This Chapter

—Painting by John Bennett
—Poems by Jon Bennett, San Francisco, CA

VERMIN

They should bring back DDT
the city is full of vermin
roaches were hiding in the LED of my microwave
I popped out the lens
they scampered down my shins
there’s rats everywhere
and the bedbugs jump from the ceiling
when you put your bedposts in water glasses
mattresses on the street like corpses
labeled "BEDBUGS" instead of "Plague"
homeless sleep on them anyhow
then ride the bus
“what’s that on your shoulder?”
and in the SRO, the cracked mirror
and my face there
among them.

___________________

THE DRAMATIST

Some people break their lives
into chapters
kids work well for this, jobs,
for me it’s writing stories,

I take what I see
soup it up a little
and leave it behind.
A long time ago
I started thinking about my mom’s death.
She’s dying now for real.
What I do with it
not being able to write a chapter
big enough to contain it
is stay drunk and high,
but you can only do that for so long.
I move her to the shower
I bathe her and she’s embarrassed
and I see exactly from where I came
but she is still a mystery.
I think it is good
my imagination
will never do her justice.

 —Painting by Andrea Hasko-Marx
 

THE SHAKES

When the shakes came
I knew what it was
my mother had them
and died paralyzed.
I have no children, no people, really
and I live in a bad part of town.
The shakes got worse
and I decided.
The dealer had intelligent eyes.
“I seen you around,
never wanted anything before,” he said.
“I’m sick,” I said.
“You don’t like doctors?”
“Doctors can’t help.”
“So you want to feel good,” he said,
and sighed, I think because
of all the people who wanted to feel good
and ended up feeling worse.
“No,” I said. “I want to die.”
This was a new deal for the dealer.
“Take this,” he said
and gave me
four tiny, black balloons
which I’m holding now
in my shaking hands
but thankfully
they’re not shaking
too much.

 —Painting by Jon Bennett

RIDING BITCH

“I realized why go
to all the trouble,” he said,
“when I can just fuck guys?”
I had him in my nice car
and was taking him to see
if he could do a thing for me.
“Men will fuck a pumpkin,” I said,
“men will fuck a hole in the mud,
a man will kill you
to have sex with your corpse.”
“Yeah,” he said, “so I was like
‘enough women!’
Now I’m fucking
9 different dudes.”
We couldn’t help each other,
I couldn’t change sides
and he couldn’t do the thing I needed.
On the ride back
he sucked on a couple
Clamato tall boys
and was quiet
while I thought of all
the mud and pumpkins
waiting for me
back home.


(previously published in In Between Hangovers, 8/23/2017)

_________________

POPE JOHN

I go to the last
truly fucked-up bar in San Francisco
the cops call the block a “containment area”
crack dealers from Antioch, Oakland, Richmond
all over the Bay Area
come to the corner where the bar is
They only come inside to use the bathroom, though,
and that costs a dollar
I walk over there through human waste
rats and cockroaches run from my shadow
people on their last legs
shit in doorways
and I go there on purpose
Sometimes I wonder
what is wrong with me?
There’s plenty of nice bars and nice people
am I drawn to the drama?
the rawness? and isn’t that
perverse, voyeuristic and somehow
an affectation?
One of the regulars
filmed himself shooting speed in the bathroom
on my friend’s phone
she doesn’t know why he did it
I told her it was because
he felt the need to confess
I have, too, always felt
the need to confess
and there’s something about
talking to people
beyond redemption
that is as honest as
last call.

 —Painting by Jon Bennett

THE NIGHT WAS A DAY UNTO ITSELF

“I had a good Saturday,” he said.
He had circles under his eyes
like always
and he never smiled
having been sober for 7 years.
“What’d you do?”
“Took my son to the beach, barbequed,
can’t sit around with an 11-year-old.”
“I haven’t been to the beach
in 1,000 years,” I said.
I had been in a bar all Saturday day
and into the night
An irregular there tried to strike a friend
so I held him in a horse hold
until he bolted for the door
then, if I recall correctly,
someone tried to make time
with my blonde
and I told him, “go,”
and he, too, went.
“Having a son must be
a good incentive
to stay sober,” I said.
“Yes,” he agreed.
But what of the nights?
What of the thousands
of long, long, nights?

