single species, just “weeds.”
A fragrance of all-together,
praise-name of the dead come again
to life after rain. Seeds. A girl
was her horse, black mane waving.
___________________
PILOT-HILL
—Taylor Graham
That rise they called the pilot-hill
was so far from open water, a dried-out
summer place where at noon you might boil
eggs in a pot of pavement, and at night
the stars simmered like wishes of forever
waiting. In the shadow of that hill
a small life grew into longing, eager
as a puppy to run from its room, to open
the ceiling like a can of preserves;
to learn tears of joy and its sister sorrow,
and feel the churn of waves, the burden
of ships set loose on the sea. How
should such a story end
but as a journey, a dream?
That rise they called the pilot-hill
was so far from open water, a dried-out
summer place where at noon you might boil
eggs in a pot of pavement, and at night
the stars simmered like wishes of forever
waiting. In the shadow of that hill
a small life grew into longing, eager
as a puppy to run from its room, to open
the ceiling like a can of preserves;
to learn tears of joy and its sister sorrow,
and feel the churn of waves, the burden
of ships set loose on the sea. How
should such a story end
but as a journey, a dream?
___________________
WHAT HE DREAMS
—Taylor Graham
Must it always take the form of a train?
Spiderwebs in the high ceiling of his room
are rails he runs in his sleep.
He won’t let his mother sweep them away.
Still the roof peaks steady overhead
though the floor shakes in the dark and
the old dog who died in December comes
to him through walls, the night-
closed door, the mirror. Not a sound,
but he hears words and doesn’t wonder
how an old dog could work
in a child’s language. How that child
as if he were a house
has spirits in his bones. So true
are dreams.
__________________
Must it always take the form of a train?
Spiderwebs in the high ceiling of his room
are rails he runs in his sleep.
He won’t let his mother sweep them away.
Still the roof peaks steady overhead
though the floor shakes in the dark and
the old dog who died in December comes
to him through walls, the night-
closed door, the mirror. Not a sound,
but he hears words and doesn’t wonder
how an old dog could work
in a child’s language. How that child
as if he were a house
has spirits in his bones. So true
are dreams.
__________________
Our thanks to today's contributors for perking us up on this grey day, and congrats to three other SnakePals:
***Straight Out Scribes for their successful new reading series, Senior Readers Speak, which is especially for senior poets "who enjoy poetry and literature". SRS meets the last Saturday of the month from 2-4pm, 1825 Del Paso Blvd.
***Many of our area poets won prizes at the annual Ina Coolbrith Contest which took place this last Saturday, including Joyce Odam, who won First Prize in the Love category, Second in the People category, and—best of all—the Grand Prize! Awesome, Joycey!!
***Neil Ellman, an ekphrastic poet all the way from New Jersey, who has a new book, Mind Over Matta: 21 ekphrastic poems based on the works of the Chilean abstract-surrealist, Roberto Matta Echaurren. See www.lulu.com/shop/neil-ellman/mind-over-matta/paperback/product-22430417.html
__________________
__________________
Today's LittleNip:
ENDANGERED SPECIES: THE LAST DEMOCRATS
OF PUTNAM COUNTY, ILLINOIS
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA
They sit,
The five of them,
In the back booth
Of Vic’s Tap and
Draw straws.
He gets the short one.
It is his turn
To run for Congress.
He will never
Be heard from again.
OF PUTNAM COUNTY, ILLINOIS
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA
They sit,
The five of them,
In the back booth
Of Vic’s Tap and
Draw straws.
He gets the short one.
It is his turn
To run for Congress.
He will never
Be heard from again.
__________________
—Medusa
Wee Frog Emerging From Large Mop
—Photo by Taylor Graham