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS: HOSPITAL WISDOM
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA

             "Too late, Boone, you killed him."
                       —Frank Burns in MASH

Blame
The
Orderly.

___________________

Thanks to Kevin Jones for his LittleNip, and welcome back to Jon Bennett, who was featured on Medusa’s Kitchen on May 1 of this year. Most recently he’s been in Punk Noir Magazine and Ariel Chart, and he’ll be performing music at Armadillo Music in Davis on December 8th from 2 -3pm. Check it out, and tell him Medusa sent you!

Tonight at the Avid Reader on Broadway in Sacramento, Speak Up: The Art of Storytelling will feature readers on the theme of “Thanks”. That’s at 7pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

___________________

Form Fiddlers’ Friday  

It’s time for more contributions from Form Fiddlers. Each Friday for awhile, there will be poems posted here from those of you using forms—either ones which were mentioned on Medusa during the previous week, or whatever else floats through the Kitchen and the perpetually stoned mind of Medusa. If these instructions are vague, it's because they're meant to be. Just fiddle around with some form and get it posted in the Kitchen. 


The Haiku form is very controversial, as you know—do the syllables translate to English? does it have to be about nature? and so on. Some American poets just prefer to write in the structure of 5-7-5, such as Carl Schwartz (Caschwa), who says he sends, “A poem in the general structure of a Haiku with liberal distortions.” Here are some of the poems he has sent:


RISKY PICS
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

Tripped on sandy trail
eyes more engaged with subjects
predicated fall

* * *

KISMET
—Caschwa

I had this sure-fire
way to lose lots of pounds, but
they changed to Euros

* * *

HIGH KLUELESS
—Caschwa

I pledge allegiance
to the flag, on the eighteenth
hole of the golf course

and to the clubhouse
with sandwiches and chicken
they know my name there

to OJ Simpson
hundred percent not guilty
I know what you mean

one round of golfing
with cofeve and justice
did you find my ball?

* * *

AL GORE IT THEM
—Caschwa

Haiku modified
for artificial intelligence
looks wrong, is wrong, bad

the old masters cry
nine syllables is far too many
cut it short or else!

this formula wins
the top prize to stigmatize the eyes
yeah, that’s way too long…

now some nature, please
the whole point of this poetic verse
is…uh…I forgot

here I sit between
two empty coffee mugs, no service
no caffeine this late

cross my heart and hope
to win an electric menorah
that about does it

* * *

Carl is also trying other forms; about this one he writes, “Here is my two cents for a Golden Shovel. At this point, I will leave well enough alone and refrain from breaking mirrors,” a reference to the Mirrored Refrain form mentioned by Taylor Graham a couple of Thursdays ago:


RUSTY TOOLS
—Caschwa

Fermenting brew in the heat of still summer
my reluctant toast consenting to brown
I amassed a heap of somewhat polite
and visited the old town of lost halls

found unending sagas of lechery or love
well cleaned and groomed for new affairs
kissing the big window were marbles and dolls
high price tag for pairs to leap and die

* * *

Another form that came in this week was the Triversen (triple verse sentence of variable accents—each stanza is one complete sentence, broken into three phrases: three lines of three phrases equals one stanza), sent to us by Joyce Odam:


MONTAGE
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

All night, the unseen mockingbird
       shared its lyric singing,
               making sleep impossible.

All night, the slow red moon
       rose through the smoky sky
               and became a white moon.

Now morning bristles
       with raucous bursts of song
              from the numerous crows.

* * *

For more about the Triversen, see poetscollective.org/poetryforms/triversen/.

For more discussion about the Americanization of the Haiku, go to:

•••www.thehaikufoundation.org/2011/09/24/what-is-the-essence-of-modern-american-haiku

•••www.graceguts.com/essays/traditional-and-modern-haiku-a-vibrant-dichotomy

•••www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2014/sep/17/poetry-six-haiku/#

__________________

—Medusa, who still retains her lovely, poetic form, even though her hair is a bit unruly~ 

 Medusa painting found in Mediterranean ruins

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